“Roger. Hanu?”
“Scan is go.”
“Sikuuku?”
“Artillery systems on-line.”
“Roger.” Henricksen toggled the comms, opening a channel to the station. “Control, this is Two—this is Scythe.” A nod to the AI’s camera. “Systems are on-line and green across the board. We are ready for launch on your mark.”
“Acknowledged.” Lights appeared on the hangar bay floor—a double line of yellow bars this time, stacking end-to-end, leading away from the ship to the gaping mouth of the hangar bay doors. “Perimeter defenses have been notified of the launch.”
Precautionary measure, this being a military base, with military defenses. Any unauthorized intrusion doomed to be shot down.
“You are go in two minutes, thirty seconds,” Kinsey told them.
“Roger. Synching the launch clock.” Henricksen set a counter in the ship’s system, matching it to the one from Control. Pushed the timer to the corner of the bridge’s front windows as he checked the straps on his Pilot’s chair, making sure everything was snugged down tight.
Tugged again at the seams of his pressure suit—damned uncomfortable, nothing to be done about that—checked the seal of his helmet, twisted it to reset it before checking it again. “God I hate this thing,” he muttered, shrugging his shoulders, stretching his neck.
“Amen to that,” Sikuuku said, fidgeting himself.
“Everybody ready?” Henricksen called, glancing to either side.
“And waiting,” Ogawa murmured.
Hanu—typically—just nodded, eyes locked on the panels in front of her.
Sikuuku leaned forward, pounding a fist on Henricksen’s shoulder.
“Minute thirty,” Henricksen told them, silence descending upon the bridge pod as he wrapped his fingers around the Pilot’s controls.
Heads lifted, staring across the hangar bay to the doorway and the stars outside. Bodies fidgeted, fingers rattling nervously against panels as the launch clock ticked down, and everyone found that one last thing that needed doing before they completely ran out of time.
“Disengaging mag locks,” Henricksen warned, pulling up a ship’s schematic, tapping at the symbols on her nose and tail, belly and wings.
The ship shivered with an ominous, metallic clunk—the sound of the hangar’s docking mechanisms releasing, retracting into the floor. Scythe stayed put for a second or two, and then lifted, suddenly weightless, drifting free in the gravityless environs of the hanger bay.
“Ogawa. Stabilizers.”
“On it.” A tap at Engineering’s panel woke the engines in Scythe’s belly, filling the bridge with a thrumming hum.
Henricksen called up the feeds from the hull cameras, cycling through them until he found a rearward face view showing a soft blue glow—stabilizers, compensating for the absence of gravity. Holding Scythe steady in the hangar bay’s cavernous space.
“By the way,” Sikuuku drawled. “Taggert’s got a bone to pick with you.”
“Oh yeah? About what?”
“Baldini. Made it quite clear he wanted onto our crew. Thinks he’s been blacklisted or something. Wants to know why he drew the short straw and got assigned to Mr. Attitude instead of one of the others.”
“And you told him…?”
“Suck it up, buttercup.”
Henricksen grunted, smiling inside his helmet. “Guessing he didn’t like that.”
“No, he did not.”
The clock hit zero and Henricksen opened up Comms. “Control. This is Scythe. We are go for launch. Repeat, we are go for launch.”
“Roger, Scythe. Perimeter is clear. Proceed in your own time.”
“Acknowledged. We’re taking her out.” Henricksen left the channel open, letting Kinsey monitor their comms. Listened with half an ear to the low mutter of voices coming back to him—Taggert and the others watching the test run from the control room, huddled up around the monitoring stations, parsing through the data in real time. “Here we go,” he murmured, touching at his station’s panel.
Maneuvering jets fired, pulsing in waves. The stabilizers eased as Scythe lifted, putting some distance between herself and the hangar bay’s gridded floor panels. More pulsing—harder this time, Scythe’s body shivering in time—and the ship slid forward, rotated, turning forty-five degrees as Scythe lined herself up with the hangar bay doors.
Henricksen sucked in a breath, blew it back out. “Alright. Here we go, boys and girls.”
A touch at the panel in front of him fired the maneuvering jets in a long, hard burst. Scythe accelerated, escaping the hangar bay for the stars.
“Hanu. Status,” Henricksen called as they cleared the station.
“Board shows green—all systems operating at nominal.”
“Perimeter defenses?”
“Tracking us, but maintaining weapons hold.” Hanu tilted her head, listening to a communication. “Station Control’s compliments, Captain. Says we look pretty badass out here.”
“Damn straight.” Scythe waggled her wings, showing off a bit for the cameras. Fired her thrusters in a flaring, cobalt burst.
“Alright. That’s enough.” Scythe harrumphed in disappointment, making Henricksen smile. He glanced at a camera, tapping a finger to the side of his helmet as he cut the comms over to a private channel. “Later. Promise,” he told her. “Once we’re finished with Kinsey’s tests.”
“Holding you to that,” Scythe warned.
“Noted.” Henricksen switched the channel, toggling his voice back to the common address system. “Ogawa. What’s our engine status?”
“Main propulsion is on-line. Jump drives—”
“Won’t be needing that just yet.” Nervous about taking the ship into hyperspace. Kept seeing that scattered cloud of metal bits that used to be One-Eight-Three and her four crew. “Let’s keep it to maneuvering thrusters until we clear the station’s perimeter.”
Ogawa’s head turned, visored face staring a moment. “Aye, sir,” she said softly, turning back to her panels. She primed the main engines, monitoring the distance from station, bringing them on-line when they reached five kilometers out. “On your mark, Captain.”
Henricksen nodded, flexing his fingers around the ship’s control levers as he breathed in and out, heart thumping inside his chest. “Firing main propulsion in three. Two. One. Go!”
He touched a button and Scythe’s engines kicked in—a brutal burst of energy that pulverized Henricksen’s body, pinning him to the Pilot’s chair. A second kick, harder this time, and Scythe rocketed forward, leaving Henricksen holding on for dear life. Gasping for air as the violence of that acceleration bruised his flesh, twisted his bones.
Three seconds of suffering—three long, endless seconds—and the pressure suit finally adjusted, squeezing tightly to compensate for the stressors around him. Easing up once they found the magic middle—Scythe doing her own part by adjusting the atmosphere in the cabin, the gravity holding everything inside it in place.
Ten seconds and everything started to settle and come into alignment. Working together like it should. The pain melted away soon after, taking that twisting, rending feeling with it. That sense of slowly but surely being mashed to a pulp. Henricksen sucked in a shaking breath when he could manage it, feeling the heavy hand of engine-induced pressure lift away from his chest. Shrugged his shoulders, sitting up straighter as suit and cabin compensated, working in unison to strip the engine’s abuse away.
“Everyone alright?” Scythe’s camera pivoted, AI voice drifting through Henricksen’s helmet. “Hello? Helloooo?”
“Fine. We’re fine, Scythe.” Henricksen touched a shaking finger to the panel in front of him, adjusting the ship’s course.
Crew moved around him, tugging at seat straps and pressure suit seams, breathing deep, laughing nervously as they looked around.
“Engines have one helluva kick.” Sikuuku shrugged his shoulders, flicking at switches inside his pod. “’Bout wet myself before the da
mn suit eased off.”
Fast though—god that ship was quick. And so far they’d only used the main engines on their lowest setting. Hadn’t touched the auxiliary propulsion systems, never mind the hyperspace drives.
Henricksen touched at the panel, risking a bit more speed. Held on tight as Scythe shot forward, streaking past the first beacon, reaching the second less than a minute later. Yanked hard on the controls to slingshot her around it and felt the pressure suit kick in again as the stealth ship turned on a dime, slowing not the least bit as she retraced her path, rocketing along her outward bound track.
Quick, so very quick. Sims couldn’t quite recreate that. Couldn’t give you the sense of speed that came with a sharp-sided ship like this.
“Shit,” Henricksen breathed, feathering the engines to slow the Raven down a bit. “Holy shit, Scythe. What happens if we open all the impulse engines up?”
“Dunno,” she told him, smile in her voice. “Shall we find out?”
“Hell yeah.” Henricksen scooched down in his chair, fingers wrapping around the flight sticks’ handles. “Control, this is Scythe. Running an alpha test of the propulsion system. Ogawa. Bring everything online.”
Ogawa looked around. “You sure, sir?”
“Oh yeah,” he purred, smiling. “Time to have some fun.”
Sikuuku snickered, yanking hard on his restraining straps to snug them down just that little bit more.
Hanu glanced around, visored face staring at Henricksen as she hunkered down, hands gripping the edge of her chair.
“Mains and auxiliaries at full, Captain,” Ogawa said, bringing everything but the jump drives online.
“Right. Engines firing in three. Two. One. Now!”
Scythe screamed like a banshee as the impulse engines opened wide, a sound of purest, most ebullient joy erupting from her speakers as she raced past Dragoon station, banked and wheeled, chasing after the stars.
Twenty-Four
Henricksen monitored the status of the four RV-Ns from the control room, scanning the video feeds projected on the room’s huge windows, fingers reaching for the panels, the data streams on display.
Hard just sitting here, watching those birds fly. Wanted nothing more than to be out there with them, but Scythe was grounded at the moment. Shaw and a couple of her mech monkeys elbow deep in the RV-N’s electronics, making a tweaks to her stealth system—the first of many, she warned—based on the data capture from her first run.
Likely take several sessions to implement and test all the changes. To their credit, Shaw’s crew developed a schedule to space them all out and avoid too much down time—a maintenance rotation that kept four of the five ships flying at all times. Just so happened Scythe, being first out of the gate, was also the first one in the maintenance hopper. Oh, she’d be out there flying tomorrow—her first round of maintenance complete, all her piece-parts back where they belonged—but until then, Henricksen was stuck here. Watching from afar.
“God I hate this,” he muttered, glowering at the ships outside, listening to Baldini prep for jump.
“It’s one day.” Sikuuku plunked down in a chair, lifted his feet and rested them on a panel. “We’ll be back out there tomorrow and it’ll be prick boy there sitting up here, watching the rest of us have fun.” He flashed a smile and tipped a wink, neither of which did anything to improve Henricksen’s mood.
He stabbed at the panel, opening comms. “Two-hop to Beacon Four, Baldini. And stay off the—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” a razzing voice cut in. AI voice, if you could believe it, impertinent as it was. “Stay off the stealth system. We all get it, Captain man. So relax, kick back, and let me and my man Baldini here cut loose and have a little fun.”
Henricksen glowered at the video feed, the stealth ship outside. Lot of attitude in the Ravens these days. Lot of mouth and showing off. “Beacon Four,” he said tightly. “We’ll run data capture on our end.”
“Roger-dodger!” A waggle of wings and the AI cut comms. Thrusters fired, lining the stealth ship up with the buckle, sharp-sided shape disappearing as it slipped into the hyperspace trough.
“What’s that one calling itself now?” Sikuuku nodded to the feed on the control room’s windows as the ship in question wobbled unsteadily through hyperspace, dumping out near the marker on the other side.
“Sever, I think.”
“Sever. That’s right.” Sikuuku grunted, lips curving at the corners. “Guess that drunken lexicon wasn’t the only thing Scythe shared around.”
“Meaning?” Henricksen asked, sliding a distracted look the gunner’s way.
“You didn’t notice?” Sikuuku caught his eye, nodded to the video feed again. “Scythe down there in the hangar bay. Baldini’s flying rocket jockey in Sever…” He trailed off, eyebrows lifting, letting Henricksen puzzle the rest out for himself.
Took him a while—didn’t see the pattern at first, to be honest. Never had been much good at things like that. Scythe and Sever—two decidedly uncuddly names—and Petros flying Shriek. Mahal paired with Sharp. Janssen piloting Snicker-snack. “They’ve got a thing for blades, don’t they? And the letter S,” he added, frowning.
“Apparently,” Sikuuku grunted, watching the images a while. “You suppose they got the idea from the Valkyries?”
“Maybe,” Henricksen said doubtfully.
Valkyries chose their names based on Old Earth islands and deserts, not sibilant terms pertaining to knives and violence. But the thought was the same. A pattern of commonality in naming specific to a class of ship.
“They’re growing up,” Sikuuku murmured.
Henricksen glanced at him, surprised by the fondness in the gunner’s voice. Turned his eyes back to the windows as Shriek made a run of the beacons—Petros showing off by short-hopping it from one to another. “Watch it, Petros,” he warned, keying comms. “You burn out those engines you’re not getting replacements for a while.”
“Back off, buzzkill,” Shriek chimed in. “These are my engines, and I’m pretty sure I’d know if—ow-wow-wow! Hot-hot-hot-hot-hot!”
Shriek slowed precipitously, propulsion system monitors red-lined and throwing all sorts of alerts. He cleared them and ran a round of diagnostics, cruising on impulse until his engines cooled down, and the propulsion system data returned to normal.
“Mouthy little bugger, ain’t he?” Sikuuku nodded to Shriek’s overheated shape, pursed his lips, turning his eyes Henricksen’s way. “You think we might’ve overdone it?”
“Maybe. Probably,” Henricksen admitted. “They’ve got attitude, that’s for sure.”
Sikuuku nodded, face thoughtful, studying the video feeds of the ships outside. Head tilted as he listened to the banter passing back and forth across the comms channel. “Not sure all of that’s us,” he said sometime later. “Language update might make ’em colorful, but not this colorful. This…” He waved at the video images flickering across the glass separating the control room from the hangar deck beyond. “This is like a personality overhaul. No way our language lessons did that.” He folded his arms, tucking his hands up tight. “We mighta been drunk but we weren’t that drunk.”
Henricksen shrugged again and moved closer to the windows—close enough that he could look down and see Scythe sitting in the hangar bay below. “Shaw says they’ve been listening in on the sim sessions.”
“Oh god.” Sikuuku sat up straight, eyes widening. “So Petros—”
“And Baldini.” Henricksen turned around, leaned against a monitoring station’s panels. “And Taggert.”
Sikuuku whistled appreciatively. “That’s a lotta attitude.”
“Tell me about it.”
“’Course, there’s Hanu,” the gunner said, after a moment’s thought. “And Ogawa.”
“Adaeze.” Henricksen winced. “Fisker.”
“Solid crew,” Sikuuku told him. “Hopefully some of their common sense snuck in too.”
“Hopefully,” Henricksen murmured, thinking of Hecate
. Missing her all over again. No time for cobwebs and melancholy memories, though, so he shook them off, offering a wry smile to counter Sikuuku’s worried frown. “Whatever they are now, it’s better than they were. Rather have a little attitude than some out-of-the-box intelligence. Can’t quite trust an AI who doesn’t have a little flare.”
“Flare.” Sikuuku chuckled. “Is that what you call it?”
“Something like that.” Henricksen pushed away from the panel, watching Shriek turn in a circle, looping round and round.
Three days they’d been at it, working the RV-Ns amongst the stars. Three days running test patterns while Kinsey and his engineers captured data on the engines and the stealth system, the airframe interactions with both. Oceans of data collected en masse over the course of endless test sessions. Downloaded from the ships to the station’s systems for processing and analytics.
Lived and died by that data—a precious commodity leveraged by Kinsey and his engineers. Shaw, to a certain extent. Pilots, though…pilots honestly weren’t all that interested. More to flying than just data. More to a ship than the information it pumped out. Facts and figures were one thing, but what pilots wanted was the feel of the ship. The tactile experience the sims approximated—g-loads and pressure changes, atmosphere, everything that came with crewing a vessel in space—but never quite got right.
Sims weren’t real, after all, no matter how advanced the software and hardware the Fleet used. But the ship…when he sat in her cockpit, Henricksen finally knew what was really going on with Scythe. Made that connection that linked pilot and AI: hands on controls, feet pressed to the shivering deck plates, breastplate rattling with the bass hum of the engines as propulsion systems kicked in, hammering at his bones.
Tactile experiences—that was a ship in transit, not Kinsey’s facts and figures. The sim’s software recreating flight. Approximating the stars the stars that were everywhere. Blanketing the galaxy around them.
Missed that feeling, piloting a ship on the move, surrounded by stars. Nervy, jumping Scythe into hyperspace that first time. Nervier still, bringing the cloaking system online. Scary as hell feeling that stealth shield wrap her, the sense of cold and electricity that came with it lifting the hair on the back of his neck. And below it, in that not-quite-audible range of hearing, a whining thrum. A sound felt more than heard. A noise that set his eyeballs to jittering, waking a roiling in his belly that almost made him want to throw up.
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