One Good Soldier

by Travis S. Taylor

  "Got it. Deuce is the lead. Not used to that." Dee jinked and juked but couldn't get anything clear on DeathRay, so she flipped her plane back around in normal flight vector. "Deuce, I can't get a shot, and he's coming hot! Any suggestions?"

  "Thought you'd never ask." Deuce would have laughed had DeathRay not been keeping them both grunting and squeezing every muscle in their bodies. "We have to stay together, Dee. We've lost Skinny, so that leaves us outnumbered. Just stay on my wing and take shots if you can get them."

  "Roger that." Dee barrel-rolled over to Deuce's wing. She decided to trust the Marine lieutenant colonel ace for now.

  Bree, give me some ideas, Dee asked her AIC.

  Got it. A second later, several trajectory solutions popped in her mindview. Dee, Navy3 has broken from the pack again.

  Shit. Colonel Fink is gunning for us.

  "Deuce, Deuce, Navy3 has broken from the pack! I've got him projected as trying to loop around on us!"

  "Roger that, Marine2. Stay on my wing!" Deuce replied. "Stay on my wing."

  Dee held tight to the squad leader's wing, but she didn't get her tactic at all. She stayed on Stavros's tail, trying to get a shot while he and DeathRay rolled and bounced around each other, trying to shake them. The effect of the Navy planes' dangerous ballet left the targeting computer confused, and neither Dee nor Deuce was going to get a shot anytime soon. But Fink was coming in off their four o'clock very quickly. They had to make a choice soon or he was going to pick one of them off.

  "Navy Gomer just behind our three-nine line, Deuce, closing fast!" Dee didn't like waiting on a shot at a plane in front of them that they were never going to get while an enemy mecha was closing in on them from the side. Then tracer simulators zipped across the canopy and into the front of her fighter. "Shit, Deuce! I'm taking fire."

  "Stay on me, Marine2!" Deuce ordered.

  "What!" Dee didn't like that order.

  "Dee, stay with your wingman!" Jawbone warned her as she grunted through the maneuvers from the backseat. "She knows what she's doing."

  "Fox three!" Deuce shouted. "Bank up, Dee! Bank up!"

  The mecha-to-mecha missile simulator twisted out in front of them and into Navy2 with a confirmed kill. There were fireworks simulating a fireball, and the computer animations didn't show an ejection of the pilot. That meant there would have been no time for Jay to eject.

  "Shit!" Dee banked up, pulling the HOTAS back with her right hand and full forward with her left. Her stomach stayed somewhere about two hundred meters behind her when she did. Tracer simulators rocked her hull, but the computer scored it as minimal damage to the aft armor plating. Her SIFs were holding.

  Pulling up the way the two FM-12s did put them above Navy3, who was now undershooting them rapidly and would have to burn off speed to loop back to them. This left the two remaining Navy planes separated from each other by a good distance and in a situation where they would be vulnerable in a two-on-one attack for a few seconds. Fink was closest. Dee liked that.

  "Pitch reverse and guns, Dee!" Deuce shouted at her, meaning for her to flip over, pointing her nose in the opposite direction as that she was traveling, and go to guns while flying backward and upside down. Of course, she was in space, so upside down was really meaningless and only relative to the pitch angle she had been oriented in.

  It took Dee only a microsecond to understand what she was supposed to do. Years in the simulator had honed her senses for just this sort of maneuver. But Dee had to admit that the simulator, even with gravity compensators and full mindview simulation, was nothing like the real thing. She pulled the stick all the way back and kicked both lower foot pedals. The ship flipped over. Dee could see through her canopy that Deuce was doing the same. Stars spun around her head, bringing the Madira and Mars behind her back into view. Now both of the Marine mecha were flying upside down and backward and were pointed at Fink's plane.

  "Guns, guns, guns!" Deuce shouted. Not to be left out, Dee followed suit.

  "Guns, guns, guns!"

  "Let's go, Marine2. You take the lead!" Deuce shouted.

  "My pleasure!" Dee slammed the throttle full forward a bit eagerly and abruptly. When the propulsion kicked in against the backward velocity vector, she hit about twelve gravities for a few seconds. "Whoooaaah, shit!"

  "You might wanna tell somebody next time," Jawbone coughed from the backseat of the trainer.

  "Ungh, no shit." Dee held back her stomach from lurching out of her throat by biting down as hard as she could on her bite block. When she did, the mouthpiece shot fresh oxygen and stimulants into her system that snapped her quickly back to life. The high-g thrust reversal's effect on her quickly vanished, and she pushed on her pursuit of Fink's ass.

  "I'm on the Gomer!" Dee kept her targeting X in center, trying to lock it on to the Navy fighter, but the old Marine colonel was real good at managing his energy.

  The Navy fighter pushed at top acceleration upward and back directly toward Dee and Deuce. That was a brilliant, yet gutsy as hell, maneuver. Had Fink pulled down and away, it would have allowed the marines to get on his six and lock him up. Pulling into Dee's vector put the Navy fighter's and the two marine's vectors criss-crossing at near equal energies. The key to modern space combat was controlling the energy of your three-dimensional position vector and trying to make the other guy overshoot you. Then that would put their ass in your sights. The other key was not to get killed.

  As it currently stood, Dee and Deuce were now barrel-rolling around each other and Fink, and all three pilots were cutting and adding throttle in a three-way dance to see who slipped up first. Dee had every intention that it was going to be Fink.

  "Deuce, you got DeathRay on eyeball?" she grunted.

  "Negative, Marine2. You watch Navy3 and I'll keep an eye out for the CAG."

  "I've got him DTM coming in behind us. He'll be in range in ten seconds, so we better get on with this!" Dee added.

  "Roger that, Marine2. Stay on Navy3. I'm with you."

  "Do you see him anywhere, Jawbone?" Dee asked. Why have a backseat driver if she couldn't help? she thought.

  "He's back there. Trust your DTM and your wingman, Dee. And hurry up and lock this Gomer up!" Jawbone replied.

  Dee rolled and jerked the Marine mecha trainer round and round but couldn't get a lock. At one point the two fighters were cockpit to cockpit with each other. If it weren't a simulation with good guys on each side, Dee thought she could go to eagle mode and punch the pilot through the cockpit, but they were all friends here playing a game. One hell of a game. Then an idea hit her. She would do just what DeathRay had done to them in the first round of the engagement.

  What's good for the goose . . .

  "Deuce! When I say bank right, do it!" she shouted to the squad commander. Rank didn't really apply to covering wingmen in a tactical scenario.

  "Roger that, Marine2," Deuce replied.

  "Three, two, one, now!" Dee slammed her throttle full forward hard into the stop, shooting her way out in front of the dance she had been in with Fink. She could see in her mindview that Deuce had banked away.

  Now I've got you, Colonel, Dee thought. She then toggled the mecha into bot mode.

  The g-load on Dee's body from the mode change was over thirteen gravities for the entirety of a second or less, and then it lurched her the other way to minus seven, but under that much gravity time slowed and it seemed like it took an hour and a half. Dee screamed and grunted and fought blacking out as best she could and kept presence of mind to stomp her left pedal to spin her bot around, pointing at Fink's plane. She had just enough strength left to pull the trigger.

  "Guns, guns, guns!" she growled. The yellow targeting Xs from each arm bounced around, and then both of them locked onto Fink's snub-nosed fighter plane and turned red. The tracer simulators pinged him and generated a fake fireball. There was no simulated pilot ejection, either.

  "Great shot, Dee! Now go to fighter! Hurry!" Jawbone shouted loud enough that she could alm
ost actually hear her through the cockpit and not just over the internal net. But Dee was stunned by the maneuver and didn't respond quickly enough.

  "Dee, break out of there at top throttle, go!" Deuce yelled at her as well.

  "Full throttle up, Dee!" Jawbone continued.

  Dee shook herself to and saw DeathRay's fighter looming at her fast. She was certain that she was a goner, but at the last second tracers came in off his three o'clock. Deuce engaged him just in time to give Dee the second she needed to recover and get the hell out of there. But then the damndest thing Dee had ever seen happened.

  The Navy Ares-T fighter started swirling about its center of gravity point while still traveling along the same trajectory it had been on. The Navy fighter twisted and spun in a mad whirl in all directions. Tracer simulators came out of it each time it tracked around to hers or Deuce's position. The little fighter whirled so fast Dee could barely see it or manage to respond quickly enough. Finally, the thought hit her just to get the hell away from there. So she slammed the throttle forward.

  "Move, Dee!" Jawbone shouted, and then she sighed. "Shit. Fucking, goddamned DeathRay."

  "You have been confirmed killed in action," the computer-simulator referee voice chimed.

  "What the hell?" Dee could tell by Deuce's icon turning orange in her DTM that she was KIA, too.

  "Pukin' Deathblossom," Jawbone said between breaths. "Good flying, Dee. DeathRay is, well, DeathRay."

  "A puking what?"

  Chapter 11

  July 1, 2394 AD

  Sol System, Earth, Washington, D.C.

  Friday, 12:31 PM, Earth Eastern Standard Time

  "Ambassador Spellman, welcome to Washington D.C. I appreciate your joining us today," Alexander Moore stood from behind the Resolute desk and made his way across the Oval Office to meet the ambassador from Arcadia. The Ross 128 governor should have made the trip himself, but President Moore saw this as power posturing by the leader of that colony.

  "Mr. President. It is an honor, sir. Please, call me Alonzo." The ambassador looked nervous to Moore. That was just the way that the president wanted him. Moore knew he had to convince the colonists to back down on this revolt against the tariffs. Without the money from those tariffs, there was just no way Congress would continue to fund the large military buildup and presence being planned for the U.S. colonies and territories. Without protection, they would be sitting ducks for the Separatists to move in and take them.

  "Well, Alonzo, I know it is a damned hot July day, but why don't we take a walk through the Rose Garden and chat man-to-man before the press gets hold of us, huh?" Moore clapped the man on his shoulder with his right hand and pointed him toward the door with his left.

  "Certainly, Mr. President. Whatever you would like."

  "Thomas." Moore turned to his ever-present shadowing Secret Service agent. "We're gonna go for a little walk." The Secret Service man just nodded and followed.

  Abigail, he thought to his AIC.

  Yes, sir?

  Is Sehera waiting for me out in the Garden?

  Yes, Mr. President.

  Good. We'll good-cop/bad-marine this flunky.

  Amateurs.

  My sentiments exactly, Abby.

  Alexander and Sehera did their best to take turns charming and then threatening the ambassador at the same time. It was a First Family effort for the history books that applied both soft-spoken diplomacy as well as the big stick. Alexander thought at times that they were getting through to the thick-headed and dull-witted politician, but he wasn't sure.

  "Alonzo, my good man, if the Separatists decide to bring their terrorism into your star system, there is very little that Governor Brown could do about it. The Arcadian Naval Guard is little more than a rescue service. You would be at their mercy." Alexander argued his point. "It takes a lot of resources to keep a defense force there, and how do you expect we'll pay for that?"

  "Nevertheless, Mr. President, we have a major ground force. Do not forget that our planet has been inhabited for over a century and we have a million-man Armored Guard fully equipped with M3A16 transfigurable tank squadrons. Granted they are not the more modern version used by the U.S. Army, but they are still a considerable force. Governor Brown feels, and I concur, that we can take care of ourselves, sir."

  "Even if you are blockaded from space?" Sehera asked. "We only have your protection and best interest in mind, Alonzo."

  "Much appreciated, madam, but I'm not certain it is necessary. The governor would like to take steps to insure that no Seppy attack from space would occur, though." The ambassador seemed to be talking out of both sides of his mouth or in circles, and Alexander couldn't tell which. What the hell did he mean by that?

  "What steps? The only steps on the table are to accept the tax structure as it is, at least temporarily." Sehera sounded puzzled and for damned good reason. Alexander was beginning to believe that the Arcadians had made a deal with somebody in Congress to hold over the president. But for what gain? He had yet to put his finger on it, but there was most definitely a rotten apple somewhere in this deal, and Alexander was afraid he was going to end up with it.

  "Alonzo, Alonzo, my friend, you have got to make Governor Brown see reason on this issue. What little intel we are able to get from the Separatists is that they are conducting a major buildup. I'm not a warmonger. Hell, I've been there, and I hate, with a capital H, war of any type. But I fear it is coming, and we'd better be ready for it, all of us. And we'd better figure which side we're on before it is too damned late!" Alexander emphasized his concerns, though he had very little intel from Tau Ceti to tell them anything. He hadn't spoken to Ahmi in over six years. That was the last they had gotten intel from the CIA, also. Moore was partly bluffing and partly going on a gut feel. He wasn't sure which one he was going on the most.

  "You must acknowledge the importance of protecting yourselves from space, Alonzo," Sehera added. "If the Separatists manage to jaunt or QMT in to Ross 128, the first thing they would do is bombard the technology centers and bases across the system. Millions could be killed from space before there was ever an enemy foot set on Arcadian soil."

  "Perhaps, but it is merely speculation that there is something at Arcadia the Separatists want. We have no reason to believe this. To the Arcadian people, it sounds fabricated to impose improper taxation upon us." Alexander was incredulous. For some reason, the big stick of the U.S. Fleet didn't seem to have as much impact on the man as it should have. Either he truly didn't believe that the Seppies were a threat, in which case he was an idiot, or he didn't think the U.S. Fleet would do anything about it, in which case he was an idiot. But Alexander had a hard time believing the solution was that simple. Alonzo's visit seemed more calculated, more strategic, and a hell of a lot more obfuscated than it would have been if the man were simply the idiot bureaucrat he first appeared to be.

  The three of them talked and talked for the next hour or so and seemed to keep going in circles and couldn't reach a conclusion. After tea in the Rose Garden and a tour of the White House led by the president and First Lady, and the occasional stop for photo ops, enough of their time had been wasted. It finally felt to the three that there could possibly be some conclusion and resolution between Earth and the Ross 128 system, but the president was going to have make good on promises to cut tariffs and have a Navy supercarrier in the system. And larger contracts would have to go to the manufacturers of Arcadia.

  The larger contracts part only made sense after the secession of the Tau Ceti system, anyway. Tau Ceti and the Martian Reservation had been the primary manufacturing base for humanity. After the Exodus, all that had changed. Moore couldn't understand why the Arcadians weren't jumping for joy because of the prosperity this new arrangement was going to bring them.

  The talks bogged completely down somewhere near the Kennedy Room, so that was when Moore finally called them to an end. He thought they had reached a logical stopping point for now, anyway, and the dead horse had been beaten, rebeaten
, and then beaten again just for good measure. Also, they were slated for a public press conference on the outcome of the meeting around two in the afternoon, which was drawing pretty close.

  "Next discussion, Alonzo, I want Governor Brown to be present. You should make that quite clear to him upon your return," Moore told him.

  "Well, sir, I will take your proposal back to the governor, but he will not be happy with the tariffs still being in place. After all, my primary mission for this long trip was to have them at least temporarily suspended to enable our economy to catch up with the demands that the U.S. military buildup is putting on it. We are having to reinvest into our infrastructure at too great of a pace to afford these taxes, Mr. President."

  "Just tell Donnie to hang in there, and maybe we can get Congress to sway on them in the next session," Moore promised.

  "I see, sir" was all the response the poker-playing ambassador would say. Moore and Sehera led the ambassador back to the Oval Office for some final discussions and preparations for the press conference. They decided to tell the press that discussions were positive and ongoing. Or at least that is what Alonzo had led Moore to believe.

  "Ladies and gentlemen of the press, of the country, good afternoon," President Moore said as he looked into the camera and then at Ambassador Spellman. "Our friends from the colony at Ross 128 have been patient in their understanding of the current need to post tariffs on the imports of goods and services into the Sol System in order to maintain our strong national resolve in protecting this colony as well as all other colonies and territories of the United States of America from outside attack by the Separatist rogue system at Tau Ceti. I have assured Ambassador Spellman that although Tau Ceti citizens may feel that they are no longer part of the United States, they are merely being misled by a few mad people who are fueling the Separatist sentiments and the entire movement. At no time in the past twelve years, now, or in the future, will the United States government accept the secession of Tau Ceti. And hopefully, with the resolve of all of the colonies, territories, and states of the Union, we will soon resolve these difficult times. I have asked the ambassador to speak to you today on behalf of his people at Governor Brown's request and approval. Ambassador."