Conflict: The Pythan War, Invasion

by DK Williamson

  Blind or no, I’ll fight. I’ll take every last one of you bastards with me. You’ll regret the day you crossed paths with me.

  A burst of fire erupted from behind me, then another. More weapons joined in, the rounds screaming past me. Men ran past, footsteps splashing stinking water on me. Someone yelled, “Wounded, there. Medic!”

  “It’s Walker and Sharkey,” I heard a voice say. It was Captain Connolly.

  I sank back against the chunk of masonry behind me.

  A dim light came on and someone knelt next to me. A medic. Another face came into view.

  “How are you feeling, Walker?” Connolly asked.

  “A lot better than I did thirty seconds ago, sir. Welcome to the party.”

  The captain laughed and put his hand on my shoulder. “Well, about that… we had complaints about the noise.”

  I laughed, then grimaced. I was definitely injured.

  “We need to get these two medevaced immediately, sir,” the medic said.

  “Litters are on the way,” Connolly replied.

  -(o)-

  A short time later they carried Sharkey and I out on litters. We were part of a long procession leading through the sewers to the surface. Behind the line of wounded came a line of body bags. The fight underground was a costly one.

  In what seemed like no time we were at a field hospital set up near the landing zone, then we were taken by landing craft to a hospital support transport.

  In less than an hour we went from fighting for our lives in a dark tunnel full of stinking brown water to the sterile white comfort of a hospital bay.

  That was the end of the fight for many of us, but the battle in Fitzroy would rage on until the middle of the following day for those still in the dance. Charlie Company was in the thick of it, right to the end. Mop-up operations would go on for a time afterward, but Creech was in Coalition hands once again.

  Sharkey and I survived, and it came as a pleasant shock to us that so did Terry. The Pythans ran past him for an hour before Land Forces chased them away and discovered he was still alive, though seriously wounded. All three of us recovered and returned to 3rd Squad after a stint on the hospital vehicle, just in time to redeploy. The little fracas in Fitzroy was just the first battle in what looked to be a long and bloody war, and I guessed the 1st Division was going to be the tip of the spear. We wouldn’t have it any other way.

  -(o)-

  Interlude

  While the Neural Interface Tactical Specialist was the most common neural interface equipped soldier in the Land Forces, the Neural Interface Vehicle Operator was the most common within Space Forces. While NITS were a rarity in Land Forces, NIVOs were even more scarce in Space Forces.

  Flying a modified version of the Attack Craft, the NIVOs primary job was in support of ground operations, but they could also be called upon to operate as a part of the space battlefield.

  Controlling four drones armed with missiles, the NIVO was able to augment the firepower of the larger war vehicles during the battle in space. Non-NIVO pilots also flew these missions, sans the drone aspect, but because of the hazard and their debatable effectiveness, there was a move within Space Forces to eliminate this mission altogether.

  Nonetheless, NIVO or conventional, Attack Craft pilots saw themselves as a breed apart. Known for their off duty antics as much as their flying exploits, the swashbuckling men and women of the AC ranks were trouble, sometimes it seemed they were nearly as much trouble for their Coalition comrades as the Pythans.

  For the last few weeks, the members of the 22nd Attack Squadron had been flying in support of ground operations on Beaumont, and true to reputation, had been fighting hard against the Pythans and causing trouble among their own.

  The Bradshaw system was one of the first locales where the Pythans had met stiff resistance from Coalition Forces. They managed to land large amounts of ground troops on the planet of Beaumont, but the Coalition ousted Pythan space forces after desperate fighting, wresting control of space around the planet.

  Beaumont was a different matter. The Pythans had landed in rural wooded land, but close enough to the largest population center on the planet to be considered an immediate threat. Coalition Command decided to make the first large commitment of ground forces, but were concerned with deploying more troops to the struggle than might be necessary, knowing there were many battles to come.

  The 1st Attack Wing was tasked with sending a portion of their force to Beaumont, the 22nd Attack Squadron was among them, and among the pilots and copilots of the 22nd was a NIVO, a man of devil-may-care attitude, possessing great skill and a propensity for trouble.

  . . .

  One-Way Ticket

  “So, what’s this I hear about attack pilots being better than landing craft pilots? They’re the same crate,” a Land Forces sergeant asked over the noise in the field mess hall.

  The pilot flashed a bright smile as he dumped the remains of his breakfast from a tray into a garbage can.

  “I’ll grant you, most of what you hear about pilots is bunk, but that one is true,” the pilot replied. The nameplate on his flight suit read WELSH, and the rank tab held a black bar denoting that he was a first lieutenant.

  “How so?” the sergeant asked as they both set their empty trays on a stack beside the trashcan.

  The two men walked toward the exit of the mess hall at the other end of the room.

  “To start off, the crates, as you so delicately put it, are basically the same, except for one small, but very important thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Landing craft haul freight, attack craft make war.”

  The sergeant stopped and scowled at the pilot.

  “LT, you might want to reconsider your opinion. The freight, as you so delicately put it, is very often us,” he said gesturing around him at the tables full of soldiers. “Land Forces, in our case, infantry. Landing craft get us to the ground. We make war, real war, not flying around dropping a few missiles, then flying away to drinks after dinner and a bed.”

  By the time the sergeant finished speaking most of the soldiers seated at the nearby tables were looking at the two men. Welsh noticed.

  “Look, sergeant…,” he said as he glanced at the NCO’s nametape, “Frost, maybe I worded that poorly. I wasn’t disparaging you, or landing craft pilots. It’s just different skill sets. An attack pilot has to fight in space in addition to down here in the atmosphere. We’re the best, and I’m one of the best of the best,” he said taking off his hat, exposing two rows of metal nubs that protruded from his bald head. The rows of nubs ran from just above his forehead, across the top of his skull, and down the back of his neck until the rows disappeared under his collar. “You see, I’m a NIVO.”

  As a large number of irritated looking soldiers stood and surrounded the pilot, another man in a flight suit stepped into the mess hall. He saw Welsh’s predicament, smiled and shook his head.

  “Those metal studs make you a superhuman?” the sergeant asked.

  Welsh slowly edged toward the door. “No,” he replied glancing back and forth.

  “They make you impervious to getting stomped?”

  “Uh, as a matter of fact, no.”

  The man standing by the door walked closer to the group. “Lieutenant Welsh,” he yelled. “Your ride is here. You gentlemen wouldn’t mind if I took the unwise and ill-mannered lieutenant out of here?”

  Sergeant Frost smiled, never taking his eyes off Welsh. “That might be best. Remember, LT, you ever get dropped near the Pythans, it’s guys like us that will get tabbed to come save your ass. Or not.”

  “Oh, I know. All too well, I know. How do you think I ended up here?”

  The sergeant scowled again.

  “Pete,” said the other flight suited man, “I suggest you keep your mouth shut and come with me.”

  “Your friend there has the right idea,” the sergeant said.

  “Perhaps,” Welsh replied. “Good day, Sergeant Frost.” />
  The men surrounding Welsh opened a camouflage edged lane for the lieutenant to pass through, and he and the other man left the mess hall.

  As they walked away from the building, the man accompanying Welsh laughed and shook his head once more. “Pete, how do you manage to get into so much trouble? You’ve been hip deep in it since flight school,” the other man said, pointing at a nearby truck.

  “Robby, I don’t know, it just happens sometimes. What the hell were those guys so mad about anyway?”

  The other man shook his head yet again as the pair of men stopped and stood by the vehicle. The man’s nametag read BOLAN. “Pete, those were grunts, infantry. LC crew are special to them, hell for a lot of Land Forces they’re the only Space Forces personnel they give a damn about. You spout off like that and you’re surprised at their reaction? Your threat assessment is seriously out of calibration, ol’ buddy.”

  “I guess, but my luck keeps holding.”

  “But for how long?”

  “Not forever, that’s for sure,” he said as he sat in the passenger seat of the truck. “I knew signing on as a NIVO was a one-way ticket.”

  -(o)-

  NIVO, an acronym for Neural Interface Vehicle Operator, were as misunderstood as their Land Forces cousins, the NITS.

  NIVOs had been fictionalized in much the same way that NITS had been, and while their fictional depictions were not entirely realistic, they at least bore some resemblance to the real thing.

  In videos and books, it was common for the NIVO, and their non-augmented comrades in the attack craft field, to be presented as fearless, devil-may-care hedonists capable of taking down alien battlecruisers singlehanded, while having dozens of love affairs, and angering high command with their antics. Unfortunately for Space Forces, many AC pilots felt it to be their duty to bring fiction to fact.

  -(o)-

  Lieutenant Rob Bolan pulled the small four-wheeled off-road truck onto a side road. A sign on the edge of the dirt path read:

  Welcome to Crowley Forward Field Base

  22nd Squadron, 1st Attack Wing

  You Call It, We’ll Maul It.

  “Welcome back,” Bolan said.

  “Thanks. Home crap home,” Welsh said as he looked around the area. “Other than me, anyone get dropped?”

  “Yeah, Fromm and Giles. They’re both dead. Their bird took a pair of antiaircraft missiles one after the other. Never stood a chance.”

  “That’s tough. Fromm… she was a good pilot.”

  “ And Giles was a good copilot. Sometimes good isn’t good enough, Pete.”

  “Ain’t that the damn truth.”

  Bolan stopped the vehicle in front of a small group of buildings near a large open area where the squadron’s attack craft were set in revetments along with the other three squadrons that made up the Space Forces attack craft contingent on Beaumont.

  As the two men climbed from the truck, Bolan gestured at the area, which swarmed with activity.

  “We’re down for two days for rest, refit, repair, and replacements, then we provide air support for a big op Land Forces has planned,” he said. “They have an ACN for you.” He spoke of the Attack Craft, NIVO, a specialized single seat version of the attack craft.

  “Already?”

  “Yeah, Pete. I guess they must have a bunch of extra ACN’s that need to be damaged or shot down.”

  Pete shook his head. “You know, Rob, I think I liked you better when you didn’t have a sense of humor.”

  Rob laughed. “Dayroom?”

  He shook his head once again. “Later, I’m going to go look at my new bird.”

  Bolan suppressed a laugh. “All right, buddy. I imagine Sergeant Chen has a few words for you.”

  Pete gave his friend a sour smile. “I’d imagine he does.”

  He walked down a row of revetments. Several of the maintenance personnel waved at him or welcomed him back to the unit as he passed by.

  Pete recognized the crew chief who used to maintain Lieutenant Fromm’s craft. The man was sullenly painting the new crew names onto a replacement attack craft. Fromm and her copilot were not the first squadron members to die on Beaumont, and Pete had seen the impact it had on the men and women who repaired and rearmed the attack craft.

  In the second from last revetment sat an ACN. Pete walked to the craft and stopped below the cockpit, which was five meters above the tarmac beneath the lieutenant’s feet. He patted the side of the hull and looked up at the armored glass that covered the pilot’s station.

  “Lieutenant Welsh, you look well,” a voice said, breaking Pete’s meditation.

  He looked to his right and saw the source of the voice, his crew chief walking toward him.

  “I am well, chief.”

  The sergeant grumbled and glared at Lieutenant Welsh. “Too bad we can’t say the same about my bird, sir. They say you scattered pieces of her over half the hemisphere.”

  “That’s not entirely true, chief. Besides, you have a new bird to work on,” he said with a tap on the side of the hull.

  “LT, the last one had four missions on her,” Chen said glowering over the top of his protective glasses. “Four. I understand you gotta take these birds into harm’s way, but you need to bring them back once in awhile. These things don’t belong to you, sir. You fly’em, but you don’t crawl inside and see what makes them tick. You don’t tend their wounds after a mission. You don’t have to prep them when they get delivered new like some of us are doing this fine day. We crew chiefs do, sir. That’s why these things belong to us.”

  Pete grunted. “Chief, is there any other job in Coalition Forces where sergeants get to chew out officers?”

  “I’m not chewing you out, LT. I’m just telling you how it is. Maybe I’m just a little crabby on account of someone keeps cracking up my birds. I’d imagine there’s all kinds of NCO’s that help out wayward officers, sir. Engineering NCOIC’s on board Space Forces vehicles, platoon sergeants in Land Forces, that sort of thing.”

  “Noted, sergeant. For the record, I didn’t crack up. I was shot down.”

  “Call it what you will, sir, but I’m the one that lost a bird, and I’m the one hustling my ass off trying to get this one mission ready in two days”

  “If anyone can do it, it’s you, Sergeant Chen.”

  The sergeant glared at Welch for several seconds, his face motionless but for a few blinks of his eyes. “What do you want to call her, sir?”

  “Same as always, chief, the Ticket Puncher.”

  “You got it, sir. You’re still First Lieutenant Welsh?” Chen said leaning in with squinting eyes to look at Pete’s rank insignia. “Just checking. I wanted to know for the script under your cockpit. I guess the rumors weren’t true.”

  “Rumors, sarge?” Pete said in a concerned tone. “What did you hear?”

  Chen smiled.

  Welsh sighed loudly. “Very funny, chief. I’m going to the dayroom.”

  “Good, sir. Maybe you could make quiet inquiries about how some flight crews manage to have twelve or fourteen missions under their belts without being dropped once.”

  Welsh rolled his eyes, then turned and walked away.

  “Call me if you need me,” he yelled over his shoulder.

  “No need to call, LT. Come over tomorrow afternoon and we’ll get you synched up with your seat,” Chen yelled as he turned back to the attack craft.

  A few minutes later, Pete stepped into the squadron’s dayroom. He was greeted with insults and feigned unfamiliarity by his squadron mates. Pete laughed off the welcome.

  On a tall shelf on one side of the room was a row of images with black ribbons hanging from them. They were images of the squadron’s members that had been killed in operations over Beaumont. The two newest additions, Fromm and Giles, made eight images on the shelf.

  On the back wall, behind the bar, was a large sign that read:

  10 Reasons Why Space Forces Has Attack Craft or, Why Not Use Computers In Place Of Pilots?

&nbs
p; -

  1. What would the Space Forces do with all those Attack Craft jocks if they didn’t have Attack Craft.

  2. Even if you built a computer whose sole function was to party, it would be less entertaining than the most boring Attack Craft jock.

  3. A computer does not function well with a hangover.

  4. The computer that can be as erratic and unpredictable as an Attack Craft jock has not been built.

  5. An Attack Craft jock has a vested interest in returning the Coalition’s equipment to its carrier or landing facility.

  6. Computers are not heroic, larger than life examples of human achievement.

  7. Computers don’t impregnate general’s daughters/corrupt general’s sons.

  8. Attack Craft squadrons have the highest headlines per troop ratio in Coalition Forces.

  9. Where would Space Forces put all that crazy if they didn’t have Attack Craft jocks?

  10. When the Coalition needs something blown up in the most flamboyant way possible, who else could they call?

  11. Yeah, you knew there would be more than ten. When rules or regulations get bent or broken, command knows to send the MPs to the nearest AC squadron. It’s called efficiency.

  -

  “Barkeep,” Welsh said to the lieutenant behind the bar, “beer.”

  -(o)-

  The next day, Pete was strapped into the cockpit of Ticket Puncher as Sergeant Chen ran diagnostics on the craft’s systems that linked directly into the exodermal mesh of the lieutenant’s Neural Interface System through special attachment points in the pilot’s seat.

  The system allowed NIVOs to utilize sensors attached at various places on the hull and airfoils, with the large square tactical array panels on the sloping sides of the hull behind the cockpit being the most powerful and versatile among them.

  When linked into the sensors, the NIVO could select or find targets designated by ground forces, and then select the onboard weapon most suitable for a given target, or seek targets of opportunity.

  Weapons, like nearly every other system on an ACN, could be used, controlled, or monitored by a NIVO.