Standish

by Donald B McFarlane

  “Then why isn’t he flying one of the Swift Boats down to the surface?” Gue asked.

  “Because that’s easy. Getting the entire planetary shield and gun systems dropped for the window we require without killing any members of the Imperial fleet is the hard part and there is no one capable of that task like my man.” Bender shook his head before looking at Lovia and Standish. “If you two can pilot like your commander says you can, we’ll be fine. We drop down to the planet’s surface as fast as can be, hit the beach, land in town, grab our cargo, then we hit the jets, and we’re back on this station before anyone at the shield generator complex can realise that anything is off. Piece of cake.”

  An hour later, Standish and Lovia were full kitted sitting across from Vaz. She had a nervous look on her face. It wasn’t that they were going to be doing anything too technically challenging, it was just that they were about to break several different codes of Imperial procedures and multiple fleet directives.

  Bender walked over in his Dynamic Operations armour, looking glorious in a gold and red scheme, helmet under his arm, and looked at his team. “Ready?” He asked.

  Lovia nodded. “Sir.”

  Standish shot to her feet and bowed her head “Ready.”

  “Good. Your comms systems have been synched with mine and my operators. We are going to launch now and go on a short flight. Nothing will look out of the sorts to the controllers over at the shield generator command post, but we’ll be in the perfect position to drop down to the planet once the shields go down.” Bender looked over towards the Swift Boat staging area. “Let’s get to it.”

  “Comms check.” Vaz came in over the Swift Boat communications system.

  “Ready.” Bender was the first to report in.

  “Good to go.” Lovia answered.

  “I’m good.” Standish answered.

  “Yeah.” Came a mystery voice over the network. “Boss, everything is in place and ready.”

  There was a brief pause on the net, but eventually, Vaz came back online. “You are cleared for launch.”

  Standish already had her ship in launch set-up, with the outer hatch to the Swift Boat bay open. When permission came through to launch, Standish tapped the catapult release switch and was jolted into the back of her seat as the ship was flung into space, and away from the station. The station could launch all their Swift Boats simultaneously thanks to its design, allowing all three ships to be jettisoned from the station at the same time.

  Once clear of the station by several kilometres, Standish ran a full sensor sweep of the system, as per Vaz’s standard operating procedures, then located Bender’s ship on her scope and formed up behind him. Looking out to her left, she could see Lovia’s ship on Bender’s wing. The trio formed a perfect arrowhead formation and started their joy-ride.

  “Let’s take a nice and easy flight path above the shield.” Bender said. “Nothing out of the ordinary, just a simple flight.”

  “Hello.” A mysterious voice came over the network. “I am going to drop the shield, the guns and all space-based tracking sensors in five.” The line went dead for a few seconds. “The shield will come back online when the emergency power kicks in, so you will have limited time on the surface. I will give you notice when the system is coming up.”

  “What’s your estimate?” Bender asked.

  There was a long pause. “Ten minutes.”

  Standish’s eyes went wide inside her helmet.

  “That doesn’t give us much time on the surface.” Bender said quietly over the comms channel. “But it will have to suffice.”

  “Shield down and systems dark in sixty seconds.” Came the mystery voice.

  “Flight, we are on track, we will be at the optimal dive point when the shield drops.” Bender said.

  “Flight, negative contacts in orbit other than the shield systems and gun platforms.” Vaz reported.

  “When we dive, make sure the forward-facing deflectors are on maximum. Push to the limit and keep checking your computers for speed and distance calculations. It will give us more time on the surface.” Bender said, calmly over the net.

  “Twenty seconds.”

  “When you land, assume a defensive posture, there might be some unwanted hitch-hikers.” Bender said as a final warning.

  Standish looked over at the energy rifle that was tucked in-between the two seats. She had never fired it at a living creature. That could all change in the next ten minutes. Her hands were slightly sweety inside her armour. It was part thrill, part fear. Standish knew that there was no room for error on this operation. If something went wrong, and she didn’t make it back star-side, she’d be a permanent guest of Sandura 26G.

  “Here we go.” The mystery voice again.

  “Right. You can both do this.” Bender’s comments were short.

  “Five, four, three, two, the shield is down. Sensors are off-line.”

  “Dive!” Bender ordered.

  Standish immediately pushed her flight stick forward, putting the nose on to the planet that was floating below her. She could already see that the lead ship had accelerated to maximum speed and was racing towards the planet’s surface. Feeling nervous, she placed her hand on the thruster controls and paused for the briefest moment. She had been taught that you never accelerate towards a planet’s surface, but a second later, the doubt was gone. She mashed the thruster controls all the way forward and kicked the ship's engines into high gear and started her downward journey towards the planet’s surface.

  Breaking into the upper atmosphere, the Swift Boat was rattling like mad. Standish had never taken the ship into the Sanduran atmosphere, and this was maybe why. The Swift Boat was designed to transport Rescue Tech’s around the system at high speeds, not fly inter-atmosphere. Now that she had the throttle entirely open, the ship was rocking around and bucking like a wild beast.

  As the trio continued their descent, they were starting to race from daylight into the darkness of the early morning, which kept the target area blanketed in blackness. Looking down at her scope, the landing zone, a small village off the coast of a small island in a group of islands in the southern hemisphere, started to grow larger. The computer was showing recommended flight speeds, while at the same time showing the last point at which Standish could apply the breaks before slamming into the ocean that was getting closer and closer.

  “Looking good.” Bender came over the net with his usual calm voice. “When you hit the shoreline, wait until you reach the obelisk before setting down.”

  Standish knew the plan. The small village was shaped like a crescent moon and had a large memorial in the centre of it, that was their target. The square was just over the beach and was surrounded by buildings made up of residential and commercial businesses. Bender had assured everyone involved in the operation that his family would be located in one of the structures and be ready for immediate extraction.

  “Crossing through ten-thousand. Watch your speed and heading.” Bender warned.

  Standish looked down at her flight computer. She knew that the glide slope that the trio was on would get them to the surface fastest, it was just a question of trimming speed and pulling back on the flight controls at the right time.

  Slowly pulling back on the controls, Standish readied herself for the next phase of the operation. Checking her mapping systems, she confirmed that they were rapidly approaching the target island, and tell that Bender was slowing his craft so that he didn’t overshoot the landing zone.

  As the three ships got closer and closer to the shoreline, they slipped into a line formation, with Bender’s ship taking up the lead position, with Standish trailing.

  It was night on this side of Sandura, and they were flying in an almost total black-out condition under thick clouds. The only thing keeping the trio on course was the heads-up-display systems and the instruments that gave them up to the second information on their speed, location, altitude and heading.

  Using her ships forward-looking scanne
rs, Standish was able to get a hyper-accurate image of the approaching shoreline, and the structures that were just inland. The display in the middle of her consul showed a top-down picture of the village, and a three-dimensional image of the shoreline she was approaching. The obelisk-shaped monument that Bender had told her to set down near was clearly visible. She checked her distance to the beach, then her speed. Everything looked within optimal parameters. She started to throttle back on the power just moments before Lovia did.

  “Here comes the beach.” Bender said over the comms channel.

  Standish was way down on the power when she crossed over the beach and into the town. Deploying her landing gear, Standish opened the hatch to the Swift Boat, letting in the warm night air into the cockpit as she slowed the ship.

  Checking her position in relation to the monument, she brought the ship to a near stop, then descended the final fifty metres down to the soft dirt of the remote settlement.

  Bender’s ship was already stopped, along with Lovia’s, when Standish finally unbuckled herself from the seat restraints and stood up, rifle in hand, scanning the quiet town. After the whirl of the ship’s engines had died down, and the dust settled back down to the ground, Standish noticed how quiet it was. There was hardly a light on in the nearby buildings, and she couldn’t see a creature in sight.

  “Heads up.” Bender whispered. “Northside of the square.”

  Standish immediately shifted her attention to the direction Bender mentioned and spotted three figures running towards the ships.

  “This is our package.” He said. “Get them on board and get off-world. Do not wait.”

  Standish lowered her rifle and toggled a switch that dropped a ladder down to the ground. Standing back up, she checked the perimeter of the area and noticed that their arrival had indeed attracted some more attention.

  With her helmet’s optics, Standish was able to get a better picture of who she was looking at as the trio raced towards the ships. A single Sanduran female and two children. Standish could tell that the woman was leading the children to Lovia’s vessel first, which was just off to her right, helping one of them up the ladder, then immediately grabbing the second child, and running towards Standish’s ship.

  Setting her rifle down, Standish moved over to the ladder and readied herself to assist the young child into the ship, and in doing so, she caught a glimpse of Lovia’s ship powering up and quickly climbing off the ground while the cockpit cover started to retract.

  When the female reached Standish’s ship, she picked up the young girl and pushed her towards Standish’s outstretched arm. Taking the thin wrist with a firm grip, Standish hoisted the child into the cockpit, and quickly sat the child down in the empty seat and strapped her in.

  The youth was saying something in a local tongue, and Standish had to wait for her helmet’s AI to translate while trying not to get distracted. She secured her rifle and starting up the emergency launch procedures, and once the engines were ready, she immediately got the ship off the surface and started to drift towards the ocean. Retracting the hatch, Standish waited until the ship was prepared for super-sonic speeds before accelerating faster than a crawl, but once she got a green light, she hit the burners and disappeared from the small village at over five-thousand kilometres per hour. Only the ships inertial dampeners kept the young child alive from the G force.

  The Swift Boat cut across the ocean and low altitude and high speeds, sucking up a trail of water behind it. Bender had instructed her and Lovia to stay as low as possible until the need to climb to the station in orbit. Checking her gauges, that time was now. Standish had an almost six-hundred-kilometre vertical climb away from the planet’s surface ahead of her.

  Looking over at the young child. Standish tried to reassure them “Here we go, little one.”

  Giving her flight plan a final scan, she was confident that she was ready to begin her climb away from the planet’s surface. Pulling back on the flight controls sharply, she pulled the nose up and pointed it skyward. Dropping her left hand down onto the throttle, Standish accelerated to a speed sufficient to achieve escape velocity.

  She could see Lovia’s ship gaining altitude on her heads-up-display system in front of her. Racing upwards, towards the clouds, Standish’s ripped through the thin layer, emerging on the other side with nothing but stars above her.

  The Swift Boat started to rattle slightly as the ship picked up altitude, just a low hum at first, but the more speed the Swift Boat gained, the louder the noise got. She had taken the vessel to the limits of its capabilities, and realised there must have been something about flying at such high speeds inside of an atmosphere that caused severe turbulence. Erring on the side of caution, she got on the comms.

  “Lovia, are you getting any turbulence?”

  When the channel came back with a reply, she could barely understand Lovia, but there was a substantial rattle in the background, she was apparently experiencing the same disturbances.

  Checking her altitude and trajectory, Standish was happy that she was on the right course, and within the time parameters that were agreed upon before the mission launched. Crossing through thirty-thousand-feet, the first real sign that something was amiss came in the form of a call from orbit.

  “Boss, the shield is going to come back online early.” It was the mystery voice.

  Fuck! Standish thought to herself. She checked her altitude and bearing. The ship was going as fast as she could make it go, but she wasn’t sure where she was in relation to the shield.

  “How long?” Bender asked, a low rumble could be heard in the background.

  “Sixty seconds, maybe a bit longer.” There was a pause, “The two lead boats will clear the threshold in that time, you will not. You may need some assistance, fast.”

  Standish rechecked her flight profile. She was on course to pass the shield barrier threshold in time, but it was clear that the third ship was well behind schedule. The Swift Boats didn’t have a jump system, so she wasn’t sure what they could do.

  “Can you help?” There wasn’t the sound of fear in Bender’s voice, but there was a massive hint of urgency.

  “I can.” The voice replied. “It will take a lot, but give me ten seconds, and I will see what can be done.”

  “Understood.” Bender said over the radio.

  That was the last transmission Standish heard over the radio. Once she broke clear of the planet, she checked all her instruments, but she couldn’t find the third ship anywhere on her sensors. Looking down at the youngster that was sat next to her, she wondered what had become of her parents, before plotting a course back to the station in orbit.

  By the time she had docked, the shield had been restored, and there seemed to be no indication that anyone suspected foul play. Cutting the engines off, Standish went through the post-flight checks, and once she was satisfied, she opened the hatch and helped the child down to the deck, and that’s when she realised that something was off. Looking at the Swift Boat status board on the wall of the chamber she was in, Standish noticed that all the ships were docked, which was impossible. She shook her head, and made her way, with the child, back to the Rescue Tech area, where she found Vaz standing around, talking with the rest of the team, and Bender, standing next to a Sanduran female.

  “What?” Standish said in a low voice.

  Vaz looked over at her stunned operator. “Don’t ask.”

  Standish knew not to ask questions when directed not to. It was considered a safer option than curiosity sometimes. With the family reunited, there was a sense of joy throughout the Hive. A mission well done. No one was dead, and as far as they could tell, no one suspected anything was off.

  After over thirty minutes of talking, and trying to relax, the door to the Rescue Tech area opened, and a single figure walked in. He was a male with dark brown skin like she had never seen before, wearing a casual set of clothes in brown tones with one distinctive feature that Standish noticed right away: a pistol on each
hip. But it was his skin that caught Standish’s eye. It looked like it was glowing softly.

  “Reyn!” Bender shouted at the figure who sauntered slowly over to the group that was centred around the two young children. “How do we look?”

  The figure stopped and smiled. “We’re clean.” Reyn replied, a tired look on his face.

  Bender nodded. “Then that’s it.” He looked over to Vaz. “Looks like we pulled it off.”

  Vaz nodded. “I’m glad we could assist.”

  Bender looked at Standish. “Excellent flying, Val Standish.” He looked at Lovia. “You also.” He walked over to Standish and leaned closer to her. “Good luck with your Dynamic Operations application. Maybe I’ll see you someday in the field.”

  Standish smiled. “I hope so.”

  “Standish, Lovia, go store your kit.” Vaz ordered.

  It didn’t take long for Bender, his family, and his colleague, Reyn, to depart, one arm slung over Bender for support. They had reserved transit on an innocuous ship heading out of the system, and like that, they were gone.

  29

  The Present

  Porth

  The corridors and hallways that she moved down were like those on any other station she had visited during her years of service. Some nicer than others. This station was in a period of decay. Exposed pipes ran overhead, probably once covered by tiling. There was a foul scent in the air. Trash was piling up along the passageways that Standish passed through. The point of desperation and sadness hadn’t arrived yet at the station, but it wasn’t far off.

  After a twenty-minute walk, she finally reached a large door marked J. She doubted Liboa would be at his ship, but she dropped her hand down into her pocket, gripping her blaster tightly anyway.

  30

  The Past