The Final Sunset

by Trevor Herron

  Around the outside of the airfield some of the most advanced star craft were drawn up in magnificent military lines. What was this place? As an airfield it was the most advanced Forsetti had ever seen but it was more than an airfield it was an airfield – an airfield – he searched for some way to describe the place – a bloody airfield on steroids. Yes, that what it was – an airfield on steroids.

  “Once down form up to the right of your runway and shut down. Do not leave your craft until given instructs to do so. Welcome to Echus Chasma the deepest, widest, longest canyon in the known universe.”

  A limited gravity bus pulled up with only a light hiss as the doors opened; a flight sergeant spoke to them over a PA System, “Please board the bus and settle down to a comfortable ride.”

  Forsetti found himself seated next to a beautiful young woman with long yellow blond hair that gave off flashes of the purest gold and shades of copper among the waves as the light caught it. No doubt she was BLOND 2.

  Pale blond with hints of auburn or consistent red, not the orange of their Celtic cousins, they were the true Nordics, the real descendants of the Vikings. She had taken her helmet off and allowed her hair to float tantalisingly free. Tall and strong with her helmet tucked under her arm and dressed in a shining white G-Suit she was the epitome of a Viking warrior princess; all she was short of was a stout broadsword or wide bladed battle-axe Forsetti knew he wanted to see more of her.

  She regarded Forsetti from the corner of her eye, openly not secretively.

  She stuck her hand out, “Hi I’m Kara. I was with the Scandinavian Group. We took a big hit from the Aliens over the Texas Bad Lands while on Southern Duty Patrols but we fought them to a standstill over the Pacific, across Siberia and into Lapland.

  I lost my squaddie – somewhere over Narvik - he got lasered. From then on it was all downhill for us. Their re-enforcements struck us over Finland on the 22-degree line.

  Can you imagine what it’s like for your own people to witness you getting the crap kicked out of you in your own airspace? But while we were high and otherwise occupied they stayed low and surprised us with a hit from below on the Starboard. That saved my life but I’m not proud of it.” She was talking too fast but what the hell he even felt the strain of what she had been through.

  To forestall a possible outburst of tear he stuck his hand out and got his first look into the deepest blue eyes he had ever seen. He should have guessed she was not the crying sort.

  “Pleased to meet you; I’m Forsetti Fry…”

  “I know who you are. But don’t let me interrupt you. You were going to add something to what you were saying earlier.”

  “Nothing of real importance; I was only going to add I was in HQ Space Marines but it seems you already know that. I was going to go into my ‘impress the girl routine’ but I can see it would have been a wasted exercise on a girl like you. I only hope that what you know of me is all good.”

  “God forbid, good men with good reputations are mostly quite boring.”

  “You’ve just put me on the back foot. Now I won’t know how to act around you.”

  “Don’t act; just be yourself.”

  “That sounds like good advice. Let’s get this straight. You were with the Scandinavian squadron and your squaddie got taken out?”

  “That’s right. You have a problem with that?

  “No it’s all good that is if your squaddies’ name happened to be Jordie Jorgensen.”

  “That’s the man.”

  “Then you must be…”

  “That’s right – Kara Pedersen. Now forget about who I am and who I flew with. I’m applying for the position as your wingman; I know you don’t have one.”

  “That’s a good start.”

  “Hey! Are you taking this seriously because I don’t want the job if you offer it to me because I’m a good looking bimbo or maybe because Jordie might just have taught me a thing or two and save you the trouble. Most of what I know I learned at the school of fucking hard knocks and that’s an adjective not a swear word.

  One other thing I’m not soliciting the job because I’m desperate. I have enough squaddies wanting me as their wingman including Loki Thorvald and he’s considered one of the best but I want to be your wing man because you are the best and there’s nothing more satisfying than working with the best of the best.”

  “You’re hired.”

  “Because I’m good looking woman?”

  “Perish the thought, you’re as plain as the arse end of an unwashed cattle truck.”

  Her jaw dropped and her eyes widened, then she saw the smile on Forsetti’s face.

  “You didn’t have to go that far,” and they both laughed long and loud. The other passengers chipped in with broad smiles. She had that facetious type of humour that appealed to him.

  “You’ll still have to prove to me that you can tie the job down.”

  The flight sergeant spoke over the PA again as the bus pulled up, “This is your quarters. Pick your bunks, two to a room, no stipulations. Take your time and choose carefully who you bunk with because the one who occupies the bunk above or below you will be either your squaddie, flight lieutenant or wing man and no matter where you slot in, the important thing is that you do slot in.”

  They shuffled in shoulders rounded and eyes burning with tiredness the most rag tag army since Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow. A colonel stepped forward, his neatly pressed uniform and shining boots made most of them feel like hobos.

  “There’s good news and there’s bad news. We kick off by doing something you’ve all done before,” Tired faces perked up, “You’ve all done boot camp before haven’t you?”

  A groan went up from the tired group. “You will also do some flying.”

  This time he was regarded with suspicion, “Starting with propeller driven aircraft,”

  “You’re not serious sir. I can walk faster than they can fly.”

  “Ladies and gentleman we do not know what stage of development our enemies might have attained and if we’re fighting over land what good would it do to confront a basic aircraft with a warp 2 machine. The odds are the warp 2 will come off worse.

  Therefore, you will go through basic flying, simple jet air craft, progressing to rockets and one and two-man star ships of the freighter type then last of all, fighters, star ships and finally stealth missiles that can deliver a payload from at least a mega metre.

  Then between theoretical training and practical training, you’ll still find time to acquaint yourself with your personal choice of craft. And if that’s not enough you will practise engagement flying and by the time you’ve finished throwing your crate across the skies you’ll know what whiplash, G Forces, motion sickness and disorientation feel like – when acquired all at the same time.

  Wing commander Loki will see that you do a twenty K full pack route march. The Wing Commander will also march you straight into hell and order you to piss on the Devil’s fire to put it out.

  With Loki planning always revolves around timing and synchronisation.

  God help anyone who does not synchronise his every move with those of the Wing Commander’s but for all that he’s a good man to have on your side as I think he’s already proved. You’ll need to be closer to him than a rash.

  Group captain Forsetti will be monitoring your personal and learning progress. Y’all be called in from time to time by psychologists to answer the most intimate questions. Your reaction to being asked these questions is just as important as your answer to those questions.

  You may not like it but you’ll have to join in. The same way as we look after your physical wellbeing we look after your mental wellbeing as well. We don’t want you carrying any excess baggage or feelings of guilt over anything whatsoever.

  If you have any reservations about your partner and/or their behaviour don’t for Christ’s sake
keep it quiet out of some misbegotten sense of honour. To report your partner might make you feel like a heel right now but to not report your partner could make you into a murderer later.

  A quarter master will come around shortly to get your details as to clothing sizes and hand gun preferences and by the way you will have pass out as a grade 1 marksman with every weapon from a missile shooter to an electron gun after which you will have one hour’s break before getting a full induction in the Great Hall.”

  ###

  It was a different meeting and a different hall but it was the same buzz of voices filling that Great Hall, an army warrant officer marched smartly to centre stage and came to a bone breaking halt with a foot stamp that silenced the voices before his cry of, “AAA-TEN-SHUN.”

  Seats rattled and pencils dropped, men jumped to attention as an Air Marshal stepped up to the podium, “As you were. You’re all looking right smart in your new uniforms,” He gave them all a toothy grin, “Having lied to you about how good looking you are…” a chuckle went around the great hall, “But rest assured what I say next will not be a lie. From now on you can forget everything you’ve ever been taught about flying any type of craft….”

  ###

  Meetings and lectures interspersed with actual training blurred into one until words became action and action reverted to words. Be told what you’re going to do then do it and once done go back and then tell those who had told you what to do what you had just done. Briefing, and debriefing. Somebody came up with an idea of coding the meetings using Morse code. B for Briefing; In Morse was a dash and three dots.

  D for debriefing in Morse code was a dash and two dots so either we came from a dash and 3 or we went to a dash and 2.

  They did hours in the gym and before the sweat had dried on their skin they doing a micro dot rubber duckie on the salt lakes. It was a miracle as far as Forsetti was concerned that a scarcely seen dot on adhesive backed paper could expand to big enough to carry two adults on water.

  The occupant or occupants were then towed out onto a lake so salty that if the water came in contact with skin, the skin hardened, blackened, cracked and bled almost immediately. The secret was not to let the water come in contact with the skin

  On the lake a soldier had to wear the photo synthetic helmet against the glare from the sun on the water. The glare without the anti-glare system of the helmet would burn the retina and leave the person blind within half an hour.

  Everybody had to do a day’s training on the lake. By the time one reached shore at the end of the day one was so dehydrated that immediate medical treatment had to be given. At least they were given the following day off for recovery from the ‘bacon treatment’ as the troops called it.

  There was no compulsion to carry this out other than to induct the new ones on the difference between Mars Water and Mars water and Mars water and land. Life on Mars was not life on Earth.

  Besides salt water Mars had rivers of fast running water. Running water was by nature inclined to be fairly alkaline but not poisonously so. Where they were found the strong flowing streams could often make ideal routes for travel. Who knew what other types of liquid one would have to navigate?

  ###

  Time meant nothing, one started the day tired and one went to bed tired and the soldiers’ perennial complaint was, “I’m all for realistic training but wouldn’t this be better after a good night’s sleep?” Tiredness and sore muscles was a boot camp soldier’s constant companion.

  “I’m all for doing this at a better time of day, like after a good night’s sleep,” said the colonel but which one of you feels like negotiating the hours with the enemy.”

  They ran to the toilet, Loki made men run around the parade ground and he always contrived to have the regiment as far away from the mess hall as possible at the start of meal times. An excuse to get them to run back to the mess.

  Who knew where he dug up the excuses to make them drop to the ground and do twenty-five press-ups every now and then. Perhaps he didn’t need an excuse. Some found the training becoming lighter as they became fitter others couldn’t keep up. Sure they were not the majority but they were a steady bleed on the numbers and this deep into the program there was no chance of finding replacements in time. They spent hours on water therapy and it mildly benefited some.

  ###

  “Forsetti, step into my office. It’s about this fitness thing Look I just wanted to sound you out and see if you have any suggestions in regard to this steady bleed of recruits from the program. They’re all claiming unfitness, and that’s certainly the symptoms.”

  “The doctor wants to exorcise all those falling foul of this fitness bug, that is if it is a bug, completely.”

  “Well sir there is something most of them seem to have in common; a mild pain in the legs a day or so before, which is more of a nuisance than anything else but shortly after that is when the fitness symptoms seem to start. A man can go from running a marathon in record time to scarcely doing the fifteen hundred in an hour. Yet we can find nothing wrong with them so it’s put down to a fitness problem.

  “Interesting, tell me more.”

  “There’s not much more I can tell you except that it might be in the food.”

  Three weeks later the group was up to full strength again.

  “Thanks to you Forsetti. You should have gone in for medicine.”

  “How did you do it?”

  “Well it was easy enough to track down. Begin with the food and how it is produced. So I started with the hydroponics and Bingo! hydroponics does one of three things; it either feeds you, poisons you or blows you up.”

  ###

  “Moving on,” the colonel addressed the packed hall, “You’re as ready as you’ll ever be. Just to rehash; this mission has two aims. First the recovery of equipment the Garinos have stolen from us and the most important items under that heading are our star-ships and the electron guns.

  Our second aim, plain and simple is to remove the Garinos as a threat. Intelligence tells us our ships are parked in the Garino’s mother ship for lack of fuel from Titan. So, when we capture the Garino’s mother ship and ferry we get our equipment back.

  Captured enemy will be confined to the ferry ship. No matter what happens outside do not; I repeat do not attempt to join the battle. Instead try recovering as much fuel as possible and make as many ships as possible air-worthy and fly them back to Mars.

  Next we don’t know who or what has allied themselves to the Garinos but we will set out to show them how wrong they are. In short the battle plan is for us to make a two pronged attack on the Garinos.

  We will attack and neutralise their mother ship while the Fifth Army under General Socerev and the First Martian Army under General Oosthuizen will liberate the Central and East bridges on Solaria. In a series of commando raids under command of Capitano Miguel Primero of the First Special Space Services we will relieve the Austral Power Generation plant while Major Philips of second Perth Cavalry will relieve the Force Field Generators at Jurien Bay, at the moment under control of Boltarians in a lightning massed hovercraft attack and immobilise them before they can disable or damage the magnetos or even collapse the field entirely.

  The intention is to first drive the enemy from the East and Central bridge areas to the West where they will be given a golden opportunity to escape. We present them with an apparent oversight on our behalf which by this time they will be only too happy to accept.

  After all who can ignore the latest in sporty 10 seater star ships all ready to fly. It will only be when they’re en route that they find out that they have no control over the craft and that they are headed for the nearest hot sun.

  At that stage we patch their communications in with those on their Mother ship and all other invading units on Earth and let them hear what their final hours of life are like.

  There is no rush once in space
they can’t turn back. After the Senior Garinos on Solaria have taken off we will round up the rank and file of Garinos and Boltarians some of whom will pay for their crimes by being atomised. Others will be sentenced to hard labour of the worst kind; doing repairs to the atmospheric force fields and digging soda ash in the Martian Equatorial Pits. They’ll wish they’d never heard of Solaria and in particular; Earth.”

  The hall erupted in applause and cheering. Solaria was showing more than an iron fist in a less than velvet glove but they didn’t know the inhabitants of these Galaxies but they did know war in these parts was total war. Let the games begin.

  ###

  An astronomer and a mathematician explained the technique to us. Surfing the flux, they called it. Space was filled with magnetic fields and the lines of magnetic flux emitting from the magnetic core of each magnetic field taken together made up the magnetic flux. The total number of lines of force passing through a magnetic core make up its magnetic field.

  And the number of lines of force contained in any square area was the strength of the magnet and referred to as its flux density.

  Each troop was fitted with a ferrous plate mounted on his/her chest that could rotate 180 degrees and was magnetised in a fixed direction so that if a soldier was travelling say north south and his plate was set north south he could attain a velocity of several thousands of kilometres a minute.

  If the trooper rotated his plate to the anti-flow position it would work as a brake to a point where he would come to a full stop for an instant and if he did not switch to operator control quickly he would start revolving like the rotor of an electric motor.

  It was the favourite mode of transport among the younger troops. It was exactly like surf board riding that used to be so popular in the middle twentieth century. The technique of riding the magnetic waves was exactly the same as riding the ocean waves and for that reason was called surfing.

  There were three ways of travel known as North/south attraction – north/south repulsion but surfing East West was impossible to achieve for obvious reasons. Although the surfer could slip gradually east or west by slipping from one line of force to another on his left or right and gradually moving away at an angle from his original line of travel.