End Run

by William R. Forstchen

  Kevin's features flushed with rage. He opened his mouth as if to speak but a pilot sitting next to him reached up and pulled him back down to his seat.

  "All right then. Get some sleep. I want all of you in the hangar deck at 0400 tomorrow and expect all your craft to be preflighted and ready for launch by 0445. Dismissed."

  The pilots stood up and started to file out and from the corner of his eye Jason saw O'Brian standing in the open doorway, as if he had been eavesdropping on the talk.

  As the pilots left the room he saw O'Brian fall in by Kevin's side, the two exchanging quick salutes and then a friendly handshake.

  "So the captain knows where the bread is buttered."

  Jason turned around to see Janice by his side.

  "I've heard he's been sucking up to that Tolwyn brat ever since they left Earth orbit. Made him acting wing commander until Doomsday and I checked on board yesterday. Doomsday has some real scuttlebutt on that captain," Janice said.

  "I don't want to hear it, Janice," Jason said wearily.

  "All right then. But he's a political climber like we haven't seen in a long time. Never had a combat command. Right after he graduated from the Academy he dinged a destroyer in a docking maneuver and they pulled him off to transport command where he's been ever since. The bastard pulled this assignment thinking it's a quick tour of duty, he gets his ticket punched, a red combat tab in his file and then he runs back to fleet headquarters and continues the climb."

  "I said I don't want to hear it."

  "All right then Bear, all right," she said with a smile. "But if the fur starts to fly, it's gonna be real interesting to see how he acts."

  "If the fur starts to fly, we'll be far more worried about keeping our new pups alive without getting killed ourselves," Doomsday said, coming up to join the group, bringing along a mug of coffee, thick, black, and with four sugars the way Jason liked it.

  Doomsday took a look sip of his own drink, and sighing leaned against the bulkhead.

  "Average pilot here's got less than three hundred hours, some were sent up with only two hundred and fifty of combat training flight time."

  Jason nodded. Fleet training was forced to cut corners, the pressure was so heavy to get replacements up. But it was a trade-off: less training, they got here quicker, and died quicker, destroying their precious spacecraft at the same time.

  "How do their records look?"

  "Oh the usual," Janice said. "All the right check marks, but precious little real information to go on."

  "Well, we'll find out tomorrow morning then," Jason said quietly.

  CHAPTER II

  "Clear flight deck for combat launching sequence. Repeat, clear flight deck…"

  Jason stood to one side taking in every detail. Lyford Beverage, the flight deck officer who looked like he showed real promise, ran down the length of the deck, shouting out orders. The young lieutenant was most likely exhausted. Jason had simply mentioned his wish to have the recon ships positioned in front of the fighter bombers and Lyford had stayed up through the night to get the job done right. There still seemed to be a lot of unnecessary movement going on, missing was the calm, almost dancelike choreography of launching, that he was used to aboard the Concordia.

  His pilots were already in their cockpits. At least for this first time out he gave them that advantage. For safety's sake he wanted to first see how they flew, before taking them up to a full emergency scramble, going from asleep in their bunks to launch in under four minutes.

  Janice was first to go. Beverage gained the flight deck control room, located on an elevated platform facing the airlock door, took a final scan of the deck, and then raised his hand in a thumbs-up gesture to the launch and recovery officer, thus signaling that all was ready. The launch and recovery officer was now in control of the deck and for that matter the entire ship, since the captain of the ship had to clear any course or speed changes with him first.

  Above the airlock door a green light snapped on. The exhaust deflector shielding snapped up behind Janice's ship, she powered up, and snapped off the thumbs-up that all systems were go. The launch chief petty officer down on the deck gave a thumbs-up, saluted, and crouched down low, pointing forward. The launch officer back in the control room hit the catapult button. Janice's ship snapped out of the bay and she broke hard right as soon as she was in space.

  The ground crew hurried the next recon ship into place and Jason looked down at his watch. Nearly a minute passed before the green light signaled again and the second ship launched, this one breaking left off the port side in a wobbly turn that was using far too much control and thrust.

  "Damn, its going to be a long day," he sighed, and Doomsday nodded in agreement.

  One after the other the ships went out, after the sixth recon the first three Rapier fighters, and then the second six recon Ferrets. Next went six more Rapier fighters to form the close-in combat air patrol, and by this time nearly a half hour had passed, exacerbated by the abort of two launches, one with an overheating engine, the other with a full power shutdown, made worse by several seconds of panic on the part of the pilot when he wasn't sure if he had toggled the eject system back on, or had secured it to full off.

  Both craft had to be towed off the launch line and Doomsday groaned with despair.

  "Concordia would have launched eighty craft by now. If the furballs jump us, we're cooked."

  "We're going to have to go with four recon ships out at all times," Jason said. "I want forward warning round the clock. A stealth could jump in, and before our ship tracking system found it, we'd be finished."

  "Should keep a Sabre on the hot line loaded with a dogfighting and anti-torpedo array ready to go in under a minute's warning," Doomsday added, and Jason nodded an agreement. It'd mean that Janice's people would be flying eight hours a day, while every bomber pilot, copilot, and gunner would be sitting in their cockpits for two and a half hours a day on the hot line. The training at least would be good for them but he could well imagine how the captain would howl when he heard how much engine time the Ferrets would be burning up.

  The launch cycle continued and dictating in some last minute notes on his wrist-mounted memo pad Jason turned away from Doomsday, went over to his Rapier, and climbed into the cockpit.

  "I've checked them all out myself," Sparks said, climbing up on the wing to help Jason in. "This one's the best of the lot so I made sure she was assigned to you, sir."

  "Thanks, Sparks."

  "The kids will learn, just give them some time, sir."

  "Let's hope we get that time."

  She climbed off the wing, and hand signaled for the ground crew to clear. The tiny tow tractor hooked on to the nose wheel and started to pull him up to the launch ramp. The ship in front of him, a Sabre, slashed out through the airlock, kicking on full afterburners as it cleared the side of the Tarawa. The pilot looked good, perhaps showing off by wanting to peel a little paint, but it revealed a certain cockiness that was healthy.

  He revved his engines up and ran through the final check on his instruments, everything running in the green. Jason felt the nudge of the catapult arm hooking into his nose wheel. He looked down at the launch chief and gave the thumbs-up. The launch chief returned the thumbs-up, saluted, then crouched down low, point forward. The catapult slammed him back into the seat. He felt the slight shudder of clearing the airlock force field and then he was in space, kicking on afterburners and pulling straight up. A full combat launch was a kick that he loved almost as much as the flying, far more exciting than the leisurely stand down launch which was nothing more than a ship gliding out under its own power at a couple of meters a second.

  It was a glorious morning. Three hundred million clicks off his port bow was the boiling red giant of the Oberan System, the sun filling a good ten degrees of the heavens. As he pulled through his looping turn he saw the Caldargar globular cluster hanging in space like a handful of diamonds and around him were his charges, circling the Tarawa fifty kilome
ters out, scattered across space in every direction.

  "All right people, Blue Leader to Blue, Red, and Green squadrons. Time for the chicks to come to the rooster. Set your nav system on me and form up in standard V by squadrons."

  The drill began. He knew it was bad form to yell at a pilot over the comm link for everyone to hear, but within the first hour he felt as if he would explode. If this was what the Academies and Officer flight training schools were calling combat-ready pilots, then the Confederation was in a hell of a fix.

  Several of the fighter pilots had a pretty good hang of keeping formation and could follow him through the basic stuff of Immelmanns, wing overs, afterburner skid turns, and diamond breaks against rear attacks. A young pilot named Chamberlain, with the call sign of Round Top, and another sporting the call sign Mongol seemed to have a natural flair. Tolwyn, who was using the call sign "Lone Wolf," appeared to have the knack as well. But the others left him shaking his head with despair. One of them broke to port and dropped while all the others broke to starboard and climbed, because she had been flying upside down relative to the rest of the squadron, and as a result almost killed herself and two others.

  Three hours into the practice, Jason took Mongol and Chamberlain with him, broke out on afterburners to ten thousand clicks and then came around to simulate an attack run. One attempt at this convinced him to hold off on such maneuvers for several days: all hell broke loose and three ships came within meters of colliding.

  As for Tolwyn, Jason couldn't get a read. He sensed there might be a hell of a pilot in the young man, but there was a defiance evident in following through on the basic maneuvers. He knew the type, the pilot who wanted to fly the way Maniac or some of the other lone gun hotshots fought.

  "All right people," Jason finally announced. "Starlight, detail off four of your pilots for continued patrol. We should be hooking up with the transport ships on the far side of this star within the next hour. Chamberlain, you have combat air patrol; close in on Tarawa, keep a circle two hundred clicks out. The rest of you in sequence start your combat landing approaches and make them sharp. I'll go in first."

  Lining up on the Tarawa he called in for landing permission and then alerted the flight deck officer to prepare for a full wing landing. He could imagine the mad scramble down there as they prepared to take in forty-two craft at thirty-second intervals. One screw-up, which he fully expected would happen, and it could delay return of all ships for hours.

  Ignoring the sight-seeing tour he had indulged in the last time, Jason lined up on the narrow flight approach and came in smartly, giving a last burst of reverse thruster just forward of the Tarawa's bow, drifting in sharply and skidding to a stop a dozen meters shy of the safety net.

  Sparks led the ground crew up at the run, hooking on the electric tow cart which pulled him off the flight ramp. Looking into his rear mirror he saw the next fighter come in hard, sliding down the deck and stopping with its nose just touching the net. Not too bad, he was forced to admit, still embarrassed about his own landing of yesterday.

  Canopy up, he climbed out of the fighter.

  "Prep her up for another run," Jason shouted, and he jumped off the ladder, trotting down the length of the deck to join the launch and recovery officer. He felt a cold shudder when he saw O'Brian standing in the control room. He had to remind himself that this was where a captain should be during launch and recovery though he would have preferred him back on the main bridge.

  The last of the fighters came in and then the Sabres lined up, Doomsday coming in first for a perfect touchdown.

  The third bomber was somewhat shaky, slamming into the safety net, causing the next bomber in line to drop out of its approach for a go-around. The deck crew struggled to free the Sabre, causing yet more delay and another wave off of the bomber, whose pilot called in that his starboard engine was overheating, forcing him to shut the engine down.

  "Green three," Jason said, patching in on the landing officer's comm line. "Do you wish to declare an emergency?"

  "Negative on that Blue Leader."

  "Who is this?"

  "Rodriquez, sir."

  "Landing that baby's hard enough on this small ship, bring her in slow and easy, non combat. We're canceling the combat landings till you're aboard."

  "Copy that Blue Leader, no problem."

  Green three circled in, and Jason watched him on the holo screen. The ship was dropping low, the red dot of the laser guide beam now a dozen meters above the ship. Jason kept his mouth shut. Only one person was supposed to talk at a time like this and that was the landing officer.

  "Bring her up son, bring her up. This is not a combat landing son, so don't push it."

  Jason watched, tensing. The kid was trying to show off, to prove himself in front of the old man.

  "Abort, abort," Jason snapped, breaking in on the landing officer.

  "I've got it, I've got it. I've…"

  The Sabre started to pull up hard, and then yo-yoed back down. Jason watched, horrified when he saw the ship start to yaw, Rodriquez slamming in power at the last second of panic when he finally decided to abort, forgetting that one engine was already shut down.

  The Sabre pivoted, the nose of the ship slamming against the side of the airlock port, sheering off just in front of the cockpit.

  The deck safety officer standing behind Jason slammed down on the crash alarm, the klaxon roaring to life, the fire retardant nozzles in the bay ceiling kicking on, spraying down on the deck. The ship spun down the flightline, the emergency safety nets detonating out from the deck floor like a spider web, ground crews diving towards the emergency safety bunkers.

  Jason held his breath. If the fuel storage pods should rupture, the deck would be swept by an inferno. The ship came to a rest and within seconds a crash cart was alongside, spraying out a curtain of foam. Jason watched the safety and rescue crews with open admiration. While everyone else was running, it was their job to rush into the thick of it. Ignoring procedures, he pulled open the door from the control room and started to run down the flight deck, nearly losing his footing on the slippery foam. The safety crew was up on the ship and in the confusion of spray and smoke he saw a bright flicker of flame from inside the cockpit and then he heard the screaming. Sickened, he stood riveted, knowing there was nothing he could do.

  The crew worked frantically, one of them finally taking a laser cutter to slash the cockpit open. The cockpit canopy blew back, flame exploding upward, the crew sticking a hose straight in, a crew member climbing in, ignoring the risk from the fire and a possible cook off of the ejector. He pulled a blackened, struggling form out, shrieks echoing across the flight deck. Another body was dragged out, and horrified Jason looked away; fortunately that one was already dead. A look at the rear turret, crushed beneath the collapsed landing gear, made it clear that there was no survivor in there either.

  He turned away and O'Brian was standing before him, hands on hips.

  "Satisfied, Commander?" O'Brian snarled "Just what the hell do you mean, sir?"

  "You pushed them too hard. You pushed them too hard the first day out and you killed a crew, smashed up a Sabre worth tens of millions and damn near blew out this entire ship. Now just how the hell do you think this is going to look on my report?"

  "Sir, perhaps you've forgotten we're at war," Jason replied coldly, "and people get killed. That boy screwed it, then disobeyed my orders, and he died. It's tragic, but damn it, sir, it happens. These kids have got to learn how to fly in combat, and some of them might die in the learning, but better now than when it's the real thing."

  "You coldhearted son of a bitch." O'Brian snapped, his voice almost breaking.

  Jason could not even reply, realizing that the exchange was being observed by everyone on the deck.

  "Is that all, sir?" Jason asked, the rage in his voice barely under control.

  "No mister, that's not all. Oh, I'm going to file a report on you. I never did care for you hotshot fly boy types and now I see why
."

  "Then may I ask, sir, if you don't like pilots why are you in command of a carrier?"

  O'Brian's features flushed and he raised a threatening finger, pointing it in Jason's face.

  "I'll make sure you get taken care of," he finally cried, and then he stormed off.

  "The kid screwed up, not you."

  Jason turned to look at the landing and recovery officer.

  "I didn't ask for your input mister," Jason snapped and turned away.

  "All right people, I want you to take a long hard look."

  Jason stood before the wrecked Sabre, hands on his hips, glaring at the assembled pilots. There was a distinct smell heavy in the air, cutting through the stench of scorched wiring, burned metal, and fire retardant. One of the recon pilots suddenly ran to the corner of the flight deck and rather noisily threw up. Jason tried to ignore the sound of retching and the cloying scent of burned flesh.

  "Rodriquez is dead, gunnery sergeant Singh is dead and his copilot Emilia died an hour ago. I want all of you to take a damned hard look at their ship. If you don't make mistakes you just might outlive this war; if you do make mistakes you'll end up like they did. I ordered Rodriquez to abort the landing but he thought he knew better, and now he's dead. Now get this straight, people. When I or the landing control officer says break, then damn it, break and the hell with your pride.

  "In two hours we're going out again so get yourselves ready, but before you do I want each one of you to go up to what's left of Rodriquez's ship and take a damned hard look inside. Dismissed."

  He turned and walked off.

  "Coldhearted son of a bitch."

  The words were just barely audible but he recognized Tolwyn's voice. He kept on going and retreated into his office.

  Pulling up a chair, he settled down. After a long minute he finally opened his desk and pulled out a pad of notepaper and a pen. It was an old-fashioned gesture, but it was a long-standing tradition with the fleet. He took the pen up, feeling a bit clumsy, and started to print out the words.