Jack, Snake, and Chewy all scored hits on the enemy tanks, knocking them from ten to seven. The enemy's guns recharged, and the simulated blasts hit all but Jack and Snake's tanks. Jack and Snake fired and hit two more enemy tanks. They now faced five opponents with one unknown somewhere. Jack said, "Get ready to dodge. They're about to be ready to fire."
"Aye, bossman."
Three of the enemy tanks targeted Jack and missed. Two aimed at Snake and missed. Jack and Snake aimed true and scored hits on two more enemy tanks. With it down to three versus two Jack started to feel good. The next volley the enemy fired they targeted Snake exclusively. Snake's green dot on the radar screen blinked out. Jack fired and disabled another one of the enemy tanks. Jack watched the two aiming for him, shifting left and right to avoid being in their sights. They missed again. Jack blasted the one on the left. Then a boom sounded, and the simulator spoke, "Tank destroyed, end simulation."
Wilson had shot him again.
Wilson sent out a signal to everybody to regroup at waypoint Alpha. Jack arrived last. He didn't like it that Wilson cheated, and the other squad always seemed to fire first, as if they had superior radar. Jack stepped out of his tank. Wilson noticed he didn't look happy. "What's your problem?"
Jack pointed at Wilson's hover. "Sir, is the radar on your squad's hover tanks better than ours, sir?"
"Yes, it is, but only by about one hundred meters," Wilson replied.
"So we're just training to lose?" Jack asked.
"We're training you to overcome the odds… Go train on the obstacle course for the rest of the afternoon. Tomorrow morning, at the hangar."
The next morning they kept the same teams again, and they volunteered Jack to be squad leader again. This time they would play capture the flag. Jack's squad had three flags evenly spaced out along the rear line of the practice field. Wilson's team had to simply capture one of the flags and return it to their side of the training field. Jack knew they had no hope, but still, he intended to put up a fight. He addressed Rodriguez, Snake, and Chewy, "You three and I will patrol this line in front of the flags. Basically fly back and forth in front of the flags at full throttle. The rest of you split into two's and guard each flag."
They started patrolling, and the guard tanks set up around the flags. A red blip then a whole vanguard showed up on the radar of the patrolling tanks. Jack radioed, "All tanks, full throttle, get'em!"
Jack steered his tank towards the enemy vanguard. He targeted one of them at long range and fired. It blinked out on his screen. Rodriguez bagged one at close range. Snake picked one off at distance. Chewy flew as fast as he could to get to the melee. The tanks guarding the flags moved to engage the enemy vanguard. One by one the green and red icons blinked out from the radar. Soon, there was one red blip, and Jack took it out. He knew he still faced Wilson though. He ignored his radar and started to zip around the field, warily watching for a hover that still moved. One of the flags started moving on the radar. 'Ha!' Jack thought, now you're mine. Jack punched the accelerator down and sped towards the moving flag. A hover tank raced across the playing field, and he immediately fired his main guns at it. The simulator spoke, "Victory achieved, end simulation."
Wilson radioed, "Regroup at waypoint Alpha."
Jack regrouped with the others. He stepped out of his tank, and his squad cheered. "Woot! Woot! Woot!"
* * *
Wilson made Jack permanent squad leader. They fought a morning battle and then drove the obstacle course everyday. Jack spent his evenings studying military history and his Fleet University programs. A month passed. During a quiet, uneventful evening a klaxon started shrieking in their house, and a voice came over the loudspeaker, "All units, battle stations, all units respond. This is not a drill."
Jack jumped to where his blast rifle hung on the wall. He turned and tossed it underhand to Lexi. "Take it," he said.
"Jesus, Jack."
"Just take it. If they try and come in the house, shoot them!"
Jack ran to the garage, climbed into his hover tank, and fired up the engine. He pushed the remote control for the door opener. The door started to crank upwards. He looked at his radar display. A big tank with infantry in front and behind marched down his very street, his street. His adrenalin started to pump. The bastards shouldn't be marching down his street, not again, not like they did at Artemis.
The garage door seemed to be moving upwards way too slow for Jack. He fired his main cannons at it and punched the accelerator to the floor, crashing his way through the door. At the end of the driveway, he jerked both control joysticks to the right to turn and face the Lithor and to stop his momentum. The debris from the garage door slid off the top of the tank.
The Lithor infantry started pointing their laser rifles at Jack, but he opened up with his fifties, cutting into them. The big tank aimed its main gun at Jack, and he instinctively dodged by pulling straight back on the left control stick, accelerating straight up. Fire and smoke shot out of the big tank's cannon, but there was no impact. Jack's main cannon indicator light flashed green, and he pushed down with the right control stick tilting the tank towards the big tank below him. He pushed the firing button down, and the big tank erupted flame.
The infantry behind the big tank started opening fire with their laser rifles at Jack. His force field held strong, but its strength indicator went down. Jack punched the accelerator and then dropped a Gel-pack on them. It detonated in his rear view mirror. He turned to face them again, and two still fired at him. He cut them down with short bursts from his fifties. He checked his radar. Three target clusters flashed in red in three different directions, all towards the outskirts of the base. Jack touched the computer screen over his house. He said, "Computer, mark waypoint Alpha here."
A blue triangle appeared on his radar map with the word Alpha on it. He turned towards the nearest red dots on his radar and punched the accelerator to the floor. He cut through the infantry with his fifties and blasted the big tank with his main cannons. He checked his radar: two sets of enemies, one close to his blue Alpha waypoint, home. He steered towards the one closer to home. Chewy came online, then Snake, then Rodriguez, then others. He reached his next target and blasted it, dropping a Gel-pack on each column of infantry. As Jack turned to face the troops to finish any off that the incendiary had missed, a blast rocked his tank. One of the Lithor hit him with a rocket. Jack completed his turn and finished the Lithor.
Wilson came across the radio, "All hover tank units engage closest enemy units."
"Watch their infantry," Jack radioed. "Some have rockets!"
He moved to the next set of red blips on his screen, and the big tank fired at him and missed. He cut through the infantry and fired his mains at the tank, which erupted in flame. Two missiles streaked at him from behind it. Jack slid right. One missile sailed past him, and the other caught him on the left side, rupturing his hull but not causing any serious damage other than to the armor. Jack dropped a Gel-pack on them and watched them burn in his rear view.
Jack checked his radar. It displayed not only his radar but tied into the radar on the other hovers, not many red blips left to go after. His house, waypoint Alpha, showed in blue, and no red icons encroached upon it. Wilson broadcast on the radio, "All hover units. Head due south into Orion Prime and acquire new targets. They're being overrun."
The order took Jack away from his home, away from defending Lexi. He hesitated for an instant, then set a clear course due south. The civilians there needed his help more than Lexi needed it. As he sped towards Orion Prime, columns of smoke rose from the ground, and he started to worry about Meghan. He sighted his first big tank and blasted it. It didn't have foot soldiers in front and behind it like most of the big tanks he'd seen.
He took a moment to look at his radar screen, and blips for big tanks proliferated, but no icons for infantry. Jack steered towards the closest enemy tank and targeted it while it fired on a building with its main cannon. Jack thumped it with his lasers. He
hit the fuel tanks this time which engulfed the vehicle in flames and ignited its ammo reserves.
"They're firing on civilian structures," Jack sent across the radio. "There don't seem to be any infantry."
Snake radioed back, "We're on it, bossman."
The big tanks did seem more interested in wreaking havoc and starting fires than they did in defending themselves from the hover tanks. Not that they had much hope versus the hover tanks. The technology behind the Lithorian big tank predated starships. The Lithorians simply assumed that if they fielded enough of them that they'd win. Hover tank pilots shared another perspective. The more they fielded, the more that would die.
Jack did a fly-by of his sister's apartment building, and it stood intact. He marked waypoint Beta over it and patrolled in a circular direction around it, destroying every enemy tank that showed on his radar. Ten, fifteen minutes passed. Jack had lost track of the time. Wilson spoke on the radio, "All hover tank units not engaged immediately proceed to Orion Beta at full velocity. They need support. I repeat, maximum velocity, follow the south road."
Orion Beta had about twenty percent of Orion's population with a smaller Fleet presence than Orion Prime. Jack boosted his altitude, turned to the south, and punched the accelerator down to the floor. He saw the south road and followed it at about one hundred meters above it. His speedometer spun upwards, five hundred kph, six hundred kph… At a thousand kph he raised his altitude higher and hit the streamline button for his shield. He didn't want the wake of his passing to shatter the glass windshields of the vehicles below him on the road. His radar showed no green or red blips. He pushed the tank faster.
At two thousand kph, the tank started to shake, and his computer warned, "Maximum safe velocity reached." Jack knew the vibration in the tank could be attributed to the hull damage he'd sustained from the rocket hits they'd scored on his tank. He kept the accelerator pressed down. Twenty-one hundred kph. Twenty-two. He eased back on the accelerator, just enough to maintain velocity. The vehicle shook.
Two green icons appeared on his radar, Rodriguez and Snake. Jack radioed, "Rodriguez, Snake."
"Aye," Rodriguez said. "We're right on your tail. The rest of the gang's behind us."
The sun started to set--the next battle would be fought in twilight. Within fifty kilometers of Orion Beta, they could see the light from the fires and pillars of smoke. The whole city burned. Once the outskirts of the city showed on Jack's radar, he applied the brakes, slowly at first, then with some force. Infantry and tanks showed on his screen. He picked the nearest ones and blasted away at them. He could tell from the damage in the streets that the Lithor had used mortars to assault the city. Civilian casualties would be high.
It took a solid hour to clear the streets of the invaders. They set their scanners to short range and looked for survivors amongst the rubble. Jack's hands shook as he scanned building after building, directing ground personnel to survivors that needed to be unburied. His throat ached from sobbing, and tears streaked down his face, but he did his job.
Chapter 14
AD 2131
Fleet regroups…
The two Horsemen arrived at Orion, adding considerably to the Fleet contingent of ships. Fleet leaders now considered Orion to be heavily defended. The Horsemen wanted fuel ships sent to the Lithorian homeworld immediately. Fleet simply didn't have the resources and assumed the Lithorians would be patrolling the route. A significant force would have to be sent with the fuel ships to ensure their safety. Fleet did, however, go over the Horsemen's design from head to toe, creating a much smaller version of the ship that required one hundredth of the crew. Ten instead of a thousand, but with close to one tenth the firepower of the full sized version.
Fleet geared up to go on the offensive. They had sent out a half dozen scout ships like Steve Creech's to planets once under Human control. Their reports would be coming in any day now.
After a month at two gravities Steve Creech hurt most of the time. He exercised as much as he could though and found that the painkillers they'd stocked the ship with worked fairly well. He ran out of the Scotch long before the chocolate or coffee.
Chapter 15
A.D. 2102
Enter the Kilken…
Fleet explored over a hundred star systems and found around a dozen with an ecology that could support earth-based lifeforms. Three of which they started to colonize. Earth faced overpopulation problems and opening up new planets seemed to be a logical solution. New planets focused on growing food at first, taming the wild plants and animals. Many of the plants, nuts, berries, and animals became delicacies on Earth.
A five-man long range scout-ship approached a new system when they started picking up radio signals from a planet in their line of sight.
The communications officer said, "I'm getting radio signals from in front of us."
"We're almost seventy light years from our target," the captain said.
"Their music isn't bad. I'm filtering it through decryption."
"Put it on speakers."
Flutes, harps, and drums filled the command center with vibrant sound. A low-pitched singer danced with the music in between the drumbeats. It wasn't a language they understood.
"Channel it all back to Fleet. Get our linguistics experts on it," the captain said.
They entered the system broadcasting music. As they got closer, they noticed an object blip on their radar screen, then another and another, and they quickly closed the distance. The Fleet ship slowed. The other craft lit up exterior lights and broadcast on the radio. It came through as gibberish. Except the word "Kilken" repeated over and over. The Fleet Captain tried broadcasting in English, "Hello, we come in peace."
"Open FTL link with Fleet central," the captain said. "Tell them we have a problem…"
The "Kilken" ships started to turn and accelerate towards the planet. One of them lagged back, accelerating a bit, then stopping, then a bit, as if to convey to the Fleet ship to follow. The captain ordered, "Follow them…"
They came upon an orbital space station with a huge space dock, big enough for the Kilken ships to fly into and big enough for the Fleet scout-ship to enter. They entered the bay and atmosphere pressurized around them. The Human Captain asked, "How's the air?"
"Higher in sulfur than we're used to, but it should be survivable," a crewmember said.
"Well, I guess I'd better go and meet them."
The medical crewwoman responded, "You're taking a big risk, Captain. Their common cold might be a flesh eating virus to us."
"This is our first contact with an intelligent species. It's our chance to open communication, to start a dialog, to share histories, to share our technology. I'll put my life on the line for it."
"Your death wish, Captain."
The Fleet Captain didn't die, and he enjoyed Kilken food and learned their language slowly. Within forty-eight hours he had rashes on three places on his body, flu-like symptoms, and he couldn't keep his food down. Within a week his immune system rejected the foreign viruses.
Kilken were short by Human standards, coming up to the waist of a man. They had five fingers and a thumb on each hand. Often times, they didn't wear shirts, and the lowliest of them would make a Human body builder envious of the definition and tone. Their skin was dark red, ranging from maroon to a kind of dried blood color.
Kilken possessed a rather sophisticated language learning tool that ran on their computer, and it taught the Kilken alphabet and every word from hands and feet to fight and kill. Fleet dedicated more resources to studying the Kilken and sharing knowledge between the two species. Kilken had a rich history of war and conflict. Their ships were capable of star travel. Humans gave them FTL communications and shared the weapons systems and defenses that Hans so easily designed. Kilken and Human agreed to split the universe in two based on a flat plane equidistant between their homeworlds.
Kilken looked mostly for planets with gravities between two to four Earth gravities. Their homeworld matched thr
ee Earth gravities. The Kilken had too many martial arts to count, and they took them very seriously.
Chapter 16
A.D. 2131
The Humans strike back…
The day after the battle, Colonel Henderson contacted Jack and wanted to see him in her office. Jack thought to himself, 'I didn't do anything wrong…'
Still, he made his appointment. Colonel Henderson smiled at him when he entered and motioned for him to sit. He sat in the big fluffy chair. Colonel Henderson started, "Computer analysis results from the battle came back, and you did extremely well."
"Thank you, Colonel."
"Although, it's interesting that you set a waypoint over your own residence and then proceeded to patrol in a pattern around it. Protecting Lexi, yes?"
"We weren't under any specific orders," Jack said.
"You did the same thing at your sister's apartment building, yes?" Henderson asked.
"I followed my orders."
"Yes, I can see from the review that you did. What I really wanted to ask about, Jack, was your rage. When did you lose your temper? According to the report, you destroyed your own garage door…"
Jack raised his hands up in frustration and then put them back into his lap. "They were marching right down my street. It made me angry, but I don't think I lost my temper though, at least not until I reached Orion Beta. I don't remember much of the fight at Orion Beta."
"Do you think, had you been faster? You could have saved more civilians at Orion Beta?"
"I flew that tank as fast as she'd go. She was breaking up on me, damage from the rockets that hit her."
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