Threshold of Victory

by Stephen J. Orion

  “Clumsy,” Softball’s tone was fierce, authoritative, a stark reminder that he was still in command, “it’s too dangerous. Do what you can in the interim, but get ready to pull back.”

  Kelly opened her mouth to snap something back but then checked herself. ‘Clumsy’ she may be, but she wasn’t stupid, shouting at her commander after he’d switched to the I’m-giving-you-an-order tone was not the sort of thing you did.

  But the more she thought about it, the more she realised that order was a sort of invitation. Do what you can. The question was: what could she do?

  She was on the portside of the Mauler ship, and its three remaining fighters were on the other side where most the Undying were still trying to lure them out of the flak field and destroy them. A single Exodite bomber was visible on the dorsal side of the cruiser, sweeping in to take potshots at the Mauler’s defence turrets before pulling back when things got too heated. The Exodites were good, there was no doubt about it, but their bombers were simply too large and heavy footed to get close enough for a clear shot.

  But the Tartarus was still at least thirty seconds away from completing her turn, maybe a minute or two from engagement range, and in the world of fighters, a minute or two was a measure of lifetimes. So what could she do with two lifetimes?

  What would Silver do?

  The question popped into her mind unbidden, and it surprised her. Silver had pulled off some amazing kills at the academy, to say nothing of the daring rescue at Box Grid, but he’d also been ‘declared dead’ by the instructors more times than any other pilot.

  And that was the math here – she could make a daring against-the-odds attack, but what that really meant was you stood a good chance of a grisly death. The thought of her body being shredded beneath her was terrifying, but right now her squadron needed someone to stand up for them. Even if she didn’t succeed, at least she might make enough of an account of their efforts that they wouldn’t be disbanded.

  “Think well of me,” she said, though she wasn’t certain to whom.

  And then she was storming in towards the Mauler cruiser at full burn. As before, the void around her erupted with flak detonations. Deeper she went, and the flak grew tighter, becoming more accurate as the distance closed, forcing her to jink more wildly. Still deeper, her craft began to shake and rattle, scraping and tearing noises coming through the hull as fragments found the barest purchase.

  Finally, she had a clear shot at one of the defence turrets, and she unleashed a barrage of her own cannon fire. In the same moment, she was forced to pull hard left as another flak round cut past her. Her rounds pockmarked the armoured hull uselessly as she rolled and desperately pulled back towards her target. Without waiting for lock, she triggered a missile, it was a snapshot, but it was a good line, it would hit.

  But we were trained wrong, she realised, her world seeming to slow down as she saw a hurricane of flak particles washing by right in front of her. I’m unprepared, and I’m improvising, and it’s all about to fall apart.

  The flak missed her by the barest of margins, but her missile was scythed in half right before her eyes and it detonated barely a heartbeat later. She pulled hard on the flight stick, trying to get the fuselage between her and the explosion, but it was a futile gesture. It was like her tiny ship had been caught by the nose and flung end over end. Stars and flak and the hull of the Mauler were all a blur as the incredible G-forces seemed to try and tear her through the cracked cockpit canopy with ungodly force. She fought to breathe as her harness crushed into her, and her teeth seemed like they might burrow into her brain. Blood poured into her skull despite the best efforts of her flight suit, bringing with it a flood of pain; her vision collapsing as her occipital lobe was compressed by swelling arteries.

  Safeties kicked in. The main engine cut, and a scale of popping hisses came from across the ship’s hull as the reactive stabilisers blew, each one slowing the craft’s insane pirouetting a little more.

  By the time her ship came to a halt, she was barely clinging to consciousness. Her world was a tiny light aura in a sea of staggering pain. She gasped for air but couldn’t hear herself over the wild ringing sound.

  The aura grew, resolved all too slowly. She felt like she was still spinning, and her brain throbbed as it tried to decode the very still image in front of her. The Mauler cruiser loomed dreadfully close and as one of its flak turrets seemed to leisurely orientate towards her, Kelly realised she was all but stopped dead.

  Her hands were sluggish as she pawed at the controls, but nothing seemed to work. Her mind was dimly aware that there was less light then there should be, and in the darkness of space, light meant power, power meant thrust, and when you were about to be zeroed by an enemy turret, thrust meant life.

  And it seemed she was out of all of it.

  But the turret tracked right past her, seeking something behind her that she couldn’t see. It fired twice, and then a missile slipped past and struck it directly. The ball socket of the turret was consumed in flame, and its single large barrel cartwheeled into space amid a flock of debris.

  And a moment later, a lone Sabrecat swooped past her directly overhead, its hull pure white and its underside painted with talons, feathers and the hooked beak of the artic raptors for which the Undying’s fighters were named.

  The craft stood on its wing and skimmed the surface of the Mauler ship, destroying another turret before pulling away. Flak fire clawed at it, but the rounds seemed lethargic, always wide, always far behind the streaking fighter.

  And then a Snowhawk came into view, upending briefly to stop itself with a burst from its primary engines, the ship came to a halt directly between Kelly and the enemy vessel. It faced perpendicular to her so its largest surface area lay between the two ships, its wings seemed to be thrown wide like a mother with her arms out protectively as she steps in front of her child.

  Realising what would happen if the Mauler attacked her now, Kelly felt herself fall into a storm of emotions. A lump formed in her throat that seemed impossibly large as she looked down at her ship’s controls again. She had to get the ship moving, for both their sakes, but right now it all seemed somehow alien.

  “Clumsy…” The voice was Wraith’s. The Exodite’s tone was soft but firm as it came through the low power channel. “…you’re venting oxygen, switch the feeds to suit only.”

  Numbly Kelly followed the instruction, and as the system’s air pressure improved, she began to feel less strain on her bruised chest, less light headed.

  “Wraith what the hell are you doing?” The new voice on the comm was Eternity and he didn’t sound pleased. “Get clear.”

  Wraith’s voice suddenly turned cool and sharp. “We’re Undying, remember? We go out together or not at all. Unless you want to tell the squadron that some of us are worth more to you than others.”

  Kelly could almost hear Eternity’s teeth grating together when he replied. “We’ll talk about this.”

  Beyond the shadow of Wraith’s Snowhawk, Kelly saw the Sabrecat cut back against its own course, attacking the Mauler cruiser fiercely and disappearing for almost a minute before emerging again on the other side of the ship.

  “Embassy, the turrets are clear from the portside engine,” Eternity said, sounding breathless for the first time Kelly had ever known. “Take it out.”

  ****

  Mauler Village

  Codename: Box Grid

  Planet Grimball, Bryson System

  21 April 2315

  In a rare break from protocol, Lieutenant Walters had come up from the command station to speak with his pilot face to face. For his part, Tarek kept his eyes on what he was doing, the Scarab was at its operating ceiling, stalking back and forth like an angry dog as the two Constellation spacecraft hung in the lower mesosphere. Like the Snowhawks, it was theoretically impossible for a Scarab or Bug to cross the gap without a carrier, but lone Mauler fighters tended to exhibit wild behaviour and sometimes theory was just waiting to be proved wron
g by someone with the right amount of reckless.

  “We’re running out of time,” Walters said earnestly. “I underestimated you once before, and I won’t again, but in return I need you to be absolutely honest. Can you get me down to that tertiary extraction site with that Mauler fighter there?”

  Tarek switched the ship back to autopilot and, under the pretext of thinking, he closed his eyes and asked the question he’d asked before.

  I want to bring Predator back to the Arcadia.

  The howling chill of the timestream washed over him once more, and he suppressed a shiver. After the tempest that had ripped through when the Exodites had made their wild attempt to destroy the Mauler, there was only a single possibility left, a single card.

  And because it was Tarek’s metaphor, that card was the jack of clubs.

  Chapter V

  The perfect stage kiss

  Mauler Village

  Codename: Box Grid

  Planet Grimball, Bryson System

  21 April 2315

  If Tarek had learned one thing from his last attempt to use his power it was that time in the real world did not stop while he investigated possibilities, and that hesitation robbed him of options. The jack of clubs was literally his last chance to save the Wolf-Lieutenant, so he didn’t wait. He didn’t try to read it or understand it, he simply took hold of it with both hands and let it guide him in real time.

  Opening his eyes, he met Walters with absolute confidence. “Honestly: we can’t land without being killed by that Scarab,” he admitted. “But there is a way to destroy it.”

  Walters folded his arms and snorted. “You’re going to use the Warhorse as bait.”

  Tarek maintained his steady, even stare. “I am.”

  “And you’re confident you can do that without getting us killed.”

  “We can’t rescue anyone if we’re dead.”

  Walters nodded. “Good enough.”

  ****

  The Scarab prowled and targeted, targeted and prowled, desperate but unable to engage the targets that loitered above it. The larger of the two, the easier and more tempting one, began to climb further away so the Mauler drone switched its attention to the sleeker craft that had first attacked it. It continuing to patrol its operating ceiling, trying to achieve a weapons lock despite too much distance and too little atmosphere.

  Suddenly the larger target was back, scorching through the thin air like a meteorite, its heat shielding already licking with flames as it exceeded its terminal velocity. By the time the Mauler was able to point its nose towards the ship it was already shooting past. With a belch of its heavy thrusters the Scarab rolled onto its back and then pulled up until it was diving straight after the massive transport.

  It took several seconds at full burn just to close back to engagement range and the horizon was fleeing towards the edges of its field of vision at an incredible rate. It fired a short barrage from its autocannon, but halfway to the target, the rounds decelerated and disintegrated under the tremendous drag forces.

  Diligently the fighter switched to its missiles and patiently attained a missile lock, it wasn’t difficult as the surface of the target was perhaps the hottest thing outside of the planet’s crust.

  But it was frustrated again. The ship flattened out, and with a burn from its huge engines, it decelerated so fast the Scarab had to jink right to avoid slamming into it. Upending itself, the fighter maximised its thrust, attempting to decelerate through engine power rather than lift which it calculated might cause its flight surfaces to come apart at this speed.

  It was a race to decelerate the fastest, and with its larger surface area and surprising power to weight ratio, the target was actually winning. Patiently the fighter began to attempt another missile lock, but before it was halfway there, the massive transport pulled aside.

  Directly behind it was the other target, the aggressive one that had attacked the settlement with a missile. The ship was power diving, and the Scarab immediately detected it was locking on. The computer switched targets again, trying to attain a firing solution first, but it was too late to the game. Its internal alarms wailed as a missile detached from the barrelling enemy and then the hostile craft eased itself into a less suicidal course.

  Opposing directives warred momentarily for control of the Scarab. Remaining still would lead to destruction, but attempting air combat manoeuvres this far beyond terminal velocity would likely result in mechanical failure.

  Ultimately the evasion plan won out, and it attempted to convert its backward dive into a split-s. As it flattened out, the starboard wing cracked then came away entirely. Suddenly finding itself in a corkscrew dive with a missile closing in, the Mauler computer attempted to find new options.

  It was still looking for an answer when the missile struck it, tearing through its undercarriage and igniting its cannon magazine.

  After that the Scarab simply ceased to be.

  ****

  For her part, Rease missed the entirety of what would become a legendary piece of dogfighting. She and Twos had reached the tertiary extraction point, but the Maulers were still hot on their heels.

  She had hoped they wouldn’t have to use this exfil option for more reasons than just the dangers it presented to the landing craft. After all, there was only one place within Box Grid that was large enough to bring down a lander: the starport.

  So she and Twos had fought to hold the Maulers back amid the carcasses of arcoms, tanks and men. Twos fought conservatively, as she expected he would. She fought the only way she knew how: with every fibre of her being.

  She let them follow her into the open and then cut them down as they spilled out into the clear spaces; she lead them through tight wreckage where they tripped and fell and were spread out; she fought them hand-to-hand in the buildings where they thought they had the advantage. For what seemed like an hour they held on, using every grenade they had and some they found. They borrowed half-spent clips from downed arcoms and used abandoned fuel trucks and ammo carriers as improvised explosives. They sniped and ambushed and outright fought until any sane opposing commander would have just let them go.

  By the time help came, Rease was exhausted, but her rescue arrived in spectacular fashion. The Exodite bomber flew in low and strafed the most obvious Mauler positions with rockets, bringing down entire buildings and casting giant monstrous limbs in lazy arcs through the air.

  In its wake came the Warhorse, right now the most beautiful, ugly transport ship Rease had ever seen. It flew low to limit its AA exposure, smashing through roof tops before settling to the ground, crunching and screeching as its weight compressed the wreckage of earlier battles.

  With the Maulers momentarily driven back, she grabbed the nearest corpse and slung it into a fireman’s carry before charging up the drop ramp. Twos was of course already waiting for her, his arcom showing all the abuse it had suffered, but in one piece none the less. To her surprise, there was another arcom in the cargo bay, hanging from a harness like a puppet with its strings cut and yet somehow looking less weathered than either of the operational machines.

  “Field salvage,” Twos said in answer to the unasked question. “It didn’t seem too badly damaged and…” his arcom shrugged as it lowered its own cargo harness around its shoulders. “It seemed like the least I could do.”

  “Oh trust me, the least you can do to make up for today is a lot more than that,” Rease told him, but she didn’t try to keep the smile out of her voice.

  ****

  Tarek continued to ride the jack of clubs until they had safely docked back with the Arcadia. As he eased himself back to normality, the pilot felt tension flow out of him leaving only stiff muscles and a surprisingly deep sense of tiredness. Clearing the post-flight checks as accurately as he could, he pulled off his helmet and headed back towards the cargo bay.

  “Well done,” Walters greeted as Tarek passed through the command area.

  “I’ll say,” Jackson added, a good deal more exp
losively, as he jogged up from the co-pilot’s station. “You killed a fighter with a freighter. Fucking amazing.”

  “The Exodites shot it down,” Tarek pointed out.

  “Yeah, because you set it up for them. If they’d been on their own they’d be still looping around trying to find their own asses.”

  Tarek didn’t answer because Lieutenant Rease was crossing the cargo bay to meet them.

  “This guy,” she said with a smile, then she glanced Walters. “It was him, wasn’t it? That whole landing with a deadly enemy fighter right over head.”

  Walters nodded.

  Without a pause, Rease threw herself at the pilot, her arms pulling her fiercely against him as she pressed her lips against his. Such a kiss from a fit young woman should have been spine tingling, but Tarek found no warmth in it. She was going through all of the physical motions and none of the emotional ones. The pilot doubted he would have noticed it at all if he wasn’t emotionally numb himself. The kiss was for appearances, not just for Walters and Jackson and all the people they told, but it was meant to fool him too.

  In many ways, it was the perfect stage kiss.

  “You,” Rease said pulling away with her arms still around him, “can save my ass anytime.”

  “I didn’t do it alone,” Tarek replied, trying to hide some of awkwardness he felt.

  “I didn’t do it alone,” Jackson mimicked in a high-pitched voice, then to Rease he added, “I’m sorry, Lieutenant. I think he might be gay.”

  “You wish he was gay,”

  “Oh he can’t handle this much man, but if you would like to try I can—”

  “Gentlemen, decorum.” Walter’s cut him off sharply.

  Though the skipper’s rebuke had very carefully excluded her, Rease removed her arms and stepped to a respectful distance. “No harm done, Lieutenant. Carry on.”