Threshold of Victory

by Stephen J. Orion

  But landing didn’t mean survival, he reminded himself as he checked his sidearm and grabbed the spare O2 tank. This was not a friendly ship, and rescue would be a while coming.

  ****

  Constellation Carrier CNS Arcadia

  Bryson IV Local Sector, Bryson System

  27 April 2315

  “What about you?” Kelly asked. “Do you believe he can do this whole… see the future thing?”

  “Absolutely. But I don’t think it’s some super power. It’s just good instincts.” Rease sat back and crossed her feet on the table. “Trust me, I’ve been through damn near everything, and I see in him the same innate judgement that keeps me alive.”

  “The same, huh?”

  She gave the Lieutenant a searching look, like there was an answer hidden somewhere in the colours of her eyes, or the curve of her jaw. All a bit too intimate for Rease’s tastes.

  “And what about you,” Rease said, “do you have a multi-faceted backstory?”

  “Depends who you ask. I was at this expensive restaurant being courted by this upper-class pilot from White Ivy…” she let it trail off.

  “Wow, I guess it was a big night for everyone.”

  “Yeah, not all of the universe’s wakeup calls are gentle.” Kelly checked her watch. “They should be back by now.”

  “Missions never run to time, you know that.”

  “Yeah.” She sighed and turned her cup in her hands. “I suppose you’re too hardcore to tell me why you joined up?”

  “Well…” Rease clapped her hands together and rose up in her seat. “Now that’s a story.”

  Kelly held up a forestalling hand. “The real deal, not the rehearsed version.”

  The Lieutenant scowled. “That’s a pretty cheap accusation,”

  Kelly said nothing, and after the moment drew on, Rease sighed and receded into her chair.

  “Alright,” she began, “the ugly version…”

  Before she could say anything more, a klaxon began to wail through the halls of the ship along with a voice calling all quarters to battle stations.

  “Saved by the bell,” Rease said jumping to her feet. “See you round town.”

  Kelly watched the arcom pilot jump to her feet and dash into the hall with the rest of the personnel who’d been breaking in the mess. Not wanting to appear out of place, Kelly followed the group and let the flow of people carry her around the corridors. She didn’t really have anywhere to be during a full alert, not given the fact her battle station was currently in someone else’s hands – she fervently hoped it was still in one piece.

  Tarek had suggested she head to her barracks, and while she’d initially resisted the idea for no more reason than stubbornness, she now yielded to it. If she continued to float around the hallways, they would quickly clear out as people reached their stations. If a deck officer found her before Tarek returned, things could get awkward.

  The Undying quarters were in two separate barracks, both adjacent to the hangar deck but otherwise separated from each other by enough space and bulkheads to prevent the squadron being vaporised in their sleep by a lucky surprise attack. Kelly was in the further aft section of the barracks, and she opened the door to find it expectedly abandoned. Trying not to look like someone who was dodging battle duty, she stepped purposefully across the threshold and pulled the hatch behind her.

  With a sudden clack, the electronic lock slid into place, sealing her in the room.

  ****

  Search Grid Charlie-One-One

  Bryson IV Local Sector, Bryson System

  27 April 2315

  “Well if that wasn’t the ballsiest stunt in the history of the constellation,” Softball whooped as the Mauler cruiser was sheered apart by the closing portal and Tarek’s fighter smashed its way into the hangar on the gateship.

  “Only if he survived it,” Phillips growled. “Silver respond.”

  There was only silence on the channel, and Phillips waited slightly longer than he’d meant to, having to intervene against a couple of Bugs that were starting to overwhelm Bracket and Scorch. He destroyed one with a missile and winged the other with his guns, grudgingly admitting to himself that taking the Sabrecat was certainly the right choice.

  “Alright Undying, you know the drill. Silver is one of our own, and we don’t leave him behind,” Phillips said. “Alpha flight, wrap up your current challenges and fall in with me.”

  As he waited for them to disentangle themselves, he took a moment to pull away himself and gain an overview of the battle. Silver’s mad flight to the gateship had drawn away about eight of the enemy fighters, and the Undying had managed to kill a half dozen or so through their traditional defensive attrition. They now had a substantial advantage against the ten remaining Maulers.

  “They’re pulling back into the flak field,” Softball warned.

  God dammit! “Break off, let them go,”

  That was the other problem – the Mauler destroyer that had first arrived had planted itself between them and the gateship. Phillips had been dreading the moment where it called its fighters back into its defensive radius, and it had finally happened. With the apparent exception of Silver, the Undying had been equipped for recon so they lacked the heavy ordinance necessary to even slow down the warship. To date, they’d survived by avoiding it, but now, acting as a staging point for the remaining Mauler fighters, that ship was going to be a lethal threat.

  “Gateship is starting to pull away,” Errant warned.

  And that was the last piece he’d been expecting. Silver’s impressive handiwork may have taken out the gate, but there was nothing to say the ship couldn’t just pull away under normal power. The destroyer’s range was broad, even broader given it could tie them down with its fighters while it pulled itself into range. Those two factors meant any flanking attempt was going to be impossible, unless he split his squadron into numerous small elements, but that went against their very ethos of mutual support. That would mean casualties.

  He was still chewing the order over in his head when a spread of missiles came arcing down out of the storm. Not small missiles like the fighters used to hit each other but the large ordinance packages that could carry thermobaric warheads or—

  “FLASH!” he screamed into the comm and looked away.

  Five missiles struck along the spine of the Mauler destroyer and erupted in blinding white flares that shone right through the canopy auto-tint. The upper quarter of the ship was annihilated in a ravenous plasma ball of nuclear destruction. Most of its fighters were turned to ash in the wall of fire that raged out around the target.

  When the wrath of the strike finally faded, all that was left between the Undying and the gateship was wreckage. Ruined Bugs fell like their namesake, and the huge the burning hulk of the destroyer sank almost serenely towards the crushing pressures of Bryson IV’s core.

  For several moments, there was only silence and then the storm clouds parted, angry lightning wreathing the prow of their saviour. The Arcadia descended, ever steady and certain, into view.

  Chapter VIII

  Kyra, the wolf-lieutenant

  Constellation Carrier CNS Arcadia

  Bryson IV Local Sector, Bryson System

  27 April 2315

  The senior command staff were all present around the raised holodeck in the Arcadia’s C3. Their discussions, and those of the floor below, carried a greater note of urgency than during previous operations. Though it wasn’t often evident because of the timescales involved, warships used gravity every bit as much as aircraft did, and not just when they were in the atmosphere. Being already so deep in the planet’s gravity well, the Arcadia couldn’t dive to pick up speed, and any attempt to climb away from the planet would see Bryon IV’s massive pull wick their acceleration the whole way. In short, she was in no position to face off against another warship.

  Fortunately, the only vessel on their scopes was the gateship, and it lacked the speed, armament and, so far, the will to force an
engagement. Maulers rarely fled a fight, and doing so without the speed to escape was unheard of, but this ship continued nonetheless to try, fleeing across the planet’s surface while the carrier followed easily in its shadow. Should it try to climb away from the planet, it would have to first contend with half of Cold Sabre Squadron and two Exodite bombers who were orbiting above the storm layer. Though the officers’ council had discussed using them against the gateship, those fighters were actually there to defend against any new aggressor. It was the same reason the other half of the Sabres were tagged as defensive reserve, sitting idle on the hangar deck while command tried to figure out what to do with their prize now that they’d found it.

  “Enough deliberation,” Captain Pierman finally said, bring hush to other officers. “Clearly there is no perfect plan, but we act now or we lose the initiative. As Commander Lyle points out, we cannot destroy so valuable an asset, but our position is too risky to maintain long term.

  “Therefore, we will send a boarding party, seize the Mauler vessel, and either fly it out, or tow it out. Commander Jenson, what’s the quickest way to make that happen?”

  “Bring in the Undying and swap them out with the defensive reserve. The Sabres destroy enough point defences on the gateship to let Warhorse force a landing.”

  “Alright, convey your orders.” He turned his gaze on the marine commander. “Commander Richter, organise a prize crew and work with the arcom detachment to plan the boarding. Your priorities are to sweep resistance, gain control of the ship, and recover the lost pilot.”

  “Aye Captain. Do we know the identity of the pilot?”

  Pierman turned to the CAG who quickly repeated the question into his headset. He didn’t seem pleased with the response. “Flight Sergeant Tarek,” he said finally.

  There was a moment of stunned silence while everyone just stared at the CAG. Finally the Captain dispelled it. “And how did this happen?”

  “I’ll be investigating that in granular detail,” Jenson promised. “The Undying claim they were unaware of his duplicity, but they have advised he was flying Lieutenant Smart’s fighter.”

  “I’ll notify the block officers to find her,” Richter offered.

  Pierman gave him a subtle nod and then replied to all of them. “This doesn’t change our priorities: recover the ship, recover the pilot. We’ll sort out answers later.”

  ****

  Kelly stood up instinctively as the hatch unlocked and swung open. The block officer was standing just outside and looked her over just long enough to confirm her identity before pulling out his comm unit.

  “I’ve found Lieutenant Smart. She’s unharmed but was locked in the S-three Barracks,” he reported and then paused for a reply Kelly couldn’t hear, before speaking again. “I asked that. Apparently, Tarek locked her in here over an hour ago.”

  “No he—” Kelly began and then stopped at the upraised hand from the other officer.

  “Copy,” he placed the comm back on his belt and looked up at Kelly. “You’re free to go, but I imagine Richter will have questions for you later.”

  “Wait… is this… did Tarek send you? Why is he doing all this?”

  “He said you’d ask that.” The officer smiled, he was a junior NCO, barely as old as Kelly, and she could tell he was loving all this ‘cloak and dagger’ stuff. “He said you’d be happier if you didn’t try too hard to figure it out.” The officer gave her a small salute. “Sir.”

  Despite the assertion, it took Kelly less than a heartbeat to figure out why – if she was honest she’d known the moment the lock had engaged. Tarek thought something was going to happen to the patrol, something with ramifications that he didn’t want to extend to her. As the block officer left to return to his rounds, the knot that had formed in Kelly’s stomach during the quarter-hour she’d actually been sealed in the room intensified five-fold. Tarek couldn’t see the future, she knew that, she’d been so certain when he’d begged her for a chance to fly the recon mission. When he’d called in a favour. He wasn’t going to find anything. He couldn’t, they’d been out here for days and not found anything.

  But then there’d been a red alert and fifteen minutes locked in a room with her own demons. There’d been multiple launches from the hangar and something else, a missile deployment? Suddenly it didn’t matter whether Tarek could see the future or just had Rease’s ‘good instincts’. Someone had found trouble, and Kelly was faced with the unshakable certainty that it was him.

  With this storm raging in her mind, there was only one place she could go: the hangar deck. Even if there was no one there that could tell her anything, she might get lucky, perhaps a colleague had called in sick and there might be a spare fighter in need of a pilot. She suddenly understood why Tarek had felt so listless in the logistical arm; without her fighter, she was powerless to enact outcomes. She was a set dressing instead of an actor, able to only wait to see what came of things.

  She reached the hangar just in time to see the first Snowhawks from the Undying descending from the flight deck above. Wraith’s fighter was among them, and Kelly made for it straight away. Ucoo looked tired as she climbed down from her ship and started running the post-flight checks. Kelly loitered impatiently, knowing any attempt at interruption would only slow down the process. She alternated between pacing and determinedly not pacing, sparing a glance for each new pilot that arrived.

  When the Sabrecat came down, Kelly’s patience ran out, Eternity always came back last, and she had yet to see her own fighter put in an appearance. She strode up to Ucoo, unconcerned with the impact to her post-flight.

  “Where is he?” she said as calmly as she could but still ending up just on the wrong side of making a demand.

  To her credit, the Exodite knew immediately the shape of her concerns, and she halted her work, meeting the other’s eyes with empathy.

  “He was alive last we saw him, but he’s out of contact. He went aboard the Mauler ship.”

  Kelly put two fingers to her temple, a wave of shock and nausea hitting her at once.

  “Oh god,” she whispered. “I’ve killed him. I should have said no, I should have…” she looked up at Ucoo who had completed her last checks and was now sipping gratefully from a bottle the ground crew had given her. “You’re going back out, right? Recovery?”

  “Kelly,” Ucoo’s voice was firm but soft, somehow calming, “he knew what he was doing. The arcoms are going over any minute now. They will bring him back.”

  “He’ll probably have captured the whole ship by the time they arrive,” Hanagan said as he came over to join them. “That guy can’t take a shower these days without becoming a hero.”

  Kelly found a loader’s cart and sat down, ignoring the glare the flight tech gave her. It felt like her legs were broken, she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t believe the flippancy of the Undying. Andrew wasn’t a hero, he was just a liner pilot with delusions of grandeur. He was alone, on foot, and aboard a hostile vessel. An inconceivable nightmare, an unsurvivable one.

  And she’d put him there.

  ****

  Mauler Gateship Tagged ‘Bandit-Nine-Zero’

  Bryson IV Local Sector, Bryson System

  27 April 2315

  Evading detection on the enemy cruiser was proving to be far harder than Tarek had expected. The corridors the Maulers used for basic access were broad promenades to him, and each time he had to cross one he felt like a mouse scampering through the open. He’d imagined there might be maintenance ducts or pipes large enough for him to hide in, but they all proved to be well above reach.

  He saw few Maulers at first, but their numbers began to increase rapidly. They prowled through the ship like hunting dogs, exploring each room, investigating equipment and surfaces with such intensity that it took him a while to recognise what was happening. They weren’t looking for him specifically, indeed they appeared to find these surroundings just as alien as Tarek did. Their behaviour was less like a ship security team and more like tenets
inspecting a new property.

  The other thing he’d realised immediately on seeing his first Mauler was that his sidearm was useless. He’d known academically that small arms were next to pointless against the enemy, but he’d hoped with his power he might be able to establish some cunning weakness. In practice, the cards had nothing for him, he was tiny, they were two and a half stories tall and broader than a cargo truck. The metal decking rang off their weighty steps, and it warped down where they stood, motion he imagined was imperceptible to them but distinctly unnerving for him.

  Finding himself ahead of the sweep of curious new residents, he consulted his cards, asking to get back to the Arcadia as soon as possible. In the company of monsters, he couldn’t imagine a truer want, but he came up empty. It was unnerving but not entirely surprising. There had been no shuttles in the hangar bay, and he’d seen nothing resembling an escape pod. The balance of probability had always been that rescue would find him long before he could assemble some elaborate escape ship of his own.

  He tried not to think of the other possibility, the one where there were no cards because he had put himself into a situation from which there would be no escape.

  ****

  Search Grid Charlie-One-One

  Bryson IV Local Sector, Bryson System

  27 April 2315

  Lieutenant Commander Richter apparently held a grudge against Rease from their earlier encounter in her Deep Shit Committee. He proved disinclined to be cooperative and certainly very critical of her suggestions, but for all that, she had to acknowledge he knew his business. Arcom pilots weren’t trained for ship boarding operations, but there had been a handful of precedents where they had been used for that purpose, and Richter brought the after-action notes from all of them to their planning session.

  It was a lively discussion to say the least, but by the end of it, they were both satisfied they had a workable plan, and to his credit, Richter agreed that foot troops would be under her direct command. She could tell he hated doing it, but he acknowledged that his men were present for their technical expertise as a prize crew, not for any impact they might have on defeating the Maulers.