by M. D. Cooper
“Not nearly as exciting as I thought it’d be,” Trist commented. “I thought we’d get a positive lock and say there are the bad guys, go get em!”
Corsia said.
“Ask and you shall receive,” Joe said. “What does it look like Corsia?”
The main holo zoomed in on a region of space far closer to the Kap than Jessica would have liked. A fuzzy image of radiation and heat refraction came into view. Velocity was just under half the speed of light and appeared to be slowing.
“Well, rocks don’t move at 0.5c and they sure don’t slow down when they enter a system,” Jessica commented.
“They also tend not to emit radiation,” Joe said with a scowl. “Corsia, how long until we get better resolution?”
It was what they feared; looks of worry and concern were shared around the bridge.
“Corsia, that still makes it bigger than the Andromeda,” the helm officer said.
Trist grinned. “She’s right, if it’s just another of their cruisers, even if it’s bigger than the last, we can take ‘em.”
Jessica saw Joe weighing his options. She knew that he had been given orders to destroy any incoming ships if they were deemed threatening and of Sirian origin.
If it came to a battle, Corsia would pass a coded message into the main scanning array which would switch it offline and put it into a calibration routine. While it was unable to clearly spot the approaching Sirian ships, it certainly wouldn’t miss a fight this close to the system.
“Well that makes things trickier,” Trist scowled and brought up targeting routines and historical battles on her console.
Jessica smiled to herself. Diligent is not a word she would have applied to Trist when they first met. She liked to think that she had rubbed off on the former thief.
Trist said.
“At least it’s a scouting party,” Joe said.
“Are you sure?” asked helm.
“After the beating Tanis gave their cruiser forty-six years ago they’d send a lot more than three small ships to seal the deal.”
“Unless there are more and these are all we’ve spotted.,” Jessica said.
Joe cast an appraising eye her way.
“Corsia, once we get enough data on these targets, keep the array looking. We wouldn’t want to get caught with our pants down.”
Jessica’s mental avatar sighed.
Jessica cast another glance Joe’s way, giving one last thought to a romp with the colonel before her mind returned to the issue at hand.
“What are your orders, Captain?” Jessica asked. “Should we move in?”
“Three on one aren’t great odds,” Joe said. “Even if we likely outgun them. Although, the trip across the black and whatever field generator they’re using means they won’t have a lot of ordinance.”
“There is that,” Joe replied.
“Do you think we can get behind them?” Trist asked. “I have several successful battles here where the enemy was so busy looking forward that they didn’t see what was on their tail.”
“The logic likely applies here,” said helm.
“Question is; how do we do it?” Jessica asked.
“They’re not the only ones that can direct their engine wash,” Joe said. “If we can get above them and then drop down and hit their engines hard we may have a chance.”
“We can burn away their shielding and ablative plating, then throw a few nukes down the hole is what we can do,” Trist said with a grin.
Jessica watched the scan resolution enhance, as helm, Trist and Joe, discussed the best strategy for getting behind the enemy ships undetected and destroying them as quickly as possible.
What hatred, Jessica wondered, the Luminescents must have for the Nimbus, to wage interstellar war against this one group who managed to escape their clutches.
They were certainly a ruthless people, that was for certain. Not long after the Hyperion arrived in the Kap, Bob had received word from his contacts in Sol that a purge had taken place in Sirius.
The Luminescents had wiped out entire platforms on the suspicion of aiding the Hyperion. It had been brutal and swift; but SolGov declared it a civil war and not a genocide. Trade contracts were unaffected.
It made her glad she was on the Intrepid. She knew that neither Tanis nor Andrews would continue to work with anyone who massacred another people.
She returned her gaze to the main holo and was welcomed by a vastly improved image of their prey.
The three ships appeared to be scout class, but outfitted with much larger engines and several protrusions around the vessels that she imagined were responsible for the stellar scanning array’s difficulty in seeing the vessels.
Joe drew the enemy ships close on the holo, while putting the continued search on a side display.
“Ok Trist, lay it out.”
Trist rose from her station and wiped a hand across her brow as she looked over the three ships.
“We kick up at this vector,” she said, drawing a line through the holo. “Then, at these points we deploy fighters. They can give short bursts and vector down toward the Sirians, using our delta v to advance unnoticed.” Trist dotted the display with the Andromeda’s twenty fighters.
“If we can drop behind them, perhaps a million klicks stellar north and aft, then reverse and burn hard to match their velocity. We’ll have them in a pincer.”
“It’s going to be high-g fighter work out there,” Joe said. Only fifteen of our birds are rated for that work and only fourteen of our pilots have the mods to withstand those g’s.”
Jessica could see Joe already knew where this was going, but he was forcing Trist to talk it through. After decades of running his academy he was always teaching.
“Then we’ll hold onto the other five for close up work when we get in range.” Trist removed five ships and placed them with the Andromeda in defensive positions.
“You need to move one more,” Joe said.
Trist looked at Jessica. “Do I?”
Jessica sighed. “Why not, I’m rated after all.”
Joe turned to Jessica and cast her an appraising glance. “That was decades ago, are you sure you’re crisp? You made your flights in-system. It’s a lot different out here in the deep black. No local star lighting things up, no planets, or stations. It’s just us and them.”
“I can do it,” Jessica nodded. “I have the mods to take the high-g and pulled 0.7c in the sims.”
“Plus you’ll look hot in the suit!” Trist said with a grin.
Jessica tossed her a seductive look. “That why you suggested it?” She had to admit, s
he liked the suit.
Joe and Trist reviewed the strategy and called Major Jeff to the bridge for a review of possible assault and boarding scenarios. Jessica stayed for the beginning of the conversation, but soon left to get acquainted with her fellow vacuum jockeys.
As she walked through the ship Jessica brought up the roster and reviewed the fighter squadron’s records. She knew many from her weeks on the ship, but had not examined their history in detail.
It was a crack squad, many were top students from Joe’s academy; only Carson was a veteran of actual combat, he’d seen action in one of the succession wars between SolGov and the Scattered Disc.
Not that she had ever been a first party participant in live fire ship-to-ship combat either.
She met them in the briefing room a few minutes before Commander Pearson was scheduled to give the lo-down on their mission.
“Jessica,” one of the pilots, a man named Jason, called out. “What’s the drill, we’ve been sequestered for weeks now.”
“I can’t tell you,” Jessica smiled. “Pearson will be very cross if I ruin whatever speech he has drummed up. Suffice it to say that I’ll be joining your sorry ranks today.”
“Shiiit,” a woman named Cary said with a scowl. “We’re in it deep if the old man sent you down to help.”
Jessica chuckled. She never thought of Joe as “the old man,” but to most of these kids he was both figuratively and practically. She looked around the room, and realized that excepting Carson none of the pilots had seen more than forty years. That made her one heck of an old woman by comparison, though she was still a few years away from celebrating her first centennial.
Not for the first time she thought of what it must be like to grow up only knowing the Kap—a fledgling colony soon to be abandoned by its saviors who were on to build bigger and better things elsewhere.
The pilots were split nearly evenly between Edeners and Victorians; yet the tension often present between the two groups was not in evidence here. The men and women joked and spoke casually with one another, the sort of banter often seen amongst warriors preparing for battle.
Commander Pearson entered the room and the lanky man looked over his pilots with a steady eye. In less than ten seconds everyone was in their chairs, ready to get the word from their CO.
“The first thing you need to know is that this isn’t a drill,” Pearson said while slowly pacing before them. We’re dealing with an incursion event.”
The pilots exchanged looks and a few glanced back at Jessica who nodded slowly.
“Three Sirian scout ships are approaching the system and we’re going to give them a warm welcome. The kind that informs their friends they should stay home.”
Several nods and smiles met the commander’s words and Pearson went on to explain the plan Joe and Trist had devised. There were a few changes since Jessica last saw it—likely Joe lending his experience to shore up any weak spots.
“A wing, you’ll be joined by Jessica and will drop from the Andromeda along with C wing here at point Epsilon,” Pearson said and gestured at the holo display. “X wing will remain with the Andromeda and deploy at the same v as the ship after she stops and burns to attack the Sirians from behind.”
The pilots shared a few more glances. Some nodding, not a few looking concerned at the thought of their first combat engagement.
“Although Colonel Keller is joining A wing, you’ll still have command of the wing, during the engagement, Rock.”
Jessica gave Rock a deferential nod and the pilot showed relief—glad to understand where he stood in the chain of command.
Pearson proceeded to cover all the contingencies and sequences of fallback strategies. Once A and C wings boosted toward the Sirian ships for their attack runs, the relativistic velocity difference between them and the Andromeda would be close to half the speed of light. Even without relativistic concerns, tight-beam communication would be difficult at best.
Jessica set her teeth. She had trained for this, done it in the sims. She would do her fellow pilots proud and come home to Trist.
Pearson finished the briefing, providing the detailed packet to the pilots via the Link.
A and C wings rose and made their way out a side door. It was time to get suited up.
With the exception of Carson none of the pilots had the cellular modifications necessary to handle engagements with burns as high as Trist’s plan called for.
That was a protected technology the Intrepid never gained the rights to carry with them to New Eden. Jessica imagined that Earnest could likely have replicated it, but it wasn’t a top priority.
Without the cellular mods, they would be fitted into Sub-Cutaneous Life Support Shell Suit. Something the pilots referred to as the Shoot Suit. It still took no small number of mods to don a Shoot Suit, but nothing like Carson or Joe’s crystalline cells.
Jessica had to admit that she rather liked the process of being fitted into her Shoot Suit—though not all pilots found it as enjoyable as she did.
The squadron lined up before the four ominous looking portals, and when the light turned green, stepped through one at a time.
Jessica ended up being first in her line and took a deep breath before stepping through the opening.
The room she entered was small and dimly lit. She spread her arms and legs as a suspension field lifted her into the air. The feeling wasn’t weightlessness, but more like a light cushioning of air around her entire body.
Moments later a mist blew across her and she knew it to be a cloud of nano which were removing the outer layer of her skin—a necessary part of the process due to the amount of time pilots usually spent in the suit. The nano also removed every hair on her body, follicle and all. Hair under a Shoot Suit was a sure-fire recipe for discomfort.
The room requested permission to auth with her internal systems and she allowed it, after verifying its token with the crystal record. The room’s NSAI now had full control over her physical body.
The first thing it did was to seal her eyes shut, disallowing Jessica the muscle control to open them again. It then splayed her fingers and toes before a final wash sprayed over her body, removing the last remnants of dead skin and hair.
She knew if she could open her eyes she would look pink and raw, her skin smooth as a baby’s.
The next step was one that was both uncomfortable and enjoyable at the same time as a plate rose between her legs and attached to her, providing the plumbing she would require for her long stay in the suit. Next, the room signaled her body to open the IV ports on her forearms and shunts slid into them.
Two halves of a shell wrapped around her midsection, providing additional stability for her soft organs. She could feel tingling in her skin as filaments of nano grew into her mid-section, creating a latticework to support her organs.
As the nanostrands grew within her body, Jessica felt a mist spraying across her. This was the beginning of several layers of material which would form a tight sheath covering every inch of her body. At some point during the process tubes slid up her nostrils and down her throat where they threaded into her lungs.
Even though she expected it, Jessica had to resist a brief moment of panic as she lost the ability to breathe on her own, the suit’s systems taking over air regulation.
Her new epidermis began to tighten, compressing her body while the air flowing into her nostrils grew thicker. By the time she was inserted into her fighter she would be breathing liquid oxygen.
A thin tube slipped between her lips and filled her mouth with a thick setting gel, ensuring that her jaw couldn’t move and teeth wouldn’t shatter.
She felt slight pressure on her temples and knew optical sensors were being mounted on her head. A second later, vision came back, provided by the small cameras on her head. She glanced around the small chamber, becoming accustomed to the slightly wider stereo vision. It wasn’t ideal, but once in the ship she would use its sensors to see—the head-mounted cameras would just be in case of emer
gency.
With her vision returned she could see armatures holding more plates which would cover more soft tissue, keeping her body in one piece when it would weigh more than four metric tonnes.
In rapid succession, they covered her chest, neck, arms and legs. The suspension field diminished and she sank to the ground. She looked down, admiring her gleaming white body, a picture of feminine beauty encased in hard polymers, carbon nano, and suspension gel.
The door on the far side of the chamber opened and she walked out, taking a seat on the small tram awaiting the members of A wing.
Over the next fifteen minutes the rest of her wing joined her, an array of gleaming white human figures without eyes or mouths, tubes running from noses to small tanks on their backs.
Each had their name printed on their chests along with readout panels on their forearms showing vital statistics and progress of their internal organ support lattices.
Carson reached under his seat and pulled a small, three dimensional spray printer. He approached each member of the wing and sprayed the wing’s logo on their right shoulders before giving them a hard slap on the head.
Jessica took her badge with pride and could barely feel the slap through the hard shell of her Shoot Suit.
A minute later the tram took off, driving to the hanger bay where each pilot would be inserted into their ships. When they drove through the bay doors, Jessica couldn’t help but smile as she admired the sleek fighters.
At twenty meters long, the ships consisted of an oblong central pod with a series of tracks crisscrossing it. Engines, weapons, sensors and more engines all mounted to the tracks, able to spin around the pod and change vector or firing angles with a moment’s notice.
They were both graceful and deadly, an obsidian pearl bristling with weapons.
Jessica knew she would enjoy piloting one of these machines, and her avatar grinned at her fellow pilots on the tactical net.
Jason’s avatar smiled back at her.