by Easton Royce
She reached out and grasped a broken, twisted pole sticking from the floor and held on, waiting for death, hoping it would be quick and painless.
There were no windows to show them the Squadron outside. A dozen triple-winged fighters had descended from the heavens and attacked the defenseless Tellus transport. There was no doubt what their intentions were.
The captain and navigator were the only two on board who had seen the ominous Alien crafts before the blast hit the bridge and blew it apart.
The Squadron of Alien fighters circled again. With the bridge demolished, they now took aim at the engines. The powerful explosion as the fuel cells blew sent the ship careening toward the Tellurian atmosphere at a dangerously steep angle.
Merciless in their attack, the fighters came around again and again, blowing massive holes in the cargo bay, the hydroponic unit, and finally the cabin. Doomed colonists were sucked out into space through the gaping hole. The dying ship spun end over end, growing red hot as it fell through the atmosphere of the green planet.
In another part of the galaxy, a glassy, black, star-speckled sky was shredded by a Squadron of Marine Corps starjets. Six attack fighters screamed across space in tight formation, sharp and sleek. Their thrusters perfectly mimicked aerodynamics, making them far more maneuverable in the vacuum of space than any ship had been before.
Nathan sat in his cockpit viewing the starfield before him. Even though most of the ship's functions were keyed to the movement of his eyes and sublingual voice commands, there were still a thousand buttons and readouts for him to consider.
Unidentified ships suddenly descended from the stars above him.
"This is Red Leader," announced Nathan. "Bandits at two o'clock confirmed."
"Red Leader, this is Red-three," announced Shane from her cockpit. She was perhaps the most comfortable of all of them in her current surroundings. "I confirm. AOA fifteen degrees."
"R-four confirm," announced Pags, who sat in his cockpit like a kid finally let into a candy store. "Check six. I can't find him."
Five fighters took an intercept course toward the enemy, but as Nathan checked his screen, he realized Pags was right: Red-six was nowhere to be seen.
"R-five, check six!" ordered Nathan. "Where's Hawkes?"
"R-five confirm," responded Damphousse. "No sign of him."
Nathan tried to get his screen to show a wider area of space, but he couldn't waste time with that now—not with the enemy assuming attack position right in front of him.
"Wang! Is he behind you?"
"Negative, Red Leader!"
Nathan saw the starfield spinning before him. Although slightly nauseated by the pitch of the roll, all he could feel was his anger toward Cooper flaring. "Hawkes!"
At a safe distance from the battle, flying a parallel course, Cooper Hawkes watched with amusement as his comrades tried to engage the enemy. With one hand on the controls, he leaned back and comfortably rested on his elbow. He shifted the controls back and forth, enjoying the rocking motion, and enjoying the fact that everybody was wondering what in the world he was doing.
"Enemy craft have locked on to us!" he heard Shane say.
Cooper watched as his comrades rolled out of the enemy gunsights, just in time.
"Hawkes, dammit! Where are you?" he heard Nathan shout over the radio.
At last Cooper decided he might as well give them what they wanted. He pulled back on his stick and headed toward the Squadron—directly toward the Squadron, firing his thrusters and picking up speed.
The enemy zoomed around him. In front of him he could see his own Squadron trying to regroup.
"There he is," said Shane.
"What is he doing?" Pags yelled.
Cooper gave the ship more power.
Before Nathan could take any evasive action, Hawkes cut across his starboard side, tearing off his wing.
"NO!" screamed Nathan as his engine detonated. The two ships went up in fireballs.
Shane and Pags tried to fly clear, but fragments of debris hit them both and their ships went up too. Damphousse and Wang collided. The six fireballs merged, becoming a single grand fireball in the black starlit sky.
The canopy of Cooper's starjet cockpit opened to reveal Sergeant Major Bougus standing where the wing should have been.
"YOU'RE DEAD!" Bougus screamed in Cooper's face—not with mock military anger but with real anger. "YOU'RE DEAD! THE ENTIRE SQUADRON IS DEAD—BECAUSE OF YOU!"
Cooper leaned back. He couldn't care less. Around them, the canopies of the other simulators opened.
"You stupid Tank," Nathan shouted the second his canopy was up.
Bougus turned to Nathan, fire in his eyes. "YOU SHUT UP! YOU'RE DEAD!"
Cooper hopped out of his simulator and crossed his arms. "Who cares? It ain't real."
"SOMEDAY," yelled Bougus, "IT WILL BE REAL! YOU'LL BE IN THE MIDDLE OF A HAIRY FUR BALL, AND YOU WILL DIE! WITH YOU AROUND, THE SQUAD DOESN'T HAVE TO FEAR THE ENEMY, JUST YOU! JUST YOU'."
By now everyone had climbed out of their simulators.
"I should have blown you away," grumbled Nathan.
To Nathan's surprise, Bougus turned on him. "IS THAT RIGHT? GET OVER HERE!" Then Bougus turned to the rest of them. "EVERYONE! OVER HERE NOW!"
They all lined up before their simulator cockpits. Cooper of course was the last, pushing his way between Shane and Nathan.
Bougus looked Nathan in the eye. Nathan stood at attention but didn't try to hide his anger.
"GRAB HAWKES'S BUTT!" ordered Bougus.
Nathan wasn't quite ready for that command. He hesitated.
"THAT'S AN ORDER!" screamed Bougus, hitting his stride. "GRAB IT! EVERYONE GRAB THE BUTT OF THE GUY TO YOUR RIGHT."
Reluctantly everyone reached out their right hand and did as they were ordered.
"YOU FEEL THAT?" demanded Bougus. "THAT'S YOUR OWN BUTT IN YOUR HAND! HIS IS YOURS, AND HERS IS YOURS, AND YOURS IS HIS," he said, pointing at everyone right down the line.
"YOU MAY FLY IN INDIVIDUAL ROCKETS, BUT YOU'RE A SQUADRON, A TEAM!" roared Bougus, pacing back and forth along the line. "IF YOU RISK YOUR BUTT, YOU RISK THE TEAM'S. YOU PEOPLE HAVE BEEN HERE SIX WEEKS, AND STILL YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW TO WORK TOGETHER. AND IF YOU DON'T LEARN, THAT FATTY CLUMP OF FLESH IN YOUR HAND WILL BE BLOWN TO EVERY SPECK OF THE GALAXY, AND YOUR OWN WILL BE RIGHT BEHIND!"
Then Pags, who could find the bright side of a black hole, spoke up, "Sir, maybe Cooper would do better in a real plane, sir."
Cooper grinned at that. He didn't expect anyone to stand up for him.
"YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!" screamed Bougus. "I'M AFRAID OF YOU IN A SIMULATOR. NOW GET BACK IN YOUR PITS! WE'LL DO IT AGAIN UNTIL WE DO IT RIGHT! MOVE!"
Nathan released his hold on Cooper's behind, and they eyed each other with all the contempt they could muster. As far as Nathan was concerned, his hatred of Cooper was well-earned. And from where Cooper stood, he had more than enough reason to hate Nathan West, who was clean-cut, respected, and everything Cooper Hawkes could never be.
Hating each other was easy. The hard part would be learning to trust each other enough to fly into battle.
chapter 6
The Asteroid Belt sat on a lonely strip of rural road between Loxley, Alabama, and the Marine base. So of course the diner catered to Marines. It was one of the few places where flyers and recruits could loosen up and let down from their high tension lives, and so it was always packed.
Nathan, Shane, and the other recruits had finally succeeded in their simulation that day, in spite of Cooper's disinterest and his sluggish control of his craft. The fact that they got through it at all was reason to celebrate, so they went out that night to Asteroid's.
Cooper, of course, was not included, but he showed up anyway. He sauntered past the table where Nathan and Shane sat and took a seat at the counter.
"He's like a shark," Damphousse suggested. "I think he likes being alone."
Shane shook her head. "No one really likes being alo
ne."
Nathan glanced over at Cooper. "Yeah, well some things are better left that way. "
Shane shrugged. She wanted to feel sorry for Cooper, but he was so unpleasant about everything that she found it hard feeling anything for him but anger. But then maybe that's what he wanted people to feel. Maybe his nastiness was a smoke screen to keep people from feeling anything else. Because, after all, dealing with hatred was what Cooper did best. It was easy for him. He'd probably have no idea how to deal with somebody actually liking him. If someone ever did.
The door of the bar opened. In strutted six figures dressed entirely in black. If it's possible to sit at attention, that's what Shane did.
Meanwhile, Pags began talking about planes again. "If I ran the military," he said, "I'd give us our planes the first day."
Shane nudged him to be quiet. "The Angry Angels." She nodded toward the six figures.
The Angels approached a crowded table. Without saying a word, the Marines sitting there got up and let the Angels sit down.
Shane was completely awestruck as she watched them, but Nathan was less impressed. No matter how good he got, Nathan hoped he would never be that full of himself.
Even Cooper, who was far more observant than he let on, noticed them as they entered. He also noticed that one of them, McQueen, came to the counter and sat alone.
McQueen was different from the other Angels. He was a quiet loner, a bit mysterious. Like Cooper.
Cooper tried to imagine himself in a year's time, part of a tightly knit fighting Squadron. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't picture that.
Across the restaurant, Shane rose and approached the table of Angry Angels, like a kid approaching a holo-film star. Her excitement built with each step she took.
"I just wanted to tell you all how much I admire and respect the 127th," she said to them, smiling.
One of the Angels, a woman with a hard jaw and even harder eyes, looked at Shane, mildly amused. "Thanks," she said. "We'll have four of your specials and a round of vita-pure."
The rest of the Angels snickered.
The look on Shane's face turned from admiration to humiliation to a deep, burning fury.
"She's not a waitress," said Nathan, coming up behind her.
The Angels bristled. People simply didn't talk to the Angry Angels in that tone of voice.
Nathan took a deep breath. He didn't care who they were. Shane didn't deserve to be treated like that. "She's a Marine," he told the hard woman. "Now apologize."
One of the other Angels stood. He looked much taller up close. Although Nathan felt intimidation digging into him like a fast-growing weed, he knew he couldn't back down now.
"Until she graduates she's slime," said the now very Angry Angel to Nathan. "And so are you. So now you apologize. If you know what's good for you."
The rest of the Angels stood in unison, a single fighting unit. Back at the recruits' table, Pags and the others watched in silence, not knowing what to do.
"Hey," said Shane, changing the tone of her voice, "what's the farthest you guys have flown?"
It seemed for a moment the tension had been broken. The hard-jawed woman grinned and boasted, "Four point eight light-years."
Shane grinned back. "Really? Well that's how far you can shove your apology."
What happened next was a fight for the books, because no one had ever taken on the Angry Angels. Nathan and Shane were outnumbered until Pags, Damphousse, and Wang finally joined in and it became an all-out brawl.
Cooper sat at the counter watching the show. A few stools down, McQueen was also watching. It almost seemed as if they were mimicking each other.
Cooper had mixed feelings about what he was seeing. Part of him felt like he wasn't about to go in there and help. Another, less familiar part of him felt like he should do something. They were—if not his friends—his Squadron, after all.
Cooper made a move to get up. So did McQueen. They looked at each other and reached a quiet understanding. They were probably the best fighters on either side and they knew it. They knew, too, that their efforts would cancel each other out—and there was no reason lo escalate this further than it had already gone. They both sat back down and kept out of it.
It took only a short time for the recruits to get beaten by the Angry Angels. But they were beaten as a team, as a unit. In its own way, it was a victory. The fight could have gone on until there was nothing left of them, if an emergency satellite feed hadn't suddenly taken over the video wall.
One by one they stopped fighting. The weary but imposing face of Spencer Chartwell, the President of the United Nations, was addressing the world with a desperation no one had ever seen him display.
Shane helped Nathan up from the floor. The roar in the restaurant settled as President Chartwell brought his dark tidings to the world.
"Not since the moment of creation has our universe changed so infinitely, so desperately, so quickly," Chartwell began.
Silence rapidly fell around the restaurant. Each Marine, both recruit and veteran, braced themselves for bad news.
"Tonight," Chartwell continued, "for the first time in the brief history of mankind, we are truly of one planet. Last evening, we confirmed that the landing party of the Tellus colony was massacred, unprovoked, by an advanced Alien civilization of tremendous force."
To Nathan, it was like a stab in the chest—sudden, sharp, and violent. The news rang through his head and echoed in every part of his body, until every muscle felt weak.
"Two hundred twenty-five are dead," announced Chartwell. "Twenty-five still unaccounted for."
"My God," said Shane. She turned to Nathan. She could see in his face there was something very personal about this news, something he had not shared with her or any of the others.
"We have only now learned that the Vesta colony suffered the same fate," Chartwell went on. "The Alien civilization has not responded to our attempts at communication. We know nothing of this race. Our only clue is the bloodshed they have left behind."
The Angry Angels were the first to take action, even before Chartwell was finished speaking. First McQueen and then the others made a determined path out the door, already preparing their minds for war.
"My fellow citizens of Earth," said Chartwell, in a desperate appeal to all mankind. "No matter where you stand on this planet, storm clouds of war gather over our home. We must stand together against the deluge, for we cannot possibly retreat. There is no moving the Earth."
Then Chartwell's face disappeared from the screen.
The Marines still left in the restaurant were reeling and uncertain in the silence that followed. The air in the room suddenly seemed almost as thin as the vacuum of space. Some, following the lead of the 127th, quickly left to return to the base. Others looked to each other for direction. Cooper returned to his dinner, trying to pretend, if only for a moment more, that nothing had changed.
Nathan, unable to catch his breath, his legs weak, pushed past the others. He stumbled out the back door into a dank alley filled with trash and ruined chairs, broken in earlier brawls. He was already trying to calculate the odds, clinging to the faint hope that Kylen might still be alive. Twenty-five colonists were unaccounted for. If they were still alive somewhere, there was a chance that Kylen might be one of them.
Nathan reached into his shirt, pulling out the phototag Kylen had thrown to him before they sealed the door of the ship. "I believe in you," she had told him. But was he strong enough to believe in himself, in the face of this new dark menace?
Aliens! Powerful and murderous. It was still too hard to believe—too much to accept.
The picture in his hand showed the two of them, smiling, during a happier time not too long ago, when a simple belief in each other was all it took to power them to distant stars.
Reality was harsher than either one of them could have realized. Nathan gripped the phototag tightly in his palm, as if he could bring Kylen back by the mere strength of his grip. Up above, a n
ight sky that once seemed glorious and inviting now twinkled with cold, unfeeling pinpoints of light—a billion hostile stars, threatening the end of the world.
chapter 7
"FROM THIS MOMENT UNTIL WE WIN THIS WAR, THE ONLY EASY DAY... IS YESTERDAY!" These were the last words the recruits heard Bougus fire at them before they were kicked out of the nest, and into space for their final training mission.
The nuts and bolts of their training was the same, but ever since the Tellus massacre, there was a new intensity to what they were doing, an urgency—the urgency of war.
Their final training mission was to take place on Mars. It was a survival exercise coupled with the repair of a tracking station. And although the cargo ship that would take them on their long journey to Mars kept them as close together as an old-time submarine's crew, it couldn't block out the loneliness of space.
For weeks they had trained together, slowly becoming human weapons, focused and full of purpose. But as for being a team—that part was slower in coming. Perhaps because each of them had very different things on their minds.
Nathan focused his thoughts out of the ship's tiny window, searching for Tellus in the bright spray of stars. He was finally in space, but it was not the way he had dreamed it would be.
Cooper, on the other hand, occupied his mind with the practical matters at hand. He grumbled about the one-week supply of food, air, and water for the mission. He definitely had no love of the waste collection device in his spacesuit, which blinked a happy yellow light each time it was full. It had never occurred to him that a spacesuit would also be an interplanetary diaper. One, two, three, four, I love the Marine Corps.
Of the three of them, it was Shane who was best able to keep her thoughts directed on the mission. For her, the war that loomed on the horizon filled her with purpose and that faint whisper of destiny.
She listened while the rest lay on their bunks, all of them wondering about the future.
"I heard they've got an army of six million," said a grunt named Walker, usually one of the quieter members of the twelve-man Squadron.