by Easton Royce
The battle was over. The Earth fleet had been devastated, the 127th defeated.
Before they had time to think about what it all meant, Shane's and Nathan's wrist-coms flashed with an incoming message.
"Attention all aviators of the Marine Corps Aviators' Cavalry. You are ordered to report immediately to base for active duty."
chapter 13
The 2nd Air Wing, 58th Squadron was ready for battle.
Sparkling new fighters had arrived as fast as they could roll off the assembly lines, stenciled with the names of Lts. Nathan West, Shane Vansen, Cooper Hawkes, and the rest who had trained together in those brutal months when the war had begun.
The Squadron had been back only two days, preparing their planes, practicing maneuvers in the safety of orbital space, when they were given their orders. Soon the barracks would be empty and waiting for the busloads of new recruits, ready to fill the places left by the dead.
They had all watched as the legendary 127th was brought back in—what was left of them. A handful of survivors had been rushed into the base hospital. None of the dead had been brought back, for few bodies are ever recovered from space. Only the living fallen Angels—torn, bandaged, and bloodied—were carried on stretchers into the over-crowded halls of the hospital.
Cooper had arrived just in time to see that. He was half a day late, but he had returned. No one chewed him out for his tardiness, perhaps because no one expected him to be there at all.
He watched as they carried McQueen in, half his face blown away by the enemy. Then Cooper went to find his comrades and his plane.
The orientation room was packed with hundreds of Marines, all sitting on the edge of their chairs waiting to hear their orders.
"Damphousse heard we're going straight to the line," Shane whispered to Nathan. It was a powerful and heady bit of news, as thrilling as it was terrifying.
"ATTENTION!" shouted Bougus.
In one swift move, the entire orientation room stood to welcome Lieutenant Colonel Fouts into the briefing. Serious and intense, it was Fouts who passed the top-secret orders from the top brass down to the ranks.
"Be seated," said Fouts.
They sat in silence and listened as Fouts relayed their instructions.
"The information you are about to receive is classified Level Red. I don't have to remind you of the consequences of divulging this information." He glanced around the room and singled out Nathan and Shane.
"Fifty-eighth, because of you we caught a major break. Within the wreckage of the Alien recon vehicle recovered during your training mission was an encoded transmission detailing the enemy's battle plan. We have been able to break the code, and now we can anticipate all of the enemy's moves."
He reached down to turn on a projector that put forth a hologram of several parsecs of space. "The enemy intends to attack with extreme intent, two-thirds of its forces at the Groombridge Thirty-four Star System Naval Base in seventy-one hours.
"The Earth forces, the greatest mobilization of military might in history, will surprise and attack from behind the enemy positions." Fouts indicated the two points from which the attack would take place.
"Sir." Shane ventured a question. "How can we possibly get there in seventy-one hours? Even through all the known wormholes, it would take at least a week. Sir."
Fouts nodded. "A new wormhole is projected to open in the Gallileo regions. Another lucky break."
Shane grinned and whispered to Nathan. "It'll work."
Nathan seemed convinced, but it was Cooper, further down the row, who wasn't ready to buy the plan.
"From the captured information," Fouts continued, "we know their planes are faster, with a better rate of climb. But ours are more maneuverable and better armed. In spite of anything you might have heard, we're evenly matched."
The excitement around the room rose.
"Surprise has been their best weapon," Fouts proclaimed. "Now it's ours."
Cooper leaned back in his chair. "It's too easy!" he shouted.
Suddenly all eyes in the room had turned to him. Fouts's gaze became steel.
"Sir," said Cooper. "If the plans weren't planted, then they must know we have them. They'd change their objectives."
Fouts stared him down. "No doubt they felt we would be unable to decipher the transmission. And in fact, it has taken fifty Charno-Quantum computers, interlinked on four continents, to decode the enemy's complex language. Since the decoding, we have found all their movements to be in accord with those captured plans."
Cooper still wasn't buying it, but he kept his mouth shut.
"Sir." Nathan spoke up. "Where are we deploying, sir?"
Fouts hesitated for a moment. "You will be joining forces with the Third Air Wing, who will lead the offensive." On his floating map he pointed to a place far away from the battlefront. "The Fifty-eighth Squadron will be here. Rear left flank."
The Squadron grumbled in protest. "Sir." Nathan didn't even try to hide his frustration. "Why bother telling us the plan if we aren't going to be a part of it?"
"You are a part of it," Fouts insisted angrily. "Rear. Left. Flank."
He paused, then continued firmly. "The Fifty-eighth is to report to the naval space carrier Saratoga, across the Jupiter line, by twenty-two forty tomorrow. You'll meet your Squadron commander on board. Dismissed."
The A-43 Hammerheads of the 58th Squadron were lined up in the immense hangar, waiting to fly into battle. Cooper knelt on his wing, with a paintbrush in one hand and a jar of red paint in the other.
Slowly and smoothly, he began to paint on the steel hull just behind the cockpit. For hundreds of years, it had been a tradition to name the plane you took into battle. Cooper knew what his ship's name would be. Whatever misgivings he had about the mission, he knew he would fly into war. He'd known it from the moment he'd left Pags's grave and headed back to the Marine base. Seeing his plane, stenciled with the words Lieutenant Cooper Hawkes, confirmed it. He knew this was a responsibility he couldn't run from.
Lieutenant Cooper Hawkes.
He let the words play over in his mind again and again. A title like that wasn't given randomly. It was something you earned. It amazed Cooper that he could earn such a thing.
Nathan and Shane stormed into the hangar.
"I should request to be transferred to the Third Air Wing," Nathan fumed.
"I'll back you if you do," Shane said. "I'll request transfer too."
Cooper shook his head. "Come on, Lieutenants," he said, enjoying the way the word rolled off his tongue. "They gave us our orders. It's our job to follow them."
"Is that so?" Nathan asked. "Don't you think we have a right to follow through with what we started, Hawkes? We were the ones who brought back that Alien. It's because of us that they even have that break. We should be the ones leading this battle, not watching from the back row."
Cooper shrugged. "I thought we were part of a team," he said. "Somebody has to take rear left flank. If it's us, it's us."
"Afraid to be in the frontlines, Hawkes?" challenged Nathan.
But Cooper didn't feel like a challenge. Not today. "No more than you," he said. He turned to Shane. "Vansen, you remember on Mars, when we came to that Alien ship? You put me in the 'back row,' remember?"
Shane nodded.
"Well, if I had done what I was supposed to do, instead of complaining about it, I might have seen the Alien before he shot Pags."
Shane shook her head. "It was too dark. And besides, if it hadn't been for you, that Alien might have gotten away."
Cooper shrugged. "My point is, if they need us to pull up the rear, then let's not blow it by complaining. "
The point got through to Nathan. He grinned. "Hawkes, correct me if I'm wrong... but I think they turned you into a soldier."
Cooper looked down at his hand. Some of the paint had spilled across his palm. He touched a fingertip to it and drew small red lines on both cheeks. "I prefer to think of myself as a warrior," he said with a smirk.
Then he took his red-painted hand and placed it firmly against the hull of his ship. The fiery hand print left behind was the finishing touch to the name he had given it: "Pags's Payback."
Three hours later, the 58th Squadron of the 2nd Air Wing rolled out of their hangars. Nathan's fighter, "Beyond and Back," followed by "Pags's Payback," and Shane's fighter with Damphousse, Wang, and the rest bringing up the rear, thundered out onto the tarmac.
On the ground beneath them, Bougus saluted as each plane wheeled past.
They took off in twenty-second intervals. Before long they blasted through the ionosphere, escaped Earth's gravity, and flew in formation toward the Jupiter line to rendezvous with the Saratoga.
chapter 14
At full burn, it took just over thirty-six hours to reach the Saratoga. The 58th Squadron flew in perfect formation led by Shane, whose Hammerhead was at the point of the wedge of ships flying toward Jupiter and the great spacecraft carrier in the planet's orbit.
With the massive planet looming before them, Shane increased the magnification on her Heads Up Display. There on the HUD screen was the grainy image of the Saratoga. Incredibly huge as the ship was, it appeared as little more than a speck on the HUD.
She turned on her radio. "Gold Leader, confirm Saratoga position at thirty-two point five megastatute miles."
She waited for Nathan to respond but heard nothing. With Shane's on-board computer controlling the formation, all the pilots had taken scheduled sleep shifts. But no one should have been asleep now, not when they were this close to the Saratoga. She called out to Nathan again.
"Come in, Gold Leader. Confirm."
***
Nathan, leading the formation's right wing, was preoccupied with his LIDAR—his Light Detection and Ranging Device. For the last minute or so, his HUD screen showed nothing but static. He knew these fighters had rolled quickly off the production line, and he began to wonder if perhaps his LIDAR had some bugs that would get him killed in battle. If it was malfunctioning, he had better find out now.
"Just a second," he answered Shane. "I'm getting interference on the LIDAR."
He flipped some switches, increasing energy to the LIDAR array, and ran the image through a series of filters. It was soon perfectly clear why his HUD screen had filled with static. His screen wasn't malfunctioning. It was being jammed.
Out of nowhere, a triple-winged ship spun across the screen, trying to fly past the formation without being noticed.
"Red Leader! Confirm bandit! A recon vehicle on the LIDAR!"
To Nathan's surprise, Red Leader responded almost immediately. It was the most attentive Nathan had ever seen Cooper Hawkes.
"Confirm! Confirm!" Cooper shouted. "LIDAR channel four, bogie: ten o'clock!"
If nothing else, their training had taught them quick response. And, as always, Shane made a rapid and right decision.
"Alter intercept angle thirty degrees!" she ordered. "Blue team, White team, watch six! Hack!"
Instantly, the wedge of the Squadron broke up, giving each team a wider perspective and a better shot at the enemy.
The standard maneuver sent adrenaline coursing through Nathan's veins. This was not a simulation. Sergeant Major Bougus wasn't standing by ready to pop the cockpit and chew them out if something went wrong.
Soon they were on the Alien's tail. Nathan could see the Alien spacecraft now through his canopy. It was the same type of ship they had found on Mars: so black, it almost disappeared against the deadness of space. It spat out a dull purple exhaust from a fuel no scientist on Earth had been able to synthesize.
"Twelve o'clock high," Nathan announced. He powered up his remaining weapons and locked in the retinal targeting system.
"Confirm," Shane said. "Let's light the pipes and head downtown."
Shane was above him and Cooper below. All three of them simultaneously pulled back on their throttles. Nathan felt the thrust push him deep into his seat.
By now two wings from the 58th had come in around the enemy, trying to block its escape. But the Alien ship's speed was so great that it shot through the hole before the formation could close.
Then the Alien craft made a sudden, unexpected turn before any of them could lock their weapons on it.
"He jinked!" said Shane. "Scram! Scram!"
Nathan saw her fire. She missed the Alien ship.
And then it was gone.
Nathan looked in his HUD display but saw nothing but static again.
"Lost it," Cooper said.
Nathan played with the switches on his LIDAR, but it was no use. "It went below us like a fish on a line," he said. He imagined the Alien ship hiding somewhere beneath them, waiting for a chance to circle back and open fire, blasting through the entire formation.
"Let's go fishing," Cooper suggested. But Shane didn't go for it.
"Negative," she said. "Don't have the fuel. Return to designated course. I'll call Space Com and report ACM with the enemy. "
Nathan sighed. Their first real taste of aerial combat, and it was over too fast for them to even know what happened. And even so, it was more terrifying than he imagined it would be. He hadn't felt the terror until now that it was over. He wondered if it was always that way in battle, the fear not setting in until the exchange was played out.
Before them Jupiter loomed closer. It was still millions of miles away, but it filled up half the view.
The Squadron regrouped and continued to the Saratoga.
If a naval aircraft carrier was impressive, the super-starcraft carrier Saratoga was awe-inspiring—something you couldn't imagine until you actually saw it.
Without gravity to limit its shape, it had several flight decks built off its upper and lower hull as well as its sides.
Its armored bridge was flanked with heavy artillery, and it was filled with nearly one hundred docking bays to receive incoming fighters.
The Squadron maneuvered itself toward the docking bays. Once across the portal threshold, each ship was sucked deep into the great carrier by a smooth magnetic pulse.
Then, with a grinding of metal clamps and releases, the cockpits themselves were detached from the fighters and elevated to the upper flight deck.
The moment the upper flight deck was pressurized, dozens of support personnel flooded the deck to service the cockpits as the canopies opened and the pilots emerged.
It was Cooper who noticed that the service crew was moving incredibly quickly.
"Is it just me, or do they seem a little panicked?" Cooper asked Nathan as he got out.
The crews were already running diagnostics on the cockpits and downloading new software to prevent further LIDAR jamming. Cooper and Nathan turned to see Shane practically forced away from her cockpit. The crews were behaving as if a single second lost would mean the difference between life and death for the service personnel.
Wang came up behind them. "Maybe it's always this way aboard a carrier."
Nathan shook his head. "I don't think so."
"Whatever it is," Cooper said, "I think we're about to find out."
A shout of "Attention!" rang out on the deck.
The pilots all snapped to obey as Captain Eichner strode across the flight deck toward them. The service crew seemed to be exempt from the order; they continued frantically preparing the ships for battle. Eichner wasted no time in idle conversation. "Squadron Fifty-eight, report to the briefing area immediately!"
Shane took a step forward. "Sir, what's going on?"
"Space Com checked out your report of the enemy recon vehicle," he told her. "Our radio telescopes have since found... not only no trace of enemy troops in the Groombridge system, but a force massing near the orbit of Saturn. Our own backyard." Cooper gritted his teeth. The enemy plans had been a setup after all. He knew he should have trusted his instincts. He should have raised his voice and made his superiors listen.
Shane clasped his shoulder, as if to say, You were right, hut we can only move forward now.
"At this point," sai
d Eichner, "we don't need their plans to know in which direction they're headed."
Nathan, Cooper, and Shane looked at each other. The same thought occurred to the three of them.
With practically all the Earth's forces amassed light-years away at Groombridge, they were the only ones left to stop the massive Alien force headed toward Earth.
A single Squadron of green, untried pilots.
The 58th wasn't destined to be a minor part of the stand for humanity. They were to be humanity's only stand.
chapter 15
Desperate times bring out the best and the worst in people. For Cooper Hawkes, it had always brought out the worst. Yet here, at the forefront of humanity's darkest hour, Cooper found himself rising above and beyond anything he had ever dreamed he could be. His past failures were forgotten. The fact that he was a Tank held no meaning anymore, not in the face of the Alien menace.
Now the rest of the Squadron looked up to him. Him, Nathan, and Shane. And he knew that it would be the actions of the three of them that would determine either the salvation or destruction of humanity.
Shane, too, wrestled with the weight of this responsibility as they strode, in double time, to the briefing room. She wondered if her parents were out there, somewhere, watching. Were they proud of her or turning away in sorrow, unable to watch their daughter lead a group of hopelessly inexperienced pilots to their doom? She had never been religious, but now she prayed for the strength to do what she needed to do. If they succeeded they would be the greatest of heroes. She wondered if that was what the 127th had thought before being blown out of the sky.
The only picture that occupied Nathan's thoughts was a finely focused one. For him, all of humanity came down to a few faces: his family's, and Kylen's. He could not bear to imagine his father's vision coming true; Alien ships cresting the distant mountains, laying waste to everything in their path. He couldn't bear to imagine his younger brothers being blown to bits by carelessly lethal Alien blasters. Whether Kylen was dead or alive, he knew he didn't want to live to see anyone else he loved destroyed by these terrible beings. He would rather die trying to stop them. Still there was no peace in knowing that.