by David Adams
There was a quiet, dismissive snort from the seat beside me. It was Lion.
“You must be fucking kidding me. Go to a blind rendezvous deep in one Kel-Voranian faction’s space, then travel through it to another faction’s space, then somehow get home? I’ve heard the stories of those runty, psycho bastards and there’s no way I’d trust them as far as I could throw them. They’re shifty and just as likely to challenge us to a duel to the death or something, or lead us into a trap. Why the fuck are we even considering this?”
Iron scowled ever so slightly. “I’m not sure what stories you’ve heard, Lieutenant, so allow me to set the record straight. It’s true the Kel-Voran, as a species, consider death in combat to be noble and highly desirable. Ever since they’ve been spaceborne their various factions have sought out powerful foes to test their strength; the Toralii, due to the might of their navy and their highly advanced technology, are their personal fight-buddies. From what we’ve been able to determine the Kel-Voran quarrel with the Toralii almost as often as they do with each other.”
The CAG slowly folded his hands over his chest. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re at a significant disadvantage against the Toralii. In terms of capitol ships they outnumber us many times over, their fighters are better, their weapons are stronger, and their hulls tougher. We’re their bitches, ladies and gentlemen.
“So we need someone who can take on the Toralii. Those fuzzy fuckers are pissed off because we have jump drive, in violation of their laws, and our choices essentially boil down to surrendering the technology or face open warfare. I like my toys, and as much as it galls me to ally with those psychotic reptiles, I am nobody’s bitch.”
Lion rolled his shoulders. “Cute, but count me out. I signed up for search and rescue duty, not suicide.”
Whispers and mutterings filling the briefing room. Not volunteering for a dangerous mission was entirely different from refusing one. Lion might as well have asked to be reassigned to a desk job. “That’s your right,” Iron said. “Lieutenant Rubens, looks like you’ll need another ventral gunner.”
“Yes, sir.” Gutterball’s face was even and controlled. Most would have thought she was accepting Lion’s absence without complaint, just being professional, but I knew better. She got this way sometimes with the heavy stuff. The madder she got, the calmer she appeared, then later she would get even. I imagined that, at some point in the near future, the contents of Lion’s quarters would be mysteriously dumped into the trash chute.
Shaba, on the other hand, looked downright furious. She leaned over to one of the other pilots and muttered something I didn’t catch, her hands gripping her seat, physically restraining herself. I tried to picture exactly how she was planning on murdering Lion. Pickaxe to the upper vertebra? Airlock into space? Hand grenade in his sleeping quarters?
The murmurs rose in the room but nobody volunteered. That didn’t seem right. A flight crew was supposed to be a team. The whole ship was a team. The Piggyback had saved my life only a couple of weeks ago and now Lion had embarrassed them in front of the entire flight roster. Shaba obviously wanted this mission and I owed them one. Before I knew what I was doing I opened my mouth.
“Sir? Since I’m not doing anything else useful, I volunteer to be Piggyback’s ventral gunner for the mission.”
Iron paused, dropping his eyes to my injured side. “You’re off the roster for a reason.”
“I can work a turret, sir.” I nodded for emphasis. “With your permission.”
“You’ll need a medical clearance.” He glanced to Gutterball. “Your call, Lieutenant.”
“I’m happy to take him if it’ll get us out in space, Major, he’s got one hell of a debt to work off. Don’t worry, I’ll have our flight doc’ make sure he’s good to go.”
I could see he wasn’t happy with the arrangement. “Very well,” said Iron, “Request approved. Your crew departs in thirty minutes.”
Hanger Bay
TFR Sydney
The hanger bay was cramped, more so now that it had a small crowd of Humans all jostling for a look at our alien guest. He was tall for a Kel-Voran, standing at nearly five feet high, his skin a mottled reptilian green and covered in tiny scales. We’d been shown pictures of Kel-Voran and they had always appeared pretty tough, but this guy looked as though one solid blow would snap him in half.
I got the distinct impression that he didn’t like us one bit.
Then he spoke, baring the tips of his razor sharp and polished white teeth. His lips didn’t match the words he spoke and a small box around his throat flashed as the pitch of his voice rose and fell. “I am Belvarn the Undying, son of Vrald the Blood-Soaked. I am prepared to depart.”
“I’m Lieutenant Jane Rubens,” said Gutterball, “I’m the commander of this vessel. I welcome you on behalf of Task Force Resolution.”
The Kel-Voran folded his thin and bony arms, staring intently at Gutterball. “Your welcome is unnecessary.”
She reached up and ran a hand across her bald head. “Well. Very well, then.”
Ginger leaned in close to my shoulder. “Nice dress,” he whispered, “The poor bastard looks like Priscilla, Queen of the Space Desert.”
He did too. He was clad in a strange garment that I thought looked distinctly like a long flowing dress made of feathers. Each feather was long and thick, coloured a garish unattractive mix of gold and brown as though someone had dyed then skinned a peacock and made a dress out of it. Not to mention he smelled a bit flowery, a strange mixture of scents that was a marked contrast to the metal and sweat of the flight crew.
The alien barely turned his head, examining Mace with what I swore was a mixture of curiosity and contempt. The translated voice coming from the box was tone dry, pissy and full of emotion, rather than the stale robot voice I was expecting. “Lieutenant Jane Rubens, you have an extraordinarily large amount of ground troops present. Who is this?”
Everyone seemed confused by the question. I certainly was.
“I’m nobody,” said Mace, “and I’m not a soldier. I’m part of the flight crew.”
“Very well, Nobody. I accept your explanation for your presence.”
I got the distinct impression that he did not.
“It’s quite alright,” said Gutterball, “We have a lot to learn from each other. We can discuss it on the journey, if you like, since we’ll be seated together. A chat would be enjoyable.”
The Kel-Voran narrowed his eyes, his visage stern. “I am not on this journey to enjoy myself, Humans. Let us have my enslavement over with quickly, I have no mind to tarry.”
“Curious,” said Gutterball, “Why the hurry? Is the wedding time sensitive?”
The Kel-Voran stiffened and straightened his back. “I do not desire to speak of this.” He brushed down the long dress with his slender hands, turning to the Broadsword. “Let us depart as soon as possible.”
“Of course. Step right this way, please.”
The two stepped onto the loading ramp of the vessel as Gutterball tried, again, to engage him in conversation. Belvarn and his pretty feathery dress disappeared into the ship’s insides and, keeping my voice low, I mumbled to the others.
“Not much fun, is he?”
Bobbitt leaned on Mace’s shoulder. “Enslavement? That’s a bit rough. Isn’t he supposed to be on his way to his wedding?”
I looked across the flight deck to the door to the pilot’s ready room, imagining the wall of lockers inside and the ring I had stashed in mine.
“Apparently.” I dismissed the distracting thoughts from my mind. “Whatever. Let’s get the pre-flight done.”
As a Wasp pilot, I hadn’t really spent as much time with the Broadswords as I probably should have, but I was qualified to act as a gunner. I’d had plenty of practice in simulations and the principle (and a lot of the hardware) was the same.
Still, I figured a re-familiarisation with the Broadsword was in order. As the others got busy I reached out, touching the hull, slowly wal
king around the large craft.
The Lockheed-Chengdu AH-48 Broadsword was a stocky, lumpy brick, not exactly a thing of beauty. Almost sixty metres long, it weighed in at sixteen tonnes and was clad in the same armour as the rest of the ship.
I’d be taking the ventral gun position, which was underneath the bird. The Broadsword was armed with four quad auto-cannon arrangements; one on the top, bottom and rear, and one set of fixed guns in the front operated by the pilot. Short, stubby missile racks extended out from each side, running almost the length of the ship, heavily loaded with short and medium ranged missiles.
All in all, the ship was a brawler. It was designed to get into a cloud of enemy fighters, guns blazing and missiles flying everywhere, all the while taking a ridiculous amount of punishment and still fly.
Best of all it had a compact, low power jump drive on-board, which would be the cornerstone to our mission into Kel-Voran space.
“Beautiful, ain’t she?” Shaba said from behind me.
I laughed dismissively, waving a hand at the ungainly vessel. “It’s a pig with wings.”
“A pig with wings and a fuckload of guns,” Shaba said, “and it’s tough as nails. Built by the most advanced technology Lockheed had to offer, then given a thick slathering of Chengdu Corporation over-engineering. Throw in some European Union-required safety checks and workmanship verification to round it out, and what you have is a really solid, tough platform that can do basically anything you ask it to.” She smirked slightly. “‘Cept win beauty contests.”
“Well, you know, I do have a lot of respect for ugly pieces of shit that can kick arse,” I said, rubbing my hand along one of the armoured plates that lined the hull.
Shaba snorted. “‘Cept you can’t kick arse.”
“What? You thought I was talking about me? I’m not ugly, I was talking about you!” I spent enough time with them for Shaba to know know when I was nervous. That was kind of nice to know. It helped. “So. We have jump coordinates, yeah?”
Shaba tapped a manila folder full of papers. “You bet. We’re waiting for the paperwork to be finalised before we strap in and get out of here.” She stopped smiling and hugged the folder to her chest. “You sure you can do this, Mags? Smoke says you’re good for it, but...”
I thumped on my chest. “We’ll find out soon enough, won’t we?”
I had this in the bag.
Inside Piggyback
Hanger Bay
TFR Sydney
I opened the hatch to the gunner’s compartment and stared down at the small space. The turret was cramped. I was pretty tall for a pilot which made the comparatively roomy Wasp cockpit a fairly tight squeeze, but the turret was significantly worse.
Claustrophobes need not apply. I unhooked my sidearm and placed it on the dashboard, inhaled, and squeezed into the tiny seat. Settled in as comfortably as humanly possible I reached up and put the headset over my head.
Moments later, Gutterball’s voice spoke into my ears. “Initiating pre-flight launch sequence. All elements radio check.”
Shaba answered first. “Stick, check. Green light.”
“Gutterball, this is Mace. Dorsal turret is active, weapons safe. Green light.”
It was my turn. I triple checked my instruments, then reached out for the control column and levelled the turret parallel to the deck of the Sydney below. I gave it a full three-sixty horizontal spin to test the movement and verified the weapon safety was on. “Magnet here. Ventral turret active, weapons safe. Green light.”
“Bobbitt here, tail-gun active, weapons safe. Green light.”
“Gutterball, Ginger. Bags packed and ready to go.”
“Smoke here. Ready for departure.”
A moment’s silence, then energy began to build within the ship, a quiet hum that was the signal that the ship’s reactionless drive was active. The sound reverberated though turret as it grew; ships made noise within atmospheres such as the hanger bay, but out in space it would be as quiet as a hunting owl, just like every other ship, missile, asteroid, and chunk of space debris. The noise softened as the air was pumped from the hanger bay, the engine’s hum slowly fading away to nothing.
As the Broadsword lifted off, the metal deck shrank away and became a river of metal moving only meters below me. Being so close to the deck, facing straight down, was discomforting. My instincts lied, told my gut the ship was inches away from smashing against the unyielding runway. I forced myself to be rational. Shaba was a good pilot. She’d done this countless times. We were in no danger, or so I kept telling myself. Years of training was hard to ignore.
The blast doors of the Sydney’s hanger bay silently slid open. The metal hanger deck below me was suddenly replaced by a sea of stars, tiny gems on a blanket of black velvet, the light of the heavens welcoming us as the ship cleared the launch bay and banked towards Mars.
The Sydney shrank away as Piggyback sailed towards the jump point. Soon it was just another bright dot in the sky. Without that frame of reference, even swinging my turret perpendicular to the ship’s nose, the stars didn’t seem to move at all. If I hadn’t of known better I’d have sworn the ship was completely still.
I shifted in my seat, getting myself slightly more comfortable. Or, at least, slightly less uncomfortable. Something dug into my side. The holster was too bulky. I removed it too, placing it beside the handgun.
“Gunnery crew, check weapons.”
I flicked the safety off, pointing my four guns out to nothing, then squeezed the trigger for just shy of a quarter of a second. There was almost no sound except for a slight hum, probably caused by vibrations from the weapons being transmitted through the metal of the airframe. The flash of the weapons was surprisingly bright. The short burst sent four streams of explosive shells flying out towards nothing.
“Gutterball, Magnet. Ready to rock and roll.”
“We’re a glorified bus service. We neither rock nor roll.”
I clicked the safety back on. Now there was nothing to do but wait as the ship travelled towards the Sol system blockade. Mars grew ahead of us, the dusty red planet filling more and more of the starfield.
After the Toralii attacked Earth, humanity had defended themselves by laying gravity mines at the jump points around the whole system, save one near Mars. This one, Cerberus, was open but absolutely crawling with gun batteries, nuke batteries, fighters and Broadswords, with a few railguns on giant pivot turrets in case larger ships jumped in. The last line of defense was a dozen gravity mines. If the blockade was overrun, the defenders could turn off this jump point too.
None of the weapons, grim and silent, paid us any attention as we slid into the Lagrange point.
“Sydney, this is the Broadsword Piggyback. We are at the Lagrange point and ready to jump.”
“Copy that, Piggyback. Good hunting.”
There was a soft whine as the ship’s jump drive gained power, then a brief flash of light visible through the turret window as the ship leaped across the stars towards Kel-Voran space.
Inside Piggyback
Deep within Kel-Voran Space
When the ship reappeared, and the light of the jump faded, we were in a very different section of space. In a cockpit, I got used to looking at stars, but none of the constellations I could see from Earth were visible; whereever we were, it was nowhere near home.
The sky was a red-yellow splattering of colour and I realised that this planet was near a giant nebula. Almost directly below the ship was a dirt-brown planet with sparse oceans and clouds, backlit by this system’s star. Light from the nebula ringed the planet in a luminescent halo, glowing gold and red as though the whole system were wreathed in flame. It gave the whole system a ghostly, ethereal look. I wished I’d brought a camera.
“Jump complete,” came Gutterball’s voice, “All elements check in.”
Everyone rattled off again, including me.
“Cooling the jump drive and moving to condition four. Shaba, embark for waypoint Bravo.”
/> The tiny ship turned and began moving towards the planet. I heard Mace’s voice.
“Pretty, ain’t it. I guess there’s a reason the Kel-Voran call this the Blood Sky system.”
I touched the intercom. “Guess there is. Damn, why can’t we have a system as nice as this?”
Gutterball laughed. “I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas any more, Toto.”
“Maybe while I’m here I’ll check in with a real estate agent.”
“And have creepy reptiles for neighbours. Just imagine the housewarming.”
Everyone laughed and it was good. Being stuck in an unfamiliar system, surrounded by unfriendlies, a person could get a bit too tense. A bit jumpy, even. Pilots and crew were supposed to have two modes. Cool and cold. Joking made you seem relaxed, which helped others relax, too.
While I doubted I’d ever get bored of the view, the beauty of this place would be lost on Penny. She recently had an implant installed that gave her the ability to make out rough shapes and bright colours, and that was really it. She was still blind. It was unlikely she would see this sky as anything more than a giant red blob.
Maybe after this mission I’ll take some leave and propose. She’d be a beautiful bride. My bride. I wanted that and I never knew it more than when I was in the expansive black and nothingness of space. You found out what you really wanted out here, out where everything you wanted wasn’t. And everything you thought you wanted before, you didn’t miss. I loved Italian food, but I’d throw it away without a second thought. Personal truths were easy to come by in space.
Mine was Penny. With her, space was less empty.
The rest of the journey was made in silence, punctuated occasionally by work chatter. We tuned our radars, adjusted our gun sights and took radiation readings. Soon the planet loomed larger in my window, the light from the star creating a glare in my armoured canopy.
A blip on my targeting computer. The ship’s radar had found something. Four blue blobs, three smaller ones and a larger one, came up directly ahead and below. I swung the turret around and lined them up, applying maximum optical magnification. They were still too far to see. I pressed the talk key, hovering my sights over the red circles.