by Sean Kennedy
“Variables,” Jacob repeated and looked to Mac, who winked again.
“Variables, Jacob.” Slate said. “That which decides if you live or die, what you must control, or they will control you. Variables will surprise you, and a surprise in space is usually followed by a quick and merciless death. You must always consider the variables Jacob, and you’ll never know how many you're dealing with.”
Training reduces chance.
Slate raised his brow, “That right!” He said, “train hard, fight easy, but as you can see,” he motioned to the Kaizen, “there’s some training we can’t do just yet”
“That means there is some training I can do?”
“Indeed, there is.” Slate said. “We can simulate the navigator role for virtual training.”
“We don't know how much the Vade Mecum has implanted,” Mac said, “you may have some skills already, but the only way to know is to drop you in.”
Jacob felt himself trembling with anticipation, his mouth dry as he spoke, “Can I fly it now?”
“You tell me,” Slate said.
“I...” Jacob looked to Mac for support.
“What he means is, does the ship look familiar to you? Do you think you can fly it?”
“I don’t know,” Jacob said, “I think so.”
“Well then,” Slate said, squinting at the boy, “I suppose we’d better get you into the cockpit.” He walked towards the dropped ramp at the tail of the ship. “Come on!” Slate hollered, and Jacob was so excited, he almost jumped out of his power-boks. He hurried to the back ramp and realized Mac wasn’t following. He looked back to see Mac sliding up his A/VR goggles, giving Jacob a nod and a thumbs-up. Slate waited at the base of the narrow ramp that led up into the belly of the craft.
“You head up to the cockpit, we’ll be able to monitor you from the bench,” Slate said, and turned away. The big man's shoulders jerked as he suppressed a wet cough, ducking away from Jacob’s sight.
His Uncle’s coughing sounded terrible, but the pull of the cockpit was drawing him on, up the ramp and past the rear navigator’s position to the pilot’s seat under the sliding armored canopy.
Jacob tried to imagine either of his Uncles folding into the tight space, where clusters of switches and micro displays surrounding a central thruster stick like a sea of indicator lights and controls. He had hoped that once he was in the pilot’s seat, he would have the same intrinsic knowledge as with his armor, but it wasn't there. He felt a tremble of panic as he thought his visor closed. A prompt appeared in his HUD, ‘Synchronize with Rainwalker?’
Jacob confirmed the action as Mac's voice came through his helmets commlink, “testing-testing.”
“I can hear you.”
“I’ve got you too. It looks like your helmet has a solid connection, how’s it look?”
“Uh... confusing,” Jacob said.
“It's all right. Manual controls are something that we can work on. We learned the physical controls first, but let’s see if we can do it backwards,” Mac said. “What I want you to do, is establish a neural link with the simulation environment if you can. I'll be on comms to guide you, and if anything weird or too intense happens, just disconnect.”
“Will it affect when I can log back on? like Immersion?”
“No, this is a completely closed environment,” Mac said, “you're playing a game on a private server.”
“Okay,” Jacob said and tried to form a clear intention to enter the Rainwalker’s simulation.
Learning is accessing knowledge.
A prompt appeared in his HUD. Jacob confirmed it twice and dissolved into virtual reality. His senses warped and his body became undefined as his consciousness blasting out to find the limits of his new form. His neural interface adapted the ship's systems, and its data appeared in Jacob’s display. New camera eyes gave him a complete view of his exterior. The barn was gone, and he now hung in a star cruiser’s launch bay.
He accessed his hybrid saber engines, feeling the power of their potential energy. He flexed his wings, running through the navigation and weapons systems, as though stretching after a nap.
“In this simulation, try and launch to defend the ship,” Mac's voice said from inside him, as though Mac had become Jacob’s heart; his ribs and skin existing only to protect him. “If you run into trouble, don’t worry, just do the best you can.”
“Roger that Uncle Mac. Rainwalker launching now,” Jacob said, and shrugged off the overhead securing struts. He floated free in the star carrier launch bay, like a gladiator drifting towards the great colosseum of stars. The carrier’s doors slid open as the ringed launch exit flashed red.
He used his maneuvering jets, and feeling the subtle inertia from a couple minor corrections, Jacob pushed his thrusters to a maximum safe speed. Jacob flared his engines, pushing even faster as he passed through the launch gate.
Outside, past the doors, he pivoted and fired twin jets of hard thrust away from the Space Corps Carrier, up and away as a deadly hunter seeking a kill.
The danger was highest when launching. A launch accident or incoming enemy fire through the open bay could not only destroy a ship, but cripple the carrier’s ability to launch other craft, so it was important to get clear quickly.
The Rainwalker spiraled into the starlit darkness and Jacob looked back to see the leviathan Space Corps Star Carrier as he swam away into the stars.
The ship’s data displayed:
'Space Corps Star Carrier Icke'
'36 Gunships'
'10 Recovery Craft'
'140 Crew'
'1000 days sustained flight'
'4 Jump Gate Engines'
Trivia rolled across his vision as the star carrier floated against the shifting starscape backdrop. He felt his momentum rippling through the bracing void as his engines powered through the turn.
A red planet filled his view above both them, like a god witnessing Jacob’s first flight. Jacob cut the hybrid saber engines and listened to the spectrum’s star-song drift on the solar wind. Here, he was a weapon; a blade unsheathed and ready for the fight.
His HUD modeled a star map, showing distance and bearing to another carrier over a thousand kilometers away. A holographic banner stretched beneath them, showing the navigational barrier over an asteroid field like a crimson wall.
A single fighter launched from the distant cruiser and raced towards the Icke, approaching on an attack vector. Jacob felt a surge as he opened his guns ports and dropped a weapon turret. The HUD schematic identified and highlighted the inbound craft as an enemy Legion fighter, the kind of pirate raider that crippled transport ships and mining vessels.
Jacob fired a ferrous slug from the turreted rail cannon; an easy shot with the target moving in a straight trajectory. The shot hit and the fighter imploded into a silent orange flash.
“Target destroyed. Engaging source,” Jacob said and slipped open his missile bays, unleashing sixteen missiles as extensions of his will. He engaged the hybrid engines as the weapons swept away, surfing on their blasting candles as the warheads swarmed and raced in a twisting cloud towards the Legion carrier.
His sensors relayed that eight craft had launched from the carrier’s far side, wisely keeping their bay doors concealed from battle. Eight fighters curved out like hooks as they moved to intercept him.
He slipped the consciousness extensions of the missiles to the back of his mind as he dove, blasting towards the asteroid field’s red wall. He passed through the glowing HUD projection and raced by the first few floating rocks as all eight of the Legion fighters launched a counter missile battery. He cut the hybrid engines and maneuvered with his thrusters as he twisted between two lazy asteroid giants, each larger than a star carrier.
To get past these eight fighters, he had to make the environment his ally. He cut all active sensors, engaging a stealth protocol to hide amongst the floating giants.
The fire burns friend and foe alike.
Seven warheads were intercept
ed by the Legion’s missiles in strobing flashes, but one slipped through, deflected at the last moment by a detonation. Jacob felt the explosions and snap-steered the last rocket, making it fly as though damaged, but towards the Legion Fighters.
The leader bought Jacob’s ruse, and as the warhead careened to where Jacob modeled the pack, he triggering the detonation like throwing a punch in the dark, catching one fighter in the warhead’s fury.
Legion missiles came tearing into the meteorite cloud, detonating past the red nav-barrier, unable to make the subtle adjustments to maneuver through the field. Their explosions smashed the floating debris like billiards balls, sending dangerous stone fragments careening into the larger space rock.
Three fighters broke away, and Jacob could tell they meant to pursue him in the field, the remaining four turned back, thrusters burning towards the Legion carrier keeping themselves between the nav-barrier and their mother ship.
Jacob pushed deeper into the field, where ever-larger asteroids rotated to grind anything caught between them like cosmic millstones. He had to feel his way through the gravity wells, but to touch one asteroid meant destruction, either from the space rock or from giving away his position.
He drifted between billions of tons of inertia, relying on the subtle feedback of his naked skin like drafts in dark room as he shifted, dancing among the shadows of a deeper field. He floated into an asteroid crater, matching its rotation to disappear behind its rim.
An explosion flashed, and Jacob felt radiation rain down on his hull as one of the Legion’s fighters failed a maneuver and disintegrated along a rough rolling surface.
Using the red planet as a reference point, Jacob stared between the crater rim and the rotating giants like he was looking through a bunker's gun port. Peering into the blackness, he saw the four waiting fighters searching for him, drifting in a staggered line as their targeting systems scanned.
Jacob considered a plan.
He reached into his weapon systems, taking four warheads and connecting their guidance together so he could control all four as one, and ejected them. They drifted close together, clustered like scared children as Jacob considered the calculations. A two-second bun would get the missiles moving, but he'd be seen if they launched from here. He needed a distraction.
As the clutch of missiles floated, Jacob edged his cockpit out from behind the crater rim, until he spotted one of the two Legion hunters still searching in the field as it slipped below the horizon near the opposite side of his asteroid.
In the shadow, Jacob launched a single missile, letting it follow the curve of the asteroid’s surface out of his view before it detonated, sending debris flying in all directions. Before its explosion could collapse, Jacobs four-warhead-clutch had burned .4 of a second and were now tumbling out of the asteroids debris, towards the four Legion ships. Jacob felt them drifting away, the celestial radiation feedback on his senses mixing into his HUD’s targeting model as he watched over the crater’s rim.
The two Legion hunters didn’t know where he was, but now they would have a pretty good idea. Jacob feathered his thrusters around his body, dropping the Rainwalker deeper into the crater as another space giant drifted closed, as ripples of blast physics drove the two massive bodies together.
In the crushing darkness Jacob felt the momentous tremors through his frame as the two giants bounced off of each other, but he was unscathed.
He realized he’d lost track of the two field hunters as the giants separated, no doubt they were waiting for him to make his move. He waited the eternal moments until his HUD showed the missile clutch had drifted far enough, and he detonated the four warheads.
The blast was too far from even the closest fighter for the explosion to reach them, but it did reach the smaller rock and stone fragments, making them deadly shrapnel. Slivers of space rock peppered the fighters like bird shot, and two immediately folded in upon themselves before drifting dead in the vacuum of space.
After a brief flicker, the third fighter lost power and joined the deadly drift as the fourth broadcast an emergency signal and drifted towards the holographic nav-barrier.
Jacob came to life and slid around the space boulder to have a clear view of the Legion carrier. He opened his weapons bay and launched ten missiles in a weaving cluster towards it. There was no stealth, no special burn, just the dedicated fire of weapons racing to their target.
He felt them clear the field, and Jacob opened the volley, spreading them as wide as they sped towards the silhouetted target against the red planet.
Thirty-two counter battery missiles launched from the enemy carrier, thrusters screaming their defense of light and smoke as they danced, pitting Jacob against the Legion’s tactical defense computers.
He knew in the moments before missile on missile engagement it's important to project false data without looking like you are projecting it. Every spin must appear to be adjusting to an optimal angle, adapting to an enemy's attack; like two martial artists, watching their opponent's footwork as they approached.
Jacob kept his warhead engines at full thrust. The Legion ship was big enough that precision wouldn’t be necessary for a hit. The missiles met in the vacuum of space. Final corrections let primary targets seek secondary targets, detonating as a last-ditch effort to stop Jacob’s oncoming attack.
A war storm erupted in the darkness, and Jacob danced his remaining six missiles through the Legion’s explosions, riding their blast wave towards the carrier.
There was a moment, when the crew would have understood Jacob’s missiles weren’t destroyed; long seconds spent waiting to be hit by weapons traveling twenty times the speed of sound. The scales of justice would weigh heavily as their lives flashed before their eyes.
Jacob’s six missiles impacted the carrier and ripped holes like fire blossoms along its Martian silhouette. Flares erupted as secondary explosions ruptured the carrier’s hull, and the red planet bore witness to their passing.
Jacob fired his engines, watching for the two Legion fighters he knew remained in the field hunting him. In the clearing of his missile clutch blast, Jacob spun his Rainwalker body as alarm systems came alive, showing two warheads inbound; far closer than they should have been as they burned into view straight towards him.
Jacob fired his twin mag-cannons. He was a double fisted gunfighter, firing from the hip to catch the two incoming missiles in his spray. The first missile was struck exploded, and Jacob saw his hunters drop from the rock cloud, trying to catch him off balance as he dealt with the rocket attack.
Jacob flex fired six more warheads in a spread pattern, each missile detonating at their minimum safe distance to form a blast shield that smashed the remaining missile, and he rotated to intercept the fighters.
A single blast from the turret's rail gun had the power of a missile, but not the versatility. Cannons had the disadvantage only firing line of sight, but what they lacked in grace, they made up for in power and speed. One could defeat and deflect missiles, but nothing stops accurate gunfire.
Jacob’s railgun fire slammed into the fighter’s cockpit, and the front Legion ship detonated in a bright blast, winking out of existence in a blue oxygen flame against the blackness of space. His second burst stitched the body of the last fighter, and it began to tumble before erupting in a fire-sphere.
He rolled, twisting in the void like a flipping coin and leveled off, speeding towards the Legion carrier. Flame belched like thruster flares from the carrier’s wounds, burning precious atmospheres in long torch flames.
The carrier was crippled, but Jacob expected them to launch escape pods and fighters as he opened his saber hybrid engines to full power. With a steady burn, Jacob raced to the far side of the Legion craft, ready to attack any launch bays he could target.
More explosions erupted across ship; lazy at first and then grew faster, punching through the hull until the carrier’s core slipped its bonds and unleashed a furious nuclear blast.
The nuclear fire colla
psed, and darkness closed in on all sides. Jacob fell back into his human body and jerking awake, finding himself back in the Rainwalker's cockpit.
'Simulation terminated by an administrator,' flashed on his HUD display, and only then did Jacob realized just how heavily he was breathing.
“Okay, you can come out of there,” Jacob heard Mac say through his helmet.
Jacob pulled himself from the seat and found he had to use the ship's interior for balance as he made his way down the ramp. Still disoriented from the ground rush, Jacob took a second to lean against the landing strut before walking out into the soft light of the shop.
Mac and Slate were talking in hushed tones, looking at the bench displays next to the still seated Kaizen, but stopped as Jacob stepped towards them.
“How’d I do?” Jacob asked. Mac’s eyes showed a hint of pride, but Slates eyes betrayed nothing.
“It's going to take some time to analyze the mission,” Slate said, “but you did well.”
Jacob smiled and waited for something else, but an awkward silence began to grow.
“Tell me,” Mac said at last, “how was it when you piloted the ship? You said that you didn’t know about the cockpit controls.”
“Yeah, I had no idea," Jacob said, “but with the neural link, it was okay I thought.”
Mac and Slate exchanged a glance, “Can you explain what you experience when you are piloting the ship?” Mac asked.
“Oh, sure…” Jacob said, thinking of how to describe it, “…it's like I become the Rainwalker.”
“What do you mean, become?” Slate asked.
“It's like right now, like how I'm piloting my body,” Jacob said.
“Come again?” Slate cocked his head.
“Well....I don’t mean to sound like...”
“It’s okay lad,” Mac said, “go on.”
“Well... when I'm walking around, I’m not thinking about walking around, my body is doing it, and I am just along for the ride. I don't have to think about how to move my muscles for each step, my brain does all that for me. I just take a step forwards because that’s what I want to do.” Jacob said