by M. D. Cooper
Her unintended alterations were one of the things that first caused Jessica’s friendship with Trist to blossom. Unbeknownst to many, Jessica’s physical alterations were not entirely elective, nor, unlike Tanis’s, were they done voluntarily in the line of duty.
It slipped out one night by the beach on the Intrepid when she and Trist had stayed late around the fire after everyone else had left.
They both had drank more than they should have, and Jessica had elected not to have her nano scrub her blood clean; rather, she was enjoying the high.
Trist appeared to have done the same and before long they were sharing stories from their pasts.
Jessica had never visited the Cho, but had always wanted to. Trist’s descriptions of humanities’ greatest engineering marvel were nothing like she had heard before. The former thief had been on every ring and seen corners of the structure Jessica had never heard of.
The story invariably led to Trist telling of her encounter with Trent in the warehouse.
Jessica had read the report, but never heard it from Trist directly, never knew the pain she still felt from the loss of her friend that day.
After hearing Trist’s tale she felt compelled to tell hers. It wasn’t one she shared often—heck it was a sealed record in the TBI archives—but Trist seemed like the right person to tell it to.
The rest, as they say, was history.
“Hey, space cadet, you there?” Trist’s voice snapped Jessica back into the world around her.
“Eh? Yeah, just lost in thought.”
Trist smiled. “Oh yeah? What about?”
Jessica laughed and gave their standard answer. “You, of course.”
“I doubt you heard, but we have three weeks to kill before we get to the fun part of this mission. What should we do?”
Jessica grinned. “Are you kidding? Three weeks here with no responsibility? That is the fun part.”
THE GAME’S UP
STELLAR DATE: 3283395 / 07.13.4277 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: ISS Andromeda
REGION: Interstellar Space, Outside Kapteyn’s Heliopause
The intervening weeks had passed uneventfully and Jessica now waited with the rest of the bridge crew at their stations while the helm officer executed his final maneuvers, bringing the ship into position to deploy the sensors.
The sensor net consisted of a hundred small probes which would spread out over several hundred thousand kilometers and form a massive antenna.
They could have used the system’s stellar sensor to scan for the Sirians, but hiding the results from the Victorians, and especially Myrrdan, would be impossible.
Fleetcom was certain Myrrdan had hooks into the stellar sensor array—otherwise it would have picked up the Sirians years earlier. Better to make him think his alterations had worked.
These sensors would only report to the Andromeda.
“We’re in position,” helm reported.
“Very good,” Joe said with a nod. “Trist, launch the probes.”
Trist nodded and emptied the ship’s missile tubes.
Joe brought up the departing projectiles on the bridge’s main holo. It showed the missiles arching away from the Andromeda, boosting hard to bring the probes to their final destinations. At pre-configured coordinates the missiles released their cargo and the probes began to spread out to their final locations.
Half an hour later, the probes were in their final positions and began to scan the region of space where the blip had been spotted. Joe flipped the main holo from displaying positions of the probes to the results of their scan, tossing the probe visual to a secondary projector.
Small objects flickered in and out as the array detected asteroids and comets in the Kap’s stellar halo. Corsia examined them all, checking vector and composition, removing each as they proved to be nothing more than ice and rock.
The array slowly panned through hundreds of millions of square kilometers of space, looking for heat, reflections, or radiation.
“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, she 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.