“Whoa, that didn’t feel so good, I think I’m gonna be sick,” T-Rave says.
“Please don’t, this compartment is very small, just keep your eyes on the targets.”
More green fire launches itself from the hidden tubing in the side of the fuselage. The enemy ships get closer; matching the speed of the opposing ships had been smart.
“Strafe right, sensors are showing that two targets have reversed their thrusters and are now behind us.”
I look over my head franticly; two ships directly behind us, shooting weapons of their own.
“Oh no you don’t, you did not just shoot that red shit at me!”
I deploy flares from the rear compartments in hopes that it’ll stop some of the bolts of energy that are flying towards us.
Explosions shake the air around the ship as the flares take effect on the energy bolts. “What the hell? One of the ships behind us just went off the sensors.”
I glance over my shoulder; an object is falling out of the sky, like a bird that’s lost the will to fly.
“Hmm, ok I think those flares did more than what they’re originally intended for.”
“How?” T-Rave asks.
“Whatever the ships are shooting at us had a reaction to the flares. The flares that had been hit exploded; they must have knocked out the engines on one of the ships. That must be why there’s only one of them now.”
“Well, good to know, we wouldn’t happen to have any more now would we?”
“Nope, fresh out. We only had one bursts worth.”
I continue to dodge more enemy fire, weaving in and out of the clouds, hoping to make myself less visible to the following ship. Probably useless though, the ship that’s following us probably relies on sensors and technology, not the naked eye.
If we don’t get rid of that following ship soon we’ll probably both be dead soon.
“Hang on, do exactly what they did,” T-Rave suggests.
“And what exactly is that?”
“Reverse your thrusters, get behind them so I can take him out, the mounted cannons on this tin can doesn’t turn around far enough, I can’t target stuff behind us.”
I look for the thruster control panel, my fingers fly over the controls to find the right command code that will allow me to reverse the thrusters. It isn’t an ordinary combat tactic, which is why it isn’t already programmed directly as a subroutine.
“Got it, hold on,” I say, hitting the panel directly on the activation command.
The ship stops instantly, the ships dead point lasts only fractions of a second after it stopped before flying in reverse. I don’t even have to check over my shoulder to see if the following ship is still behind us. The entire ship rattles as the enemy ship shoots past us.
“Shoot it!”
The air around us lights up with green bursts, followed by an explosion as T-Rave hits his mark.
I put the thrusters back to forward power.
“Three down, seven to go. Wait, where are the others?”
“Scanners are showing they’re right on top of us,” T-Rave says.
“What does that mean? They’re nowhere to be seen, unless…Oh shit!” I switch the engines to max power; the ship begins to climb vertically.
“Get that trigger finger ready,” I say.
“Are you nuts!?” He yells.
It definitely isn’t what the enemy ships are expecting; none of them begin to fire until we’re only a kilometer away from them.
Green and red bursts collide in the air, illuminating the clouds around them in great beams of light.
The encounter lasts only ten seconds max, with half of the ships destroyed in the first pass.
A shudder rocks the ship; surprisingly we aren’t hit from any oncoming fire.
“Uh, Colonel?”
“What is it Captain?”
“The engines are failing; don’t ask me why I’m not an engineer.”
“We didn’t get hit did we?”
“Not that I can tell, sensors would have picked up anything that could damage the hull.”
“Shit, we’re stalling out!”
“This is some of the newest technology. How the hell could we be stalling out?”
“All technology is the same Captain; people just fail to realize it.”
I try to level out the ship, only to be stopped when all the controls go dark.
“Power's out in all systems,” T-Rave states.
“You know, you have a talent for stating the obvious, did you know that?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“How high up are we?”
“Twenty four clicks and falling rapidly.”
“Initiating a full engine restart.”
“Won’t it take too long?”
“Hey, unless you got any ideas then spit them out, I’m in the pilot seat, and that means that I make the decisions.”
“Ok, here we go.” I say, transferring power from all offline systems directly into the engine output.
“It’s not working!” T-Rave says.
“Don’t panic, just give it a minute!”
“Fifteen kilometers and still falling!”
I look above my head and through the viewport, looking straight at the ground. The ship is falling in a spinning motion instead of falling in a straight line.
“Try the reboot again.” Panic rises in his voice as he says it.
I hit the reboot button again, the engines whine in response as they begin to fire up.
“Ten clicks and still falling.”
“It’s still not working!” I yell.
“Try it again!”
The engines continue to whine as they attempt to boot up, maybe all they need is a little more power to get them started up.
I pull up the inertial dampeners console; I switch everything offline and I transfer the power to the engines.
“What the hell are you doing? We need those!” T-Rave screams at me.
“We won’t need them if we crash genius. When the engines come back online then I will divert whatever power I can back to the inertial dampeners.”
I try to reboot the engines, the whining seems to last longer and is louder, hopefully that means that it’s working.
“What's our altitude?”
“Seven clicks up, this better work, I didn’t come all this way just to end up as a pancake!”
“Don’t worry it’ll work.”
The engines burst to life in a glow of fire.
“Yes! Alright, I’m leveling us out.”
The engine console beeps at me hysterically.
“Uh oh, we got another problem,” I say.
“What is it?”
“The power that is being transferred is getting stopped in the buffer.”
“What does that mean?”
“The pipes plugged.”
“Didn’t the engines fire though?”
“Very briefly, the amount of force that was directed through the buffer pushed a certain amount into the engines.”
“That slowed our decent by a little bit, but we’re still falling, three point two and still dropping,” T-Rave says, “and our speed is increasing again.”
“Got any ideas?” I ask.
“Didn’t Cofield say that this ship could go as fast as Mach four?” T-Rave says.
“You’re a genius Captain.”
“I know. Now hit it!”
I slap my whole hand down on the red button in the middle of the consoles. The Engines react by spewing fire and energy out from the rear thrusters.
“Lock your armour!” I yell.
I hit the eject button that will detach our entire cockpit out into midair. Nothing happened.
Accelerating to Mach 4 was a desperate measure; it pushed the engines to the max. Even with the ‘clogged pipe’, enough energy had been able to pass through the buffer and into the engine.
We hadn’t really accelerated entirely into Mach 4, but we get close. Close enough that we’ve gone several kil
ometers in just a matter of seconds, giving us no time to react other than to lock our armour in order to survive the crash.
The impact as the ship crashes through the trees is moderate compared with hitting the ground hundreds of meters below. The Kelownial Rain Forest is an ancient place; the size of the trees confirms it.
I don’t even have time to register that I’ve bit my lip while crashing through the treetops.
****
I can taste blood in my mouth as I begin to regain consciousness. My vision is blurry, intricate patterns are flickering in front of me.
I reach my hand towards them, not knowing what to expect, the glove on my hand begins to tingle and warm up.
Flames.
Something is on fire. I’m trapped in it.
Something begins to crackle in my ear, a voice.
“Come on Colonel, we need to get out of here.”
I start to become more lucid.
“What happened?” I manage to say.
“We went down, don’t you remember?”
Images flash through my mind, images of the sky, and trees. Right, our engines malfunctioned. We crashed here, now I remember.
“Help me up; I can't move anything but my hand.”
“Your armour lock is still on, and don’t even ask me how you can move your hand, that kind of defeats the purpose of a full armour lock-up.”
I locate the armour lock controls in my HUD and deactivate it. My arms and head drop in response unexpectedly.
“That’s better,” I say.
“Yeah,” he looks around, “ok, as I said before we need to get out of here and find a safe place to camp. Who knows where we are.”
“Wasn’t it light out when we went down?” I ask, I notice that it was almost pitch black out.
“Yeah, we did. I’m not sure how long we have been unconscious. Long enough that it’s dark out and not to long seeing as the remains of our ship is still on fire,” T-Rave says.
I look over to the ship that T-Rave had dragged me out of; there’s virtually nothing left but two seats and could pass as the right wing.
“How are we still alive after crashing like that?”
“Well, as far as I know when you’re in armour lock; you’re almost impenetrable. If anything does manage to get through its hit by a kinetic energy field. That’s probably why we survived.”
“Good enough for me.”
“Well, in any case we’re lucky, let's radio the Captain, see if he’s anywhere near our position.”
“Why do we need to do that? We know the way to the mines,” I ask.
“We need to get an evac outta here; we lost most of our gear in the crash. We should come back with more men; it was a mistake coming here with just the two of us.”
“That’s enough Captain. We were both assigned to this mission; this is a recon op, that’s why there is only two of us. Now get your head straight, we’re not leaving until the mission is done or until we’re dead.”
“Yes Sir, I still think that we should contact Comets End.”
“Why would that do any good?”
“We need to know if they were pursued after we crashed and that they weren’t blown out of the sky. Worst case scenario is that we need a new exit plan when this thing goes south.”
I walk around the crash site kicking small pebbles that lie on the forest floor to ease my mind…worth a try.
“Comets End, this is Colonel Woods, do you read me?”
I pause.
“Comets End, I repeat, this is Colonel Woods, do you read me?”
“Do you think they were killed?” T-Rave asks.
“Possibly, I would hope not though, it’d take too much time to try to raise T.A.R. Base and call for an evac Dropship.”
I pick through the charred and twisted remains of the ship, trying to find if anything useful has survived the crash.
“Colo…his….field…ou…opy,” a voice crackles over the intercom.
“Captain, try and clean up that broadcast, we need a clearer signal.”
From what I can see T-Raves just standing there doing nothing, but in reality he’s probably going through his HUD through the communications systems and trying to strengthen the intercom signal to get better reception.
“There Colonel, try it now.”
“Comets End, this is Colonel Woods, do you copy?” I say once more.
More static crackles over the intercom.
“I read you Woods. Where the hell have you been? We have been trying to make contact with you for hours,” Jayon’s voice says over the intercom.
“Well, thought we would have ourselves a nice little nap.”
“Do you need a pickup? Is that why you have been out of radio contact? Did you complete your mission?” He says hopefully.
“We haven’t even started yet Captain,” I say in response, cutting off all his hopes and dreams.
“What? Why?”
“Last thing I remember before the crash was flying through the air, and then hurtling towards the ground because our engines overheated, or something. Next thing I know I’m in the burning wreckage of the ship we were in.”
“You owe me a ship Colonel. Hmm, well in all seriousness, you boys better get back at it, I’m not sure if it’s entirely wise to do that right now though. It’s getting dark pretty fast.”
“Actually Captain that’s exactly what we are going to do, it’s always better to do a recon op in the dark, makes you harder to be seen by unwanted eyes. And can you do me a favor Captain?” I say.
“Depends on what it is.”
“I need you to scan for us how far we are away from our objective. There is no way to tell how far away it is.”
“Hang on; I’ll get Krystil to run a scanner for you.”
I wait patiently.
“Alright, scans tracked the heat signature of the ship to be about sixteen kilometers away from your original drop point. That makes you about twenty clicks from the mining operation."
“Well then, good luck to you both, that is; if the Captain is also alive?”
“Yes the Captain survived the crash as well.”
“Good, good. Well I won’t hold you off from your mission, good luck boys. Jayon out.”
“Did you catch any of that, Captain?” I ask.
“Course I did, that wasn’t a private channel.”
“Alright, lets head out, there’s nothing here worth salvaging. We need to find a nice place near the objective to pitch camp and wait till morning; we can't pull anything off when it’s dark.”
“Except recon.”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much it.”
“Lead the way Colonel,” he gestures forward with his hand.
I walk away from the burning wreckage, heading due east towards the mining operation; Jayon uploaded the direction into our HUD Nav-Point while we were talking.
“Are we really going to walk twenty clicks in one night?”
“That’s the idea; I’m not stopping until I pass out from exhaustion.”
“See, that’s the thing, the crash really took it outta me.”
“A little sore are we?”
“Yeah you could say that.”
“Well, we’ll walk a few clicks first and take a quick rest. Deal?”
“Deal.”
The sky is getting darker and darker by the minute, more and more stars begin to peak through the veil of clouds in the night sky.
The stars gradually disappear as the clouds rolls in and the rain begins to pour down. It is a rain forest after all; one has to assume it’s going to rain every day. The one thing that’s weird however is that a mining operation is happening in the middle of a tropical rain forest. It’d be almost impossible to mine anything in the sheer amounts of mud that would come cascading down from the alpine topography all around.
“Ok Colonel, we’ve been walking for far too long, I think it’s time we take a break,” T-Rave says, he doesn’t stop walking though.
“Alright, let’s
stop for a while,” I say, “but first, let’s find somewhere that we can make camp. If we make camp here, we’ll be easily spotted by any patrols. Let’s just head over that ridge, I’ll provide a little bit of cover for us.”
“Sounds good.”
I zoom in with my helmet into the ridge and scan it, a small ravine right over the ridge, a perfect spot to make camp and avoid unfriendly eyes.
“Well, it looks like a good spot,” T-Rave says; he must’ve scanned the ridge as well.
“Ok, let’s move out then. We should be cooking food over a nice warm fire in just a few minutes,” I say.
“And how are we supposed to do that with it pouring down on us?”
“Don’t worry, I got it all covered.”
It takes us a few minutes to walk over to the campsite, raining harder and harder by the time we make it into the ravine. T-Rave’s right, making the fire is the easy part, finding dry wood is the hard part.
“Ok, set up camp over there in between those two trees, I’ll try and find some wood.”
“Set up camp with what?”
“Here, take this, It’s a new kind of material. Its highly compact, making it extremely useful,” I say, reaching down to the small compartment that’s built into my leg plates, I pull out a small package and throw it to T-Rave.
“What's this?”
“It’s a hut, open it over there in between those two trees, that’s the most level area around here that we’ll be able to find.”
“Wow, highly compact alright, I have a new appreciation for people that make this kind of tech,” he says, unclipping the buckles on the side to release the contents inside the container.
While T-Rave fiddles away with the portable hut I go in search for firewood that’d be dry enough to light on fire. Difficult to find any suitable wood worth burning, the rain is coming down hard. The wetness doesn’t bother me at all, being in armour kept me perfectly warm. You could only be in it for so long before you needed to give your body fresh air.
It takes me a few minutes to find suitable wood that will burn, the wood had been hidden from sight underneath a cluster of small boulders, the shelter had kept it dry enough.
When I get back to the makeshift camp I see T-Rave standing outside in the rain, in nothing but his underwear.
“Enjoying the shower?” I say, opening the flap to the hut and dropping the wood in the center.
Siege of Terra (The Mavrik Woods Series, Book 1) Page 10