by Mark Tufo
When she was sure he was gone and the door was shut, she took a deep breath before she began to speak. “Major Rettings is putting together a team to test out our new fighters and the weaponry.”
“What do you mean? We’ve been testing them for months.”
She was looking at me, an intensity in her eyes. “In real-life situations.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Our long-range surveillance systems have picked up communications about the location of one of the Others’ patrol ships.”
“And?”
“And we’re going to attack it.”
“Just going to fly out and attack a ship?”
“Exactly. What do you think we’ve been training for all this time?”
“And you’re going?”
She nodded.
“Why am I hearing about this now?”
“I cut my training short because I just heard about it. I told the major I would find you and ask you.”
I turned back, so I was watching the black hole and the millions of twinkling lights that circled the rim.
“When are we leaving?”
“An hour.”
My heart leapt as fear and anxiety warred within it.
“Did you tell Lendor?” I asked.
“No need. Fighter pilots can request their own mechers, and he’s mine.”
“He’s still an apprentice.”
“There will be other mechers there if he gets in trouble, and this is a quick in-and-out mission. What could go wrong?”
“Did you really just say that?” I asked.
“You’d think I’d know better,” she responded with a devilish grin.
“What do I tell Tallow?”
“That’s easy,” she said. “Tell him you’ll be back in a week.”
I turned, a look of surprise on my face. “They’re that close? Have we been discovered?”
“Doubtful, nobody has left since the pick-up on Earth.”
“Maybe found one of our probes?”
“Unlikely, and even if they did, there’s no way to trace them back. Best guess is that it’s an outpost just keeping an eye on things.”
“We also testing out the new cloaking system?”
“Not really a cloak, it just masks the ripples in space that a buckle creates. I’m told we can’t get past the quantum physics of how a buckle works, but there is a way to make it undetectable. Something about wave cancelling technology.”
“A trial by fire.”
“Best kind. I’ve been waiting for this.”
“You promise you’re not going to do something rash?”
“Me, rash? I mean, personally, I would never do anything like charge down a slope at a line of Stryvers. If you’re talking something like that, no, definitely not.”
I grimaced at her. “I mean more like flying a ship into hordes of the enemy or I guess more correctly, crashing into them.”
“When’d you get so funny? Come on, we’ve got to go, and you’ve got to tell Tallow.”
Tallow looked like I’d stuffed his shirt with hornets as he blustered about the room throwing his hands up in the air. His face was red and when he spoke, his cheeks were puffed out.
“It’s only a week.” I tried to placate him. Might as well have been driving the stingers in myself.
“A week, Win, where I have to wonder and worry what’s going on. How am I supposed to deal with that? Try to think if the roles were reversed!”
“Oh, that’s easy enough…I wouldn’t let you go,” I told him.
“Okay, then that’s what’s going to happen. I forbid you from going!”
I laughed just as Cedar walked in. “I can see this is going well.”
“Oh, thank you for that,” I told him as I placed my hand against his cheek. “If it gets difficult at any time, I will always have this moment to smile about.”
“Not fair, Win. This isn’t how people treat each other.”
“Make no mistake, Tallow,” I told him, “I have no desire to leave you, or to fight. It’s just something that needs to be done. The sooner we’re rid of the Others, the sooner we can live our lives like they were meant to be.”
“Come back to me,” he said.
“That’s just what Gwendolyn said to Grendal as he went off to war with England; that’s so romantic. It is a little weird that the roles are reversed though,” Cedar said.
Tallow was desperate. “How did it end?”
“Well, Grendal died in Scotland, dragged behind a horse, I think, but Grendal’s brother Kellan ended up comforting Gwendolyn and then marrying her.”
“Cedar, if I die, I don’t especially want you to be with Tallow,” I told her.
“What? Eww! He’s like my brother, Winter!”
“Don’t, because if he’s your brother, he’s mine too.”
“This is getting weird. I don’t want to be anyone’s brother.”
“Smart, leaving the door open.” Cedar smiled, tapping the side of her head with her finger.
Tallow rolled his eyes at her. “Just come back,” he said to me. “Both of you,” he added.
“Sometimes the denseness between you astounds me. Is that right?” Cedar looked up and off into the distance. “Never mind.” She shook her head. “Tell her.”
“Tell me what?” I asked.
“Tell her what?” Tallow echoed.
“O.M.G.” Cedar palmed her hand to her forehead. “Not only do I need to be the beauty of the outfit but the brains as well? Fine, fine, I can take on the added burden. I want you both to listen carefully.”
“Is she serious right now?” Tallow asked.
“Shush!” Cedar snapped her forefinger and thumb together. “I’ve been told that every time we go out on exercises that you, my dear, pining, Tallow, manage to find your way into the control room.”
He blushed.
“Even on our extended training missions, he never leaves,” she continued.
“Is that true?” I asked him. “You’ve never said anything.”
“I find comfort in it.”
“I talked to the duty sergeant. He says you have a basic understanding about the displays and a natural knack for reading the three-dimensional read outs.”
“Yeah? So?” he asked.
“The denseness is thick in this one,” she said. “Can you take it from here, Winter? I’m starting to get a headache.”
Took me a second to see where she was going, I finally got there. “Oh!” I clapped once, much like Cedar, then caught myself. “Um, you could ask to apprentice in the tower.”
“Why would I do that? I’m a soldier.”
“You’re right, Cedar, if not for that face…” I smiled. “If Lendor can be a mecher apprentice there’s no reason you couldn’t get assigned to the tower as an apprentice.”
“I’m a sold…oh…I get it now. I can do that!” He was beaming.
14
The Surprise
Brigend was leading the raid. The new buckle drive system was less stable than the more traditionally used one and he didn’t trust anyone else to monitor any fluctuations as closely as he did. Off-duty, the Commander could be very affable; when he was on, he was all business. The ship was much smaller than what we’d been used to. They called it a carrier. Large enough to carry five squadrons of fighters, it also had a heavy weapons punch, reducing the living space that much more. The pilots were given five areas, including sleeping quarters, where they were expected to stay and not be in the way of the crew running the ship.
“How does it feel less claustrophobic in a fighter?” I asked Cedar as I ducked down before banging my head on a bulkhead doorframe. We were headed to the cafeteria where we pretended to eat, or at least I pretended. Cedar seemed wholly unaffected as to what was coming up and had no problem fueling up on her food and most of mine.
“You going to eat that?” Her mouth was full as she asked.
“Well, now that you sprayed over it all, I think I’ll pass.”
<
br /> “Sorry,” she said sheepishly, belatedly pressing a hand to her mouth.
“Tell me again what we’re facing.”
“You realize you’re not quite a blonde, right?”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means I’ve told you three times already.”
“You got somewhere else to be?”
“You’re lucky you’re my sister,” she said swallowing her food. “It’s a Destroyer-class ship. Bigger than us, more firepower, fewer fighters. Really, our only hope of success rides solely on surprising them and getting two or three heavy punches in before they can strike back or buckle away.”
“Do you think we’ll surprise them?”
“The tests look good. If we don’t, probably not going to have to worry about it too much.”
“Why?”
“Really? I’m eating. When you figure it out, let me know.”
“Oh.” It dawned on me. “Why aren’t you worried about that?”
“Nothing I can do about it. We either go and punch them straight in the face or we don’t. Me losing sleep over it changes nothing. I’d rather use the energy for other more productive things.”
“Like eating, apparently.”
“Good one,” she said as she thrust her full spoon out at me.
The closer we got to our destination, the quieter the pilots around me got, except for Cedar, who was abundantly jubilant. Partly I figured it was to keep up the spirits of those around us, but an even greater portion I think was because she was finally going to be able to exact some measure of revenge.
Brigend told us when we were twelve hours from our buckle point, then advised we should get some sleep. I don’t know how Cedar did it; she could shut herself off better than a machine. I looked over jealously at her sleeping form.
“Stop staring at me,” she whispered without opening her eyes.
“I thought you were asleep.”
“I am, and so should you be.”
“I’m trying.”
“Can’t dream about being back on Earth with Tallow eating blueberries if you don’t.”
As sage advice as I had ever been given. I nodded off in under five minutes. The lights slowly came on in the pilots’ quarters before a voice announced we were three hours from our approach.
“Want to go and get something to eat?” Cedar was sitting on the edge of her bed in full pilot gear.
“How long have you been up?” I stretched; most of the other pilots were already gone.
“Hour, maybe? Been reading; now I’m starving.”
It was useless to argue against it and the more I thought of it, the more I decided I was hungry, even if I was concerned that this could be my last meal, or worse, my sister’s.
Got my first surprise of the day; I would have been content to not have any more ever. Frost and Ferryn padded up.
“It is good to see you both,” Frost said.
“How did you get here?” I asked.
“Who would stop us?” she replied; there was mirth in her voice.
“I’m glad you’re here.” I scratched under her jaw, she purred affectionately. I gave Ferryn a head nod; he wasn’t much into contact, and I respected his space.
With an hour to go, we were in the hangar doing our pre-flight run-throughs and getting final instructions from Brigend.
“What we do out there today is the first step in a very large campaign that will determine the fate of Humans and Genogerians. We must show them that we are capable and willing to fight. That we can beat them. Our victory today will send reverberations throughout the entire realm. The Others’ alliance with the Progerians will be weakened, and once it is on shaky ground, we will press the attack until they are forced to declare a side.”
We’d heard this before, but then it had seemed in the abstract, something that would eventually happen. But now that we stood on this great precipice, it was difficult to not look down the sheer cliff. If we won, it would be but the first volley in a war that was far from over. If we lost, it would be with great difficulty we’d be able to change the public’s opinion on the necessity of this conflict. Most might be happy to hide in the remotest corner of the universe, to live out their lives on the artificial planet. There was an appeal there, not dying violently being at the top of it. But me, personally, I wanted to be back on the ground, to feel the grass and dirt on my feet and the sun shining on my face.
Not only was the buckling technology new, but so was the way we were going to launch. We were going to use the momentum of the of the buckle to shoot our fighters through tubes like torpedoes of old, so I was told. The idea behind it was the full two minutes we arrived ahead of the carrier would put us in a better position to attack, as we would be more difficult to detect. There were some that didn’t agree with us being exposed for all that time without the back up of a war ship. Cedar wasn’t one of them. Two minutes, if they knew we were coming and under a heavy assault, could seem like hours.
“Launch in twenty,” the computer announced. Didn’t have to do much during this part except hold on for the ride.
“Remember, Winter, when we come through the buckle onto the other side, we’re going to be traveling much faster than we’re used to.”
“I was next to you when we were doing the simulations.”
“Yeah, that was more for me than you.”
I swallowed hard; that meant my sister was nervous, and that didn’t seem to be part of Cedar’s DNA. If she was concerned, then we all should be.
“Let’s keep the chatter down,” Captain Banks said. He was in command of the Dagger squadron, which included us. There were twelve bays and we would be sent out first, followed immediately by Saber squadron, then Lightning squad. Thirty-six fighters in total.
“Launch in five…four…three…two…”
I kept my hands off my controls as I was taught to do, sat back and got ready for the ride of my life. I attempted to stay as relaxed as possible as I was forced back into my seat. The lights of the launch tube streamed past and then we were traveling through space faster than any fighter was ever designed to. There were long moments we were enshrouded in complete blackness and the effect of the buckle before we were thrust into normal space.
“Pull up, pull up!” Cedar screamed.
I had barely managed to unseat my head from the backrest as I looked upon the entirety of the Others’ hull. My entire field of vision was the gray-blue material. Without even pausing to think on my sister’s warning, I did as she instructed. My entire panel was flashing red; somewhere in the cacophony, I heard an alarm trilling. I would have shut it off if I wasn’t using my entire body weight to pull back and up.
“Ahhh!” someone cried out as he was too slow and plowed into the side, exploding in a fiery ball. Two forced their ships downward; it was the wrong direction. I didn’t see either of their collisions. My ship was bucking wildly as I fought the inertia and was willing my fighter upward. I had my teeth clenched waiting for the impact that would snuff out my life. My imagination, or possibly reality, had me convinced I was scraping against the destroyer as my ship shook violently.
“This is Captain Banks! Delay launch, delay launch! Critical collision!”
I hoped the message got through, but at this very moment, I was doing all I could to not be one of the first to die as the revolution began.
“Almost there, Winter,” Cedar said through heavy breaths. “Captain Banks—they’ve launched fighters.”
It made sense; they wouldn’t fire their own weapons as we were too close. I banked around when I was finally clear; I could see wildfires pouring out of four gaping holes in the hull of the destroyer. The fighters had acted as high-speed projectiles and punched straight through—no telling the damage they had wrought. Fighters were scrambling forth from the hangar to the front of the ship where Cedar was waiting for them like a fox might a juicy vole, picking them off as they came forth from their hole. She would only be able to do this for so long before she was overw
helmed by sheer numbers. I was moving vertical to her position, cutting through fighters just as they cleared their ship.
The ones behind had seen their compatriots being sliced from the sky and began to come out at varying angles, making it much more difficult to zero in on them. By now we had a half dozen ships in place, but they had more than double that out in the fray. We would not be able to hold our position any longer.
“Dagger squadron, regroup, far side,” Captain Banks said.
Cedar had worked with a technician aboard the Space station; in my right ear would be Banks and the rest of the squadron, in my left was Cedar only. There was a small button next to my trigger that I would depress if I wanted to say something only she could hear; she had the same array.
“It’s not that I don’t trust Banks,” she had said when she was going through all the secrecy to get our special gear rigged. “I just trust myself more. If I think he’s about to do something that’s going to get us killed, I’ll let you know.”
“What if he finds out about this?”
“Don’t know, don’t care. You’re more important to me than anything he can do.”
“The tech won’t tell?”
“I told him if he said anything, I would sick Frost on him. Nobody wants to anger a Rhodeeshian.”
“Frost know about that?”
“She was with me; figured it would lend more credence to my threat.”
“You’re a scary person, sis.”
“I know.” She smiled.
I was confident in my abilities to fly, but knowing I had my sister in my ear was comforting.
“You good?” she asked as we came around the far side.
“Heart is still threatening to pound out of my ribcage, but yeah,” I told her as we came out to the far side of the destroyer. I had thought the damage to the near side had been severe until we came around; the fighters had been traveling with such velocity they had punched right through the far side. The exit wounds triple or more the size of the original strike. Space was littered with debris and bodies; we rose above it to avoid micro-collisions. There was a part of me that felt for all those that lost their lives. The interior of the ship was an inferno. I could not understand how they even had the ability to launch fighters, which we were now attempting to evade as they regrouped, this time with the numbers on their side. The destroyer listed heavily as two more fighters blew through and onto our side. Captain Banks’ message must have been received too late.