Chase wondered why the captain hadn’t just deployed countermeasures. Perhaps he wanted to signal to him that he wasn’t scared of engaging in a dogfight with Chase, which made this encounter, even if only a simulation, all the more thrilling.
By the time his shield stopped glowing, Saroudis had veered away, but Chase wouldn’t let him off the hook so easily, and he re-engaged him, but acquiring another lock proved a more difficult task than dispatching four simultaneous AI ships. This told Chase that it didn’t matter how good he was against AI enemies, in the real world he would have to fight fierce adversaries that would not be predictable.
Before he knew it, Chase’s aft shield was hit. Tharowni was pounding on them.
“Daniel! What the hell are you doing? I thought you had the admiral.”
“Hey, take it easy, I’m trying. I’m on his six, but he’s throwing me off the scent with some pretty fancy old-fart flying.”
“Get—him—off my six!” protested Chase.
“Believe me, I’m trying!”
Chase replicated the captain’s earlier move, spun his fighter as he killed his forward thrusters, and retaliated against the admiral. He unleashed low-powered high-frequency laser fire to drain Tharowni’s shields. The admiral was expertly dodging a good majority, but Chase managed to bring the shields down fifty percent when he locked onto ship and selected two missiles.
With a good tone, Chase fired them. What happened next he didn’t expect. Tharowni instantly deployed a flurry of countermeasures and veered upward. Chase’s missiles went forward, taking the countermeasure bait when Daniel’s fighter emerged and ran into both. His fighter spun uncontrollably.
Fuck!
“What the hell! Did you just fire at me?” Daniel protested.
“Those were meant for Tharowni.”
“That makes me feel so much better.”
“Head in the game!” Saroudis’ voice cracked up over the comms.
Dammit, Sarou—
The distraction had opened up offensive possibilities that Saroudis would not miss. Chase was taking heavy fire from the starboard side. He swore in his mind as he evaded, but Saroudis didn’t let him breathe. He fired a couple of missiles, forcing Chase to use countermeasures.
Saroudis was gaining on him; scoring more and more laser hits on his aft shields.
Damn, he’s good!
Chase tried every evasive maneuver he could think of to shake Saroudis off his ass, but he kept coming. Chase wished with all his might that he could get his fighter to stop so that Saroudis would overshoot him. Before he could key in the commands, his ship did exactly as he had wished.
What the hell? How’s that even possible?
As Saroudis screamed past his canopy, Chase took advantage of the situation and showered the captain’s shields with everything he had. What happened, was there a glitch in the simulator? Or had Chase entered his commands without realizing? He really wanted to win this fight, so he decided to let it go, but something smelled fishy.
Saroudis took evasive maneuvers, and Chase followed suit still pounding on his shields.
“Just another few seconds and you’re mine,” Chase shouted.
But then Daniel’s fighter exploded nearby.
Shit!
Tharowni didn’t lose time and vectored toward Chase.
This is NOT good!
He had enough trouble just trying to dispatch Saroudis, with the admiral on his way, the situation grew from dire to desperate. For a moment Chase froze, realizing that if that had been a real-life fight, his best friend in the whole world would have been killed. Anger started to make Chase’s blood boil.
Saroudis’ aft shields were slowly approaching critical, and Chase locked a missile on the captain’s tailpipe, but he knew that Saroudis would dodge it, so he prepared a second missile. His instinct told him the captain would break right, so he switched the second missile to manual trajectory and aimed it a little over two points off Saroudis’ starboard bow and fired the missiles in quick succession.
Saroudis deployed countermeasures and broke to starboard, his own countermeasure must have masked the second missile from his visuals as he ran into it, which not only finished off his shields but took out one of his engines as the ship spun in space, spewing coolant from a leak.
Chase was about to finish Saroudis off when his locking alarms blared at the incoming four missiles.
“Holy crap! The admiral doesn’t want me to win this.”
Chase deployed countermeasures, and two of the missiles fell for it, but the other two reacquired Chase’s Manticore as they flew through the countermeasure.
Oh, no you don’t.
Chase went evasive, veered hard to starboard, and soon was facing the admiral. Chase redistributed power from his shields to the engines to outrun the missiles long enough to execute his next move. He squeezed the trigger and unleashed a barrage of laser fire toward the admiral, pummeling his shield. Tharowni did the same, as he was left with no other choice but to try and shoot down Chase first since the admiral had fired his last remaining missiles.
That mistake would cost him the fight, Chase decided. Both fighters kept advancing toward one another, not even trying to dodge incoming fire, the perfect standoff. Who would blink first?
Chase had no intention to, he had something else in mind. He fired his last missile, knowing that the heavy barrage of laser fire wouldn’t get to his target, but he only needed to distract the admiral for a second. The missile screamed toward Tharowni’s craft. Midway it got shot down and exploded, and Chase stopped firing his lasers the moment it happened and diverted all weapons and half of his shields’ power to the thrusters. With his shield’s power halved, he redirected all their energy to reinforce the frontal shields only.
That was an all-in move, as the twin missiles, still locked onto his craft, continued to gain on him, but by boosting his engine’s power another thirty percent, he could delay their catching up to him for an additional second or two, which is all he needed. He flew through the cloud of flames his exploding missile created, still on a collision course with Tharowni’s craft.
“Goodbye, Admiral,” Chase said as he turned at the last second just enough to avoid a collision. The pursuing missiles didn’t adjust to his last-second maneuvering and continued straight on, impacting with his prey. Tharowni’s Manticore exploded into a million pieces.
Chase redistributed power to his shields.
Pride filled his heart, but he knew this battle wasn’t over. He looked at his instruments to try and locate Saroudis, who Chase had no doubt had recovered from the damage he had done to his craft earlier. His radar was displaying nothing but noise.
Sneaky, Captain, but that won’t save you.
Chase tried acquiring a visual on Saroudis’ ship; he maneuvered to try and cover the most angles possible. The captain was nowhere to be seen. He must have been close and was able to compensate for Chase’s movements to prevent him from establishing a visual line of sight.
Chase opened a broadband channel.
“You can run, Captain, but you can’t hide forever.”
“Who says I’m hiding, Cadet? It’s game over time. You fought well.”
What?
Chase looked to his port side, saw nothing, turned his head to his starboard side, and that’s when he saw the incoming fighter, flying as fast as a shooting star. Chase didn’t have time to react, and Saroudis’ ship crashed into his starboard flank. Both craft exploded, and the simulation ended.
Chase removed the neuronal link from his temple. He was frustrated but tried not to show it.
“Those were some impressive flight moves you displayed, Cadet,” said Saroudis.
“Thank you, Captain. Likewise.”
Saroudis nodded. “But you’re still dead, and so is your wingman.”
“Remember me?” said Daniel.
“Sorry, perhaps I shouldn’t have split us up.”
“Perhaps?” said Tharowni, arching an accusatory eyebr
ow at Chase.
Chase decided to ignore the admiral and turned his attention back to Saroudis.
“I never expected you to ram into me. But in that scenario you would have died as well, so why do it?”
“First and foremost to teach you a valuable lesson. As for dying, Cadet, I’m a captain, every morning when I put my uniform on, I do it knowing that today may very well be my last day and that I may be required to go down with my ship. I just wanted you to learn that there is such a thing as a no-win situation. I want you to be prepared for it, because as sure as the sun will set on the horizon tomorrow, there will be a time where you’ll be faced with such a dilemma.”
Chase reflected on those words as he nodded solemnly.
6
It was the middle of the night, and Chase couldn’t sleep. He could hear Daniel snoring from the top bunk. In fact, his friend was so loud he felt like he could probably hear him from another galaxy. Chase kept replaying the dogfight with the admiral and the captain in his mind over and over again, wondering what he should have done differently.
He reflected on managing to divert power to his thrusters with such efficiency that the captain shot past him. He still didn’t remember actually inputting those commands, yet, they had happened. That was the strangest of feelings. It had felt as if he had ordered his ship to do the maneuver with his mind, and the ship had obeyed.
Chase shook his head.
Nah, that’s not possible. I must have acted on instinct and simply didn’t realize I was doing it.
The station rocked, and Chase was thrown from his bunk and crashed to the cold, hard floor. Red lights turned on as the alarms started blaring.
“Condition Red, the station is under attack, this is not a drill.”
Daniel jumped down from the top bunk and helped Chase get back on his feet.
“What the hell is going on? What are we supposed to do?” Chase asked.
“I would imagine standing fast, we’re not commissioned pilots yet. They’ll let us know if they need us one way or another.”
Chase ran to the viewport in their quarters and looked outside. He saw Obsidian destroyers firing toward the station as the Destiny battlegroup, apparently having been taken by surprise, was only now undocking from the station. The nearest ship in Chase’s line of sight, the Medusa, was drifting away from the station when a flurry of torpedoes impacted it broadside. The destroyer split it two before exploding. The resulting shockwave shook the station so violently that both Chase and Daniel crashed to the floor.
“This isn’t good,” shouted Chase.
“No shit,” said Daniel.
“We gotta do something.”
“We have to wait for orders.”
The speakers crackled in their room. “All pilots, cadets included, are requested to meet with their commanding officers, on the double!”
Finally!
“There are your orders,” said Chase as he dressed faster than he ever had before in his life.
Upon arriving at their rally point, and in the midst of the chaos, the first thing that Chase noticed was fear in the admiral’s eyes. That made him uneasy. It told Chase that this attack was very serious.
“Listen up, cadets. I can’t send you to the frontlines, you’re not ready. But I need you to man the turrets, the AI targeting won’t cut it. Just put your palm on the turret chair, your identification codes will override the automatic targeting. Give them hell. Go! Now!”
Everyone started running away, but Chase grabbed Daniel by the uniform.
“We’re going out there,” said Chase to both his friend and commanding officer.
There was no shortage of determination and imperative in Chase’s tone.
“No, you’re not,” argued Tharowni.
“We’re not manning some damn turrets, we’re going out there and helping Saroudis win this fight.”
Tharowni’s face hardened.
A nearby explosion sent a bright flashing light through the viewport; the Sparta had just been destroyed.
“Listen to me, Cadet, now is not the time to disobey orders.”
But Chase was determined.
“They need us out there,” he insisted, pointing at the Sparta’s smoldering debris. “Please.”
Tharowni gave both Daniel and Chase an intense look, mulling over his response. He keyed in some commands on his holo-wrist device.
“I’ve just temporarily bumped the both of you to acting First Lieutenants, the reserve fighters in bay two will let you fly them out of the dock.”
Chase exhaled. “Thank you, Admiral.”
“Don’t thank me just yet, this might be the last time we speak. Please, come back to the barn safely.”
“Will do,” said Chase.
Chase could tell Daniel was a little shocked by what was happening. It was easy to see how surreal this all was. The entire situation had that nightmare quality. But the adrenaline in Chase told him how real this all was.
Before Daniel could say another word, Chase grabbed him, and they ran toward the launch bays.
“Let’s go, they need us out there,” pressured Chase over the comms.
“This is insane,” said Daniel from his Manticore’s cockpit. “We’re just two newbies, with no real combat experience. What sort of difference are we expected to make?”
Oh, we’ll make a difference, believe me!
“Suck it up. This is what we trained for.”
“Trained, yes. But we’re just cadets, we’re not ready for this.”
“Not anymore. You heard the admiral, so consider this your final graduation test if that helps. Are you done with pre-flight?”
“I— I don’t know, Chase.”
Chase could feel his best friend’s fear in every one of the syllables he muttered over the radio. He knew he needed to boost his confidence, or he would freeze out there, and Chase couldn’t let that happen.
“Look, if you don’t feel like coming, then nobody will think less of you. Myself included. You can still disembark your Manticore and find a turret to man. But wouldn’t you want to be in control of your fate? I know you, Daniel, I know you have what it takes to take that fighter into space and help fend off this attack.”
Chase took a small pause. “So— Are you with me?”
The couple of seconds that Daniel took to answer felt like an eternity.
“I’m with you, Chase. Let’s give them hell.”
“Now you’re talking!”
Saroudis swore as the Destiny shook from the impact of the latest Obsidian torpedoes. They were losing the fight. The Empire had taken them by surprise by not showing on long-range sensors, and by the time the crew had rejoined their respective ships, they were already being pounded upon.
The battlegroup had already lost three ships, putting them at a numerical disadvantage. To add insult to injury, the opposing force was strategically positioned far enough from the station making sure to stay out of range of its big guns.
Admiral Tharowni had fired up the station’s thrusters but moving a space station was painfully slow, and the enemy had already shown signs of anticipating the maneuver. Worse yet, the Empire jammed subspace frequencies before even opening fire. Therefore, preventing him and the station from sending a subspace signal in order to get reinforcements in on time.
Things were looking bleak. Saroudis dispatched orders to his crew, providing targeting and assigning priorities. He had also tasked his bridge’s chief engineer to locate the source of the jamming; they needed to remove the interference as soon as possible.
Saroudis glimpsed two new small signals coming from Starbase Alpha Three. He pinged the pair of Manticores on his holo-screen and saw their call signs. Firestorm and Scorpion, Chase and Daniel’s call signs. Saroudis twitched and opened a channel.
“What the hell are the two of you doing in those fighters?” he asked.
Chase answered.
“Acting First Lieutenants Athanatos and Tharraleos, reporting for duty.”
&n
bsp; “This is not the time for misplaced heroics, Cadet— First Lieutenants,” Saroudis corrected himself. “Trust me you don’t want your maiden mission in these circumstances, you’ll get yourselves killed.”
There was a slight pause.
“Negative, Captain. You need all hands on deck, and we have no intention of dying today.”
Defiant to the end, oh well, at least he’s consistent.
“If we survive this day, Lieutenant, we’ll talk about orders and their function in the Star Alliance.”
“I’m looking forward to it, Captain. In the meantime, what do you need us to do?”
Before the captain could answer, his engineer transmitted the coordinates of the jamming ship. The lieutenants were the nearest, and coming late to the party, the enemy had not yet begun to target them. A couple of starfighters were by no means any threat for larger ships, and that’s something Saroudis could use. It would put both their lives in jeopardy, but something told Saroudis that if there was anybody that could pull off the move he had in mind, Chase was the one to do it.
“Very well, I’m uploading coordinates; this ship is jamming subspace frequencies, and I need you both to take it out of play.”
“Consider it done,” said Chase.
“No, no, Lieutenant Athanatos, no bravado, or you’ll get killed. Please use the exact flight plan approach I’ve uploaded with the coordinates, do not dare deviate from it, or I may blow you to smithereens, and I don’t want to have to deal with that kind of paperwork, you feel me?”
“Understood, but why would you blow us up?”
“I’m going to use the Destiny’s batteries to cover your approach, that’s the only way two measly Manticores can have a shot at doing this. Once you’re in range, unload your entire ordnance, don’t save anything, alright? Right now you’re just a blip on the enemy’s scopes, which gives you the element of surprise, they’ll never think you’d be mad enough to try and take that ship out.”
Universe in Flames – Ultimate 10 Book Box Set: An Epic Space Opera Adventure Page 4