by Ryk Brown
He slowed his Lightning’s speed sharply and activated the Terran comm-unit Vladimir had given him. So far, his threat display was clear, but even skimming along this canyon floor, surrounded by cliffs on all sides, it wouldn’t be for long.
The canyon was only a few kilometers long, which required him to slow down even further. Speed and maneuverability were his tiny fighter’s biggest advantages, and this narrow, short canyon provided him neither.
“Come on,” Josh muttered to himself as he continued to decelerate. He had already been in the canyon for twenty seconds, which meant that he was already an unidentified blip on some EDF officer’s display. Considering that there was at least a squadron of Super Eagles in the skies above Monterey, it would take only seconds for a pair of them to jump over to investigate what had suddenly appeared in the canyon currently enveloping him.
Thirty seconds and still nothing.
“Backwards ass planet,” Josh grumbled as he prepared to depart.
His threat display suddenly lit up, its alarm sounding in his helmet speakers. A glance confirmed what he already knew. Two EDF Super Eagle fighters had just jumped in behind him and were dropping into the canyon, following standard EDF intercept protocols.
“Unidentified aircraft, this is the Earth Defense Force,” the pilot of one of the Super Eagles called over comms. “We are directly behind you and have a weapons lock. Reduce your airspeed and prepare to be escorted to a safe landing site. This is your only warning.”
“You want me to reduce my speed?” Josh said to himself. “You got it.”
Josh quickly pitched his nose up vertical, ruining his tiny fighter’s aerodynamic profile, creating a sudden increase in overall drag. At the same time, he jammed the power slider for his grav-lift system to full, causing him to decelerate even more quickly.
The result was an enormous drop in horizontal airspeed, which was as close to a complete stop as possible…a maneuver that most would believe impossible. But most pilots were not Joshua Hayes.
The two EDF fighters, suddenly finding themselves about to collide with the unidentified contact, were forced to break in opposite directions, sending them both speeding toward canyon walls.
Josh didn’t wait around to see if they avoided slamming into the vertical rock faces. He pulled his grav-lift power sliders back to normal, and immediately jammed the throttle for his space drive to full power. His main drive lit up like a bomb exploding, driving him into the back of his flight seat as he rocketed skyward on a near vertical trajectory. A quick spin of his jump-range dial on the side of his flight control stick and a press of the jump button, and he was out of the Earth’s thick atmosphere, again within the peaceful vacuum of space.
Here too, he only had seconds to determine his next move. He was only a few thousand kilometers from Earth, where he was already on another sensor officer’s display. Again, Super Eagles would be on his ass in seconds.
But a few seconds was all he needed. He knew what he had to do.
Kit was the first one out, immediately opening fire on one of four EDF QRT shuttles about to set down on the fairway across the street.
“Ballsy or stupid?” Kit asked rhetorically as he pounded one of the shuttles with continuous fire from his captured energy rifle.
“What?” Jessica asked as she stepped out of the house, joining her fellow Ghatazhak and opening fire.
“Dropping in directly in front instead of to either side!”
“Both,” Jessica replied. “EDF marines think they’re invincible.”
“That explains why they need to send so many,” Kit retorted. “Left and right?”
“Yup,” Jessica agreed, heading left as she continued firing.
Nathan and Lynne were next to come out, just as the nearest shuttle’s door gunner opened fire on their position. Lynne screamed in terror as bright-red energy bolts slammed into the front of the house, shattering its brick veneers and sending pieces flying in all direction.
“Stay close!” Nathan warned her as he raised his weapon and fired at the attacking shuttle. He fired repeatedly, but every bolt of energy was absorbed by the shuttle’s shield bubble.
“They’re going to put more troops on the ground than we can handle!” Kit hollered from the other side of the yard as he fired.
“They have to come out of that shield bubble to get to us!” Jessica replied.
“Not if they just cut us down from there!”
Josh adjusted himself in his cockpit seat. “Sorry, Vlad,” he said to himself, bringing his P-Seventy-Two into a tight one eighty. With the tap of a few buttons and some minor adjustments to his jump computer, he was ready to go.
The Earth came around from his starboard side, sliding into position directly in front of him. As he rolled out of his turn, he released control of his fighter to its AI, allowing it to make the final adjustments to his course and speed. Normally, he’d do the jumps manually, allowing the jump computer to adjust the amount of energy used for the jump based on range and distance. But his time in the Lightning was short, and most of it had been in the atmosphere. He just hoped that Loki didn’t find out, as his friend would never let him hear the end of it.
A touch of his jump button, and he was again being buffeted about, even more so since he had jumped back into the same marine layer that had obscured his vision less than an hour ago. It took only seconds for him to realize that things had gone from bad to worse for his friends on the surface.
Again violating his orders, Josh rolled into a shallow right turn, adjusted his jump range, and pressed his jump button. A brief flash of blue-white light, and he found himself closing rapidly on four EDF QRT shuttles, engaged in a firefight with someone on the ground, about to touch down.
Josh quickly powered up the plasma cannons on his wings and deftly guided his fighter to intercept the shuttle engaging his friends. A second later, his targeting screen flashed, and he pressed and held the fire button on his flight control stick.
Orange bolts of energy streaked from his wing-mounted cannons, sending staccato streams of energy to the target. The shuttle’s shields flashed brilliantly as they attempted to protect the troop carrier from a weapon more powerful than it was rated to withstand. It took less than five seconds to disable the first shuttle’s shields, which were obviously designed to protect the shuttle from handheld weapons.
The shuttle’s shields fell, and the following three bolts struck the shuttle’s rear, causing it to belch sparks and smoke. The target yawed sharply to starboard as it fell, soldiers falling from its open doors as it unceremoniously hit the ground.
Josh didn’t wait to check for survivors and immediately opened fire on the next shuttle that would pose a direct threat to the away team. As his threat board lit up with new contacts, he held his firing button down, plowing through the second shuttle’s shields and dropping it from the sky in the same fashion.
Red-orange bolts of energy slammed into Josh’s aft dorsal shields, causing his ship to bounce and yaw. Super Eagles were on him, and his shields would not last long. The other two shuttles were already on the ground as well. Josh had no choice but to jump away.
“That had to be Josh!” Nathan decided as they opened fire on the marines who had survived the first shuttle crash.
“That means the Voss will be here in a few minutes!” Jessica replied as she fired. “We need to buy more time!”
“We can’t hold off all of them from a static position,” Kit insisted, also firing. “We need to split up; keep on the move.”
“Agreed!”
“No!” Nathan objected. “We stay together!”
“We’ll use the woods and the creek bed to our advantage!” Jessica decided. “Kit!”
“On my way!” Kit responded, ceasing fire and running off to the right.
“Jess!” Nathan objected.
“Head left to the end of t
he street!” Jessica instructed as she fired. “Head into the woods and keep the creek between you and those marines! We’ll meet two fairways down!”
“Jess!” Nathan repeated as she ran off, her weapon firing away to keep the marines down and at bay. “Let’s go!” he told Lynne, heading to the left as instructed.
After his escape jump, Josh had immediately adjusted course and jumped again. This time, there were no planets or moons in the area, just the Voss, growing larger in his front windows as he closed. “Voss, Lightning One!” he called over comms. “Hot evac! Transmitting sensor logs!”
“What are you talking about?” Vlad asked over comms. “Did you make contact?”
“Uh, sort of,” Josh replied. “They’re in a firefight with EDF marines. We gotta get them out of there, but there are Super Eagles all over the place.”
“Put Loki in a Lightning, and he and I will keep the Eagles busy long enough for you to get them out!” Josh added over comms.
“What?” Vladimir questioned. “Are you certain?”
“I shot two of the shuttles down myself!” Josh replied. “Trust me, they’re in deep shit!”
“Oh my God,” Loki exclaimed as the sensor logs transmitted from Josh appeared on his tactical display.
Vladimir leaned forward, studying the display a moment. “Go,” he instructed Loki. “Loki will be launching shortly,” Vladimir told Josh over comms.
Loki jumped from his seat without hesitation, heading aft.
“Wait a minute!” Dylan objected from the copilot’s seat.
“Great!” Josh replied. “See ya down there, Lok!”
“Wait for Loki,” Vladimir ordered Josh, but he was too late. A small, blue-white flash appeared in the distance, noting the insubordinate pilot’s hasty departure. “Chort!”
“Who’s going to fly this thing?” Dylan continued.
“Who else?” Vladimir replied. “You guys man the gun turrets,” he told Deeks and Brill. “Marcus, get to the utility bay and get ready.”
“Take the modified boomers from our lockers,” Mori instructed as he and Jokay headed aft. “I expect you’re going to need them.”
“What are you going to do?” Marcus asked Vladimir.
“I guess I’m the new copilot,” Vladimir replied.
“Are you a pilot?” Dylan asked, climbing out of his seat and moving over to the pilot’s seat.
“How hard can it be?” Vladimir replied as he slipped into the copilot’s seat. “Everything’s automated, right?”
“Not for jumping in at low altitude,” Dylan objected. “And not for jumping into the middle of a firefight.”
“We’ll figure it out,” Vladimir insisted, scanning his console, doubt in his eyes.
Dylan watched Vladimir, noting his uncertainty. “I’ve never been in a real firefight.”
“You’ve flown in sims before, haven’t you?”
“Yes but…”
“Did they shoot at you in the sims?”
“Yes but…”
“No problem then.”
“Yes, there’s a problem!” Dylan objected. “There’s a big problem! I hacked the pain algorithms in the sims so that I wouldn’t feel any pain. I’m afraid of pain! I mean, really afraid!”
“Then don’t get hurt!” Vladimir snapped back.
The urgency of the situation did not allow Josh the luxury of plotting insertion jumps that kept him low to the ground or in shielded canyons. Instead, he had manually jumped in, appearing in the Earth’s atmosphere a few hundred meters above the EDF Super Eagles flying cover above the remaining two QRT shuttles.
Josh wasted no time, immediately diving on the Super Eagles and launching a barrage of snub-rockets from the pods on either side of his P-Seventy-Two’s fuselage.
Two of the Super Eagles jumped to safety, the other two dropping flares and chaff and peeling off in either direction as they went to full power and accelerated away.
As he had planned, the rockets missed the scrambling fighters and peppered the QRTs’ landing zone, resulting in two dozen small explosions that blanketed the immediate area. One shuttle was caught unprepared, its shield strength channeled to protect itself from incoming fire from the ground. Its topside blew apart as marines in the surrounding area scattered in all directions.
A quick glance at his tactical display and Josh spotted at least three combatants engaging the EDF marines from different locations. They had split up, and from the point of view of the enemy, they were headed in completely opposite directions. But from his vantage point, it looked like they were all headed for the same place: a large open area half a kilometer away.
Josh passed overhead of the LZ, strafing the marines and forcing them to take cover as he passed. He rolled to the left, intending to come around and attack again, hoping to buy his friends on the ground a few extra seconds’ head start.
Unfortunately, the Super Eagles didn’t scare off as easily as he had hoped, nor for as long. His threat warning system lit up with missile warnings: four weapons were inbound from two directions. His only choice was to jump to safety to avoid destruction.
Taking advantage of Josh’s attack, Jessica moved quickly across the far end of the fairway, reaching the woods on the opposite side before the marines could come out from their cover and take aim. They did, however, see her disappear into the woods, and four immediately took up the task of pursuing her as the others went after Kit, who was making a run across the other end of the fairway.
Jessica ducked into the woods, taking cover behind a felled tree, waiting for the soldiers she knew would come after her. Once they were in range, she rose up, bringing her weapon over the top of the tree trunk and opening fire.
As expected, the marines ducked for cover before returning fire. Jessica took a moment to adjust the power settings on her energy rifle, adjusting its power buffer. Earth’s forces were still using the older technology provided to them by the Corinairans: guns that were prone to overheating if not properly monitored.
Satisfied that her adjustments would achieve the desired effect, she dropped her rifle on the ground, pulled her second rifle from her shoulder and opened fire again, keeping her pursuers on their bellies. Then she began crawling away from her firing position as quickly as possible, moving along the downed tree trunk. Reaching its exposed root bundle, she rolled down the embankment toward the creek, just enough to enable her to move along in a duck walk, covering ground more quickly than a crawl.
As she’d hoped, the marines assumed that one of the target’s captured weapons was giving her problems and rose confidently to advance.
Jessica rose slowly from her position to their right, opening fire and taking all four of them down with an equal number of shots, after which she wasted no time in leaving the area as the sky lit up with jump flashes.
Loki dropped into the cockpit of his P-Seventy-Two, reaching up and sliding his canopy back over his head with considerable force, causing the closure system to automatically engage and seal up the tiny bubble that would separate him from the vacuum of space.
“Override the depress cycle and open the doors,” he called over comms as he donned his helmet.
“I’m on it,” Dylan replied.
Loki quickly powered up his systems, bypassing the startup checklist he had memorized only a few days ago. A whoosh of air sounded from outside his canopy as the bay doors split horizontally and began to open.
Green lights appeared one by one across his system status display.
“Doors are fully opened,” Dylan reported.
The last system status light turned green, indicating his ship was powered up and ready for spaceflight. He pressed the auto-launch button, and his ship slid forward, exiting the bay. “Don’t be far behind me,” he urged as he jammed his main drive throttle to the stops and rolled to starboard, mimicking Josh’s wild departure style
.
Jessica dropped her second weapon and headed down the bank, staying low and out of sight as more QRT shuttles jumped in overhead. Knowing their sensors would be trained at the ground looking for threats, she dropped facedown into the creek, rolling around in its muddy bottom in an effort to decrease her thermal signature. The sun had only been down for a few hours, and the ground had probably not cooled much. With any luck, her trick would work, and she’d be able to move about freely, surprising and confusing her pursuers.
Only seconds after she emerged from the creek, four marines came charging over the top of the opposite bank, spotting her in the moonlight that spilled through the sparse, winter canopies.
Jessica reached behind her with both hands, pulling two of the captured knives and flinging them toward the marines in one smooth motion.
Two men dropped when knives struck them in the face. The startling effect of a knife attack in the midst of what the marines expected to be a straight-up gunfight bought her the extra seconds she needed to charge up the bank.
The nearest marine regained his wits, raising his weapon and firing, but his target somehow sidestepped the bolt of energy spat forth by his assault rifle.
Jessica dove under the marine’s legs, pushing upward and knocking him off his feet to her left. She then reached out with her right hand and pulled the other soldier’s left foot out from under him, bringing him down to join her. She rolled to her right, tumbling over the top of the downed soldier and snatching his sidearm as she did so. She butted him in the face with the base of the sidearm’s grip, dazing him just long enough to roll his body up to use as a shield as the other marine managed to fire again.
Two red-orange blasts struck the soldier in the back, where he was least protected, killing him instantly.
The heat of the charges passed through the dead man’s body, heating Jessica’s chest as she brought her sidearm up over the dead man and fired blindly.