by Bob Mauldin
Simon reached out and removed the golden crescent moons from her lapels one at a time, pocketing them. He turned to Kitty who stepped forward and opened a small case so that Miranda could see the silver stars of a Lt. Commander resting on a black velvet background.
As he pinned the insignia of her new rank on her, he said, “With more responsibility comes more rank. It is my great pleasure to promote you to Lt. Commander.” Finishing the second star, he stepped back a pace and saluted her. “Congratulations, Commander.” The assembled crew cheered until Simon held up a hand. “Folks, we are not yet through with Commander Lee. Captain Baylor. If you please.” Relinquishing his position to Daniel, Simon winked at the new commander. In a voice that reached only to her and Kitty, he whispered, “Chin up, Commander. It only gets worse!”
Daniel took his place in front of Miranda. “Ladies and gentlemen, there are times that require special attention. As a commanding officer, it is my responsibility to recognize your performance and act appropriately. This is one of those times, and it is my happy duty. Commander Miranda Lee. For acts of bravery above and beyond the call of duty, specifically in defense of Orion Base and your fellows, against overwhelming odds, and with no regard for your own safety, I am proud to bestow upon you this medal.”
Turning to Kitty, he opened a second case that had been slipped to her while all eyes were on Daniel. Inside, on a layer of black velvet, lay a golden cross. Symmetrical in all dimensions, it was about two inches high and highlighted in silver. Attached to it was a golden ribbon lined with silver. Picking it up, he turned back to the dumb-founded Miranda.
Holding the ribbon apart with both hands, he reached out, and in a move that had its beginnings somewhere in mankind’s misty past, Miranda bowed her head so he could slip the ribbon around her neck. “Commander Lee,” Daniel intoned, “I have the honor of bestowing upon you the first Stellar Cross of The Terran Alliance. Know that from this day forward, you and all future holders of this medal embody all that is precious and unquenchable about our spirit. Know also that when you wear this medal, you are entitled to be saluted by all ranks at all times. Woe be to those who neglect this duty!” Stepping back a pace, Daniel stood flanked by Simon on one side and Kitty on the other. He came to attention as did Simon and Kitty. The three of them saluted Miranda as one, and Daniel added, “Congratulations, Commander.” Turning to the assembled crew, he announced, “Ladies and gentlemen, Commander Miranda Lee, first holder of the Stellar Cross of The Terran Alliance.”
It took two more days for Engineering to okay the new fighter for trials. When it was finally ready, Simon and Daniel made it a point to be on hand for its maiden flight. Simon had to admire the efforts of the engineering staff. Its lines still resembled those of the original. A full third larger, it was almost eighty-five feet in length. A correspondingly larger engine pack gave it greater speed and maneuverability. The pilot was protected by what the engineers called an acceleration-drain or grav-drain that bled off some of the g-forces associated with higher speeds and turns.
A new device straight out of R&D was also added to the craft. Several of the scientists had become obsessed with the capture fields used by the shuttles. Already they had devised shields that would allow certain things to pass through, allowing easier access to the dock. Now, they were experimenting with an actual force field capable of protecting an entire ship, be it fighter, shuttle, or larger ship. And the flat-black finish, along with its sleek aerodynamic styling gave it a look of menace just sitting in the bay.
The pilot entered the bay wearing a black short-waisted jacket over a grey form-fitting suit and strode directly to humanity’s first true deviation from Builder technology. Helmet in hand, she walked around the vicious-looking craft, thoughtful admiration evident in her gaze, one hand occasionally caressing the skin of the ship as she made her visual inspection. She rounded the nose of the experimental ship and saw the two captains waiting for her.
She walked up to the two men, saluted, and said, “Good morning, Captains,” and brought her hand back down without waiting for either officer to salute back. Simon chose not to comment on the casual nature with which she approached military protocol. He had tried to teach them that the courtesies like proper saluting helped define a regimented society. Like juniors showing respect to seniors and seniors returning it. In a proper military order. He had come to the realization, finally, that most of the civilian recruits would never understand. But they did try. Besides, he thought, it’s not as if my five years instilled that much discipline in me, either.
Daniel, equally oblivious to the niceties of military courtesy, returned her salute as casually and asked, “Well, Commander, what do you think?” He pointedly did not mention the purple bruise under her left eye.
Lt. Commander Lee looked over her shoulder at the ship. “She looks hungry, Sir.”
Surprise flickered across Simon’s face as he looked at the ship once again. “That she does, Commander. That she does. Well, she’s all yours. Take her out for her trials. You get all the time you need and the only tests you can’t perform today are the aerodynamics. You have four missiles aboard with dummy warheads, and bogies to match out there somewhere. We’ll observe from the bridge. Good luck.” The captains headed off the flight deck discussing the upcoming trials in low voices.
As soon as they were in the elevator, Simon asked, “What about that shiner?”
Daniel answered with a twinkle in his eye. “What I heard was that there was a disagreement about who would be flying the trials today. Looks to me like it got solved.”
Simon shrugged. “Can you delay her departure for about ten minutes? I’ve arranged a small surprise for her. I told her there were four simulated bogies out there. In that, I wasn’t lying. What I need you to do is hold up her departure for a bit so I can get set up to ambush her. I have her old fighter and one of your stripped down shuttles prepped and ready for launch out of one of Galileo’s bays.”
Daniel nodded in agreement. “I see. She out-performs both craft, but not knowing what’s coming should give us a better idea of the craft’s capabilities and her ability to handle surprises.”
Simon just grinned. “Once she has used her missiles, we’ll jump her. It’s one thing to know what to expect, it’s another entirely to not have any idea what’s going on. I think it will be a good test of both the craft and Commander Lee. I’m beaming over to Galileo now, so if you can handle that delay for me, I’d appreciate it.” Shaking hands, Simon beamed out, leaving Daniel to go on to the bridge.
Commander Lee’s departure was delayed for almost fifteen minutes by an unusually strict systems check. Engineering wanted nothing to happen to their prize pilot. Another ship could be built, but not another Miranda Lee. Her mystique was already starting to spread. At last she climbed into the cockpit, put her helmet on, and became one with her ship.
Engineering took the original fighter designs and beefed them up, not stopping with the weapons systems and engines. Joanna Barnes and her team installed a miniature version of Galileo’s own computer. That counted for a small portion of the increased size. The proto-organic nature of the gel forming the computer meant that it had to be fed. A section of the ship had organic material stored between the inner and outer hulls to feed the living computer.
The main difference was that the computer in this fighter must be constantly fed, unlike Galileo, who stored years’ worth of food between it inner and outer hulls. While the power core gave the little craft virtually unlimited flight time, its computer needed to have its stores replenished on a regular basis: at least weekly if it was not on standby.
Built into the helmet were hundreds of sensors that connected a pilot directly into the computer, information came to the pilot in three dimensions on a heads-up-display on the inside of the visor, giving the pilot a real-time 3-D image of all space within scan range. The effect was as if she were flying in the center of a bubble.
The down-side of the system was
that the pilot and computer tended to bond, learning each other’s’ ways and quirks. The analogy used by Dr. Barnes was that for another pilot, it would be like riding someone else’s horse. It would work, but not well and not for a while.
Miranda and several volunteers spent two totally frustrating days in the cockpit, running simulations programmed by the war gamers among the crew to get the bugs worked out. While she didn’t ace everything thrown at her, she came away with an appreciation for this new generation of vessel. A lot of the scenarios were pretty absurd, and some just weren’t possible to escape with the limitations imposed on her by the computer and the programmers.
Miranda ran through her pre-flight checklist, checking each item off of her HUD with a thought. She accessed her intra-ship link and said, “Flight Control, this is Mamba One. Communications check.” When she received confirmation, she reported, “All systems green. Request permission for power-up.”
Flight Control’s voice was close in her ears. “Systems green, aye. Permission to power-up granted. Launch bay clear and locked, outer doors opening. You are cleared for launch. Good luck and good hunting, Mamba One.”
Miranda watched the bay doors split down the middle and retract into the space between the Galileo’s double-walled hull. She fed minimal power to the engines, mindful of the exhaust that still baffled the scientific team. Not that it mattered to her as long as the deadly little ship moved when and where she wanted it to.
Not truly exhausts in the technical sense, the apertures that emitted whatever type of energy that pushed Galileo and her children through space still stumped the eggheads on Stephen’s research teams. This energy tended to blacken the metal around the points where they exited the ship and the back walls of the launch bays exhibited scorch marks consistent with the expulsion of energies producing high heat levels. Oddly enough, or not-so-oddly, actually, the metal of those walls was more than twice as thick as even the exterior hull.
Miranda slid the Mamba out of its bay, able to tell even this early that she had something more than an ordinary ship. The static tests performed for two days inside the bay gave her no real indication of what the ship was capable of, but the simple act of moving it away from the larger ship told her that here was something as far beyond the original it was modeled after as a Ferrari was beyond a Model T.
Her heart began to pound and her mouth went dry. She took a sip of water and willed herself to relax. Letting her senses acclimate themselves to the HUD built into her helmet, she moved off to her pre-determined starting point above and ahead of Orion.
A course had been laid out through a portion of the asteroid belt that hadn’t been cleared out completely yet, so that the Mamba’s handling characteristics could be evaluated. Miranda put the agile craft through a series of maneuvers assigned by Engineering, weaving her craft through the asteroids, few though they were, in the same manner that had gotten Captain Hawke a much-rumored scolding from Commander Kitty back when the first fuel plant was being finished. Speed, agility, maneuverability, in all respects exceeded every parameter that Engineering had established or imagined.
Special telemetry devices had been installed in her craft so that Engineering could keep up with her systems in real-time. These devices constantly transmitted data on ships’ systems to pre-positioned relay satellites so when she suddenly diverged from the program by diving straight into the densest part of the belt she had seen so far, a howl in her headset brought a smile to her face. Already, her instinctive feel for this deadly ship told her that she had a tiger in the tank. Her smile turned into a teeth-bearing grin when she opened the throttle the rest of the way, and the howl rose to a shriek as Engineering ordered her to slow down.
She spun the little craft around, trusting in her HUD to keep her aware of anything larger than a small pebble, and the newly installed shields to take care of those. Another thing that added to the size of the new fighter was the installation of shields based on the capture field technology. It had been discovered by R&D that the fields used to snare asteroids for the smelter could not only be tuned to specific shapes, with the right application of power and field generation, they became shields that would deflect anything that got in their way. Missiles would detonate at a short distance, their energy dissipated, theoretically, and anything else that smashed itself against screens provided a quite unexpected fireworks display.
Twisting and turning through the obstacle course that she had run through once before, this time in the other direction and at a much higher speed, she wondered at the silence that had replaced the spontaneous screams of moments before. That was one of the perks of flying a fighter: no one could hear you scream with pure joy. Flipping the ship end-for-end and applying full power, she stopped herself quickly enough to strain the capacity of the augmented grav-sump, adrenaline flooding her system as she felt herself greying out.
Setting all of her controls to idle, Miranda slid her helmet’s HUD up and looked out into the emptiness of space. Opening her comm-link, she said, “Galileo Control, this is Mamba One, reporting completion of performance trials. Request permission for phase two.”
Knowing she had overstepped her prerogatives, her heart beat with more that just the adrenaline of moments before. Expecting a reprimand or more likely, a recall, she was thrown off-balance by a voice apparently straining for control. “Roger, Mamba One. You are cleared for phase two.”
Miranda’s surprise vanished as she thought about the next phase of the trials, and a tiny, little-girl-like grin twisted her lips as she surveyed her new hunting territory. “This time, I get to play with the guns!”
Knowing what was coming, she enabled her combat computer and pulled her HUD back into place, putting her trust in the computer’s programming. Keeping a close eye on scan for the bogies she knew would be there, she held her ship to a little over half the speed she now knew it to be capable of. Just ahead and slightly to the left of her course, she saw a small cluster of asteroids. Knowing that something was coming, she figured that it would be a good place to watch and instantly saw the drive trace as it flared into being. Locking her computer onto that trace, she twitched her craft lightly, increased her speed a fraction, and when she had achieved target lock and optimum range, she fired.
One missile fired and one sustained burst from her twin pulse lasers, one bogey down. Seconds later, she picked up twin engine signatures. Acquiring both in her targeting computer, she locked them in, armed and fired two missiles, and fired on one with her lasers. Looping back around, she went after the other to confirm the kill. Then she turned back onto her original vector, looking for number four.
Presently, her long-range sensors registered the drive trace of a ship cutting obliquely across her path. Her ship acquired target lock and veered off to one side in a pre-programmed maneuver, lining up to launch a missile. Engineering said that the programs would allow a pilot more time to assess a situation in the early stages of an attack, and Miranda tended to agree as she noted the sensors reporting an increase in power output from the target followed almost immediately by a course change. She looked at the icon on her HUD representing her autopilot, blinked twice, and went manual.
Maneuvering her ship into position behind the target, she armed her remaining missile, and slowly increased her speed. Wondering if Engineering had anything else in mind, she kept a sharp lookout. Closing to within five hundred miles, she ordered her computer to fire. She felt the now-familiar lurch as the missile left the tube. With her lasers armed, she followed the missile in, staying a little behind and to one side. There were barely two hundred miles between her and the missile when it connected with the engine pack of the bogey and exploded in an exceedingly bright flare. Bright enough to grey out her HUD for a long second. She added the effect to her mission recorder. “Well, I know my missile was a dummy, so I’ll bet those geeks put a piece of anti-matter in that bogey to throw me a curve. Okay, guys, that was your last trick.” She opened her comm-link. “Galileo Contro
l, this is Mamba One. Four up, four down. Mission accomplished. Request instructions.”
“Mamba One, this is Galileo Control. Roger mission accomplished. You are cleared to return to base.”
Heading back to base at a leisurely half speed, Miranda felt very pleased with herself and her craft. “What a sweet thing you are. We are going to kick some alien a ...” Three separate alarms erased her self-satisfied feeling instantly. How the hell did something get that close? she thought wildly. Something moved into her rear aspect while she had been congratulating herself on that fourth target! Sensors reported something trying to get a target lock on her, setting off another alarm. The third alarm reported a missile launch from another direction entirely, and she twitched her control, rolling the ship to port and down, increasing her speed to evade her pursuer, who was continuing to gain. There’s two of ‘em! she thought, an edge of panic feeding on her nerves. She let the pursuer get to within his apparent target window, then dazzled him with a full burn on all boosters. “That ought to fry the front of his ship off.” Finding the distance growing between her and her pursuer, she found the bogey on an intercept course. “Must be the one that fired on me.”
As she was taking this in, the bogey on her tail cut loose with laser fire that would have sizzled past her cockpit, had there been air to sizzle. Twitching her ship again, this time to starboard, she found a small cluster of asteroids on her screen, and against all training, dove her ship into their midst. Emergency deceleration and a hard turn to port and down brought bogey number two onto her screen. Acquiring target lock, she powered out of the cluster and opened up with both lasers. Scoring several hits on the bogey, identical in design to the older-style shuttles Galileo carried, her sensors said, she saw a flare of light from its engine pack as it skewed sideways. Not finding bogey number one on her screens at all, she quickly reversed course, and ducked back into her hide-out. As she started to pull her ship into the cluster, she began calling home. “Mamba One to base. Mamba One to base. Reporting bogeys. Real bogies! One down, one active. This is not a joke, people. I have just taken out one bogey and one has dropped off my screens.” As she uttered these words her vessel lit up with several laser shots, and all her systems went dead.