Star runners, p.25
Star Runners, page 25
She looked at them all, nodded, and continued, “If any of the freighters are shot down or can’t continue, we’ll have to adapt as needed. The convoy will try to keep close together if they can, but no promises. These freighters are with a civilian contractor hired by the Legion, so don’t expect too much. These people are relying on us to get’em home safe. Any questions?”
Derek raised his hand. “How long is this going to take?”
Her face went rigid. “Why?”
“Just wondering if I should pee first.”
“Quiet!” she barked when the other pilots laughed. “Go to the latrine before you board your sim. Lockers are in there. A crew brought up everything you’ll need. Any other relevant questions? No? Then suit up and get out there. As of this moment, the simulation is underway. This is for real, people. Go get’em.”
As the other pilots moved into the locker room, Ryker grabbed Austin’s elbow. “Listen,” she said, “I’m expecting you to be cool out there. Be a leader.”
“No problem, Lieutenant.”
“I know you’ve done this before, and you had a great average score on the escort missions during your evaluation period, but these are better pilots than you’ve faced before. Be a leader, Rock.”
“You got it,” he said with a nod, trying to project a confidence he didn’t really feel.
He’d always hated escort missions when he played online back at home. The freighters always moved too slow, and the enemy launched too many torpedoes, always to the point he wanted to quit, but there would be no quitting this time. The stakes were higher than his online rankings.
As he stepped into the locker room, he saw the other pilots putting on flight helmets and strapping sidearms into their holsters. Other than the clicking and snapping of equipment, the room was quiet. No one spoke.
Skylar walked up to him, flexing her gloved hands and snapping her helmet into place with the visor still up. The color was drained from her face. Even her lips looked white as ice cubes as she nodded. He had seen her do it before their private training sims; each nod represented a mark on her mental checklist.
He reached down and strapped her sidearm into its holster. “Don’t forget that.”
She glanced down at her hip. “Oh, thanks.”
They stared at each other. “We’ve come a long way, huh?” he asked.
“Yep,” she said, her voice barely audible.
Austin thought of running with Skylar back in the swamps of South Georgia, swatting away gnats and mosquitoes as they trained for the Gauntlet after class every day. She had been his only friend at the academy, his only companion.
He smiled. “Let’s do this.”
* * *
The freighters stretched in a straight line. Just as they had in Ryker’s hologram, the fighters were peppered around the freighters in their designated positions in a tight formation. Shelbi drifted a few hundred micro units in front of him, and Bear flew just in front of her to the left. Austin stared off to his right and marveled at the details of the simulated freighter. The graphics were better in these flight sims than on his computer back home. He could make out the movement of the passengers inside the portholes on the sides of each ship.
He turned back to the darkness of space. No nebula or other anomalies decorated the scene, just blackness.
A droplet of sweat slithered down the center of his spine. He cracked his knuckles and checked the sensors. Twenty more minutes on this heading before the convoy would open another curve and head to its next waypoint. One major difference between this and the games online, the much longer mission time.
His HUD flashed a dull red at the corners of his visor. He sucked in a deep breath of stale, metallic air.
“Enemy contact bearing one-two-zero,” Ryker said in his headset, her voice crackling in the simulated gamma wave. “Coming your way Thrasher, Sketch, Cheetah. Be on alert. Looks like three enemy fighters are lining up at the edge of firing distance. Stand by.”
Austin squinted, straining to see if anything was bearing down on his side. Nothing. “This is it, everybody,” he said. He watched his sensors as the three bogeys mingled just outside of firing range. Why were they waiting?
The HUD flashed again. A shiver shot down his back. “Scorpion,” he said, gripping the stick and staring at the display, “four bogeys on my six. Looks like Tyral Pirates.”
“Roger, Rock.”
The Lobera Squadron had ten fighters, same as Tizona. Seven were on the board. Three were missing.
“Everyone stay cool,” Ryker said. “Let them show their hand.”
There was a pause. “The freighters are tightening up formation. Everyone stay close. Don’t lose your positions.”
Two more bandits appeared in front of the convoy, screaming hard for the lead freighter. They were already in firing range.
“Two enemy fighters inbound!”
“Roger, Stinger,” Ryker said. “Stinger, Toad, and Bear, engage the two newcomers.”
The three pilots acknowledged. Austin rested his fingers on the stick as he watched his comrades shoot toward battle.
“Incoming torps,” Stinger announced.
“I got them,” Bear said. “Stay on the fighters!”
Austin rocked in his seat. Come on, he thought. In the past, he would shoot in the direction of the enemy in hopes of increasing his online ranking, but not today. Today he had to wait for Ryker’s orders.
He watched the battle unfold. Three Tizona students rushed off to engage the two bandits to their front while the other seven enemies lingered at the edge of battle; three to their right and four in the rear. Where was the final fighter? As the three Tizona lead fighters locked into a fireball with the two closest bogeys, he looked ahead to Shelbi’s fighter. He wondered if she sat at the edge of her seat like he did.
Come on, make your move.
It wasn’t a long wait.
The seven enemy fighters lingering out of range finally moved with purpose, all coordinated, toward the freighters. Incoming torpedoes lit up his HUD.
“Here they come. All fighters engage the incoming torps,” Ryker said. “Do not exceed ten thousand MUs from the convoy. Stay close.”
Austin yanked back on the stick, bringing the Trident around. He transferred all power to his engines and forward shields. Seven torpedoes shot toward his position, zeroing in on the last freighter in the convoy. He targeted the first one, secured laser range, squeezed the trigger, and watched the first torpedo disintegrate. One down. He banked hard, watching the stars spin. To maintain his bearing, he glanced at the sensors. He locked on two other torpedoes and scratched them both.
His sensors flickered, and three of the remaining four torpedoes disappeared.
“Nice job, PowPow,” Austin said, searching for the final incoming torpedo. It disappeared from his scope. He looked to his left. The rear of the freighter sparkled as a torpedo smashed into the shields. “We missed one.”
“Rock, bring it in closer,” Ryker said. “You’re reaching the edge of your zone.”
Austin spun the fighter around back toward the convoy. His HUD flashed red again. “More incoming torps!”
He piloted the fighter across the designated zone surrounding the freighters, destroying one torpedo after another. His eyes flashed across the sensors, his hands controlling the Trident like it was a part of him, an extension of his being. He flew without thought and drifted to another place in his mind, a calm place of perfection. The incoming torpedoes exploded one after another. He lost count of how many. He just knew they kept coming from the black of space.
And then the bandits were in range.
“You see this, PowPow?”
“Right behind you, Rock,” she said, her voice laced with tension.
Austin squared off with the four fighters in front of him, wondering if Josh was one of them. Even better, maybe one would be Pavlosky, and he would have a chance to see how good the guy really was at flying. The bandits flew in tight, wing-to-wing, passing inside Austin’s zone limit imposed by Ryker. Gotcha.
The moment Austin reached firing range, the enemy group scrambled. Laser bolts filled the black, illuminating the area in a collage of greens, blues, and reds. The Lobera fighters masquerading as Tyral Pirates shot around him.
He zeroed in on a slower bandit and unleashed relentless fire, draining his guns of their energy. His fire was true; his target fighter was caught off guard. The targeting computer showed his prey’s rear shields collapse. He keyed for a missile, locked in on the enemy’s signal, and pulled the trigger. The missile flashed, spinning toward its target. The fighter maneuvered to its right, then left, then pulled back. But it was too late.
The brilliant explosion burned orange and yellow before dissipating. Austin smiled, checked his board. Two bandits trailed Skylar in the distance as she tried to close in on another.
“You got some company, Cheetah,” Austin said, bringing his fighter to bear and ignoring the fact he needed to stay with his wingman, PowPow. “I’m on it.”
His HUD flashed red. He glanced at the sensor. The final fighter he had been scanning for appeared just inside the firing zone. It unleashed a spread of torpedoes toward the convoy of four freighters.
Austin blinked. Four freighters? They had already lost three. He risked a longer glance at his readouts. Only five transponders remained of their fighters, five against the eight remaining Lobera students.
His stomach tightened. PowPow had been destroyed and he hadn’t even realized it.
He gripped the stick tight, his teeth grinding together. How did this happen so quickly? The blood rushed to his face as he closed in on the bandits trailing Skylar.
“Rock, return to the freighters,” Ryker ordered. “Take out those incoming torps. The new bandit has a clean shot!”
Austin grimaced but yanked the stick toward the freighters. He stared out his right display, watching two enemy fighters engaging his friend in the distance. Skylar wouldn’t last long. Laser bolts fizzled off her rear shields.
He turned away, locking on the incoming torpedoes and shifting all his power to the engines.
“I’m hit!” Skylar yelled, her voice full of static.
Austin winced and tensed his shoulders, forcing himself not to look back.
“Forward bandits clear!” Bear yelled loud enough to distort Austin’s headset.
Good, brings the odds to five of ours versus six.
“Well done, Bear,” Ryker said. “You and Toad move back in line, protect our targets. Rock? Move in to intercept those torps. Ten seconds out.”
Bear closed on the incoming torpedoes. Skylar scrambled with the more experienced fighters. Austin fought every instinct in his being telling him to follow the torpedoes, to do what Ryker had ordered, but saving Skylar had to be a better move.
“Bear, I’ll be right there.” He reversed his thrusters and watched the star field spin horizontally.
“Rock!” Ryker’s voice cracked. “Return to the targets!”
“I’ll be right there.”
“Now!”
Austin swallowed hard as he locked the closest bandit tangled with Skylar into his targeting computer. He keyed for a missile and watched the crosshairs blink yellow. The moment the targeting signal hit the targeted fighter, the enemy launched into evasive maneuvers, twirling and looping, spinning and rolling. It didn’t matter. He stayed on him and kept the enemy painted. Two more seconds…
He launched a missile, knew he had his target, and turned to the next.
“I’ve lost my shields!” Skylar cried. “I think they have me!”
“Hang on, Cheetah!”
Austin fired until his lasers ran out of charge, hoping he’d manage a lucky shot. Two bolts bounced off the Lobera fighter’s shields. Instead of breaking off the pursuit, the Lobera fighter fired a blind torpedo shot at Skylar without achieving lock. In an instant, the projectile smashed into her tail and blew half the fighter apart.
“Ejecting!” she screamed.
The simulated escape pod shot away from what remained of Skylar’s sparkling Trident.
“You’ll pay,” Austin muttered, closing in on the enemy fighter spinning to face him.
The Lobera student unleashed a flurry of laser fire, filling the sky with enough bolts to turn the darkness red. Austin released his two remaining missiles and rolled under the enemy. Both missiles missed, but forced the Lobera fighter to loop back to avoid them.
Austin shifted all power into his rear shields. Thinking he had bought enough time, he veered back toward the freighters. He gasped.
One freighter remained on his sensor. He and Bear were the only Tizona fighters remaining against four Lobera fighters.
Cycling through the vessels in his targeting computer, he stopped on the remaining freighter. The shields were gone, the engines failing. The captain had launched the rescue buoy and signaled to abandon ship.
His heart plummeted.
They lost.
Austin leaned back in his seat, his flight suit sticking to the sweat on his skin.
“Bear, Rock, withdraw,” Ryker said, her voice low. “The pirates are taking their prize.”
* * *
The sim pod opened with a mechanical whine, sending a burst of light glaring into his eyes. He stood, his joints popping as he did so, the flight suit sticking to his legs and back. The time clock over the doorway indicated more than four hours had passed.
“Recruits, wash up and report to the ready room for debriefing,” Nubern said from the catwalk overlooking the simulation room. Austin felt his eyes on him, but he kept his focus on the deck as he took off his helmet.
As he entered the men’s locker room, the other recruits showered in silence. He moved like a robot, barely going through the motions of showering.
He reported to the ready room. Ryker stood at the front, her arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes bore into him. He collapsed into a seat at the rear of the room. The other recruits filed in, their feet shuffling along the floor as all of them avoided the eyes of their instructor.
When they had all entered, Ryker slammed the hatch shut.
“That was the worst display I’ve ever seen. Never has a Tizona class been so completely destroyed by Lobera. You lost the entire convoy! It was a total embarrassment.” She held up her tablet. “Where were your fundamentals? What about following orders?”
Austin rubbed his thumbs together, trying to ignore the knot in his stomach. All he had to do was return to protect their target, and he couldn’t even do that. Skyler was in trouble, but he couldn’t save her, either. Every action he took out there had been for nothing.
“We’ll talk about this more tomorrow. You’re all dismissed.” Ryker raised her chin. “Stone, stay a moment.”
The rest of the students looked at him, their eyes raised in a “better you than me” expression. All of them except Skylar. She gazed at him, offered a crooked smile, and mouthed, “Sorry.”
He moved his lips. “It’s okay.”
The other pilots left the room. The emptiness made the hum of the hologram projector that much louder.
“What was that?” Scorpion asked.
Austin frowned. “I’m sorry.”
She arched her back as her shoulders swelled. “WHAT WAS THAT?”
Her scream jolted him in his seat. His hands shook.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry? You’re sorry.” She stepped forward. “What you did out there made the entire squadron look bad. You know Command looks at the results of the annual contest. Thank the maker we’re not the rookies again next year. Command evaluates and reviews all of their assets, including me and my ability to command.”
She sighed and leaned against a chair. For the first time, Austin noticed her disheveled appearance. Loose strands of hair spilled down onto her shoulders like currents of black ink. Darkness surrounded her reddening eyes.
“I thought my orders were clear: Protect the targets.”
“They were.”
“Then why didn’t you do that? And why did you leave your wingman?”
“I don’t know.”
She raised her tablet. “I checked your file while I was waiting for you to return.”
Austin rolled his eyes, repressing a sigh.
When Dad passed away, and Austin’s grades slipped, the school counselors always started off these half-baked sessions by “checking his file.” Nothing they ever said mattered. Nothing could have taken the place of having Dad back, but the counselors thought they could say a magical phrase or word and he’d feel all better. They could write reports of their success and thump their chests on the way home to their families, talking about what a difference they had made that day. He didn’t expect Ryker to be any different. For the first time since he had known her, he wanted her to stop talking.
“Something interesting in your survival training back on Earth,” she continued, her voice leveling out after screaming only a moment before. “It says here you lasted longer than any recruit in years?”
“Yes, Lieutenant.”
She crossed her arms. “How did they get you?”
He thought of the night in the swamp, the frigid water slipping into his boots and clothing like a river of ice. He’d worried they would send him home if he failed the test. He thought his scholarship would end, and he would have to go home. But it didn’t end that night. In fact, everything changed. His entire world changed.
Refocusing his attention on the last couple hours of the Gauntlet, he thought of the boats searching the water. “They sent search parties...I thought they were going to find me.”
“Yes,” she said, leaning forward, “but how did they get you?”
He stared at his hands. “I pressed up against a tree, hoped they would pass by, but they didn’t. They were yelling on the loudspeakers, said my mother needed me.”
“And?”
He looked at her, his eyes wide as he remembered the instructors taunting him in the swamp with stories of Skylar being in trouble. His muscles tensed. “That was totally different.”
