History in the Flesh ch2
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History in the Flesh ch2
Here is the next part of this story. I tried something different and focused more on action and plot development over sex. Let me know what you think.
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General
- Posts: 215
- Joined: Thu Jun 26, 2003 2:21 am
- Technosexuality: Built
- Identification: Human
- Gender: Male
- Location: Jersey
- x 1
- x 4
- Contact:
Chapter 2
Colonel Jack Lang awoke a few minutes before 0600 and sat up on his small but comfortable couch. He cracked his joints as he tried to remember why he was on the couch instead of his bed and why he was naked. His room was mostly dark except for a little light leaking from under the door to his private head. He could also just barely hear what sounded like a woman humming.
At precisely 0600 the door to Jack’s head slid open and crisp light flooded out. He shielded his eyes with his hand and as his eyes adjusted he could see the silhouette of a beautiful woman. He smiled as the thoughts of last night’s erotic romp danced through his mind. He had almost forgotten about today’s imminent attack.
“Good morning Jack,” Morgan cooed as she stepped through the doorway and clicked the main light switch. Jack winced a little under the light, but then smiled at her and stood up. She walked across the room to the auto-press wearing only her black thong and bra from last night.
“Good morning Morgan,” Jack replied. He intercepted Morgan in the middle of the small room and planted a passionate kiss on her lips. He could feel her warm, soft skin pressed against his naked body and for the first time in as long as he could remember he felt truly happy. Not just the normal contentment and satisfaction that his daily job provided but a true sense of happiness and excitement for what tomorrow might bring.
The bliss of Morgan’s warm embrace was broken when Jack’s brain returned to reality. He realized that as much as he wanted they couldn’t walk out of his cabin and retire to some tropical beach. The hard truth was that when the door opened, they would walk to war. “Morgan, last night was amazing…but I am worried how we will move forward from here. We both have a job to do and I don’t want our new relationship to get in the way.”
Morgan blushed a little and looked up into Jack’s eyes. “I am very happy that you enjoyed last night. And I am looking forward to where our relationship might go, but don’t worry.” She took his hands in hers. “We are not the only people in the military to start a relationship. There are ways to maintain our professionalism and still move forward.” She paused and pulled her uniform from the auto-press. “Here is an idea…when we are in uniform, we are completely professional and put our relationship aside. But once the uniforms come off after hours we can get personal.”
Jack smiled and nodded, “You know that doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Let’s go with that plan.” He pulled Morgan closer to him and kissed her again. As they kissed, his right hand wandered down to cup her ass.
Morgan pulled away, “Jack…” Morgan giggled as she took a step back.
“Hey what is the matter,” Jack said with a sly smile while looking Morgan up and down. “I don’t see any uniform yet.”
“As tempting as it might be,” Morgan said as she stepped into her skirt, “we have a pre-briefing scheduled for 0630 and you need to get ready.” Jack smiled and gave her one last peck on the cheek.
As Jack pulled away from the kiss, he whispered something into Morgan’s ear, “Thank you for having the courage to crack my shell.” He then silently walked into his lavatory. She got a really good look at his naked backside before the lavatory door slid shut. She stood motionlessly looking at the door for a minute. Her programming rushed to process all these new and powerful emotions. After a few moments a small tear escaped the corner of her eye. She wiped her face with the back of her hand, smiled, then finished getting dressed.
Several minutes later Colonel Lang exited the lavatory and quickly donned his uniform. Morgan was waiting for him with a this morning’s documents ready to go; her long coppery hair now tightly bound in a bun with not a strand tangling on her prim and proper uniform. 90 seconds later they stepped out of Lang’s quarters and off to war.
***
0900 hours. Colonel Lang stood at a podium waiting for his wing to finish assembling in the pilot’s ready room. Morgan sat just to the left of the small stage and worked a terminal to prepare Lang’s materials for the briefing. When the last pilot arrived and sat down, Lang called the meeting to order.
“Good morning folks. I am sorry we have had to keep you in the dark about this mission so far, but due to the nature of the operation secrecy was critical. I am sure you are all curious to see what is going on so let’s get to it.” Lang keyed a button on his pedestal and a solar map appeared as a 3 dimensional hologram in the center of the stage. Instantly subdued murmurs boiled up from the assembled crowd.
“As some of you can tell, we are going to MacDougal. Our three battle groups should drop out of hyperspace at 1300 hours in separate attack vectors. The Kennedy battle group will hit the Clank garrison in orbit of MacDougal 4, and the Yamoto guys will target the supply cache at MacDougal 5. Because you are the most experienced pilots in this operation, we will be conducting the primary strike on the main Clank cargo dump.
“The Saladin and her escort will come out of hyperspace near MacDougal 3, about half an AU off the solar disk. We will perform a magnum launch, form up and assault the supply cache. Wolverine squadron will perform overall space superiority for the mission. Unless instructed otherwise, you are free to hunt down and kill any Clank fighters you find.
“Gator squadron will primarily serve to take out any capital ships or fixed heavy defenses that might stand between us and our target. Once any capital targets are eliminated, you are to attack the supply cache with cannons only. I want you to save your heavy ordinance in case we have to step in and help the other two battle groups.
“Trojan squadron will provide close escort for Gator’s bombers. Once the opposing fighter threat has been eliminated, you may attack the supply cache with the Gators, but I want you to stay close and don’t go glory hunting.
“Finally I will lead Buckeye squadron for this operation. We spearhead the attack on the cache and take out any light fixed defenses.
“We have the Clanks out flanked, so we expect minimal resistance on this operation. Intel believes we may be looking at a light carrier and a few escorts on our end, and the Kennedy and Yamoto might have a few squadrons of fighters from the garrison or planets as well as the possibility of a few fixed defense stations. They also believe what few forces we find will be reserve or green units.
“That in mind, I don’t want anyone getting soft on me. According to Intel this should be a walk in the park and if so there is no reason this shouldn’t be a picture perfect mission. I don’t want to lose anyone to some stupid careless accident. On the other hand, Intel has been wrong in the past so I want you all prepared in case we jump right into the middle of a Clank fleet.
“If we can pull this off, we will put the fleet in position to threaten a dozen or more different Clank supply lines. The tide of war could turn on today’s operation. Further details will be covered in your squadron meetings and in your technical package. Good luck everyone.”
***
Colonel Lang, Morgan and 22 other officers donned their flight suits and performed their last minute checks before the mission. The locker room was eerily quiet as everyone went about their business in near silence. It had been a while since Lang and his squadron had seen actual combat. For the last two years they, along with the rest of Saladin’s fighter wing, had performed test and evaluation missions for new fighters, weapons, components, and tactics. Some would argue that since they hadn’t seen combat in a long time, that they were too inexperienced for a mission like this. On paper, Saladin’s pilots had very few kills and all four squadrons were listed as “novice,” only one step above “green,” or straight out of the academy. However, because of the rigorous testing schedule, Lang’s pilots had logged nearly six times as many flight hours as the fleet average, and the vast majority of those hours were in simulated combat as opposed to uneventful patrols. Lang was confident in his people and couldn’t ask for any better folks in the fleet, but they were all nervous to see if all their practice would pay off in real combat.
Lang checked the mission clock and pulled the final zipper on his suit. “All right folks, it is approaching that hour. I want everyone on the flight line in five minutes.” He grabbed his helmet and made his way out to Saladin’s flight deck; Morgan trailing shortly behind.
Lang could feel the energy when he stepped onto the cavernous flight deck. Hundreds of people in various uniforms scrambled around fueling, arming, and otherwise prepping 48 different fighters. Immediately in front of the locker room entrance stood a dozen large Ares class bombers. The 40 meter long ships were shaped like giant arrowheads, and packed the most firepower of anything short of a full blown destroyer. Behind the bombers, stood the new Ajax interceptors Wolverine squadron managed to “borrow” from Teller station. They were light, nimble, and should prove quite a surprise to the Clank fighters. On the far side of the flight deck, a dozen newer Charon class medium fighters were preparing for launch. The Charons had a good mix of speed, firepower and shields and had made quite a stir when they were deployed a year ago.
Finally Lang spotted his squadron’s venerable Hercules class heavy fighters positioned to be the first to launch. He strolled over to his old bird and ran his hand along the pitted armor plate. The Herc’s had served the Terran Navy for almost 25 years, and their massive firepower and heavy shields had made them a favorite among the more experienced pilots. The nose of his fighter was adorned with a small caricature of a female dominatrix and the title “Feisty Bitch III”. Painted under the canopy were his and Morgan’s call signs, Brawler and Coppertop respectively. He patted the nose of his fighter one last time, like a knight of old would caress his horse before battle, then turned to gather his men.
***
Through a loophole in the laws of physics, Saladin and her escorts appeared in the MacDougal system with a flash of bright light. Colonel Lang felt his stomach twist as Saladin came out of hyperspace. His fingers tightened around the control sticks as the tension came to a head. The ship rumbled his seat as the engines roared to life.
“Engines at full power, all lights are green, and we are good to go,” Morgan said from the flight engineer’s seat right behind Lang’s chair. He looked out the canopy to the deck officer who gave him a thumbs up and pointed towards open stars. He nodded back to wards the officer, pushed the throttle forward, and leapt out of Saladin’s flight deck into open space.
As Lang waited for the rest of his squadron to form up he did a quick scan of the system and correlated that with the information from Saladin C&C. He had a clear sensor picture of the supply cache and to his surprise only one old Clank destroyer stood guard.
When Lang saw that all the fighters had launched he called everyone into formation, “All fighters form up. Attack pattern delta-two-five. Wolverines, stay loose and keep your eyes open. This looks a little too easy. Buckeyes will run interference for the destroyer. Gators, take it out but don’t go overboard, this is an old clunker.”
Lang was pushed into his seat as his fighter and the rest of the wing accelerated to attack. He keyed the internal comm., “Coppertop, transfer reserve energy to forward shields, and even them out as soon as we pass the destroyer.”
“Eye sir,” Morgan promptly replied and she set about to reconfigure the shields.
Five minutes passed as the entire fighter wing tore towards their target. As of yet, the enemy ship hadn’t reacted to their presence, which was a source of increasing worry for Lang. At 10,000 meters out, Buckeye squadron opened up on the destroyer with their heavy plasma cannons. The deep “thump-thump-thump” of the cannons put a smile on Lang’s face. It had been too long since he had unleashed the power of his ship outside of simulators and it felt good as he watch unimagined amounts of raw energy race towards the target.
A shower of bright orange plasma bolts splashed against the destroyer’s shields, as the Herc’s buzzed by at close range. At 1000 meters out the heavy fighters opened up their formation and exposed the bombers behind them. Two torpedoes surged forward from a bomber and a split second later tore into the destroyer’s midsection. Lang’s canopy automatically darkened to protect his eyes from the flash, and when it cleared nothing was left of the enemy ship. It was a textbook attack run where the enemy didn’t even get off a shot.
“The supply dump is open, proceed with the attack plan,” Lang thumbed his comm. from broadcast to internal, “Coppertop, this doesn’t feel right. Give me a full scan of the dump and what is left of that destroyer.”
“Eye sir,” Morgan replied as she threw power into the fighter’s scanners. As Lang waited for the results he watched his fighters tear into the floating cargo containers. He saw Buckeye 3 and 4 swoop in and pour plasma fire into fuel canister. It quickly buckled under the heavy fire and gave off a small explosion, too small. Lang frowned as he turned his fighter to get a closer look at the debris. That tank held 10,000 liters of Clank fuel and should have made quite a show.
“Sir,” Morgan shouted; the tension in her voice plainly evident. “The destroyer was empty. Debris is 20,000 metrics tones too light. It was stripped out shell. I have scanned 15% of the cargo field so far, and every container is empty.”
Lang clenched his teeth together, and keyed his comm. to transmit to the whole wing and to Saladin flight control. “It is a trap. The entire supply dump is a decoy. Abort mission. All fighters return to base.” He pulled his fighter tightly about as his squadron commanders acknowledged the new orders and powered back for home.
No sooner had Lang gathered his ships for the dash back home, than his sensor scopes erupted in a flurry of activity. “Sir, enemy ships coming out of hyperspace,” Morgan called out.
“What are we looking at? I’m having a hard time reading this.” Lang shouted as he tried to sort targets.
“Standby, getting telemetry data from Saladin,” Morgan paused. “Got it. 17 Clank battle groups have entered the system. 5 groups on each of our carriers and 2 more have formed a wall between us and the Saladin.”
Lang keyed the broad comm., “Alright folks, we have to get back to Sally. We need to punch our way through 2 battle groups to do that. The Clanks think they have us beat, but we aren’t done yet. Gators we have a lot of ships to kill so make every shot count. Go for maximum efficiency and take out as many as you can, but save some torps for the ships around Sally. Go for the cruisers and up. Buckeyes will take out the frigates and destroyers. Wolverines and Trojans, take out their fighters.”
The Buckeyes pulled into lead of the formation, the Gators behind them, and Wolverines and Trojans flying a loose cover.
“Eyes on fighters,” came a quick squawk over the comm.
“Confirmed,” replied Morgan, “Clank fleet carriers are scrambling medium fighters, Baal-class.”
“Eta to target?” Lang quickly asked.
“90 seconds to torpedo range,” Morgan quickly replied as her fingers flew over her controls.
Lang keyed his wing wide comm., “All ships, engage at max range. We need to take out the carriers before they finish launching.” He switched the comm. to his squadron. “Call your targets, one ship to each frigate, two to destroyers. We get one pass at this and keep going.”
The fighters raced on towards their new targets. At 15,000 meters out, the Clank ships opened up with sporadic gunfire. The fighters easily weaved between the shots but the close blasts suspended any lingering disbeliefs that this was another simulation. As soon as possible, the Terran fighters eagerly returned fire.
“Coppertop, get me four Hammerheads, two AP followed by two delay,” Lang shouted as he dodged a close shot.
“Confirmed,” Morgan responded, “Fish are armed, locked and ready to go.”
Lang locked his fighter onto a particularly feisty enemy frigate and let loose with his plasma cannons. The guns cycled over a dozen times before his capacitors drained. Each wave of energy slammed into the frigate’s shields, slowly boiling them away until a small breach formed and plasma bolts began to eat into layers of armor. Lang switched weapons and popped off two missiles shortly followed by another pair. They lanced toward their target leaving a thin streak of exhaust behind them. The frigate intensified its fire to intercept the new threat, catching one of the second pair in a small explosion. The first pair of missiles exploded against the hull; eating through over a meter of armor. The last missile engaged a final booster and slammed into the armor breach at high speed. In a split second, the missile broke through any remaining armor and detonated inside the hull.
Lang smiled as small explosions erupted along the frigate’s hull. His fighter streaked by the crippled frigate and raced towards home. “They are losing containment on the port reactor,” Morgan beamed from the back seat. He switched a secondary display to the aft camera and watched his frigate explode in a flash of light and hull fragments. He panned the camera around and saw multiple bright explosions as nuclear torpedoes impacted against various enemy carriers and cruisers. He also saw his pilots swooping between the blossoming fireballs to pick off what few Clank ships made it into space before they were immolated. In a few more moments Lang’s fighters regrouped and continued on to protect their carrier.
Lang checked his squadron display and saw 9 green, 2 yellow and 1 red icon. The greens being undamaged, yellows were lightly damaged, and reds heavily damaged. He was disappointed about the red but happy that none of the icons were black, indicated a destroyed fighter. “Squadron leaders report in,” he snapped.
“Trojans: 10 green, 2 yellow.”
“Wolverines: 8 green, 2 yellow, 1 red, 1 black.”
“Gators: 6 green, 5 yellow, 1 red.”
Lang frowned at the report, but if they made it out and he only had to write one letter home he would consider it a good day.
“BDA coming in,” Morgan called as she brought up a report. “Both Clank carriers destroyed outright, along with two cruisers, five destroyers, nine frigates, and eighteen fighters. Two other cruisers and three destroyers are still in one piece but are burning in space.”
“Excellent job folks, the next run is coming up,” Lang cracked into his comm. He pulled a quick forward scan, then reopened the channel, “Incoming fighters from the second group of carriers. ETA 90 seconds. Trojans stay with the Gators and go for the enemy cap ships. Wolverines, Buckeyes we will take the fighters head on.”
The Wolverine and Buckeye fighters surged forward to meet the new threat. The Clank fighters outnumbered them 120 to 23, but the Terran ships had greater firepower and could take a lot more hits. Lang pointed his fighter at a presumed Clank squadron leader and fired three quick bursts into him which caused his fighter to collapse and explode. Many other Clanks met their end in the first pass, which quickly descended into a large scale fur ball.
Lang weaved his fighter from target to target downing one after another. “Plasma cannons are overheating,” Morgan cried while trying to balance power demands. Lang grunted in reply and toggled his weapon selector to gauss cannons and pulled tight in behind another enemy fighter. As he squeezed the trigger the familiar “thump-thump-thump” was replaced by a rumbling sensation and a dull roar. The four gauss cannons threw thousands of tiny tungsten projectiles into the rear of the Clank fighter. The first rounds melted into rear shields but slowly breached the energy barrier and began to chew into the hull. Less than a second of sustained fire tore the enemy ship to pieces and ruptured its reactor in a quick flash of light and energy.
A split second later Lang’s fighter shuttered under the fire of a Clank fighter that had pulled onto his 6 o’clock. He jerked the stick back and forth, causing follow on attacks to overshoot. He tried to buy time for his wingman to pick off this challenger, but after a few seconds of crazy maneuvers he figured he had be pulled off into the fur ball somewhere and he was on his own. “Coppertop, swat this fly!” he called into his comm.
“Eye sir,” Morgan replied. Her hands flew to a secondary set of controls where she locked on to the annoying challenger. Half a second later a small missile jumped from the aft of her craft and detonated off the port nacelle of the Clank fighter. Although the missile didn’t destroy the ship outright, it did its job and knocked the ship off its axis and caused it to spin widely off course. Before the Clank pilot could level off, a fortunate Wolverine fighter swooped by and finished it off.
The rapid dogfight continued for several more minutes until the last Clank fighter was destroyed. Lang pulled his battered ships into formation and took account of the situation. He had emerged victorious, but those 120 kills had cost him half of his squadron and five more Wolverines. The twelve remaining ships pushed forwards towards their besieged carrier, and for the first time since the ambush started, Lang could get a good picture of how the Saladin was doing.
“She is still there,” Morgan reported with a little relief in her voice. “I am assembling a tactical readout for your viewer.”
Lang focused on the screen and was surprised at what he saw. The Saladin and her heavy cruiser, the Audie Murphy, were locked in a close range slug match with several large Clank ships including what was left of a battleship. The entire area around the Saladin was littered with burning debris, some coming from the rest of her battle group but a lot more was obviously from Clank ships. He also spotted six of his bombers and four of their escorts were still in the fight.
“It appears that two full enemy battle groups are arrayed in a blocking action to prevent our escape. Three other groups directly engaged Saladin. Of those ships, only four are left, and all are heavily damaged,” Morgan reported, then paused as new data came in, “more fighters are coming in from those two outlying groups.”
Lang and his dozen surviving fighters attacked into the new group of enemy ships as they wove between the supporting fire of Sally and Murphy and dodged the debris of the dying Clank ships. Enemy after enemy fell before Lang’s guns but they began to take their toll on his battered ship.
“Hold still you little shit,” Lang swore as he tried to bring his big guns to bear on this particularly nimble enemy. He finally got a good angle and destroyed the Clank ship in a quick cannon burst. Unfortunately, the enemy ship had pulled Lang way out into the open and isolated him from cruiser fire support as well as any friendly fighters. Seeing a chance to pick off an easy target, over a dozen Clanks encircled Lang and attacked.
Lang went totally defensive and put his fighter into every crazy spiral maneuver he could think of. Meanwhile Morgan did her best to keep the shields up while trying to get the most out of the few defensive missiles she had left. Just then a loud alarm filled the cabin.
“They’ve locked us up,” Morgan shouted, “three missiles incoming. Launching countermeasures.”
Lang threw the fighter into a tight turn as one missile overshot and buzzed past his canopy only a few meters away. He pulled to the right and the second missile clipped the edge of his starboard shields and detonated. The shock wave threw the fighter end over end, and Lang just managed to stabilize his ship before the last missile slammed square into his aft shields.
Lang expected the death blow to come before he could once again right his craft, but he was surprisingly left alone long enough to get back on his feet. A wave of relief swept across his face as he saw the battered but still firing hull of the Audie Murphy blast through his attackers.
“Our shields are down,” Morgan reported, “Plasma capacitors are offline, rear armor is eroded to 10%, maneuvering jets to 50%, but I think we will make it.”
Lang smiled as he thought they might actually pull this battle off. Just then one of the few remaining Clank fighters cut over the top of the Murphy and emptied its gauss cannons into Lang’s exposed dorsal armor. He heard a sharp scream as his fighter’s canopy was penetrated by a handful of projectiles, before the loud whoosh of venting atmosphere and then the still silence of vacuum.
Lang rolled his fighter to present his thicker ventral armor. Fortunately, the Murphy’s guns picked off the enemy ship before it could do more damage. He pulled his fighter in close to the Murphy and when he saw no Clank ships in the area, he took time to assess his damage. He keyed his comm. to check in with Morgan, “Status report,”
Lang waited a few seconds then checked his comms, “Coppertop, report.” Getting worried, he loosened his harness and craned his neck to look into the back seat, and his heart sank into his stomach. Through her helmet, he could see her eyes locked into an expression of surprise and fear. His eyes trailed down her body and saw several large, blackened holes in her flight suit. Small sparks leapt between the fist sized gaps in her torso as various fluids evaporated into the vacuum of space.
Lang slowly turned back around in his seat as a burning anger began to stoke inside his chest. Until this point he hadn’t held anything against the Clanks; they were just another in a long line of enemies. It was just a job to shoot them down, and if peace was declared he would smile and train for the next enemy. But now the Clanks had torn out his heart just as he had dared open it up again. He remembered the rage he felt when his parents and brothers died in the AI wars, and how that rage made had made him a powerful foe. He tossed his despair into the furnace of his anger and focused on what more damage he could inflict.
“All ships this is the Saladin,” crackled Lang’s comm., “all fighters return to base. We found an escape vector and are going to make a run for it.” He pulled up the battle plan and saw how the Saladin planned to slingshot past MacDougal 3 and use the gravity boost to get them clear of the Clank ships before they could reposition to react. Just then he spotted a dozen Clank bombers approaching from MacDougal 4.
“Saladin, this is Brawler,” Lang growled, “Do you see those bombers coming in?”
“Copy that Brawler,” responded Saladin’s XO, “get your ass on the flight deck quickly and the captain thinks we can outrun them.”
“That is bullshit and you know it,” Lang replied, “They will have a torpedo lock on us way before we can make the jump.”
“Maybe, but I don’t think we have much of a choice, we just have to hope our flak gunners can do their jobs.”
“Send me an ammo can and I will hold them off,” Lang growled with a combination of excitement and grim determination.
“Your ship is barely holding together,” the XO countered, “you won’t stand a chance. Even if you do take them out, you will be left here on your own.”
“Give me a full load of Hornets and I will at least break their charge. It should give you just enough time,” Lang paused, “After I am done with them, I’ll find a nice tropical island on MacDougal 3 and retire.” Lang listened to static as his ship pulled a slow pass over the battered Saladin. The last of his fighters pulled into the flight deck as he waited for a reply.
“Ammo can is on its way,” the XO replied with a sullen voice. He was a good friend and Lang could tell he was reluctant to write off another comrade in this battle. “Good luck, and hopefully I will see you on that tropical island someday.”
“Good luck to you too,” Lang replied before cutting his comm.. He saw a small tombstone like ship leave Saladin’s flight deck before she and Murphy fired their engines and drove for MacDougal 3. The tombstone ship pulled up under Lang’s fighter and latched a pair of claw-arms onto his hull. He gunned the engines and raced towards the last targets.
As Lang planned his attack strategy, the drone ship loaded missiles, fuel and cannon rounds into his battered fighter. Its job done, the drone dropped off and auto destructed as Lang raced onwards. In the last few minutes before he could engage, he wondered what would await him when everything was all over. Unlike what he told the XO, he knew there was no way he could take all the fighters down and still land safely. He was flying towards his doom, and his rage subsided enough to wonder where he might end up. He wasn’t a religious man, but he couldn’t imagine that the wonders of the human soul could just fade away into nothingness. He also wondered what would happen to Morgan. He had always thought of her as a person, rather than a machine and wondered if she too had a soul. In the last fleeting moments of peace before action, he hoped that if she had a soul, and if there was more to life than just this world, that maybe he would be lucky enough to meet her again.
At maximum range, Lang targeted six points within the tight Clank bomber squadron. He let loose of all of his missiles at once as six bright flare tracked towards his enemy. The bombers evaded slightly avoiding the missiles but they didn’t hit any ships. Instead, they detonated simultaneously between the bombers and their combined blast wave knocked them into erratic spirals.
Lang capitalized on the chaos and pounced on the confused bombers. Two ships had fallen to his guns before they could regroup into a facsimile of a defensive formation. He then concentrated on attacking ships only enough to get them to evade before moving on to the next target. As much as he burned to destroy as many ships as possible, his job was to delay first and destroy second.
In several more minutes of fast slashing attacks, Lang had destroyed another three ships but taken more than a few hits. Alarms wailed from a dozen different sources at once as systems he didn’t even remember sputtered and failed. Unfortunately for Lang, his maneuvering system sputtered at just the wrong time and his ship drifted into the firing arc of a bomber’s heavy guns. He was slammed into his seat as a huge wave of energy tore off the aft-port quarter of his fighter. He spun widely around as alerts flashed signaling an imminent core breach. Before he could embrace a final death, the auto-eject system blew the crew compartment free of the dying fighter. In the spinning star lines he could make out the outline of his faithful fighter before its core finally blew; knocking the small escape pod into another stomach tightening spin. The last thing he saw before he blacked out was a status message flashed across his visor:
“Escape pod compromised, engaging emergency cryogenics….”
***
Lang’s body ached all over as he slowly opened his eyes. He saw a white ceiling and bright lights, and he had to squint to mitigate a fast growing headache. He croaked a low groan as he tried to shield his eyes with his hand.
“He is coming around,” a hushed voice said.
“Quickly, summon the doctor,” a more urgent feminine voice replied.
Lang strained to see who was talking or where he was, but the slightest move of his head sent shooting bolts of pain down his spine.
Lang felt a soft hand on his shoulder and saw a beautiful female face come into his field of vision. “Please don’t move,” she pleaded.
“Where am I?” Lang groaned.
“You are in New Horizon’s Medical Center, on MacDougal 5,” she replied with a smile.
“What?,” Lang grew more confused, “How did I get to MacDougal 5? What is going on?”
“Please calm down,” a deeper male voice said as a bearded man moved into Lang’s vision. “You are safe here. The war has been over for a while. You were in space for quite some time. Your transponder was damaged and a cargo freighter only found you by sheer luck.”
“How long was I out?” Lang asked. He tried once again to sit up but was forced back down by shooting pain.
“Three hundred and fifty seven years….,” the doctor replied.
To be continued…
Colonel Jack Lang awoke a few minutes before 0600 and sat up on his small but comfortable couch. He cracked his joints as he tried to remember why he was on the couch instead of his bed and why he was naked. His room was mostly dark except for a little light leaking from under the door to his private head. He could also just barely hear what sounded like a woman humming.
At precisely 0600 the door to Jack’s head slid open and crisp light flooded out. He shielded his eyes with his hand and as his eyes adjusted he could see the silhouette of a beautiful woman. He smiled as the thoughts of last night’s erotic romp danced through his mind. He had almost forgotten about today’s imminent attack.
“Good morning Jack,” Morgan cooed as she stepped through the doorway and clicked the main light switch. Jack winced a little under the light, but then smiled at her and stood up. She walked across the room to the auto-press wearing only her black thong and bra from last night.
“Good morning Morgan,” Jack replied. He intercepted Morgan in the middle of the small room and planted a passionate kiss on her lips. He could feel her warm, soft skin pressed against his naked body and for the first time in as long as he could remember he felt truly happy. Not just the normal contentment and satisfaction that his daily job provided but a true sense of happiness and excitement for what tomorrow might bring.
The bliss of Morgan’s warm embrace was broken when Jack’s brain returned to reality. He realized that as much as he wanted they couldn’t walk out of his cabin and retire to some tropical beach. The hard truth was that when the door opened, they would walk to war. “Morgan, last night was amazing…but I am worried how we will move forward from here. We both have a job to do and I don’t want our new relationship to get in the way.”
Morgan blushed a little and looked up into Jack’s eyes. “I am very happy that you enjoyed last night. And I am looking forward to where our relationship might go, but don’t worry.” She took his hands in hers. “We are not the only people in the military to start a relationship. There are ways to maintain our professionalism and still move forward.” She paused and pulled her uniform from the auto-press. “Here is an idea…when we are in uniform, we are completely professional and put our relationship aside. But once the uniforms come off after hours we can get personal.”
Jack smiled and nodded, “You know that doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Let’s go with that plan.” He pulled Morgan closer to him and kissed her again. As they kissed, his right hand wandered down to cup her ass.
Morgan pulled away, “Jack…” Morgan giggled as she took a step back.
“Hey what is the matter,” Jack said with a sly smile while looking Morgan up and down. “I don’t see any uniform yet.”
“As tempting as it might be,” Morgan said as she stepped into her skirt, “we have a pre-briefing scheduled for 0630 and you need to get ready.” Jack smiled and gave her one last peck on the cheek.
As Jack pulled away from the kiss, he whispered something into Morgan’s ear, “Thank you for having the courage to crack my shell.” He then silently walked into his lavatory. She got a really good look at his naked backside before the lavatory door slid shut. She stood motionlessly looking at the door for a minute. Her programming rushed to process all these new and powerful emotions. After a few moments a small tear escaped the corner of her eye. She wiped her face with the back of her hand, smiled, then finished getting dressed.
Several minutes later Colonel Lang exited the lavatory and quickly donned his uniform. Morgan was waiting for him with a this morning’s documents ready to go; her long coppery hair now tightly bound in a bun with not a strand tangling on her prim and proper uniform. 90 seconds later they stepped out of Lang’s quarters and off to war.
***
0900 hours. Colonel Lang stood at a podium waiting for his wing to finish assembling in the pilot’s ready room. Morgan sat just to the left of the small stage and worked a terminal to prepare Lang’s materials for the briefing. When the last pilot arrived and sat down, Lang called the meeting to order.
“Good morning folks. I am sorry we have had to keep you in the dark about this mission so far, but due to the nature of the operation secrecy was critical. I am sure you are all curious to see what is going on so let’s get to it.” Lang keyed a button on his pedestal and a solar map appeared as a 3 dimensional hologram in the center of the stage. Instantly subdued murmurs boiled up from the assembled crowd.
“As some of you can tell, we are going to MacDougal. Our three battle groups should drop out of hyperspace at 1300 hours in separate attack vectors. The Kennedy battle group will hit the Clank garrison in orbit of MacDougal 4, and the Yamoto guys will target the supply cache at MacDougal 5. Because you are the most experienced pilots in this operation, we will be conducting the primary strike on the main Clank cargo dump.
“The Saladin and her escort will come out of hyperspace near MacDougal 3, about half an AU off the solar disk. We will perform a magnum launch, form up and assault the supply cache. Wolverine squadron will perform overall space superiority for the mission. Unless instructed otherwise, you are free to hunt down and kill any Clank fighters you find.
“Gator squadron will primarily serve to take out any capital ships or fixed heavy defenses that might stand between us and our target. Once any capital targets are eliminated, you are to attack the supply cache with cannons only. I want you to save your heavy ordinance in case we have to step in and help the other two battle groups.
“Trojan squadron will provide close escort for Gator’s bombers. Once the opposing fighter threat has been eliminated, you may attack the supply cache with the Gators, but I want you to stay close and don’t go glory hunting.
“Finally I will lead Buckeye squadron for this operation. We spearhead the attack on the cache and take out any light fixed defenses.
“We have the Clanks out flanked, so we expect minimal resistance on this operation. Intel believes we may be looking at a light carrier and a few escorts on our end, and the Kennedy and Yamoto might have a few squadrons of fighters from the garrison or planets as well as the possibility of a few fixed defense stations. They also believe what few forces we find will be reserve or green units.
“That in mind, I don’t want anyone getting soft on me. According to Intel this should be a walk in the park and if so there is no reason this shouldn’t be a picture perfect mission. I don’t want to lose anyone to some stupid careless accident. On the other hand, Intel has been wrong in the past so I want you all prepared in case we jump right into the middle of a Clank fleet.
“If we can pull this off, we will put the fleet in position to threaten a dozen or more different Clank supply lines. The tide of war could turn on today’s operation. Further details will be covered in your squadron meetings and in your technical package. Good luck everyone.”
***
Colonel Lang, Morgan and 22 other officers donned their flight suits and performed their last minute checks before the mission. The locker room was eerily quiet as everyone went about their business in near silence. It had been a while since Lang and his squadron had seen actual combat. For the last two years they, along with the rest of Saladin’s fighter wing, had performed test and evaluation missions for new fighters, weapons, components, and tactics. Some would argue that since they hadn’t seen combat in a long time, that they were too inexperienced for a mission like this. On paper, Saladin’s pilots had very few kills and all four squadrons were listed as “novice,” only one step above “green,” or straight out of the academy. However, because of the rigorous testing schedule, Lang’s pilots had logged nearly six times as many flight hours as the fleet average, and the vast majority of those hours were in simulated combat as opposed to uneventful patrols. Lang was confident in his people and couldn’t ask for any better folks in the fleet, but they were all nervous to see if all their practice would pay off in real combat.
Lang checked the mission clock and pulled the final zipper on his suit. “All right folks, it is approaching that hour. I want everyone on the flight line in five minutes.” He grabbed his helmet and made his way out to Saladin’s flight deck; Morgan trailing shortly behind.
Lang could feel the energy when he stepped onto the cavernous flight deck. Hundreds of people in various uniforms scrambled around fueling, arming, and otherwise prepping 48 different fighters. Immediately in front of the locker room entrance stood a dozen large Ares class bombers. The 40 meter long ships were shaped like giant arrowheads, and packed the most firepower of anything short of a full blown destroyer. Behind the bombers, stood the new Ajax interceptors Wolverine squadron managed to “borrow” from Teller station. They were light, nimble, and should prove quite a surprise to the Clank fighters. On the far side of the flight deck, a dozen newer Charon class medium fighters were preparing for launch. The Charons had a good mix of speed, firepower and shields and had made quite a stir when they were deployed a year ago.
Finally Lang spotted his squadron’s venerable Hercules class heavy fighters positioned to be the first to launch. He strolled over to his old bird and ran his hand along the pitted armor plate. The Herc’s had served the Terran Navy for almost 25 years, and their massive firepower and heavy shields had made them a favorite among the more experienced pilots. The nose of his fighter was adorned with a small caricature of a female dominatrix and the title “Feisty Bitch III”. Painted under the canopy were his and Morgan’s call signs, Brawler and Coppertop respectively. He patted the nose of his fighter one last time, like a knight of old would caress his horse before battle, then turned to gather his men.
***
Through a loophole in the laws of physics, Saladin and her escorts appeared in the MacDougal system with a flash of bright light. Colonel Lang felt his stomach twist as Saladin came out of hyperspace. His fingers tightened around the control sticks as the tension came to a head. The ship rumbled his seat as the engines roared to life.
“Engines at full power, all lights are green, and we are good to go,” Morgan said from the flight engineer’s seat right behind Lang’s chair. He looked out the canopy to the deck officer who gave him a thumbs up and pointed towards open stars. He nodded back to wards the officer, pushed the throttle forward, and leapt out of Saladin’s flight deck into open space.
As Lang waited for the rest of his squadron to form up he did a quick scan of the system and correlated that with the information from Saladin C&C. He had a clear sensor picture of the supply cache and to his surprise only one old Clank destroyer stood guard.
When Lang saw that all the fighters had launched he called everyone into formation, “All fighters form up. Attack pattern delta-two-five. Wolverines, stay loose and keep your eyes open. This looks a little too easy. Buckeyes will run interference for the destroyer. Gators, take it out but don’t go overboard, this is an old clunker.”
Lang was pushed into his seat as his fighter and the rest of the wing accelerated to attack. He keyed the internal comm., “Coppertop, transfer reserve energy to forward shields, and even them out as soon as we pass the destroyer.”
“Eye sir,” Morgan promptly replied and she set about to reconfigure the shields.
Five minutes passed as the entire fighter wing tore towards their target. As of yet, the enemy ship hadn’t reacted to their presence, which was a source of increasing worry for Lang. At 10,000 meters out, Buckeye squadron opened up on the destroyer with their heavy plasma cannons. The deep “thump-thump-thump” of the cannons put a smile on Lang’s face. It had been too long since he had unleashed the power of his ship outside of simulators and it felt good as he watch unimagined amounts of raw energy race towards the target.
A shower of bright orange plasma bolts splashed against the destroyer’s shields, as the Herc’s buzzed by at close range. At 1000 meters out the heavy fighters opened up their formation and exposed the bombers behind them. Two torpedoes surged forward from a bomber and a split second later tore into the destroyer’s midsection. Lang’s canopy automatically darkened to protect his eyes from the flash, and when it cleared nothing was left of the enemy ship. It was a textbook attack run where the enemy didn’t even get off a shot.
“The supply dump is open, proceed with the attack plan,” Lang thumbed his comm. from broadcast to internal, “Coppertop, this doesn’t feel right. Give me a full scan of the dump and what is left of that destroyer.”
“Eye sir,” Morgan replied as she threw power into the fighter’s scanners. As Lang waited for the results he watched his fighters tear into the floating cargo containers. He saw Buckeye 3 and 4 swoop in and pour plasma fire into fuel canister. It quickly buckled under the heavy fire and gave off a small explosion, too small. Lang frowned as he turned his fighter to get a closer look at the debris. That tank held 10,000 liters of Clank fuel and should have made quite a show.
“Sir,” Morgan shouted; the tension in her voice plainly evident. “The destroyer was empty. Debris is 20,000 metrics tones too light. It was stripped out shell. I have scanned 15% of the cargo field so far, and every container is empty.”
Lang clenched his teeth together, and keyed his comm. to transmit to the whole wing and to Saladin flight control. “It is a trap. The entire supply dump is a decoy. Abort mission. All fighters return to base.” He pulled his fighter tightly about as his squadron commanders acknowledged the new orders and powered back for home.
No sooner had Lang gathered his ships for the dash back home, than his sensor scopes erupted in a flurry of activity. “Sir, enemy ships coming out of hyperspace,” Morgan called out.
“What are we looking at? I’m having a hard time reading this.” Lang shouted as he tried to sort targets.
“Standby, getting telemetry data from Saladin,” Morgan paused. “Got it. 17 Clank battle groups have entered the system. 5 groups on each of our carriers and 2 more have formed a wall between us and the Saladin.”
Lang keyed the broad comm., “Alright folks, we have to get back to Sally. We need to punch our way through 2 battle groups to do that. The Clanks think they have us beat, but we aren’t done yet. Gators we have a lot of ships to kill so make every shot count. Go for maximum efficiency and take out as many as you can, but save some torps for the ships around Sally. Go for the cruisers and up. Buckeyes will take out the frigates and destroyers. Wolverines and Trojans, take out their fighters.”
The Buckeyes pulled into lead of the formation, the Gators behind them, and Wolverines and Trojans flying a loose cover.
“Eyes on fighters,” came a quick squawk over the comm.
“Confirmed,” replied Morgan, “Clank fleet carriers are scrambling medium fighters, Baal-class.”
“Eta to target?” Lang quickly asked.
“90 seconds to torpedo range,” Morgan quickly replied as her fingers flew over her controls.
Lang keyed his wing wide comm., “All ships, engage at max range. We need to take out the carriers before they finish launching.” He switched the comm. to his squadron. “Call your targets, one ship to each frigate, two to destroyers. We get one pass at this and keep going.”
The fighters raced on towards their new targets. At 15,000 meters out, the Clank ships opened up with sporadic gunfire. The fighters easily weaved between the shots but the close blasts suspended any lingering disbeliefs that this was another simulation. As soon as possible, the Terran fighters eagerly returned fire.
“Coppertop, get me four Hammerheads, two AP followed by two delay,” Lang shouted as he dodged a close shot.
“Confirmed,” Morgan responded, “Fish are armed, locked and ready to go.”
Lang locked his fighter onto a particularly feisty enemy frigate and let loose with his plasma cannons. The guns cycled over a dozen times before his capacitors drained. Each wave of energy slammed into the frigate’s shields, slowly boiling them away until a small breach formed and plasma bolts began to eat into layers of armor. Lang switched weapons and popped off two missiles shortly followed by another pair. They lanced toward their target leaving a thin streak of exhaust behind them. The frigate intensified its fire to intercept the new threat, catching one of the second pair in a small explosion. The first pair of missiles exploded against the hull; eating through over a meter of armor. The last missile engaged a final booster and slammed into the armor breach at high speed. In a split second, the missile broke through any remaining armor and detonated inside the hull.
Lang smiled as small explosions erupted along the frigate’s hull. His fighter streaked by the crippled frigate and raced towards home. “They are losing containment on the port reactor,” Morgan beamed from the back seat. He switched a secondary display to the aft camera and watched his frigate explode in a flash of light and hull fragments. He panned the camera around and saw multiple bright explosions as nuclear torpedoes impacted against various enemy carriers and cruisers. He also saw his pilots swooping between the blossoming fireballs to pick off what few Clank ships made it into space before they were immolated. In a few more moments Lang’s fighters regrouped and continued on to protect their carrier.
Lang checked his squadron display and saw 9 green, 2 yellow and 1 red icon. The greens being undamaged, yellows were lightly damaged, and reds heavily damaged. He was disappointed about the red but happy that none of the icons were black, indicated a destroyed fighter. “Squadron leaders report in,” he snapped.
“Trojans: 10 green, 2 yellow.”
“Wolverines: 8 green, 2 yellow, 1 red, 1 black.”
“Gators: 6 green, 5 yellow, 1 red.”
Lang frowned at the report, but if they made it out and he only had to write one letter home he would consider it a good day.
“BDA coming in,” Morgan called as she brought up a report. “Both Clank carriers destroyed outright, along with two cruisers, five destroyers, nine frigates, and eighteen fighters. Two other cruisers and three destroyers are still in one piece but are burning in space.”
“Excellent job folks, the next run is coming up,” Lang cracked into his comm. He pulled a quick forward scan, then reopened the channel, “Incoming fighters from the second group of carriers. ETA 90 seconds. Trojans stay with the Gators and go for the enemy cap ships. Wolverines, Buckeyes we will take the fighters head on.”
The Wolverine and Buckeye fighters surged forward to meet the new threat. The Clank fighters outnumbered them 120 to 23, but the Terran ships had greater firepower and could take a lot more hits. Lang pointed his fighter at a presumed Clank squadron leader and fired three quick bursts into him which caused his fighter to collapse and explode. Many other Clanks met their end in the first pass, which quickly descended into a large scale fur ball.
Lang weaved his fighter from target to target downing one after another. “Plasma cannons are overheating,” Morgan cried while trying to balance power demands. Lang grunted in reply and toggled his weapon selector to gauss cannons and pulled tight in behind another enemy fighter. As he squeezed the trigger the familiar “thump-thump-thump” was replaced by a rumbling sensation and a dull roar. The four gauss cannons threw thousands of tiny tungsten projectiles into the rear of the Clank fighter. The first rounds melted into rear shields but slowly breached the energy barrier and began to chew into the hull. Less than a second of sustained fire tore the enemy ship to pieces and ruptured its reactor in a quick flash of light and energy.
A split second later Lang’s fighter shuttered under the fire of a Clank fighter that had pulled onto his 6 o’clock. He jerked the stick back and forth, causing follow on attacks to overshoot. He tried to buy time for his wingman to pick off this challenger, but after a few seconds of crazy maneuvers he figured he had be pulled off into the fur ball somewhere and he was on his own. “Coppertop, swat this fly!” he called into his comm.
“Eye sir,” Morgan replied. Her hands flew to a secondary set of controls where she locked on to the annoying challenger. Half a second later a small missile jumped from the aft of her craft and detonated off the port nacelle of the Clank fighter. Although the missile didn’t destroy the ship outright, it did its job and knocked the ship off its axis and caused it to spin widely off course. Before the Clank pilot could level off, a fortunate Wolverine fighter swooped by and finished it off.
The rapid dogfight continued for several more minutes until the last Clank fighter was destroyed. Lang pulled his battered ships into formation and took account of the situation. He had emerged victorious, but those 120 kills had cost him half of his squadron and five more Wolverines. The twelve remaining ships pushed forwards towards their besieged carrier, and for the first time since the ambush started, Lang could get a good picture of how the Saladin was doing.
“She is still there,” Morgan reported with a little relief in her voice. “I am assembling a tactical readout for your viewer.”
Lang focused on the screen and was surprised at what he saw. The Saladin and her heavy cruiser, the Audie Murphy, were locked in a close range slug match with several large Clank ships including what was left of a battleship. The entire area around the Saladin was littered with burning debris, some coming from the rest of her battle group but a lot more was obviously from Clank ships. He also spotted six of his bombers and four of their escorts were still in the fight.
“It appears that two full enemy battle groups are arrayed in a blocking action to prevent our escape. Three other groups directly engaged Saladin. Of those ships, only four are left, and all are heavily damaged,” Morgan reported, then paused as new data came in, “more fighters are coming in from those two outlying groups.”
Lang and his dozen surviving fighters attacked into the new group of enemy ships as they wove between the supporting fire of Sally and Murphy and dodged the debris of the dying Clank ships. Enemy after enemy fell before Lang’s guns but they began to take their toll on his battered ship.
“Hold still you little shit,” Lang swore as he tried to bring his big guns to bear on this particularly nimble enemy. He finally got a good angle and destroyed the Clank ship in a quick cannon burst. Unfortunately, the enemy ship had pulled Lang way out into the open and isolated him from cruiser fire support as well as any friendly fighters. Seeing a chance to pick off an easy target, over a dozen Clanks encircled Lang and attacked.
Lang went totally defensive and put his fighter into every crazy spiral maneuver he could think of. Meanwhile Morgan did her best to keep the shields up while trying to get the most out of the few defensive missiles she had left. Just then a loud alarm filled the cabin.
“They’ve locked us up,” Morgan shouted, “three missiles incoming. Launching countermeasures.”
Lang threw the fighter into a tight turn as one missile overshot and buzzed past his canopy only a few meters away. He pulled to the right and the second missile clipped the edge of his starboard shields and detonated. The shock wave threw the fighter end over end, and Lang just managed to stabilize his ship before the last missile slammed square into his aft shields.
Lang expected the death blow to come before he could once again right his craft, but he was surprisingly left alone long enough to get back on his feet. A wave of relief swept across his face as he saw the battered but still firing hull of the Audie Murphy blast through his attackers.
“Our shields are down,” Morgan reported, “Plasma capacitors are offline, rear armor is eroded to 10%, maneuvering jets to 50%, but I think we will make it.”
Lang smiled as he thought they might actually pull this battle off. Just then one of the few remaining Clank fighters cut over the top of the Murphy and emptied its gauss cannons into Lang’s exposed dorsal armor. He heard a sharp scream as his fighter’s canopy was penetrated by a handful of projectiles, before the loud whoosh of venting atmosphere and then the still silence of vacuum.
Lang rolled his fighter to present his thicker ventral armor. Fortunately, the Murphy’s guns picked off the enemy ship before it could do more damage. He pulled his fighter in close to the Murphy and when he saw no Clank ships in the area, he took time to assess his damage. He keyed his comm. to check in with Morgan, “Status report,”
Lang waited a few seconds then checked his comms, “Coppertop, report.” Getting worried, he loosened his harness and craned his neck to look into the back seat, and his heart sank into his stomach. Through her helmet, he could see her eyes locked into an expression of surprise and fear. His eyes trailed down her body and saw several large, blackened holes in her flight suit. Small sparks leapt between the fist sized gaps in her torso as various fluids evaporated into the vacuum of space.
Lang slowly turned back around in his seat as a burning anger began to stoke inside his chest. Until this point he hadn’t held anything against the Clanks; they were just another in a long line of enemies. It was just a job to shoot them down, and if peace was declared he would smile and train for the next enemy. But now the Clanks had torn out his heart just as he had dared open it up again. He remembered the rage he felt when his parents and brothers died in the AI wars, and how that rage made had made him a powerful foe. He tossed his despair into the furnace of his anger and focused on what more damage he could inflict.
“All ships this is the Saladin,” crackled Lang’s comm., “all fighters return to base. We found an escape vector and are going to make a run for it.” He pulled up the battle plan and saw how the Saladin planned to slingshot past MacDougal 3 and use the gravity boost to get them clear of the Clank ships before they could reposition to react. Just then he spotted a dozen Clank bombers approaching from MacDougal 4.
“Saladin, this is Brawler,” Lang growled, “Do you see those bombers coming in?”
“Copy that Brawler,” responded Saladin’s XO, “get your ass on the flight deck quickly and the captain thinks we can outrun them.”
“That is bullshit and you know it,” Lang replied, “They will have a torpedo lock on us way before we can make the jump.”
“Maybe, but I don’t think we have much of a choice, we just have to hope our flak gunners can do their jobs.”
“Send me an ammo can and I will hold them off,” Lang growled with a combination of excitement and grim determination.
“Your ship is barely holding together,” the XO countered, “you won’t stand a chance. Even if you do take them out, you will be left here on your own.”
“Give me a full load of Hornets and I will at least break their charge. It should give you just enough time,” Lang paused, “After I am done with them, I’ll find a nice tropical island on MacDougal 3 and retire.” Lang listened to static as his ship pulled a slow pass over the battered Saladin. The last of his fighters pulled into the flight deck as he waited for a reply.
“Ammo can is on its way,” the XO replied with a sullen voice. He was a good friend and Lang could tell he was reluctant to write off another comrade in this battle. “Good luck, and hopefully I will see you on that tropical island someday.”
“Good luck to you too,” Lang replied before cutting his comm.. He saw a small tombstone like ship leave Saladin’s flight deck before she and Murphy fired their engines and drove for MacDougal 3. The tombstone ship pulled up under Lang’s fighter and latched a pair of claw-arms onto his hull. He gunned the engines and raced towards the last targets.
As Lang planned his attack strategy, the drone ship loaded missiles, fuel and cannon rounds into his battered fighter. Its job done, the drone dropped off and auto destructed as Lang raced onwards. In the last few minutes before he could engage, he wondered what would await him when everything was all over. Unlike what he told the XO, he knew there was no way he could take all the fighters down and still land safely. He was flying towards his doom, and his rage subsided enough to wonder where he might end up. He wasn’t a religious man, but he couldn’t imagine that the wonders of the human soul could just fade away into nothingness. He also wondered what would happen to Morgan. He had always thought of her as a person, rather than a machine and wondered if she too had a soul. In the last fleeting moments of peace before action, he hoped that if she had a soul, and if there was more to life than just this world, that maybe he would be lucky enough to meet her again.
At maximum range, Lang targeted six points within the tight Clank bomber squadron. He let loose of all of his missiles at once as six bright flare tracked towards his enemy. The bombers evaded slightly avoiding the missiles but they didn’t hit any ships. Instead, they detonated simultaneously between the bombers and their combined blast wave knocked them into erratic spirals.
Lang capitalized on the chaos and pounced on the confused bombers. Two ships had fallen to his guns before they could regroup into a facsimile of a defensive formation. He then concentrated on attacking ships only enough to get them to evade before moving on to the next target. As much as he burned to destroy as many ships as possible, his job was to delay first and destroy second.
In several more minutes of fast slashing attacks, Lang had destroyed another three ships but taken more than a few hits. Alarms wailed from a dozen different sources at once as systems he didn’t even remember sputtered and failed. Unfortunately for Lang, his maneuvering system sputtered at just the wrong time and his ship drifted into the firing arc of a bomber’s heavy guns. He was slammed into his seat as a huge wave of energy tore off the aft-port quarter of his fighter. He spun widely around as alerts flashed signaling an imminent core breach. Before he could embrace a final death, the auto-eject system blew the crew compartment free of the dying fighter. In the spinning star lines he could make out the outline of his faithful fighter before its core finally blew; knocking the small escape pod into another stomach tightening spin. The last thing he saw before he blacked out was a status message flashed across his visor:
“Escape pod compromised, engaging emergency cryogenics….”
***
Lang’s body ached all over as he slowly opened his eyes. He saw a white ceiling and bright lights, and he had to squint to mitigate a fast growing headache. He croaked a low groan as he tried to shield his eyes with his hand.
“He is coming around,” a hushed voice said.
“Quickly, summon the doctor,” a more urgent feminine voice replied.
Lang strained to see who was talking or where he was, but the slightest move of his head sent shooting bolts of pain down his spine.
Lang felt a soft hand on his shoulder and saw a beautiful female face come into his field of vision. “Please don’t move,” she pleaded.
“Where am I?” Lang groaned.
“You are in New Horizon’s Medical Center, on MacDougal 5,” she replied with a smile.
“What?,” Lang grew more confused, “How did I get to MacDougal 5? What is going on?”
“Please calm down,” a deeper male voice said as a bearded man moved into Lang’s vision. “You are safe here. The war has been over for a while. You were in space for quite some time. Your transponder was damaged and a cargo freighter only found you by sheer luck.”
“How long was I out?” Lang asked. He tried once again to sit up but was forced back down by shooting pain.
“Three hundred and fifty seven years….,” the doctor replied.
To be continued…
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