Chapter 4

Chapter 4

A lot of concepts were tried and tossed out on first generation Shambala class ships. One of my favorites was the half-hearted attempt at an observation deck. Even after the complete failure of early “gunboat” battleships they were convinced this new design could end the war in a year or two, so they’d started the living museum project early. Most surviving first gen ACP’s had their observation decks gutted and replaced years ago, but Atlantis still had one room left. It was tiny, two people could stretch their arms out and grasp hands while touching either wall. But it was the quietest part of the ship, and its colossal window was breathtaking, and its sill was just large enough for me to sit on when I felt like looking outside.

There was a small noise from behind me and I turned around. “Morning.” It was Naya, hair tied back and leaning against a bulkhead.

“Hi. How long have you been standing there?”

“Minute or two. Spin-Out told me I’d find you up here,” she said, striding over to one of the chairs and sitting down.

“You’re pretty stealthy.”

“Maybe you’re just deaf.” I leaned back against the window sill. I noticed that she had already attached the 3^rd squadron patch to her sleeve. “What’re you doing up here anyway?”

“Just thinking. It’s actually kind of quiet in here,” I said.

“I’m surprised there aren’t more people.”

“Not many remember this place exists.”

“Too bad really, it’s nice,” she said, resting her feet on one of the two chairs that had been donated to the room from the mess. “How did you find it then?”

“Kha’tesh,” I replied. She cocked her head inquisitively. “Y’know, The Early War?”

“You actually remember History I?”

I shrugged. “Just the interesting parts.”

“Mmm.”

We fell quiet for a few minutes. Finally I broke the silence and asked “What do you think we’re doing in this system?”

She thought about it for a moment. “Whatever we’re doing, it’s reactionary, not planned.”

“Someone showed their hand and broke the stalemate, now we’re gonna try to finish it.”

“Mhm. Link up with the 34^th admiral was interrupted yesterday, so they’re going to try again this morning.”

“So we’re part of the 34^th now?”

“Something like that.”

“It would be nice if we had something better to shoot with.” If we were going to be hunting bigger game the fighter jockeys needed something besides missiles and guns. Armor piercing rounds, rocket pods, something, anything that could surprise a Conjunction ship.

I stretched and she looked pensively out into the stars. “Did they ever tell you why we never get any specialized ammo?”

“We’re on an old ship that isn’t on the front lines often enough for them to justify the logistics work,” I said bitterly.

She snorted and continued to stare out of the window. “There any kind of ammo production around here?” she asked.

“I think we have one small forge on the tactical flight deck.”

“Interesting.” She raised her eyebrows and stared back out at the stars. I tried to read what she was thinking, there was a mischievous glint in her deep green eyes. Our thoughts were interrupted as a steel hull loomed into view. It was another ACP, almost as large if not larger than Atlantis. This would be the 34th fleet admiral. It eased into formation beside us, completely blocking the view of the outside.

“Well, so much for star gazing. Unless you find staring at the side of a starship fascinating, I suggest we find out what 3^rd’s doing for the next 24 hours,” she said, standing up and walking toward the door. I stretched and collected my towel before following her.

“Might as well.”

We talked about the previous day’s battle on the way down to the flight deck, mostly techniques and flight patterns, both that we used and that were used against us.

“You sure you won’t get in trouble with anyone for giving me this patch so early?” she said after a while, flashing the large red three now residing on her right shirt sleeve.

“Nah, I figure you can hold your own.”

“I didn’t even really get a chance to fly. It was a bombing raid up until that last part.”

“And I was shackled to your six that whole time,” I said “If you weren’t a good pilot I’d be dead right now.”

“You weren’t half bad yourself.”

A crackle of static from the intercom cut us off. “The ASV Atlantis welcomes aboard 34^th fleet admiral Fallon Corris.” A detachment of marines marched by, all surrounding a tall Bast man in a well tailored uniform adorned by a large display of ribbons and medals. He was bald, his stripes seemed far bolder than any others I’d seen, and his eyes were gunmetal gray. He glanced in our direction and shot us a curt nod. We squared up and gave him a quick salute. He looked away, his mind clearly occupied with other things.

“He could make ice cubes in a volcano,” Naya said once the admiral was out of earshot.

“Heh. C’mon, let’s go.”

Spin-Out caught us almost at the door when we finally reached the ready room. “Good morning, lady and gentleman!” he said in an annoyingly upbeat tone.

“What’s got you in such a good mood?” I asked.

“The fact that I don’t have to deal with my new wingman today.”

“How’d you managed that?” Naya asked

“Uh, I got some bad news for you,” he said, looking at me. There was a shout from behind me.

“Lieutenant!” It was Hard Armor.

“Yes sir?”

“We’re reorganizing the squads. Tail-Burn and a few of the pilots we’re transferring to the ground are leaving some gaps in the lineup, so we’re pushing the rookies up.”

“Something tells me I’m not going to like this, sir.”

“You’re right. A bunch of the nuggets are fresh out of basic flight. They need someone to show them around the Falcon. That’s where you come in.”

“There aren’t any flight instructors around, sir? I’m sure they’d do a much better…”

“No, sorry Admen. Frost from first squadron and Barn-Storm from second bought it in that last fight,” he said, his face turning dark. “We’re about to start rowing up shit creek, we need everyone we can get, and you’re one of our best pilots. If there’s anyone that can teach them how to fly, it’s you. Spin-Out’s wingman’ll be flying with second squad to fill in for Barn-Storm, Axel, you’ll be flying with Spin-Out for a few days.” Naya gave him a quick nod. “I don’t like it either, but we need people at their best.” He leaned in a bit and lowered his voice. “I assume you’ve pieced together by now that this is hardly routine stuff,” he said. We all nodded silently “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but you’re gonna learn soon enough anyway. There’s an op coming. We can’t afford to be operating at half strength.”

“I understand sir. I don’t like it, but I understand,” I said.

“Good. I’m not asking you to teach ‘em, just train ‘em. Run sims, manage target and maneuver practice, let ‘em know you’re in charge. Think of it as having your own squadron for a while.”

“My own very, very, very green squadron. Yes sir.”

“Report to me at 1700 every day, and be ready to jump back into rotation if something happens. You can skip briefing today, the sooner you finish this the better. You’ll find you’re group on flight deck two, we’ve cleared it out for you. We’ve got four reserve fighters fueled and ready for launch, some of ‘em had some problems in g-tolerance training, we want you to put ‘em through the ringer. They’re all starting out C-class. You’ll find a projector screen set up with the usual jargon. Spin-Out, Axel, you can skip out too. You and Gamma wing are replacing a group from second squad on Combat Air Patrol in 10 minutes, gear up.” We all saluted. “Dismissed,” and he walked away. I grumbled and Spin-Out gave me a quick pat on the back.

“On the upside, you won’t be as bored as we will for a while,” he said.

“Bite me.”

“I’m sorry mate, that’s rotten luck,” Naya said.

“Yeah, you two get to take a nap in your cockpit, I get stuck trying to explain combat maneuvers to a bunch of twelve year olds,” I said, leaning back against a bulkhead and rubbing my temples.

“Aw, it’s not going to be that bad,” Naya said.

“You’ve clearly never had to run orientation for nuggets. I’ll see you two at dinner.”

I walked along passages and cut through causeways on my way to flight deck two. Deck two wasn’t used as often as the other, it was crowded with our spare fighters, some rigged to run training missions at the moment. There was a projector screen set up on the middle of the room with a large number of plastic seats, and sitting around it were the new recruits. A group of fifteen green horns that I was going to have to make pilots out of. A couple nuggets were milling around talking, some others were sitting on spare fuel tanks. A few were screwing around with a reserve Falcon sitting in the corner, scratching their initials into it by the looks. I strode in, picked up the remote for the projector and walked over to stand in front of them. They didn’t even seem to notice me.

“All right nuggets! Sit the hell down and pay attention!” I said. A couple of them vaguely responded by sitting or turning to face me, the others just acted like I hadn’t spoken. I was so not in the mood for this. I sighed and checked behind me, the deck was secured. The armor plating would ensure this little stunt wouldn’t upset the rest of the crew. I drew my sidearm. I pointed it at the ceiling, double checked to make sure there was nothing important right above me, and pulled the trigger twice. Two deafening bangs echoed around the empty deck and reverberated around the walls and the remaining pilots whipped around to face me, some trying to cover their ears. There was a brief silence broken only by the sound of the two bullets thudding to the ground a few feet behind me after flattening on the stainless steel ceiling.

“Welcome to real life!” I shouted, holstering my gun. “Clearly there are a few things you don’t understand about how this is going to work. Number one, you are to respect me. I am Lieutenant Admen, your deeply reluctant training officer, and if my position is too hard to comprehend, I am the guy who can crush your nuts if I’m in a bad mood. Number two, you are to follow my orders quickly and without question. I say shit, you squat. And number three, I don’t want to hear complaints, or see you fucking around with something you shouldn’t be. That means those of you who were scratching that Falcon, I catch you doing that again and I will make you fly without an oxygen helmet.” They all stared. The whole thing had been a little extravagant on my part, but these people clearly needed a wake up call.

“Today most of you will not actually be in the cockpit, we will be getting a handle on your skills and flight style. First, how many of you have ever flown a Falcon of any class before now?” Everyone had been run through this spiel when they got their first assignment, most full time flight instructors had it tattooed on the insides of their eyelids. A grand total of five of the 15 raised their hands. “About one third of you, suppose the brass don’t want you breakin’ their expensive toys,” I said conversationally. A few weak chuckles from the crowd. “Now I’m going to narrow it down further. How many of you have ever flown a C-class Falcon before now?” Three of the five raised their hands. “Okay, you should know what we’re doing. The rest of you, I will explain how the C-class works.”

I hit the power button on the remote and the projector screen showed the specs of a C-class. “The C-class Falcon is the most balanced of the Falcon series star fighters. She has two wing-mounted 13 millimeter guns, and two nose integrated missile launchers. She also features a helmet integrated Heads Up Display, and a medium range Omnidirectional Target Acqusition System. She’s flown via a flight stick package and can reach speeds of 250 kilometers per hour on her own engines. Her primary use is fighter-to-fighter engagements. You two have most likely flown T-class right?” The two who had raised their hands the first, but not second time nodded. “The two are similar, but the different controls, smaller guns and faster movement might throw you off at first. The rest of you have just gone through flight simulations, right?” There was a general murmur of agreement. “Good. Then you should feel right at home. The simulations are very close to the real thing. You just have to be launched. You know how to fly a Falcon and you have a theoretical knowledge of how to shoot in a Falcon. The only thing that a simulation can’t give you is the real feeling of combat, and the confusion of coming under attack.”

I hit a button and the screen changed to a list of procedures. “When you hear a condition red alarm, you have to drop what you’re doing and run. You need to get to your Falcon, run pre-flight, suit up, and launch into the battlefield in five minutes or less. You need to be able to find this deck and get into your Falcon, blindfolded.” They were silent apart from a few “you’ve got to be kidding me” looks. “Now, The five of you who have actually flown before, feel free to zone out and think about what you’re gonna do when your tight ass flight instructor releases you. The rest of you pay attention.” The screen changed to show flight cam footage of a launch procedure.

“You all know that you have to board your Falcon, lock on your flight suit and helmet, and install your flight package. That’s the first thing they teach you in basic. What you don’t know is how it actually feels to be launched from an All Combat Purposes type star craft. In order to break free from the ships artificial and natural gravitational pull, you need to be launched from a tube. This ship has 14 primary launch tubes on deck one, five secondary tubes on this deck, and two heavy tactical tubes on deck three, all on the starboard side of the ship, and the combat landing hanger is located on the lower stern. If we’re on the offensive, we typically launch by squadron. Rest of the time it’s a free-for-all. When you’re loaded into one of these launch tubes, you are fired via your own thrusters and a pneumatic piston that releases 9 metric tons of built up pressure in order to launch you.”

The screen changed to show a diagram of a pilot and the force released on him during launch. “When you’re launched from this tube, you experience 3.5 g’s of force, the equivalent of a launch from a planet with gravity similar to earth. Some of you might not be used to experiencing this much force. I suggest you get used to it fast. You have all gone through g force training, but I understand that some of you had trouble with it?” I asked. Four of the pilots nodded. “You four will be launched first, but you’re going to run this on auto pilot.” They looked a little queasy. “This will just be to get a handle on your gravity tolerance. Any of you who faint, I will be washing out, if you’re that intolerant of gravity at this point in your training, you don’t belong here and I’ll see what I can do about assigning you to helm training instead.” They tensed up in their seats. “But those who just feel weird, disoriented, or flat out throw up, that’s mild gravity intolerance, which will pass with time. If that happens, you’ll just be sitting out the regular training until you’ve gotten used to it.” One of the pilots who had been scratching the Falcon earlier raised his hand. “You, what’s the problem?” I asked.

“What if they can fly fine, but just aren’t used to the launch? You’re just gonna let them sit on the side lines?” he asked.

“You think it’s unfair that just because they can’t pass launch, they don’t even get to try flying until they can. Is that right mister…?”

“Maxus, 2nd lieutenant Ahmed Maxus,” he responded.

“Wrong. Right now you’re obnoxious rookie Ahmed Maxus. None of you have been granted flight status, so you all have no rank as far as I care.” He looked like he wanted to say something else to me, but decided to keep his mouth shut. Good, let him get pissed, it’ll make him want to prove himself, and make him fly better. “On the subject of why I’m not going to let anyone who can’t launch participate in regular training, the fact is that in a real combat situation if you can’t launch, then you can’t get into the fight. If you can’t get into the fight, you’re a better use to us scrubbing toilets,” 2nd lieutenant Ahmed Maxus sat back down. I distinctly heard him say something very unflattering about my mother.

I honestly didn’t care, but clearly he did. Time for another lesson. “Y’know, I don’t think you’re name suits you Maxus. From now on, I’m calling you Dog-Meat, ’cause that’s what you’re going to be if you don’t respect superior officers. Got it Dog-Meat?” There was a small murmur of laughter and Maxus shot me daggers with his eyes. “Now that’s settled, you four prep for launch. As for the rest of you, I want to see how well you work as a squad. There’re a few simulators at the rear of this deck. I’ll punch up a scenario for you. Let me see what you can do if you deflate your egos and work together.”

The pilots left murmuring; the other four claimed a free Falcon and started to suit up, all visibly nervous. I marched over to the deck masters console and fired up the simulators. I wasn’t exactly going to be nice to these rookies. I punched up an empty expanse of space with a few large asteroids for cover and programmed 30 fighters to fly against them. They would be outnumbered two to one. If they pulled their thumbs out of their asses, they could do it. This computer could only ever fly things by the book. I switched panels and set loaders to drag the four Falcons into launch tubes and started to pressurize the pneumatics. I sent the same flight path to their auto pilot consoles. 20 Klicks straight out in formation, a tight 180 and an easy approach to dock. I put the mic on and waited for them to open channels. “Status report.”

“One ready.”

“Two ready.”

“Three ready”

“F…four ready,” I quickly read the name of the last pilot.

“Ease up Crowe. Remember your training and don’t forget to breathe.”

“Yes sir.” He didn’t sound too sure of himself. I opened the airlock and adjusted the pneumatics to standby position. Life support warned me that their hearts had all sped up a bit.

“Don’t worry, you’ll all be fine, just hold your breath and release in short bursts, it helps with the high g forces. Oh, and have fun,” I said. There was a weak laugh from one or two of them. I placed my hand gently onto the master launch button. “Launch in three, two, one, clear!” I hit the release button, and they all hit the accelerator. The good news was that they had all gone down the tubes, the bad news was they all sounded like they weren’t having much of a good time with it. They were all inhaling and releasing in short bursts, but some of them were hyperventilating at the same time. I sat and monitored them as they rode along the simple flight. Thankfully none of them managed to faint. One or two were letting out incoherent noises, stating very clearly that they were a little woozy, but it certainly could have been much worse.

Once they were all back on the ground, they looked much happier. One guy did throw up, but I didn’t blame him. G force could be a finger down the throat if you weren’t used to it.

“All right nuggets, I expected worse, but you need to get used to launching fast if you want to make it out here. After training tomorrow, we’re gonna do the same thing, and once you can launch without a problem I’ll let you join the rest of us for regular training. Understood?” I said. There was a chorus of

“Yes sir!” from the group, who had quickly recovered most of their wits.

“Good, get some rest, and I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow morning. I want at least four hours of logged combat practice in a simulator from each of you, don’t get dull on me,” I finished. They all walked off to have a quick lie down. I strode to the rear of the flight deck to see how the other rookies were doing.

I had spent about 20 minutes total watching the g-tolerance group, so the fight had dragged on for a while. It wasn’t going well. There were twenty or so disembodied Falcon cockpits with their canopies replaced with view screens and the insides rigged with several small artificial gravity devices used to simulate g forces. In the center of the group of simulators was a large holographic display showing the progress of the battle, with small green triangles flying around, representing friendlies and small red ones representing enemies. Of the eleven in the fight, five were dead or disabled; six were still flying against the remaining ten enemy fighters. They could have done much worse, but the odds were still against them.

Maxus was still in the fight. He wasn’t doing all that bad, but he was alone. Hell, they were all alone. Everyone was playing hero, they had all picked their own quarries and were oblivious to the rest of the fight. One green chasing a red picked up a second red and swerved, trying to dodge and maintain its fight with the target. It backfired terribly and the green vanished in a brief burst of light. Any other fight he would have had help. Now the odds were worse. A green killed his target and was caught by a stray burst from another fight. Just rotten luck. Eight to four. The remaining reds started pulling away. The greens followed them, trying to maintain the chase. No, no, no, that was a simple ploy, they were as good as gone. The eight reds pulled around, switching targets and confusing the greens. In one burst of fire, all four of the remaining greens were killed. The display went dark and a message in glowing red letters appeared “SCENARIO FAILED.” The simulators slid open and the pilots clambered out, some of them grumbling about their failure. They assembled into a line and waited for me to chew them out.

“Welcome to the C-class Falcon. It’s not your flying that’s messing you up, it’s your mentality. This is not any one pilot’s heroic rise through the ranks. This is a squadron, and that means you work together and watch each other’s backs.” A male pilot with short black hair raised his hand. “What is it?” I asked.

“Sir, you never assigned a squad leader or gave us any specific orders. Had this been done we might have worked together more effectively.”

“That’s right, I never assigned a squad leader, and that was for a reason. There will be times when you have to operate without orders. Your CO might be dead, he might be worried about something more important than holding your hand. You need to find a way to coordinate in these situations. Understand me when I say that you are and will always be part of a whole.”

“Yes sir!” they chorused.

“I want you to run another four hours of scenarios, this time you can pick from the play book. Organize and get used to the way these things fly. Simulations aren’t perfect, but they ought to get you as close to ready as you’ll ever be. Sign off at dinner, last one out hit the lights. We launch for real tomorrow at 0930. Dismissed.” I strode back to the DM’s console to see what effect this had on the group. They seemed to take it as just another day of training. They had clearly done this before. I pretended to be interested in the console while I watched them. This time they gathered around the central console and scrolled through the play book, picking out a four hour set of scenarios. They didn’t pick any weak-sauce missions either; they were taking on some rough challenges.

This time they looked at the combat map first and actually started talking to each other. Now was when the leaders emerged, the people not only able, but willing to take charge and command a wing. Once they were back in the cockpits, I watched the scenario vaguely from a distance as I started thinking up a training schedule for the coming days. I would put them in the cockpit and take them through a few basic maneuvers, let them get the feel for actual space flight. I’d place them in a few mock battles, let the leaders that I saw today command a partner and see how they did, then some target practice with live rounds. Finally, I’d start leading them the way they would be led on the battlefield: as pairs with one overarching objective and a single commanding officer. Hell, maybe I was an okay flight instructor.

After a few scenarios, the four with gravity issues joined the others and quickly integrated themselves into the other’s plans. Even from a distance, I could see the battles were going over better. Fewer casualties, greens operating together in distinct groups, and yes, successful missions. I sat and watched them for a half hour or so, occasionally listening in on their chatter. It was a bit cluttered, but they got what they meant across and people quickly learned who could lead and who could follow. More importantly, I learned the same thing.

After a while I started watching the rest of the ship’s activity on the console. We were idling while the commander spoke with the admiral, a CAP from each squadron protecting us. Naya and Spin-Out had landed a while back and were now listed as on standby, replacing the next rotation in an hour or two. They were probably in the rec room or something.

After I had sat there for an hour, the console went dark and a message filled the screen. “Briefing about to be transmitted to all combat essential personnel. Please stand by.” I pulled out my U-link and waited.

“The following is classified, releasing any information contained within to non-military personnel will be considered treason. Message from 34th fleet admiral Corris begins. At approximately 0500 hours June 26^th, the Conjunction launched an attack against our planets in the Altor system. They have successfully conquered the space front of planets Accion and Neuvin.” The screen highlighted the two planets in question. “Three days have passed since this assault took place, and the force of ships sent to counter attack was ambushed by Conjunction forces.” That had been the battle from the other day. “GLA high command has decided that this system is too important to be left under any form of Conjunction influence and is rotating ships in to serve in the counter offensive and eventual conquest of the system. At this moment, the Atlantis is one of fifteen total GLA ships of war that are still functional in this system. The GLA now controls no planetary masses however, so there are no available staging grounds for a fleet of the necessary size to conquer the system. Once they jump in, they’ll be unable to refuel or repair. In addition, reinforcements will take time to reach the system and organize, and we can’t leave the Conjunction to operate uncontested.

“Here’s the plan. The fifteen ships will be divided into fleets of five and sent to attack different areas in order to secure set staging grounds. These fleets are here marked A B and C, and are shown at their start positions.” The screen displayed three groups of five, the Atlantis was part of B fleet. We were grouped with a carrier, a cruiser and a pair of destroyers. We were setting up near an asteroid belt a little closer to the center of the system. “Following the completion of operations, the 34th fleet will jump in and divide itself among successfully secured staging grounds. From here, the assembled fleet will blitzkrieg their way through the system. Orders are to proceed to your designated start positions and await further instructions from your commanding officers. Move slow and silent, try to avoid jumps wherever possible. Message ends.” The screen went dark for a moment before my regular menu reappeared.

It was risky, we had the element of surprise, but we didn’t know how many ships we were dealing with. There could be only a couple or one of the fleets could run into the bulk of the forces in the system. Recon was going to be vital to this op. Getting to start positions while avoiding jumps was going to take time, a week or so maybe, with stops to recon areas ahead of the ship.

I looked back out at the holographic display just in time to see the nuggets finish another scenario. I had a week to get these guys flying. We would run training missions while Atlantis was stopped for recon. I turned the console back on and saw that Naya and Spin-Out were back on patrol. Couldn’t imagine their day was any more interesting than mine.

I pulled up records of the last few scenarios the group had run and started watching, seeing how they handled an open ended objective. I quickly learned the names of those who were in charge during well played rounds, those who could not only lead, but could do it with some skill. They were good, not great, but they were good. After about four scenarios, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye. A pair of Falcons both seemed to be having an atrociously bad time of things. They were failing basic maneuvers, swerving around in odd ways. One even flew out of the combat area by accident. Something was wrong here. The names of the two were listed as Edward Jones and Joseph Smith. There was the problem, no middle initial, forged names. I’d seen this before. I wasn’t going to make a big deal out of it in front of the other pilots, I would wait until they had left. I watched a few more scenarios, wrote down the names of those I would want to keep an eye on and zoned out for a while.

At around 1500 the nuggets finally clambered out of their simulators and I told them to break ranks and get some rest. “Jones and Smith, I want to talk to you for a minute.” Two pilots separated themselves from the throng and stood facing me. One was tall and red haired, the other skinny and blonde. Both young, both scared. I waited until the rest of the group had filed out to speak. “All right you two. What the hell was up with your flying, that was horse shit.” They were silent and put on their best poker faces.

“Dunno sir, just choked I guess,” the blond one said.

“Names?”

“Edward Jones,” the blond one said.

“Joseph Smith,” said the red-head.

“I meant your real names.” The two were stone faced.

“Let me take a stab here. You two are from a small time colony, wanted into the fight, so you stowed away and mingled with the crowd? Still doesn’t explain how you two are registered in the system.”

“No sir. Well, sort of. We wanted in, and we got in. Security sir, after selection they were going to stick us on a mining colony,” Joseph said.

“We wanted to be involved for real sir, out on the front lines,” said Edward.

I took a deep breath. “Do you have any idea how serious this kind of thing is? Falsifying records like this is a ‘prison for a very long time’ type offense.” They looked terrified. “First step towards un-fucking this is undoing it. Let’s have your real names and I’ll see what I can do for you guys.”

“We erased our original entries. Look ‘em up you’ll find a dishonorable discharge. We didn’t want to be found,” said Smith.

“Well, now you’ve been found. What do I do with you?” I said, closing the console and studying the two. They shifted from foot to foot. “You know I can’t let you stay.”

“Yes sir, we know.” Here I was with two stupid kids about to get into seriously deep shit. I opened the console again and looked up the itinerary of Admiral Corris’s ship.

“The Navarone is bound for Pestare in the next system over, from there you can get just about anywhere, if you run you might be able to get on board.”

“We want to fight sir,” Edward said.

“I’ll re-instate you at private rank with local security and you can move into the barracks at Pestare. That’s the end of it, understood?”

“Yes sir!” they both said.

“I catch you around here again I’ll arrest you for trespassing and data fraud. Get off this ship.” They saluted and ran to get their things. I found their original records, punched them in for transfer to Pestare via the Navarone and shut the console off. I sat down again. Now I had 13 pilots to manage. That was still going to take time. It was only then that I realized just how tired I was. I checked the clock on my U-link, 15:12. The communications officer piped up.

“All fighters docked, increase engine output.” We were moving a bit closer to the rendezvous point with the rest of our attack force. I stood up and decided I might as well head back to deck one, see what was going on.

I found Spin-Out with his head in his Falcon, messing with one of the engines. “Stupid son of a motherless goat! Get out of there!” he said, producing a satisfying thud after kicking the side of the engine.

“Some engines respond better to positive reinforcement,” I said, leaning against his fighter. He gave a mighty grunt and withdrew from the engine with a piece of machinery and a face full of grease.

“Nah, s’more fun this way.” He looked over the part before casually drop kicking it into a pile of scrap metal. “That thing’s dead as all hell. Gonna need a new one. How were the rookies?” he said before disappearing into his engine again.

“Manageable. I can make pilots out of ‘em at least. Still not my idea of a nice day on the job.”

“True, but it was at least nice to break the cycle, right?”

“Yeah, I guess. How was the CAP?”

“Uneventful, flew around for a while, landed, sat around ‘till it was our turn again, rinse and repeat. Only interesting thing that happened was my engine fowling up,” he said, blindly grabbing a wrench and starting to unbolt something.

“Where’s Axel?”

“Flight deck three, said she was going to take care of something,” he said. “AHA!” He removed a plate of metal from one of his engines and plunged his hand inside. Flight deck three…Why did that sound familiar? “Hand me that requisition sheet would ya?” I handed him the paper and he braced it against the side of his fighter, writing the name of the part he needed. Then it hit me.

“Oh she isn’t,” I said aloud. Spin-Out finished writing down his requisition.

“She isn’t what?” he said, returning his hand to the innards of the engine. He withdrew it one last time, holding a mangled sheet of metal, tossed it aside and started to bolt the plate back into position.

“I’ll see you at dinner,” I said and left him to fix his engine, going to find the tactical deck.

Deck three was mostly abandoned. It was built for heavier tactical Falcons that we didn’t have anymore. Now it was just a place for old ships to collect dust. I could see a few older model fighters that had been spruced up for display, relics used by famous pilots during the early days of the war. When they retired, they left their fighters behind, as memorials of their service. At least, their last fighters. The average pilot who had lived to retire had gone through more than his fair share of planes. The launch tubes of deck three were colossal, designed for ships at least twice the size of our tiny stunt fighters. They were also somewhat derelict and covered in dust, like most of the other things on this deck.

The only other thing on this deck was the tiny ammo forge in the far corner. It was designed to produce rounds for infantry, just the occasional special bullet for a sniper. This was the real reason it hadn’t seen a whole lot of action. Ground fights were usually small and scattered. The only time a fight ever went down to the surface was when a ship crash landed; and the few times this had happened, the Conjunction ships self-destructed to prevent capture, and GLA ships were either quickly recovered or were left with no survivors.

My thoughts turned to the Conjunction. They had started this war decades ago. The Conjunction consisted of human colonies from the farthest reaches of the galaxy and an unknown number of alien species that they had met from somewhere beyond the last barrier. They were ruthless, sacrificing their own lives rather than giving us any worthwhile intelligence. Or intelligence of any kind for that matter. They destroyed their own disabled ships before they could be captured, every time, without fail. I’d heard rumors about the few colony worlds that we had managed to capture doing the same. We knew what their ships could do and what they looked like only from what we had seen in the field. Our recon drones couldn’t get close enough to get anything valuable before being detected and subsequently destroyed. They didn’t respond to communications…ever. We had spotty footage from the outer barrier colonies before they declared independence, encrypted chatter that we had no way to crack, and our own experience and instincts for what to expect in combat with them. They were an enigma. And they were the kind that we didn’t have the time to figure out. Shoot first, let the historians figure out why they did it.

A colossal *BANG!* snapped me out of my thoughts and echoed around the mostly empty flight deck, making my ears ring. I jumped and snapped my hands to my ears.

“What the hell was that!?” I shouted to the flight deck at large.

“Sorry, didn’t see you there. I wondered when you’d show up.” It was Naya, wearing heavy ear protection now hanging around her neck, gloves and welding goggles. “And to answer your question, that was a failed attempt at an armor piercing round made out of scrap metal.” She tossed a spent shell over her shoulder and drew out another one.

“Would you mind tossing me a pair of those?” I said, pointing to the heavy head set.

“Help yourself.” She jabbed a finger towards a storage locker behind her. I retrieved a pair while she locked a fresh round into a test cannon she’d set up. She had been firing rounds at a few sheets of steel set up against the opposite bulkhead. Resting on a raised heavy tactical Falcon’s moorings was a disembodied C class’s gun she had apparently salvaged from a wrecked fighter. She checked to make sure I was ready and fired again, hitting the steel and bashing me in the chest with the shockwave. Even from here I could see that the round had flattened against the sheet, another failure. We both pulled off the head sets and she tossed yet another failed shell into a pile in the corner.

“Mind telling me what you’re doing?”

“I thought that was obvious. They won’t give us armor piercers, so I’m making them myself,” she said, reaching for another shell.

“I got that part. What do you think you’re doing with that?” I said, pointing at the shell.

“Test firing.”

“Not what I meant. What did you make that out of?”

“Lead, cased the whole thing as much corcelum and steel as I could salvage.”

“Ideally a piercing round is coated in copper.”

“But we don’t exactly have a lot of that in stock. Not for us to muck about with anyway.” She set the shell down on its back end and tapped the actual bullet. “I’m also not finding a way to sharpen this a whole lot. The piercing part is sort of important.” Usually our rounds were hollow point. Less metal needed, cheaper to produce.

I looked the cartridge up and down. “Okay, what’s the most common thing we get as scrap?”

“Mixed titanium and athenium from the wrecked fighters.”

“Titanium would be great…”

“But its melting point is way too high.”

“But if you heat the alloy up you can extract the athenium.”

She looked at me and paused. “You really think that’ll punch through armor?”

“Worth a shot isn’t it?”

She thought about it for a moment and then tossed the shell into the pile. “You find the scrap, I’ll get a new round ready.”

I started digging through the pile of scrap metal she’d accumulated, there was a lot of it. “You’ve been busy,” I commented.

“Not really, most of that’s just what the Deck Master had left after yesterday.”

“That explains it. Y’know, technically this kind of thing falls under the Arms Master’s jurisdiction.”

She dumped measured propellant into an empty shell casing and turned to look over her shoulder at me. “I let him know. I sealed the deck and I assume you weren’t thick enough to leave the door open. What’s the problem?”

I shrugged. “Just checking.”

“He seems to have his hands full at the moment. His exact words were ‘if you want to make shells from scrap, be my guest, don’t shoot your fingers off.’”

“Ah, that sounds like him.”

“Mmm.” She pressed the round and I brought over an armful of miscellaneous metal.

Ten minutes or so later we had a shiny black bullet cased in refined athenium. While it had still been hot, we’d put it to a power sander and sharpened it as best as we could. “Even if it doesn’t work, it sure looks nice,” she said, turning the bullet in her gloved hands.

“Looks don’t count for much in this business. Let’s see what happens.” We both pulled the heavy ear protectors back on and she loaded the shell. She mouthed, “Cross your fingers” and fired. From a distance it was hard to tell what had happened. We tossed aside the ear protection and I jogged over to the thick sheets of steel, Naya stayed back, taking care to turn the gun away from us.

“How’d it turn out?” she asked, still moving the gun. I smiled to myself as I looked. The round had gone through three sheets of steel and embedded itself in the fourth.

“See for yourself,” I said as she caught up. She smirked and stuck her finger into the hole created by the bullet.

“I’ll be damned.”

“Probably won’t do much other than piss off anything bigger than a destroyer, but Guardians and fighters should have a real bad day. You’re welcome by the way.”

She straightened up and removed the gloves. “Fine, you were right, good thinking, all that rubbish.” she said, still smiling. “Let’s see you do that to a 20 millimeter, I want these things in my fighter too.”

I checked the clock on my U-link again, almost four. “Tomorrow, the rookies are running me dry. You can keep going if you want.”

“Nah, I’m gonna call it a day myself.” She tossed what was left of her safety gear onto a workbench, picked up the brass from the round and tucked it into her pocket. I wiped sweat from my forehead and took a deep breath.

“You look like you could use a drink,” she said.

“I think you’re right. You wanna come with?”

“Sure, not much else to do while I’m off duty. Drinking you under the table ought to be fun. Is there a match on?”

“Only one way to find out.”

As was typical, the rec room was full of off duty pilots, marines, mechanics, just about anyone that just needed a drink. Including a bar in ships like this was considered rash and idiotic at first. Then they realized we were out here for months at a time watching our friends die and risking our own necks at the same time. You want to put someone in a giant tin can for a few months and ask them to do that? Give them some booze, it’ll keep them sane. We were all smart enough not to get drunk…usually. The commander put up with it because he knew we did our jobs better if we had something to keep our spirits up, even if it was spirits. Some idiot would have tried making moonshine and gone blind if this place wasn’t here anyway.

Spin-Out was lounging around, sitting at a table in the corner, eyes fixed on the single TV screen, half empty pint glass in his hand. He glanced in our direction and waved us over.

“Figure out what was up with your engine?” Naya asked.

“Yeah, heat sink melted, need a new one, fixed by tomorrow,” he said, not taking his eyes from the TV. There was a match on of course. Acrillon Brewers versus the Beijing Firestorm. Not exactly a game I was heavily invested in. Spin-Out had always liked the Brewers, so he wasn’t all that pumped up about having a conversation with us at the moment. We let him be and pulled up a pair of stools at the bar. The bar keeper slid a pair of full pint glasses to us and returned his gaze to the TV. There were only five minutes left in the game and it was tied. I took a swig and felt a little life come back into me.

“So, how was the CAP?” I asked.

“Boring as all hell. Gave me some time to think about the ammo problem though.”

“Anything other than armor piercers come to mind?”

“’Course. Thought about improvising rocket pods. I figure if we’re going up against an enemy fleet, C-class ought to have something to use against bigger targets.”

“How exactly were you planning to build those?”

She drank heartily and looked pensive. “Regular missiles, some scrapped metal pipes and a whole lot of d-tape?”

I smiled and took another pull from my pint glass. “You’d need more than scrap metal pipes to do this.”

“You don’t say. What about the missile launchers themselves, if you could carve them out of the Falcon, and then weld them together?”

“Case the whole thing in titanium and wire it to the weapons computer and there you go.” I said.

“Only problem is we can’t work on titanium, we don’t have the tools.”

“Yeah, I know.” I rested my head on my fist and turned to face the game, pretending to be interested. It had been a good plan.

“Let’s just get these armor piercers done, we need ‘em in 13 and 20mm, and we need enough to last through a decent sized engagement,” she said, thumping me on the shoulder.

“Agreed. We’ll get back to work tomorrow once I’m done with the rookies and you’re off the patrol rotation.”

“It’s a date.” We clinked our pint glasses together and downed what was left. There was a wild cheer from the crowd on TV and Spin-Out swore.

“Goddamnit that shot was money!” he said, falling to his knees in his usual melodramatic fashion.

The old bartender chuckled under his breath and walked over. “Time to pay the piper LT.”

“Yeah yeah yeah,” he said, handing over a few credits worth of bills.

“Thank you very much. Any time you want to lose some more cash, you know right where to find me,” he said, tucking the money into his pocket.

“How far in the hole are you?” someone called out to him.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said in mock depression, sitting back down.

“Poor man’s down 200 credits. Y’know, there’s a fight on later and this place could use a new TV,” the bartender said, leaning over the table and giving him a toothy grin.

“I’ll give you my old one,” Spin-Out said.

“Suit yourself.” The old man walked back to the bar, doing a little victory dance and making us all laugh, even Spin-Out managed to crack a grin.

“Bet I can still out dance you!” The old man casually moon-walked his way back behind the bar and Spin-Out rested his head on his fist. “It just ain’t my day.”