Ep.#6 - "Head of the Dragon" (The Frontiers Saga) (7 page)

“We can always close up the deck to receive cargo shuttles,” Cameron suggested, “but it would take about half an hour to repressurize the main hangar deck each time.”

“Couldn’t we rig up some kind of gangway?” Marcus asked.

Master Chief Montrose looked at Marcus, surprise on his face. “That’s actually not a bad idea, Senior Chief. Perhaps we could modify one of the gangways used at the Aitkenna spaceport. We could set it up to lead from the forward hatch to the bay and shuttle.”

“We’ll need an airlock on it,” Cameron reminded them.

“We still have a few breach boxes,” the master chief stated. “We could use one for the airlock at the forward hatch, then we could put wheels on the other one.”

“We’ll need some kind of hydraulic lift system to adjust its height off the deck,” Marcus added, “so we can line it up with any shuttle’s height. They’re not all the same, you know.”

“Looks like you’ve got yourself a project, Senior Chief,” Cameron stated.

“Could you wait until I rig something up before you go to an open deck, so I don’t have to set it up in a vacuum?”

“Sorry, Senior Chief,” Major Prechitt said. “If we are going to be ready to fight with an open deck, we need all the practice we can get.”

“Agreed,” Cameron said. “We set an open deck now.”

“We need time to set the deck and get our crews into pressure suits,” Master Chief Montrose stated.

“You should be able to go to an open deck in five minutes or less.”

“And given the appropriate amount of time and training, we would be able to do just that,” Montrose stated. “Under the current circumstances, I need an hour.”

Cameron already knew enough about Master Chief Montrose to know that he had meant what he had said. More importantly, she knew he wouldn’t have said it unless he really did need an hour. As chief of the boat, it was the master chief’s job to make it work for the XO. It was also his responsibility to watch out for the welfare of the crew and to tell the XO when what she was asking for couldn’t be done.

“Very well, Master Chief,” Cameron resigned, “one hour.”

“What about the tactical shuttles down on the surface of Corinair?” Major Prechitt wondered.

“They’ll fit in the forward airlocks,” Marcus told him. “And they can ride the elevator pad in the airlock down to the cargo deck. If we move stuff toward the back of the bay, we can use it for a pressurized staging area while we’re running an open deck.”

“Good thinking, Senior Chief,” Cameron said.

Master Chief Montrose smiled. Marcus Taggart was doing just fine at his new job as chief of the deck.

* * *

Jessica and a line of five Corinari troops, all of them heavily armed and armored, advanced slowly on the tree line where the copilot had originally seen the movement. Their weapons were held high and ready. Their safeties were off as they made their approach. Sending a false Corinari ID signal and using captured authentication codes was not beyond the realm of the possible. In fact, it would be a logical way for an enemy to try to get on board the Aurora, but with all the security measures currently in place, it would be practically impossible. Still, if it was an enemy in the tree line, they would have no way of knowing that the Aurora was so secure, so they had no choice but to approach the tree line as if it were the enemy hiding among the trees.

The Corinari to Jessica’s right raised his fist signaling everyone to stop their advance. His next signal sent the two outermost men shuffling quickly to either side in order to box in whomever might be waiting for them. As soon as the two outside men reached their positions and readied themselves, the Corinari to Jessica’s right called out to the tree line in Corinairan. A moment later, a voice from the trees answered in the same language. The man next to Jessica said something else to the voice in the trees, after which three men came slowly out of the forest. They were similarly dressed, wearing the same black and gray uniforms as the Corinari serving on the Aurora. They were also armed, though they did not hold their guns quite as rigidly as the members of Jessica’s team. She wasn’t sure if they were trying to appear non-threatening or if they were just plain tired, but the looks on their faces were of relief.

More words were exchanged between sides, all in Corinairan, and the troops on Jessica’s team lowered their weapons and relaxed to some extent.

“They’re ours, Lieutenant Commander,” the Corinari next to her announced.

“How can you be sure?” she asked.

“I went through basic with two of them,” he explained
.

“Good enough,” she stated, lowering her own weapon. “Is this it? Are these guys all that survived?”

The trooper questioned the three men for a few more minutes before answering her. “No, sir. There are about ten more holed up deeper in the forest. They say they have made radio contact with a few other groups nearby. Reports are that there are small pockets of men scattered all over the place. But without any command and control, they’re all just sitting tight, waiting for direction from someone in command.”

“Very well,” Jessica told him. “Have them round up their men, and report back here. I’m going to report in.”

“Yes, sir,” the trooper answered.

* * *

Major Jonas Prechitt had been a member of the Corinari since his return from imperial service over a decade ago. His imperial service had seen no action as he had been stationed at the Norwitt garrison, a small training outpost used for space fighters. It had been there that his interest in flying had been aroused. He had spent four years observing the Takaran-born officers as they went through their flight training, dreaming of being in the cockpit himself.

It wasn’t until he had returned to his homeworld of Corinair and enrolled in the Corinari that he got his chance. Corinari Command had recognized the major’s natural abilities, as well as the above average understanding of flight dynamics that he had gleaned from all those years of observation. It was ironic that he was now killing the very pilots that had stirred his interest in flight so many years ago.

Although he had been training for over a decade, the battle of Darvano was the first time he had fired his weapons at an enemy. During the post-Yamaro chaos, he had been called upon to destroy two of their own missile bases, as well as to intercept and destroy the missiles that had targeted the Aurora, the latter of which had not only earned him his promotion, but had also landed him the assignment as the commanding officer of the Corinari fighter wing assigned to the Aurora. He was now what Captain Scott had referred to as ‘CAG’, an acronym that on Earth apparently stood for ‘Commander of the Air Group’.

Major Prechitt entered the Aurora’s flight operations center. The room was situated just forward of the main hangar deck. He really liked this room. It felt like a real command center to him. He could even see into the main hangar bay through a row of windows along the aft wall. Of course, the windows weren’t really necessary, as there were so many cameras available with which to monitor the activities on the flight line. Still, it gave him a feeling of being connected to the flight line, which he liked. He wondered if that had been the original designer’s intention all along.

The flight operations center was massive, spanning nearly the entire width of the hangar bay. On either side, there were rows of workstations where technical specialists monitored every aspect of operations. As simple as the process of launching and recovering spacecraft seemed, running such an operation was extremely complex, as everything had to work perfectly every time, or disaster could be the result. The Battle of Darvano had been executed perfectly from a flight operations perspective. In fact, it had gone a lot better than he and his staff had expected, especially considering the limited amount of time they had been given to become accustomed to flying off the deck of the Aurora.

The forward wall of the room was covered with small cubicles from where various junior officers could work in semi-privacy while still being close by to monitor their areas of operations. This was where he could usually find his various staff members, either in their cubicles or walking the rows of tech stations for which they were responsible.

“How are we doing with preparations?” Major Prechitt asked the watch officer, Lieutenant Commander Iverson.

“Very well, sir,” Iverson responded. “We are pretty much ready to go at this point. We are just waiting for Senior Chief Taggart to finish installing a mating collar around the forward hatch of the main hangar bay.”

“He can’t do that later?” Major Prechitt asked, somewhat annoyed at the delay.

“No, sir. He has to drill holes through the main forward bulkhead and weld them in place in order to attach the mating collar and ensure a proper seal. As the Chief of the Boat explained it, to drill those holes with an open deck, he’d have to seal off the main central corridor and both side corridors, which would put a serious crimp in our operations.”

“More so that running with an open deck?” the major wondered.

“If the COB says it needs to be done…” the lieutenant commander began.

“Then we do it,” Prechitt admitted. “How’s it going to work?”

“Sir?”

“The mating collar.”

“As I understand it, it is little more than a piece of I-beam bent around into a square designed to fit inside the walls of a breaching box. Senior Chief Taggart has a team removing the mating wall of one of the boxes now. Once they’re ready, they’ll mount it to the mating collar, and that will give us an airlock on the forward hatch.”

“I see,” the major said. “You know, I’m surprised they didn’t design an airlock there to begin with.”

“According to the Aurora’s flight operations procedures, the open deck was never meant to be used with such large shuttles.”

Major Prechitt nodded. Although he wasn’t too excited about having to operate from an open deck, he wanted as much time as possible for his crews and pilots to become accustomed to the idea. More importantly, he didn’t want to anger the Aurora’s executive officer, Commander Cameron Taylor. So far, she had seemed relatively easy to work with, but he knew she had been treading lightly while his people learned their way around the Aurora’s flight decks. Members of the Aurora’s original crew, the few that had survived, had all advised staying on her good side. As the CAG, he pretty much ruled the flight deck, but there was no sense in testing her limits at this point in time.

Major Prechitt glanced up at the wall clock. They had fifteen minutes left before it would be time to open the deck. “Just make sure they are done and out of the way in ten minutes.”

“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant commander responded.

“
CAG, Comms,
” Naralena’s voice sounded over the major’s comm-set.

“Go for CAG,” he answered. Even though he had been the CAG for over a month now, it still felt odd to use the unfamiliar acronym.

“
Sir, Lieutenant Commander Nash is reporting in from the surface, sir. The captain is also on the channel and requests that you be conferenced in on the report.
”

“Very well,” Major Prechitt answered, moving away from the center of flight ops toward the forward wall where it was quieter.

“
Major Prechitt is connected, sirs,
” Naralena reported.

“
Go ahead, Lieutenant Commander,
” Nathan ordered.

“
As I was saying,
” Jessica continued, “
Corinari command is gone. There’s nothing her but a crater and about a dozen survivors.
”

Major Prechitt felt his skin grow a bit paler as his pulse quickened. “Are you sure?” he asked. It was a stupid question and he knew it, but it was one he couldn’t help but ask.

“
I’m looking at a smoking hole where it used to be,
” Jessica reported. “
From what we’ve learned from the survivors, it was probably one of the first targets to be hit. They think it was a cruise missile. They’re also pretty sure the strikes were not random, that there was a target list. At least at first, anyway. They’ve been using short-range radio relays to establish contact with other units. So far they know of at least five or six groups in and around the area of Aitkenna, or what’s left of it, that is.
”

“Any idea how wide spread?” Major Prechitt asked. “Are we talking local, continental, or planet-wide?”

“
Unknown. From what we saw on our way in, I’m pretty sure it’s more than just one continent. But I haven’t heard back from the other two shuttles yet.
”

“
What about the government?
” Nathan asked.

“
Also unknown, sir,
” Jessica answered. “
The survivors we’ve spoken to said the government went into an underground bunker as soon as the battle started. No one here has heard from them yet.
”

“Captain, that bunker has full communications capabilities, just like Corinari command had,” Major Prechitt added.

“
Could they have been taken out as well?
” Nathan asked.

“It is possible, but not likely,” the major answered. “Their bunker is even deeper, and their comm-lines are as well. In fact, their transceivers are more than a kilometer away and have several redundant units. In order to cut them off, the Ta’Akar would have to know the location of all those transceivers.”

“
We need to know, Major, one way or another.
”

“Yes, sir, we do. I recommend we send out fighters in pairs to do flyovers of all areas on the surface of Corinair and to transmit instructions to any surviving Corinari on how to report in.”

“
Can’t we use the comm-sat network?
” Nathan asked.

“
No, sir,
” Jessica reported. “
Most of the comm-sats were taken out by the Wallach as soon as she entered orbit.
”

“
Very well, Major,
” Nathan agreed, “
make it happen.
”