Mako (The Mako Saga: Book 1) (43 page)

“So what are you two up so early to talk about, anyway?” she asked.

“Ah, nothing,” said Danny. “Lee here was just voicing his complete and total lack of faith in my Dolphins this season.”

“Oh yeah, they’re crap, Danny… sorry,” Mac yawned over her mug. “The East is a beast this year, and old Robo-arm can’t throw the ball 15 yards past the line of scrimmage. You’re a .500 club at best.”

Danny fired a look to Lee, whose eyes met the table. “Popular opinion,” he muttered.

Chapter 23: Showdown

“
Eight-Two!
” Ryan shouted in his usual formal tone alongside Reiser, Reynolds, the other members of the Hit Squad, and even Noll, who’d broken away from his duties to join them on the flight deck. “Today you enter the penultimate leg of the third and final phase of your training, and judging by the looks on some of your faces, I don’t think I have to tell you what that means.”

Then turning, he offered a welcoming gesture toward the mysterious, blade-winged fighter quietly cradled against the center catapult as a team of mechanics and R&D staff scrambled through its pre-flight.

“Before we get started,” the captain continued, “I want to congratulate each and every one of you on your success so far. You’ve done a remarkable job, and I can honestly say that you’ve surpassed any and all expectations to this point, even the ones held by the more skeptical members involved in this project.”

The 51
^st
commander glanced to Noll, who nodded in agreement.

“Now, down to business,” Ryan shifted. “You’ve all become familiar with the SF-11s that you’ve been utilizing thus far, but let me be the first to warn you that piloting an SF-13 is an entirely different experience. As we’ve already discussed, due to her drastically different design and massively larger powerplant, the Mako is significantly faster and nimbler than the Thresher. However, you’ll quickly find that once you’re in the air, the chief difference in the two will come in the form of handling. The controls for this particular craft are infinitely more sensitive than what you’re accustomed to, and for that reason, the main focus of these first few sessions will simply be to get you acclimated to that shift in feel.”

Ryan’s gaze moved to Lee, who, like the others, had been returned to his M-suit—a decision which had been made by the brass, much to the chagrin of Lee, who gave an irritated tug at his uniform’s turtleneck.

“I understand that each of you is now fully capable of flying without artificial assistance,” the captain noted, “and you’re to be commended for that. However, as a precautionary measure—and for the sake of charting your progress—you’ve been refitted with your M-suits until you’re completely comfortable behind the stick. With all due respect, there are only a handful of these fighters throughout the fleet, and we can’t exactly take the chance of having a raw pilot smash one up during a simple training exercise. That said,
use
the M-Suits. I know you feel like you’ve graduated beyond the training wheels, but as I said, this is completely different. So if you find yourself getting discouraged up there, dump the pride and use the tools at your disposal. Ruah?”

“Ruah!” answered the group.

Ryan then turned to Wyatt, who stepped forward.

“Alright, guys,” said the Chief, “just a couple of things to add to that… first, as you know, the Mako is capable of a standing launch, but for now, we’ll stick with the conventional rolling launch from the catapult since that’s what you’re familiar with. Second, unlike the Threshers, which are navigated exclusively by rear afterburner thrust, the 13 is equipped with a small maneuvering thruster underneath her bow.” He paused and pointed to a small circular exhaust port just beneath the nose of the main fuselage. “Plus, she’s also got a series of small stabilizing thrusters along her hull. This allows the fighter the ability to literally change course on a dime. I’m talking 180 degrees on a dime, and while such a maneuver would ordinarily tear the ship in half inside a planetary atmosphere, in the zero-G environment of space, I think you’ll find it pretty useful in a tiff.”

Wyatt then shifted his attention to the railgun beneath the fighter’s starboard hull and continued.

“Finally, once you’re comfortable flying as individuals, and in formation, we’ll begin to delve back into ACMs, which means you’ll be making use of the Mako’s weapons systems. Up until now, you’ve been using the Thresher Sortie Package, which simply tells you through the ship’s fire control and alert systems when your fighter has been targeted, hit, and or how much damage it would’ve taken on were this a real engagement. Now, as anyone who’s ever seen an actual firefight knows, all of our ships—Auran and Alystierian—utilize tracer rounds, thus making their weapons fire visible to the naked eye. So for the sake of authenticity, the guys here from R&D have devised a new training feature that makes use of holographic technology to simulate live fire during drills. As a result, your shots will look, act and respond identically to actual fire, but with green tracers instead of yellow or white. In short, when one of your teammates shoots at you, not only will your alert system tell you, but you’ll see it coming at you.”

“Cool,” Lee thought.

Falling back with the other staff, Wyatt turned the briefing back over to Ryan.

“Now if there are no questions” said the captain, “Daredevil… you’re on deck.”

Anxious to begin, Lee snatched up his helmet and started for the Mako, though his nerves eased a bit upon seeing Wyatt beside the cockpit ladder—his arms folded thoughtfully over his chest as he regarded his creation.

“She’s the first one off the line,” he murmured. “Test-flew her myself.”

“She’s a work of art, Chief,” Lee said with reverence. “You really outdid yourself.”

Wyatt thinned his lips and placed a hand on Lee’s shoulder as he turned to go. “Take care of her, will ya?”

Climbing up the ladder to the cockpit, Lee paused at the edge of the narrow, single-seated opening to marvel at the lavish, high-tech scene inside. Though still recognizable in comparison to the Thresher —which suddenly seemed incredibly dated if not altogether obsolete—the avionics lining the Mako’s cockpit carried a cleaner, sharper, more sophisticated look than its predecessor, with its shiny new consoles, upgraded systems, and ergonomically designed controls. Taking a seat and buckling himself in, Lee glanced off to the navigational computer on his right to find a strange series of blue buttons that he’d never seen before. Quickly deducing that this had to be the interface for the ship’s hyperdrive, he figured it best not to press anything and returned instead to his pre-flight preparations. Listening to the canopy seal around him—the light airy hiss of its pressurization sequence blending seamlessly into the natural sounds of radio static and a busied flight deck around him—Lee took a deep breath of oxygen through his mask, wiped the sweat from his brow, and readied himself.

“Daredevil, this is Flight,” Ryan keyed the comm. “Do you copy?”

“Roger Flight, Daredevil copies,” he responded, looking over his shoulder to see the captain, Reiser, Noll, and the others huddled in front of the flight control glass.

“Okay Lee, first things first. Run me through your status checkoffs.”

Struggling to calm his nerves, Lee cleared his mind well enough for a quick spot-check of his instruments, while the Mako’s engines began to hum behind him.

“O
₂
Control System… Check,” he began. “Flight Mission Computers… Check. Nav-Com… Check. Master Arms Switch… Safe. Hyperdrive Interface… Online. Daredevil reports green status across the board; standing by for pylon authorization.”

“Copy that, Daredevil. Flight confirms green status—the pylon is yours. Happy hunting.”

With that, the white lights of the flight deck dissolved into the familiar strobing orange of the hangar’s alert status as the broken numeric digits atop the tall signal pylon flickered green with the characters “82-A,” indicating that he was cleared for launch. Wasting no time, Lee flipped the small switch on the left side of the throttle with his thumb, igniting his afterburners in a thunderous blue blaze, and guided the grip forward, sending both himself and the craft rocketing ahead in a violent burst of acceleration. Instantly feeling the sizable difference in speed—his head firmly pressed against the headrest behind him—Lee watched as the other fighters along the hangar walls blurred past the glass of his canopy toward the chasmal tubular opening out front. His heart now pounding like a sledgehammer in his chest, Lee pulled gingerly back on the rumbling stick as the fighter’s wings extended with its final explosive blast into the endless black void of stars beyond.

“Daredevil is airborne,” he called out, certain that his vital signs probably looked like a Christmas tree on Reiser’s monitor right about now.

“Textbook launch, Daredevil,” Ryan commended. “Nicely done.”

Lee spent the first few seconds on a basic, straightaway heading, hoping to allow himself a moment to regroup and adjust before making any drastic course corrections.

The captain, however, apparently had other ideas. “Now, nice and easy,” he said. “I want you to adjust your heading by 35 degrees to port, copy?”

“So much for takin’ a minute,’” Lee thought before responding. “Copy, Flight.”

Still somewhat overwhelmed by the Mako’s twitchy nature, Lee gave a slight tilt to the strange new stick, sending the craft into an awkward lurch forward before hooking hard to the left, all but spinning out of control as Lee jumped impulsively off the throttle. Outside, the twin afterburners cooled to a dull shade of blue with the sudden deceleration.

“I told you she was a little touchy,” the captain cautioned. “Now, again.”

Nudging the throttle forward—mindful to take it a little easier this time—Lee’s teeth clenched as he again tilted the stick left, though again to no avail as the fighter leapt away from him, lunging and bucking like a wild horse refusing to be tamed.

“
C’mon!
” Lee snarled, unable to discern the bigger problem—the Mako’s adversely sensitive controls, or the M-Suit’s incessant need to correct his every single motion.

Back on board the Praetorian, the meters on Reiser’s display continued to spike with Lee’s mounting frustration.

“Relax, Summerston,” Ryan grumbled after two more failed attempts.

In the chair beside him, Mac could clearly see that her friend in the cockpit wasn’t the only one getting agitated, and knowing Lee’s propensity for wanting to place too much pressure on himself, she shoved the communications officer aside and commandeered his headset.

“Lee, you got a copy?” she asked, adjusting the mic in front of her face.

“
Yeeeaahhhh
,” he droned.

“I need you to relax out there and settle down, alright? You can do this. It’s just like jumping from a Hog to a Ducati back home.”

Hamish rolled his eyes in the seat next to her.

“You’re used to a machine that’s a lot heavier and clumsier to operate,” said Mac, “so by comparison that speed demon you’re in now is gonna require a lot more TLC. Take a breath, slow it down, and think about what you want to do before you do it.”

With a deep, soulful sigh, Lee ripped off his gloves and tossed them to the floor as he tried once more to clear his thoughts. Meanwhile, back in flight control, Reiser’s instruments went abruptly dark.

“Whoa, what just happened?” Ryan objected over the doctor’s shoulder.

“Lee, that suit functions as one cohesive unit and you just took it offline,” Reiser explained. “In order to monitor your progress, I need you to put the gloves back on.”

“Sorry, Doc,” Lee responded, cracking his neck to relax. “If I’m gonna do this, I’ve gotta do it my way.”

Mac flashed a wry smile behind them.

Loosening his belts and clearing his chaotic mind to recall everything he’d ever learned—both back home and here—Lee popped his knuckles in preparation for another run. Then, easing his grip around the stick and throttle so as to allow both to breathe naturally, he exhaled a final reassuring breath before sliding them forward, reigniting the engines outside to their original light-blue inferno as the Mako accelerated forward. His eyes closed in an almost meditative state, Lee reached out with his thoughts in an attempt to absorb every last sensation of the experience happening around him—from the high-pitched rumble of the engines to the gentle vibration coming through the stick—as if he were a kid taking his first few bike pedals without his father’s help for balance. Then, with a light, finessed tug of his left hand, he opened his eyes and watched as the fighter looped effortlessly around to starboard, dovetailing for a moment in a long, elegant arch before leveling out with silky-smooth ease onto a standard SCV return vector.

“That’s my boy,” Mac purred. “Easy like Sunday morning.”

Behind her, Reiser gave a shrug to Ryan as the group huddled around the radar station, eyes fixed proudly on the tiny green speck representing their friend, which began to dance around the small, circular screen with renewed vigor, his speed climbing.

40% of max burn… 50%.

Inside the cockpit, Lee could feel himself growing into the craft, as if its wide metal body and long, sharp wings were now all but extensions of his own; every instinct translated to perfect touch, every thought-conceived maneuver resulting in calculated, precise execution.

60%... 65%.

As had usually been the case, Mac was right. He had done this before and it was all coming back to him now; the skills he’d spent so many late-night hours refining back home, combined with the rigorous training he’d spent the last three weeks enduring in the Thresher, all now comprehensively meshed into one singular, fluid skill set designed to prepare him for this moment alone.

70%... 75%.

“Alright, nice work, Daredevil,” Ryan’s voice chattered in his ear. “Now bring her on home and let’s see what your squadmates can do.”

Lee smiled coyly beneath his mask, now completely awash in the adrenaline-charged, eye-popping adulation of the pure, unharnessed power at his fingertips.