Solfleet: The Call of Duty (10 page)

“And doesn’t
the fact that it didn’t register on sensors or trip a proximity alarm indicate
to you that its exterior was almost assuredly made of bolamide, Lieutenant?”
Bhatnagar asked, pointing out the obvious.

Irons opened
her mouth to answer, but found herself without words.

“Think we’ve
got ourselves a shadow, Captain?” Rawlins asked, hoping to rescue the pretty
young lieutenant, at least for the moment. But Bhatnagar ignored him and
continued staring at Irons, waiting for her answer.

Thoroughly
embarrassed over having missed the most obvious explanation—everyone in
Solfleet knew that bolamide was the rare, sensor and scanner-invisible element in
which the Veshtonn encased their missiles and torpedoes—especially after all
they’d been through over the past few weeks, Irons finally dropped her gaze and
timidly answered, “Yes, ma’am.”

“So the fact
that there’s nothing left of it is therefore irrelevant, isn’t it,” the captain
went on admonishing. Then, without waiting for an answer, she started limping back
to her station again. Rawlins watched her approach, but didn’t budge to
surrender the seat. “Conduct a quick, wide range sensor sweep, Lieutenant,” she
ordered as she stepped up to the executive officer’s side. “If the results are negative,
then follow up with a tight, short range scan of the surrounding area and
expand outward in a...”

The ship
rumbled and lurched forward suddenly and rolled hard to starboard. Bhatnagar
tried to grab hold of the command console and Rawlins tried to grab her arm,
but both of them missed their targets and she fell back and cracked the back of
her head hard against the edge of the Operations deck.

Rawlins
slapped his hand down on the console’s only green button and shouted, “Medical
team to the bridge!” then practically leapt out of the command chair and rushed
to her aid.

“Direct hit,
port side astern!” the engineer shouted.

“Calmly,
Ensign,” the executive officer reminded the younger man. “I won’t understand
your reports if you’re hysterical.” Then, being very careful not to move the
captain’s neck as he checked the back of her head, he called out, “Tactical
report.” No blood. That was good. At least he assumed it was good—he wasn’t a
doctor, of course—but she was out cold.

“Veshtonn battlecruiser
directly astern, Commander,” Irons reported. “Power building in their main
laser cannons. They’re preparing to fire again.”

“Evasive
maneuvers, helm,” Rawlins ordered. The enemy was diverting weapons power to
their laser cannons. That meant they’d already exhausted everything else. At
least they had
that
in their favor.

“Fusion
drive is offline,” the engineer advised, still keyed up, but significantly more
composed than before. “All we’ve got are high-speed thrusters.”

So much for
the flight half of fight-or-flight, Rawlins concluded. “Sound battle stations,”
he ordered as he leaned down over the captain and listened to make sure she was
still breathing. “Weapons free, and scramble the interceptors!”

* * *

Lieutenant
Junior Grade Thomas Patrick O’Donnell, the
Victory
’s newest and greenest
interceptor pilot, had barely picked himself up off his squadron’s ready-room
deck when he heard all six of the alert interceptors power up their main
engines and catapult down the launch deck, two at a time, like half a dozen
missiles rocketing out of their tubes. He tossed his pool cue onto the table as
the room lights turned red and the alert klaxon started blaring—he hadn’t
really wanted to shoot pool by himself anyway—then grabbed his flight vest and
pulled it on as he fell into line with the rest of the scrambling pilots.

“
Battle stations,
battle stations,
” the all too familiar announcement resonated from the
ship-wide as they stampeded out onto the launch deck and dashed toward their
planes. “
Veshtonn battlecruiser astern. Fighter pilots, man your planes. Scramble
all interceptors. Battle stations, battle stations.
”

“Lieutenant
J.G. Thomas O’Donnell, fit to stick!” he shouted to his ground crew chief as he
reached his plane and started up the ladder toward the cockpit, indicating that
he was in no way physically impaired or otherwise unable to fly.

“Star Hawk
eighty-one thirty-seven, fit to fly!” the grizzled old crew chief responded
proudly, indicating that
his
starfighter had finally been nursed back to
one-hundred percent operational status.

O’Donnell
had learned early on that, like most other crew chiefs throughout the fleet,
Chief Simmons thought of his fighter as his own, and that its overall condition
was a matter of personal pride for him. But this was the first time since O’Donnell’s
first and very nearly last combat mission that he’d made that proclamation, and
it came as such a surprise that O’Donnell actually stopped halfway up the
ladder and looked back at him, but he didn’t have to ask.

“We just installed
a whole shit-load of new parts in the old girl,” the chief advised him.

“Great,” O’Donnell
grumbled. Like all the fledgling fighter pilots onboard, he’d heard all the old
stories about untried replacement parts failing in the middle of a fight. In
some cases, the planes had actually broken up on their own under the stresses
associated with high-speed combat maneuvers, if the stories were to be
believed. He ascended quickly and, bracing himself on either side of the narrow
fuselage, threw his feet into the cockpit and dropped into the seat. “That’s
just fucking great,” he grumbled.

The chief
appeared at his side not three seconds later with his helmet, seal ring, and
gloves in hand. “You know damn well I don’t like the idea of flying into combat
with untested parts, Chief,” O’Donnell sternly reminded him.

“Not to
worry, L-T,” the chief assured him as he dropped the gloves into the rookie’s
lap and fastened the seal ring in place around his neck. “There isn’t a single
story you’ve heard that I haven’t, and there isn’t a single brand new part in
your plane. We took them off Sunshine’s bird. Damn Veshtonn shot he hell out of
it yesterday. Won’t fly no more, so it’s just a collection of spare parts now.”

“Who
installed them?” O’Donnell asked as he pulled his gloves on. He hadn’t learned
to trust any of the other deck gang yet.

“Just me and
my hammer, boss, and I managed to increase your guns’ ammo capacity by close to
ten percent, too.”

O’Donnell
looked at the old West Tennessean in a whole new light. As the senior ground
crew supervisor, Chief Simmons shouldered the overall responsibility for
all
of the ship’s small vessels, shuttles, attack fighters, and interceptors
alike. The attack fighters had all been handed over to the task force right
before the
Victory
pulled out of the fight, so they at least could stay
in
the fight, but the chief still rarely ever had time to get his own hands dirty anymore,
despite how much he loved doing so. So for him to have devoted the kind of time
that job must have taken really said something about how he felt toward his
newest pilot.

O’Donnell
grinned—he was even referring to
himself
as belonging to the chief—but before
he could say anything more than “Thank you, Chief,” before he could get all
gushy and sentimental, the leathery old senior NCO pushed his flight helmet
down over his head and locked the seal into place.

“Now you
look here, L-T,” he shouted over the din echoing through the launch bayas he
started strapping O’Donnell into his seat. “I expect to have to tell my people
to paint a few lizard heads under your name when you get back here. With all
that extra ammo you’re carrying, you should make ‘Ace’ in no time.”

“I’ll be
happy just to make it back home again, Chief,” O’Donnell responded, hollering
through his helmet’s face shield, unsure whether or not the chief could
possibly hear him over the deafening, high-pitched whine of the other planes’
combined engines as they all started powering up at the same time.

The chief
quickly pulled his wired headset into place—it doubled as heavy-duty hearing
protection—and opened the comm-channel, then connected O’Donnell’s oxygen
intake and personal electronics package to their power sources behind the seat.
Then, with a quick but sharp salute for emphasis, he said, “Good hunting,
Lieutenant,” and then descended out of sight.

“I thought
you never addressed us rookie pilots by our proper rank, Chief,” O’Donnell
commented, recalling their recent and quite memorable first meeting with a
sense of humorous nostalgia as he closed and locked his canopy.

“
After
all we’ve been through lately, L-T, no one’s a rookie anymore.
”

“No, I
suppose not.” He couldn’t have agreed more.

“
Star
Hawk thirty-seven, this is the CAG,
” the air group commander’s voice
suddenly broke in. “
If you and the chief are finished bonding, Spinner, it’s
time to go to work.
”

“Affirm
that, sir,” O’Donnell responded with a grin.

“
Good
hunting, Spinner. CAG out.
”

“
All
right, L-T,
” Simmons quickly cut in, getting back to business. “
Let’s get
you in the air. By the numbers now. Main power, initiate.
”

“Main power...”
He flipped the safety caps up and pressed the switches, “initiated.”

* * *

“Air Group
reports all interceptors manned and preparing for launch, Commander,” Noonian
reported. “Will advise when they’re all in the air.”

“Thank you,
Sergeant,” Rawlins responded, standing up and backing out of the way as the
med-techs rushed onto the bridge, medical kit and antigravity stretcher in tow,
and quickly went to work on the still unconscious captain. “Helm, come to course...”

“Enemy
vessel firing!” Irons interrupted.

“Helm, hard
to port!” Rawlins ordered as he hurried back to the command station and sat
down. “Come to course two four zero, pitch plus ten degrees. We’ve got to
protect our ass end. All weapons with a solution, target the enemy vessel and
engage at will. Weapons free, but for God sake, don’t shoot down our own
interceptors!”

The deck
shuddered beneath his feet for several seconds as a low rumble that sounded
like the distant thunder of an approaching summer storm resounded through the
bridge.

“Missile
strike on the port side, aft quarter,” Irons reported.

“No
appreciable damage, sir,” the engineer added.

“How the
hell can you tell?” Rawlins mumbled under his breath. The port side aft quarter
was so badly mangled already that any more damage wouldn’t really make much of
a difference, unless of course the inner bulkheads were breeched deeper than
they already had been. Missile strike, he pondered. Apparently the enemy hadn’t
expended the rest of its ordinance after all. Either that, he considered as he
glanced to his left to see the med-techs strapping the captain onto the
stretcher, or there were more than one of them out there.

God forbid.

“Looks like
a pretty serious concussion, sir,” the senior med-tech advised him when he
noticed him looking. “She also has a fractured pelvis.” Then, as they powered
up the stretcher and raised it up off the deck, he added, “Her head should be
all right in a few days, but the pelvis is going to take a while.”

And with
that, they hurriedly carted the captain off the bridge.

* * *

As the
newest fighter pilot in the 117th Tactical Interceptor Squadron, Lieutenant
J.G. O’Donnell always launched as one of the outboard planes in the last group
of four. That way, if he inadvertently committed some stupid rookie error that
led to catastrophe and fouled the entire deck, most of the rest of the squadron
would already be in the air. Exactly what kind of rookie error he could
possibly commit when all he had to do for launch was roll up to the line, wait
for the catapult, and hang on, he had no idea, but that was beside the point.
If he
did
do something that led to disaster, then the very worst he
could do would be to prevent himself and three other interceptors from launching.
While it was certainly true that launch accidents were rare, and that the few that
did occur from time to time didn’t always involve rookies, the overall percentages
were high enough throughout the fleet to warrant the practice.

At least
that was what they’d taught him in flight school.

Nevertheless,
he hated to wait until last. He wanted to go! Call it youthful enthusiasm,
dedication to duty, or just a simple case of the nervous jitters. Whichever
one, it didn’t matter to him. All he knew was that when the red lights flashed
and alert klaxon blared, he wanted to jump into his plane, get into the air,
and go to work.

The narrow
indicator bar at the base of the instrument panel that he’d been staring at for
the last few anxious moments changed from red to green. His turn, finally.

He gazed out
at the space-suited launch safety officer, the LSO, who pointed his bright
green guide lamps at him and then waved him forward. Following his signals very
carefully, O’Donnell slowly maneuvered his plane forward, turned slightly to
the left, then hit the brakes as soon as the man crossed his lamps over his
head and switched their color to bright red. Then he watched on the small monitor
between his knees as the catapult, still smoking from the previous launch,
quickly returned from the far end of the deck and locked into place on his
front landing gear strut.

The entire image
turned green, indicating a positive lock. He glanced out at the other interceptors
to his right, already in position, and rested his head against the extra thick
padding inside the back of his helmet. Then he grasped the safety handles on
either side of the cockpit, and held on tight.