Torian Reclamation 3: Test of Fortitude (33 page)

The three of them in unison turned to run back towards the city. But the second fighter, which had now swung around to face the opposite direction, fired a laser across the ground blocking the other way. They were trapped.

The fighters cut their lasers, but remained hovering in place only a hundred meters off the ground. Alan looked to the brush line. Shaldan and Casanova could no longer be seen. Good.

The sound of a third ship then came into earshot. Alan looked up. The alien hover ship was back, having just come over the southern mountaintop. It began descending towards them.

“Now we know who the horned aliens are,” Alan said.

“Yep.” Jumper looked back and forth between the two hovering fighters. “Another way to put it is we now know who the dark enemy is. Or at least we know what they look like—and that they’re apparently socialists with a superiority complex. I wonder where they’re from.”

“Maybe we’ll find out before they kill us,” Alan said. He watched the enemy fighters and wondered if anyone had gotten this close of a look at them and lived to tell of it. They were dark and sleek, well-designed craft with impressive speed and maneuverability. Powered by two side-engine pods as opposed to a single thruster in the rear. They were bigger than Torian conventional fighters—but then they were interstellar vessels, so needed room for the crew to move around. By Alan’s estimation, six of those large horned aliens might comfortably fit in the interior—although that may be a little cramped for a long trip.

The hover ship grew loud as it came overhead and then settled on the ground beyond them. The Sulien sun was now setting on the southwest horizon. Alan figured it would likely be the last sunset the three human friends would ever see.

Kayla’s expressions rotated through horror, determination, and concern. Alan noticed the concerned look usually coincided with her glances back into the foothills. She really loved that cat.

They didn’t try to run. There was no point to it. They had gotten caught in the open. Who would have suspected this could happen so fast? Perhaps it was just bad timing.

The hover ship opened and a half dozen horned aliens emerged. Alan clutched his quarner stone necklace through his shirt as they approached. They were strolling, as if this were a casual encounter. Alan wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. He could picture it being quite bad.

Hope. Hope remained as long as they were alive. The fighters could have easily killed them, if that’s what they wanted. The aliens left up on the mountaintop certainly weren’t telling any tales. And this time they took care to conceal all the remains. So there was a chance that three soft, weak, laughably inferior Earthlings wouldn’t be considered hostile to these beings. A chance. Thank Erob Kayla ditched those weapons.

“If there’s any communicating, would you two mind letting me do all the talking?” Jumper said. “I have an idea.”

Kayla gave Jumper a look of restrained affection, like she wanted him to hold her but knew better. She only nodded in agreement. It seemed she was done talking already.

“Sure,” Alan said. “One idea is better than none.”

“Oh,” Jumper added. “And try not to look scared. In fact, if you can, try to look arrogant or disgusted.”

Alan and Kayla both cocked their heads, but quickly straightened up as the aliens from the hover ship came before them. Jumper greeted them with a sneer. Kayla noticed it and crossed her arms, frowning. Alan did his best to look annoyed.

The six big aliens looked them up and down. They seemed perplexed, especially by Kayla. The one in front held a device in his hand. It didn’t look like a weapon; more like some kind of microphone or amplification device.

The front alien reached out his hand and placed the device in front of Alan’s head. Ten seconds later, Alan was still alive and standing. Whew. He hoped his annoyed expression hadn’t faltered too much.

One of the other aliens spoke, using recognizable words in a broken Sulien accent.

“The box is a communication device, a translator. When questioned, please speak into the box.”

Alan frowned, stepped back, and pointed at Jumper. As he did, three of the aliens drew weapons and aimed them first at him and then at Jumper. The one with the box looked back and forth between them and finally seemed to get the idea. He moved the translator in front of Jumper’s mouth, but then noticed the weapon on Jumper’s belt and promptly grabbed it away from him.

“You will speak for them?” The talking alien said.

Jumper only crossed his arms in front of him.

The talker asked another question.

“You are not Sulienites?”

This time Jumper responded, but not with words. He let out a rambunctious laugh instead, which he managed to make sound scornful before stopping.

The aliens stared back. They didn’t shoot. Jumper’s idea was working, so far. Whatever it was.

In response to Brandon’s request over the direct transmission link, the four ITF2’s gathered at the rear of the empty strip of space between the Torian and Azaarian positions. From there they made a slow, controlled flyby between the fleets. Brandon figured General Islog8 would like that. He was right. They received a compliment from the command ship on their continuing patrol of the left flank.

Brandon then spoke to the other three ITF2 crews via their own secured network. Each of them confirmed receipt of his mine deployment scheme data transfer. It was now implemented and active in all their weapons system computers. Specter crew still had questions, which could be heard on the radios of all four ships.

“What’s the time estimate for full deployment after we dag in?”

“A little more than six minutes,” Brandon answered. “Engage the weapons control program immediately upon arrival. Autopilot will take over. You’ll get the yellow dag signal in the cockpit again when deployment is complete.”

“Then what?”

“Return to your patrol here. All of you.”

At this point one of the Quasar pilots spoke.

“This deployment scheme is away from the current action. What will draw the enemy into the minefield?”

“We will,” Brandon said. “Aston, that is. We’ll be staying behind to act as bait for the trap.”

“Don’t you want help with that?”

Brandon didn’t know how to answer. It turns out he didn’t have to, because Specter’s pilot came back on with the question he hoped no one would ask.

“This mine deployment action was directed by command, right? Just want to confirm.”

“No,” Brandon said. “It’s my conception.”

A short silence followed before Specter’s pilot spoke again.

“But it’s been
approved
by command, right?”

“No,” Brandon said without pause. “They haven’t been informed of it, for the plain reason that I fear it will be rejected. The general only wants us to protect the left flank for the time being.”

Brandon let his words sink in. As he expected, there was no reply. He knew what they were thinking, though. Each of the crews was doubtlessly hoping one of the others would voice the objection they all had. When Brandon thought his timing was about right, he continued.

“Just so you all understand, we—Aston—are acting under the direction of High General Olut6. That’s the only reason I came here, and, consequently, why you all now have armed smart mines. Pilot-1 and pilot-2 on my craft are Lut5 and Borsk7, the High General’s personal escorts. That’s how important he deemed our mission. I don’t know if any of you witnessed our earlier engagement and what we went through to gather the target data for the mines…”

“We saw it,” one of the pilots said. “Extat, that was impressive. Not surprised to learn who’s flying over there. But if the action you’re asking us to take is against our fleet commander’s orders—”

“Boys, take a good look at what’s happening right now. Nearly half the enemy fleet is now engaging Dirg, and Dirg is back-peddling. Look at them. The battle is heating up. Dirg is only fighting reactively, giving the dark ships the advantage of initiative. So the enemy has the luxury of choosing all the engagement points. This is where Tora is supposed to come to Dirg’s aide, but we’re holding back, still only getting involved in minor skirmishes on the enemy’s far left because the general is worried about getting flanked by Azaar. So Azaar doesn’t need to do anything other than sit right where they are in order to help the dark ships, just as they’re currently doing.

“Now listen to me, boys. Before I arrived at Dirg, I was at Azaar attempting to negotiate. I believe there’s a slight chance Azaar will come to our side, which is why we’ve all been ordered not to fire upon them first. But we need to convince Azaar they’ll be joining the winning side. I’m only asking for a few minutes of your time. Azaar will probably never realize our four crafts have even left the flank. You’ll all be back here where the general wants you in ten minutes.”

Quasar’s pilot came back on.

“Aston, if you’re claiming to represent direct orders from the High General, that’s good enough for us. I think we’re absolved in that case, and you can work out any discrepancies with General Islog8 yourself afterwards. Besides, we really want to see these smart mines in action.”

The other two ships then both consented as well. That was all Brandon needed.

“Thanks, boys. Transmitting coordinated dag time to your ships’ computers now. We’re going in 15 seconds and counting. Good luck.”

The ITF2 crews all gave a final confirmation and then the brief space distortion to arrive at the mine deployment destination commenced. When the yellow lights came on in the cockpit, Brandon engaged the weapons control program and the ship’s automatic pilot took over. Brandon looked out the cockpit window to watch the deployment.

The four ITF2’s all branched out at different angles. The autopilots flew erratically, causing the crafts to make sudden stops and disjointed turns in places. Every now and then, Brandon thought he could see one of the mines deploy from under the hull of one of the other ships. They were dark, so he couldn’t be sure. He only knew the mine targeting screen in his own cockpit showed his battery one-third deployed at this stage.

“Commander, urgent call from General Islog8.”

“Put him on speaker, Borsk7.”

“What in Erob are you doing with my ITF2 fleet, Brandon Foss?” The general’s voice wasn’t as agitated as Brandon expected. “You’re not authorized to lead them in an attack on the enemy satellites. I repeat, you are
not
authorized to lead an attack on the satellites. Please return to the left flank at once.”

“I’ll send them back in …four minutes, General. Currently engaged in mine deployment.”

“Extat, Earthling, I knew your cooperation was too good to be true. What makes you think you can draw the enemy into your deployment scheme over there?”

“An unused weapon in battle is a useless weapon, General. Request one squadron of ITF1’s to help me harass the enemy satellites in hopes of drawing the enemy into the minefield.”

“Request denied. All ITF2’s are ordered to return to the left flank upon completion of mine deployment. Command out.”

“That could have been worse,” Lut5 said.

“Yes.” Brandon saw that the deployment was now 75% complete. “From Islog8, I interpret that as an approval of our actions.”

The deployment competed as the four ITF2’s came within orbital range of Dirg, near the cluster of attack satellites. Seeing the drones’ space-to-ground ordinance fire from this close of a view was no less frightening than when Brandon tangled with one of these doomsday machines five years ago above Banor. By now several squadrons of Dirg fighters were amongst them, desperately barraging them with missiles, lasers, and other explosives—all to no avail. With this many active satellites firing unrestrained, it was questionable whether there would soon be much left on Dirg to defend.

Brandon sent the other ITF2’s back. He chose not to interpret the general’s instructions as necessarily including his own ship in those orders. Quasar objected and wanted to stay with Aston, but Brandon refused them in an effort to offer Islog8 a reasonable level of subordination. And he didn’t have much more of a plan at this point.

Borsk7 spoke. “Commander, you took one of these satellites out before.”

Brandon smiled. “That was the High General, actually.”

“We know, but it was you who devised the method of attack and did the flying. You want to try that on one of them now?”

“I should have known he’d tell you that,” Brandon said. “I’m concerned that the enemy may have taken measures to amend the REEP blast vulnerability in the primary weapon firing tube, since they’ve also fixed the frequency disturbance vulnerability.”

They all cringed as they watched a satellite’s defense laser take out a Dirg fighter.

“Also, they’ve improved the defense systems significantly on these things. They’re faster-reacting now. To try to time the offensive weapon’s firing will be more difficult, and we’d need the coordination of several fighter squadrons to even attempt it. I don’t see that happening.”

Lut5 was still slowly taking them forward towards the orbiting satellite field. Brandon contemplated the situation and tried not to become unnerved by thinking of what was happening to Dirg.