Second Earth (23 page)

  
Shawn didn’t have
time to send a word of thanks to the two pilots before the dozen Alphas in
front of the Rippers came into missile range.

  
“All pilots, fire
at will!”

  
The five forward
Maelstroms let loose with medium-range missiles simultaneously, their gaseous
gray emissions showing the telltale signs of their presence as they streaked
away from the group toward their respective targets. Seconds later the barrage
contacted the enemy fighters, with nearly all the aliens destroyed in the
ensuing explosions. Two Alphas managed to peel off to starboard at the last
minute, but Shawn wasn’t about to let them get away. “Bagpipes, intercept those
two fighters.”

  
“Already on it,
sir,” she said, launching three missiles from her port wing. Two contacted one
of the Alphas, incinerating it in an instant. The final fighter succeeded in
slipping out of the last missile’s range and disappeared into another swarm of
fighters heading away from Shawn’s group.

  
The frustration at
losing her prey carried over the communications network. “Damn. He got away.”

  
“Keep cool, Ensign.
There are plenty more targets where that one came from, ones that are far more
of a threat to the carrier
than one
little fighter,” Shawn said, trying to calm her obviously agitated state.

  
She raised her
voice and yelled at the unknown alien, hoping her words would carry themselves
into its cockpit across the dark void. “You won’t get lucky twice!”

  
“Skipper,” Drake
signaled, “we’ve got six more fighters coming in on our starboard side.”

  
“And five more from
down below,” Nova added.

  
“All right, people,
it’s time to part ways. Nova, you and Drake go up. Raven, you and Brain go
down. Bagpipes and I will maintain course for five seconds and then snap-roll
back on this vector. Understood?”

  
“Yes, sir!” said
each pilot.

  
Who am I kidding? I’m not qualified for
this. These young people, each of them fine officers, have put their lives in
the hands of an incompetent space hauler
.
This is never going to work, and we’re all
going to die
. Shawn tried to suppress his morbid thoughts as he gripped the
stick tighter. “On my mark. Three…two…one. Break formation!”

  
The group
immediately split up on their respective vectors, the blue thrust of their
engines giving the maneuver the look of a firework bursting into the heavens.
As directed, Shawn and Clarissa maintained course for a few seconds before snap-rolling
back onto their previous course. This banked their craft one hundred eighty
degrees, and then used the thrust vectoring of the two powerful ion engines to
“snap” the fighter upright and onto the path they had just come down. Shawn
hadn’t been sure if Clarissa could manage the maneuver with the slowly
depleting power levels of her engines, but when it was over, he saw her on his
port side and keeping pace with him at full speed.

  
“Did you get that
power drain locked down?” he asked.

  
She laughed
nervously in response. “Not exactly, sir. That snap-roll depleted the rest of
my starboard fuel cell. I can reroute from the port side, but I’ll be
hard-pressed to keep up with you for much longer.”

  
Two Betas came
sweeping in behind Shawn and Clarissa and, before either of the Sector Command
pilots knew what was happening, they were enveloped in a downpour of weapons
fire. Both of them maneuvered as best they could to avoid being hit. Clarissa
pulled up and banked sharply to port, narrowly avoiding a missile that the Beta
had fired. Shawn wasn’t so lucky, taking several hits to his vertical
stabilizers before he managed to maneuver out of the Beta’s range. Thankfully,
the enemy had been too close to fire its missiles.
   

  
“These guys aren’t
playing very nice, sir,” Clarissa said.

  
“Why don’t we teach
them some manners?” Shawn offered back with a smile.

  
“Yes, sir.”

  
With so many alien
fighters in the area, it was nearly impossible for Clarissa to discern if the
fighter in her reticle was the same one that had fired on her and Kestrel
moments ago. She watched as the alien, evidently unaware of her presence,
proceeded to target a lumbering ELINT with a sputtering engine. Clarissa pulled
in quickly behind the intruder before it could fire on the helpless Unified
craft. She let loose with her cannons, holing the alien through several hundred
times before it fragmented into a ball of expanding green gas and debris.

  
Similarly, Shawn
didn’t know if he had reacquired the Beta that had fired on him or not. He
simply locked his missile onto the first enemy craft that passed in front of
his Maelstrom and fired two micro-missiles, each one striking against the Beta.
Not powerful enough in small numbers to destroy the craft, the projectiles
impacted the fighter’s stern and crumpled what Shawn assumed was its thruster
assembly. Somehow, the alien’s inertia slowed more quickly than Shawn had
anticipated, and the commander banked sharply to avoid a collision. Circling
around, he saw the craft, unmoving and apparently without power. There were
some things Shawn would never do—some levels he would fight tooth and nail to
never stoop to: there was no need, nor honor, in killing a wounded enemy. There
were far more dangerous targets to spend ammunition on. With a final glance, he
turned once again and headed back into the fight.

* * *

  
Captain Richard Krif stood on the upper deck of the combat information
center, his back to the rest of the officers in the compartment as he stared at
the glowing holotable and watched as the desperate battle unfolded. The
projection, a spherical overview of the entire battle zone that stretched from
the
Rhea
to the intruder, was a blur
of small blue and red wire-frame representations of the combatants, blue for
USC flyers and red for the aliens. His eyes focused on a pair of Cobra
fighters—the mainstay of the Unified Marine Corps’ attack wing—as they careened
down from a high Z-angle and took out three Betas and an Alpha in a single
pass.

  
Krif waved his hand into the projection, causing the two craft to become
highlighted. “Commander Hayes, these two Marine Cobras…who are they?”

  
From her flight control station, she accessed the holotable matrix and
pulled up the information for the underscored craft. “Gunslinger-One and -Two,
sir. Major Stevens and Captain Jones.”

  
Not taking his eyes
off the two craft, Krif nodded approvingly. “Excellent flying. Put a note in
the ship’s log to commend them both when this mission is over.”
If we live through it.

  
“Yes, sir. Making a
note of it now.”

  
Krif studied the
image a moment longer. Knowing he still had Commander Hayes’ attention, Richard
spoke up once more. “Where are the Rippers?”

  
Caitlin brought up
another angle of the battle on her screen and located the squadron quickly. She
instructed the holotable to dim the images of all but the requested fighters.
“Ripper-Two and -Three are in quadrant zero-six.” The blue icons representing
the named fighters began to blink slowly. “Ripper-Five is in quadrant
zero-nine. Ripper-Four is down. Ripper-Six has returned to base to effect
repairs.”

  
“Where’s Kestrel? I
don’t see him out there.”

  
Caitlin inputted
the requested information. The image on the holotable zoomed out slightly,
showing four fighters, two red and two blue, engaged in a heated dogfight
closer to the intruder’s carrier on the exterior of the far side of the combat
sphere. “Ripper-One and -Seven, sir. They’re pretty far outside the combat
zone.”

  
Krif watched as a
band of fighters danced around one another, each getting off shots at one
another, but to no avail. The captain was loath to admit it, but watching the
small image that was Shawn Kestrel flying around the screen, the captain had to
agree that Shawn still had a great deal of skill behind the controls of a
fighter. What impressed Krif the most, however, was how well the young Ensign
McAllister was doing. He hadn’t had much exposure to her, but what little he
did had caused him some concern in her flying abilities. He smiled as her
fighter and the alien did the silent dance of space combat, and was glad to
have been proven wrong.

  
“Can you patch me
in with Kestrel?”

  
“Yes, sir.”

  
“Put in on the
overhead speakers,” the captain said, waving his finger toward the dimly lit
ceiling.

  
“Stand by.
Ripper-One, this is command. Do you copy?”

  
There was a burst
of static over the speakers, followed by what sounded like a grunt. Krif
watched as the bogie Kestrel was after dissolved into nothingness. “This is
Ripper-One. I’m a little busy out here, Commander Hayes,” Kestrel’s voice said
with an air of agitation. “Do you think you could possibly call me back later,
perhaps when my life isn’t in imminent danger or something?”

  
Caitlin gave Krif a
puzzled look. “Captain?”

  
“He’s fine,
Commander. It’s just his way of saying ‘hello.’”

  
She nodded silently
and then returned to her duties.

  
“Kestrel,” Richard
called to the overhead. “This is Krif. Stop harassing my officers.”

  
“Well,” the word
was long and drawn out. “Hello there, Dick. What an unpleasant surprise.”

  
There was the sound
of muffled laughter behind Krif. With his back to the entire compartment, he
couldn’t see who the offenders were. However, a stifled snort had almost
certainly emanated from Commander Hayes. Krif turned slowly to look over his
shoulder and saw the entire complement of officers and specialists hard at
their duties, apparently oblivious to his presence. After glancing around, he
returned his gaze to the holotable.

  
“If you’re done
screwing around outside the combat zone, I need you to get closer to the core.”

  
There was another
burst of static over the speakers. Krif watched as McAllister downed the other
Beta with a missile. It was only then that Richard heard Kestrel sigh heavily
over the intercom.

  
“It’s a little
crowded in there,” Shawn replied. “We’re having nearly as many casualties from
collisions with one another as we are from weapon impacts.”

  
“Well, the
situation is getting worse, hotshot,” Krif said, now more irritated than
before. “We’re having our butts handed to us in quadrants five, six, eight, and
about a half-dozen others. I need you in there to swing the balance.”

  
“Hey, I’m just one
man, Dick.”

  
“Get your rear in
gear and do some of that pilot crap you’re always raving about. Our people are
dying out there, and they need your help.” As he finished speaking, Krif
watched the two Unified interceptors change course abruptly and head directly
toward the center of the combat sphere.

  
“Understood. I’m on
my way,” Shawn replied, all pretense of insubordination dropped from his voice.
“Who’s the wing commander out there?”

  
“Commander Saltori,
Red Skull-One, but only for another thirty seconds.”

  
There was a pause
before Shawn replied. “Wait a minute, you’re not suggesting that I—”

  
“I don’t offer
suggestions, Commander. I give orders.”

  
“Whoa! Hold on!
Assuming command of a squadron seemed like a ludicrous idea, but I went along
for the ride on that one, despite my misgivings. Taking charge of the entire
combat wing is something else entirely.”

  
“For crying out
loud, Kestrel! Put on your big-boy underwear and get the job done. Besides,
it’s far from a permanent assignment. Commander Saltori needs the assistance of
a veteran pilot, and your number came up. Congratulations. Now shut up and get
it done!”

  
There was an
audible sigh over the intercom. “Yes, sir. My wingman is going to have to
return to base for repairs, though.”

  
“Fine. I’m sure
you’ll live without them for a few minutes. Coordinate with Saltori and take
out as many of those fighters as you can. When the odds start swinging in our
favor, I want you to take two squadrons and attack that carrier directly. We
don’t need them to get any closer than they already are.”

  
There was a moment
of silence, then a chuckle of laughter over the intercom. “So, let me get this
straight: you want me to take two squadrons…about twelve fighters’ worth…and
assault a capital ship?”