Siege of Terra (The Mavrik Woods Series, Book 1) (12 page)

I look through the viewports in the cockpit, nothing to really look at, just the inside of the hanger bay.

Boot steps echo off the hallway leading out the cockpit, Krystil Aakia walks inside the cramped room.

“Ah, everyone is here now. Let’s hope we can leave soon then. Captain?” She says, peeling her eyes off me to look at him.

“What is it Ms. Aakia?” He asks.

“I finished the preliminary engine check, everything checks out to be good.”

“Ah, thank you my dear!” He says, waving his arms around, he’s definitely a cheery fellow.

“Well, that’s what I am here for.” She says.

“Oh, how rude of me! Mavrik, can I call you Mavrik?” Jayon says.

“I guess so.”

“Mavrik, and Thomas is it? This is Krystil Aakia.”

“We know; can we just get on with this?” T-Rave cuts in.

“Oh, I guess you have already met then. Sure thing, seeing as there is only three seats I would ask the lower ranking officer to step outside and enjoy the ride in the mess hall. There are also the guest quarters which are just located down the hall and to the right,” Jayon says curtly, I guess it wasn’t his first time to be ignored from people like T-Rave.

T-Rave nods at me, “
Colonel,” then storms out of the cockpit and down the hall.

“I’ve no idea why you military folk pick people like that, he must be hard to keep on a leash,” Krystil says.

“He’s a good soldier, I’m lucky to have him covering my back when we land down there,” I say.

“If you say so.”

“Strap in you two; there will probably be turbulence higher up in the atmosphere,” Jayon warns us.

I sit down in one of the seats, reaching over my back for the full body straps.

“Alright, sit tight. T.A.R. control this is
Comets End
, requesting permission to lift off,” Jayon says through the intercom.

“This is T.A.R. control, permission granted
Comets End
. Good luck Captain, have a safe flight.”

“Thank you T.A.R. control.”

The ship lifts off from the pad, its engines rumbling the whole ship from bow to stern. I look through the top viewport; I can see the whole roof opening up so the ship can pass through.

“And we have a lift off, alright folks just sit back and enjoy the ride, we should be there in about three hours.”

The metal interior of the hanger disappears seconds after take-off, getting instantly replaced with clear blue skies.

All that I can think about as we take off is Syreena; I want this mission to be done as quickly as possible. All I have to do is wait and see, and then I would know soon enough how fast I would be able to get back to my wife.

Day 8: Cycle 1: Period 2: Year 2397

My eyes opened slowly, I must’ve nodded off a little bit. The scenic ride’s a lot better than I had originally thought it would be, the minutes pass by almost as fast as the land travels beneath us.

I’ve been sitting here for who knows how long, just watching the sky fly by. It was quite boring actually, just watching as everything passes you by. I stand up, making my way to the entrance of the cockpit.

“Where are you going?” Jayon asks.

“I’m going to see how the Captain is doing,” I say, opening the door to the hallway.

I make my way through the corridors; I head for the guest quarters first.

The door to the quarters hisses open, revealing a largish sized room. T-Rave isn’t in here though; he’s probably in the mess hall.

“Captain?” I say, not sure if I’d be heard or not.

“Yeah, in here
Colonel,” T-Raves voice echoes through the corridors, it originated from the mess hall.

I walk towards the source of the noise. “Ah, there you are Captain; it's easy to get turned around in this place,” I say, stepping through the door.

“Hmm, I found this place rather easily, this was the first place I went after getting kicked out of the cockpit,” he says.

“Well, to be fair you were being rather rude; there is one thing I have learned in my years that you don’t want to go against: You never want to piss of your pilot; he is the man with the power to just dump you off somewhere where no one will ever find you.”

“He wouldn’t do that, and we are in kind of a hurry.”

“No, he is not the right type to even consider doing something like that. But look at his face when he sees this ship, he just lights up, which means that this job means everything to him, and he won’t do anything to jeopardize it,” I say, sitting down in one of the table chairs.

“Want something to eat? There’s loads of food in these cabinets,” he says, opening the food cabinets behind him.

“Oh, uh, do you think it’s wise to go eating the man’s food?”

“What? He said make yourself at home right? Well, this is home for me then.”

“If you call raiding a food cabinet home.”

The ships intercom crackles before T-Rave can say anything else, “
Colonel Woods, Captain Ravenson, please come to the cockpit immediately.”

“Now what's going on?” T-Rave says.

“Let’s go find out,” I say, getting up and walking out the door.

The walk back to the cockpit takes no time at all seeing as I know where to go this time.

“What do we have Captain?” I say.

It probably wasn’t the safest idea to have the entire crew in the cockpit. What if something happened and we all get locked in here? I’m thinking we’d be screwed.

“A few minutes ago our long range sensors picked up ten contacts, flying our way.”

“How fast are they moving?” T-Rave asks.

“If they keep their present course they should be here in thirty minutes,” Jayon says.

“How long until we reach the mining facilities?” I ask

“That’s the funny part; we should get there within thirty six minutes.”

“Damn, can we hold them off for that long?”

“Not in this tub, this is a freighter equipped with some firepower, but not enough to destroy ten bogies, if anything we would get shredded out there doing that.”

“We can use the escape pods,” I say, staring up into the faces in front of me.

“That could work, there are quite a lot of them out there though, are you sure that you can handle them? Because once you drop out of this ship you are on you own for a while, I will need to lie low for a while and put her in stealth mode.”

“That’s alright with me, just as long as we can get to that mining facility,” I say.

“Well, they will definitely do the trick. Come, let’s get you boys ready,” Jayon says, leading us back through the cockpit doors, “Miss Aakia you have the controls, keep a watch on those bogies, and keep us informed.”

“It’s Krystil, and yes Sir, I’ll do my best.”

“Good! Good to hear…Krystil.”

It’s going to be another thirty minutes until we get there? We’ve been flying for that long already? When we boarded the ship Jayon said that it would take three hours, not thirty minutes.

“Captain,” I say to T-Rave, “What did you do when you left the cockpit?”

“Well, like I said, I went to the mess hall, then I found the quarters, I had a nice nap, then woke up hungry, so I went back to the mess hall, which is when you found me Sir.”

“Ah, alright. Thanks Captain. I just needed to know how long we’ve been flying for. I guess I passed out sometime shortly after take-off,” I say, hmm, I did indeed pass out, probably with my mouth wide open. I likely looked like an idiot while doing so.

“This way gentlemen,” Jayon says, leading us through the corridors back to the escape pod bay.

“How long will it take to get set up in those ships?” I say.

“It shouldn’t take too long; I will have to run you two through the controls quickly,” Jayon says.

“We have military training for all standard and advanced aircraft's; I think we will be fine,” T-Rave says.

“Oh really, well I have made modifications to both of those ships myself, so good luck trying to find out what those will do,” Jayon’s voice cracks, despite his age.

I elbow T-Rave in the chest as hard as I can; wearing armour like this amplified the affect several times, he responds with a huge gust of air rushing out of his lungs.

I look over to him, his face in pain, giving him the look of ‘be nice.’

T-Raves eyes are still on the floor, making sure that his feet step in front of each other, luckily he doesn’t notice the smirk that split across Jayon’s face.

“Alright, here we go,” Jayon says, passing through the door to the ship bay. The two ‘escape pods’ are floating in midair, a small ladder leading up towards the cockpit of the ships.

I walk up the ladder to one and I inspect the interior of the ship, it can hold two people, one seat in the front and the other is offset to the back right of the cockpit.

The exterior is of sleek design, a matte black finish to make it appear stealthy to oncoming enemies. The wings are small and thin, if you looked at it head on it would appear as a black tube. “Very nice, how fast do they go?”

“With the engines pushed to the max around Mach two,” Jayon says.

My mouth almost drops open, “how come we are not just traveling with these then?”

“Well, you can only have the engines on max power for so long before they burn out the core, they’re meant to be fighters, not transports.”

“Well, how the hell am I supposed to shoot down a target if I’m going Mach two? By the time I get my target in sight I would be dozens of kilometers away in a matter of mere seconds,” I say, traveling that fast in a dogfight was practically useless, unless you were trying to outrun someone or something.

“It’s like I said, that is with the engines at max power, if you really want speed then you hit the little red button that I have specially installed into these particular models.”

“And what exactly does this red button do?” T-Rave asks.

“It makes the ship go supersonic, climbing speeds into almost Mach four in a matter of ten seconds.”

This time it’s T-Raves jaw to drop open in awe.

“How do you survive going those speeds in atmosphere?”

“Inertial dampeners, It’s what prevents you from being a big oozing mess when you accelerate.”

“Wow, amazing, I never thought that we could achieve those speeds yet,” I say, my eyes now look over the small aircraft with shock and awe.

“Well, enough of all the technical stuff, let’s get you boys ready for drop off.”

I point over to the ship parallel to mine, “Captain, you take that one over there, I’ll take this one,” I say to T-Rave.

“Um, this was one thing that I forgot to mention, you two will be sharing one. Don’t worry, its meant to host two pilots, one for flying, and the other one for the actual combat aspect of it.”

“You mean that the pilot has no control over the weapon system?” T-Rave asks.

“Well of course they do, but if you are in the middle of air combat you will be worrying about keeping your ship in the air, not worrying about what buttons to hit in order to shoot. Besides, I’m not letting you two take my only two escape pods; In case something happens to this ship then we will still have a way off in case we need it,” Jayon says, the man does have a good point.

The ships intercom crackles for a second.

“Captain, we’re reaching the drop point, they better hurry; otherwise we will be targets as well.”

“Damn it, they must have picked up their pace to reach us quicker. Alright lads, time to move out.”

“Thanks for the lift Captain, we will notify you when we need to get picked up,” I say, spinning around to face the small ship.

“You want to drive or shoot
Colonel?” T-Rave asks.

“I’ll drive, you shoot, sound good?” I say.

“Perfect, there’s nothing more than I’d like than to shoot some aliens out of the sky,” he says, hopping into the back seat.

“We don’t know for sure if those are even manned fighters Captain. If they are the same as the scout ships that bombed those towers then they are lifeless.”

“How do you know that?” He asks.

“The General said that they scanned the ships when they flew by, the scanners revealed that the whole ship is just electronic. Unless there are parts of the ship that are shielded from our scanning technology; if that’s the case then we are screwed,” I say as I strap myself into the pilot’s seat.

“Why would you be screwed?” Jayon asks; he hadn’t left yet; maybe he just wants to make sure that the drop is a success.

“Well, if they can shield certain parts of their ships to hide life forms than who knows what else they can shield. If they have shields around all of their ships then I’m not sure how effective our weapons will be.”

“Well, good luck to you both,” Jayon says, giving a firm nod to us.

“Thank you Captain, see you soon. I hope.”