“Once your missiles have been fired,” said our mission controller, “you should keep following the marked course out of the debris field and await further instructions at your designated gathering point. Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to return to the Hera orbital portal without receiving prior clearance from the Hera solar array. The instant the comet core moves into range, the power beam must attack it whether there’s anyone in the way or not.”
“Flight Twenty Leader acknowledging instructions.” Jaxon’s voice sounded breathless on channel twenty.
There was another minute of dizzying movements to dodge debris and I heard Ramon scream on ship to ship. “Chaos, chaos, chaos!”
“Ramon, are you all right?” chorused Jaxon and Mari.
“I’m fine,” said Ramon. “Minor impact cracked my cockpit. Shields intact. Engines intact. Missiles intact. Me mostly intact. No problem.”
“The last member of Flight Nineteen is starting their attack run,” said our mission controller on channel twenty. “Flight Twenty Leader, follow them in.”
“Flight Twenty committing to attack run now!” responded Jaxon.
All my attention had been taken up with evasive manoeuvres and listening to instructions. I hadn’t realized we were close enough to the comet core to start our attack runs. Well, Jaxon was there already, and I’d be there within seconds. I set my comms ready to speak on channel twenty.
“Silver One,” said Mari.
“Silver Two.”
“Silver Three.”
“Green One.”
“Green Two.”
The roll call continued on channel twenty. I reached a gap in the debris, couldn’t resist throwing one glance at my tactical display to check progress on shifting the course of the comet core, and was bewildered to see the tactical display had vanished. I didn’t have time to wonder why before I heard Brandon’s voice on channel twenty.
“Yellow One.”
“Yellow Two,” said the next voice.
Then the dot of my position started flashing brighter on my main screen. I hit the attack grid control and its holos appeared around me, bright red circles following my eye movements to focus on first one piece of debris ahead of me and then another.
“Yellow Three,” I said on channel twenty.
“Flight Twenty Leader. Fox four!” Jaxon’s voice came an instant later, confirming his missiles had been launched. “Where did my tactical display go?”
“You don’t need the distraction of a tactical display at this point,” said our mission controller.
I remembered what Ramon had said about listening to voices. I didn’t like the grim note in our mission controller’s voice, but I had to focus on swerving my way through rocks. On my main screen, the dot that was Jaxon’s fighter was peeling off past the comet core, and the second dot was approaching it.
“Silver One. Fox four!” shouted Mari.
There was a whole cluster of rocks bearing down on me. I lost track of the voices as I dodged left, right, up, and right again, before finally getting back on course. Oh nuke, that had cost me time and distance, so I was straggling behind the other dots in our line formation.
“Jaxon, where the chaos are you going?” asked Mari on ship to ship.
There was no answer.
“Jaxon?” she repeated.
“Sorry,” said Jaxon. “I was busy with something. I’m going back to guide Drago in. You lead the others on to the gathering point.”
“Green One. Fox four,” said Ramon on channel twenty.
I looked for the dot of Jaxon’s fighter, and saw it was heading back round towards me. Nuke it, he mustn’t risk coming back through that storm of debris just because I was out of position. Did he think I was going to fly off in panic without launching the missiles that could make the vital difference to whether Hera was saved or destroyed?
I swapped my comms to ship to ship. “Jaxon, I’m perfectly capable of finding a huge lump of rock by myself. Get to the gathering point.”
“Green Two. Fox four,” said a voice on channel twenty.
“Green Three. Fox four.”
I dodged yet another whirling rock. Jaxon was still heading back towards me. The background hum of a private channel came on my comms.
“Drago,” said Jaxon’s voice. “We’re good.”
“What?” I gasped in bewilderment.
“You acted like a skunk, but I believe you’ve changed. Things are good between us.”
The background hum vanished as Jaxon closed down the comms channel. Now I knew what was really happening here. Jaxon shouldn’t have said those words to me for months or years. He’d said them to me now because he didn’t have those months or years. He barely had minutes.
Jaxon had been slow answering Mari on ship to ship, because he was busy talking to our mission controller on a private channel. She’d shut down our tactical displays because they’d give away the fact our remaining missiles wouldn’t be enough. We had nothing else left to throw at the comet core but ourselves, and Jaxon was coming back to do that. He’d follow me in, fly straight at the comet core, and set his fighter to self destruct a split second before impact.
A ship’s self destruct operated by forming a drop portal around the ship itself, creating an explosion far bigger than the missiles we were launching. An explosion massive enough to save Hera.
I dodged debris, listened to the voices confirming their missile launch on channel twenty, and thought about Hera. From where I was now, I couldn’t see the peaceful clouds of Hera, just the maelstrom of rocks and the looming, battered mass of the comet core. I could see the jewel of Hera in my memory though. I thought of all the refugees waiting to see if their home world would be destroyed, and those two children outside Hera Off-world.
“Yellow One. Fox four,” said Brandon.
“Yellow Two. Fox four,” said my wing mate.
It was worth a death to save Hera, but it didn’t need to be Jaxon’s death. I had a clear view of the comet core now. A clear view of my target point. The red circles of the attack grid holos focused in on it, and I launched my missiles.
“Yellow Three. Fox four,” I said on channel twenty.
Jaxon must have been watching the white dot of my fighter on his main screen, because it was only a second before the background hum of the private channel was back.
“Drago, why aren’t you pulling out?”
“Someone has to save Hera,” I said.
“That someone is me,” he said. “Pull out. That’s an order.”
“I know I’m a useless human being,” I said, “but I got the highest training scores of any fighter pilot in the last ten years. I promise I’ll hit the comet core right on target.”
“Pull out!” Jaxon was screaming the words.
I closed down the private channel, set the self destruct, and considered the possibility of ejecting. That didn’t seem a great option. Given the amount of debris around, I’d get mashed to a pulp in seconds without my ship and its shields to protect me. It was better to stay with my ship and make sure it hit directly on target.
The cratered surface of the comet core was racing towards me. I knew I was going to die, but I felt oddly happy about it. I was bracing myself for the end, when the cover of my cockpit exploded outwards. I looked up at it in disbelief, then my seat kicked me upwards and out into space.
Auto eject! I’d completely forgotten about the auto eject. Because of situations like this one, safety systems allowed you to do a suicide run, but they also allowed for the possibility that a pilot was unconscious. If you didn’t hit the eject controls yourself, then they’d auto eject you at the last minute.
There was a burst of the musical notes I heard when travelling by drop portal, then a blinding flash came from behind me. I glimpsed rocks flying past me on both sides, but never saw the one that smashed into my legs. My impact suit went rigid to try to protect me, but my body still blazed with pain.
I was feeling sick, my eyes blurring as I ho
vered on the edge of unconsciousness, when I saw a weird illusion. A dart fighter hanging upside-down over my head, cockpit open, and a figure in an impact suit reaching out towards me.
I tried to reach up towards the outstretched arm, but I couldn’t move, and something pounded into my already injured right leg. There was nothing but pain for a moment, and then there was nothing at all.
Part VI
“Drago, are you back with us yet?” asked Jaxon’s voice. “Our doctor said I should leave you to regain consciousness in your own time, but it’s been over an hour since they gave you the wakeup shot and we need to discuss a few things.”
I opened my eyes and stared at confusingly perfect whiteness. I remembered the upside-down fighter, and the figure in an impact suit reaching out towards me. Of course that figure must be Jaxon, but space should be black not white.
Then a gloveless human hand waved in front of my eyes, and I realized the whiteness I was looking at was a ceiling. I was wearing one of those embarrassingly ghastly hospital gowns, and lying in one of the distinctive, technology packed beds of a Military Medical Centre.
The hand went away. I turned my head to see where it had gone, and saw Jaxon was lying in another bed crammed right next to mine. He must have been waving at me with his nearer, left hand, because his right arm was encased in a bulky regrowth unit.
I tried to roll on my side to face him, but had trouble moving my legs. I lifted my covers to peer at them, and discovered they were both encased in grey regrowth units. I didn’t know what injuries the units were hiding, but my legs were obviously salvageable. If I’d needed to grow new limbs, I wouldn’t be lying here awake in bed. I’d be unconscious and floating in a full body regrowth tank.
I skipped the trivial questions, like which planet we were on, and went straight for the important one. “The comet core was destroyed in time? Hera survived?”
“Yes,” said Jaxon. “It was a close call though. That core was diamond hard rock, so the Hera solar array only just managed to destroy it before it entered the atmosphere.”
I relaxed back on the bed and let my mind adjust to that knowledge. “Hera is safe, and you rescued me. How long ago was that?”
“Only two days,” said Jaxon. “And of course I rescued you. What did you expect to happen after you hit the eject button? I was right behind you, heading in to crash my fighter into the comet core, when you stole my job. Did you really believe I’d pull out of my approach run and fly away, leaving my best friend floating in space to be killed by rocks or vaporized by a planetary power beam?”
“I wasn’t expecting anything,” I said. “I never hit the eject button. I was planning to stay with my ship when it exploded. I needed to make sure it hit precisely on target, and there seemed no chance of making it out of that debris field alive anyway.”
Jaxon burst out laughing. “You mean you were about to heroically kill yourself to save Hera, and had forgotten your fighter safety systems would eject you before impact? Chaos, I wish I’d seen your face when your cockpit cover blew and your ship tossed you out into space.”
I joined in his laughter. “Oddly enough, the fighter pilot training course spends far more time teaching you how to fly fighters than they do teaching you how to blow them up. What happened to your arm?”
“I got hit by a fragment of rock as I was pulling you inside my fighter.” He shrugged. “It’s only a cracked bone. Naturally we ended up at the same Military Medical Centre. They were overloaded with Hera pilot casualties, so they wedged both our beds into a single room.”
“Are the rest of the team all right?”
“Ramon is in a room just down the corridor. He got a bit dented in the collision he mentioned on ship to ship. Apparently his diplomacy doesn’t work on rocks. Everyone else made it through in one piece.”
There was a moment of silence. The fact that Jaxon was here and not insulting me implied certain things, but I felt I had to check the situation anyway. “We’re good?”
“You should know we’re good. Don’t you remember me saying that before you fired your missiles at the comet core?”
“You only said that because of the special circumstances. I’d done nothing to earn it, so I wasn’t sure it still counted.”
Jaxon shrugged again. “Yes, I only said that because of the special circumstances, but I can’t go back on my word now. Anyway, you saved my life straight afterwards, which I’ll grudgingly count in your favour.”
I shook my head. “I didn’t save your life. You were the one who saved me.”
“You only survived that suicide run because I was right behind you ready to pick you up,” said Jaxon. “If you’d followed your orders, fired your missiles, and flown on with the others while I made the suicide run, then I’d be dead.”
He grinned at me. “You’ve no right to argue about this, Drago. It’s totally my decision whether you’ve proved yourself a changed man and made up for your past dishonourable behaviour or not. I’ve decided we’re good, so you have to shut up and accept it.”
I reached out to take his hand for a second, then saluted. “Yes, sir.”
“I can’t salute back until I get this thing off my arm.” He jerked his head at the regrowth unit.
“How long will it be before the refugees can go back to Hera?”
“At least a few months. With so many rock fragments around, there were a few sizeable impacts on the planet surface before the other fighters could get back with more missiles and start clearing up the space neighbourhood. The night sky of Hera is still having spectacular meteor displays from all the smaller debris, there are some minor changes to the coastline of the inhabited continent, and it will be a while before the weather gets back to normal. The refugees will have to wait for Hera Off-world to be rebuilt anyway.”
“Hera Off-world was hit?” I remembered the image of those two little children outside Hera Off-world. My hands clenched into fists and I felt a sharp pain as my nails dug into my palms. “Did any of the people there make it out alive?”
“There wasn’t anyone there by then,” said Jaxon. “The Military knew a lot of fools had hidden from the evacuation enforcement patrols. Hera Command waited for the last of the civilian police to leave Hera, and people to gather outside Hera Off-world, then sent in Military Security to make them leave.”
“How could they do that? You’d need vast numbers of Military Security officers to forcibly drag all those people through interstellar portals.”
Jaxon grinned. “Gemelle didn’t use force, but superior tactics.”
I blinked. “While we were messing around in space, Gemelle was down on Hera?”
“Oh, yes,” said Jaxon. “She wasn’t in command, of course, just one of the junior officers involved, but she got a starring role in the newzie coverage because she’s the one who persuaded that vid reporter, Kasim Hashmi, to leave Hera.”
“How did she do that? Did she break his nose or stun him?”
“Neither. Gemelle confiscated the man’s vid bees. After that, he meekly followed her into Hera Off-world. Apparently there was no point in him staying without dramatic live coverage of his death being shown on Alpha Spectrum newzie channel, and a sizeable number of other people decided to leave with the vid bees as well. The sight of them all trooping off into Hera Off-world, combined with a loud explosion as a chunk of comet debris hit nearby, broke the resolve of the rest of the crowd. They all started running off into Hera Off-world, so Military Security just had to persuade the few remaining stubborn cases to cooperate.”
“I’m impressed by Gemelle’s tactics, but not surprised,” I said. “After the shock I got when I arrived at the Military Academy, I’m prepared for almost anything from her. Why didn’t you tell me what was going on when we were kids? You must have known all about it.”
“Not at the beginning,” said Jaxon. “Gemelle knew all about our adventures, because half the time we messed up. We didn’t know about hers, because she was far better than us and only got caught o
nce. That was when a couple of high ranking Military Security officers showed up at the clan hall to question her about a breach of the Betan Parliament security system.”
He paused for a moment to laugh. “You were somewhere in Alpha sector with your parents at the time, and my parents were away on assignment too, but obviously our clan council leapt to Gemelle’s defence. I was cowering in the corner while they all made impassioned speeches. Gemelle was an innocent child, a member of a proud and historic Betan Military clan, and a descendant of humanity’s greatest hero. If Military Security wanted to arrest her, they would have to do it over the dead bodies of the entire Tell clan!”
He laughed. “When clan council finally gave Military Security a chance to speak, they announced they weren’t there to arrest Gemelle, but to recruit her as the youngest ever member of their highly secret, special training programme.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about this when I got back to Zeus?”
“Two reasons,” said Jaxon. “Firstly, as I just said, this was a highly secret training programme. Secondly, it was embarrassing to think that while you and I were pulling faces at statues outside the Betan Parliament Building, my younger sister was infiltrating its security system.”
I could see his point. “When I arrived at the Military Academy, I was stunned to see Gemelle wearing a Military Security Captain’s uniform. She was attending some of the standard classes with the rest of us mere cadets, but vanishing off for special sessions as well.”
“While we’re on the subject of Gemelle,” said Jaxon, “you’ve been under sedation for two days while the doctors messed about with your legs, but I’ve been conscious the whole time. Gemelle came to see me yesterday, and she gave me a message for you.”
I tensed, turned my head away from Jaxon in a paper thin pretence of studying the flashing lights and screens attached to my bed, and waited in silence.
“She says that what you did at Hera shows there’s still hope of you becoming a decent human being,” said Jaxon. “She’s willing to admit you exist again and she doesn’t actually hate you any longer. That doesn’t mean she either likes or trusts you though, and if you make advances to her again then she’ll break more than your nose.”