Reece had woken up early this morning feeling very refreshed. It was a couple of hours before he had to be ready for the flight, but he was too anxious to keep sleeping. As he got himself ready and headed for the flight deck, he thought about the responsibility he now had. Despite his own quirks, Reece had to somehow instill some discipline in his pilots— keeping them from their usual drinking and debauchery. They were’t happy about being directed straight to their bunks last night, but it gave them all a needed rest before their morning flight.
Reece needed to prove his pilots were better than the Sea Wolf’s current lot. He knew that despite their appearances, his pilots were highly skilled and capable. Moreover, he needed to learn more about the junior pilots from Wolf Squadron he might inherit.
Reece went over the pilot roster the night before, examining all of their profiles. Most had come from different positions within the ship with no prior piloting experience. Somehow, Julius managed to get them trained and ready enough for several successful raids, all in a matter of weeks.
He saw no reference to the event that took the lives of the veteran pilots, but from speaking with members of the crew, it was a devastating failure, blamed chiefly on an unexpected power loss that crippled the Sea Wolf. They should have all been killed and the ship and crew captured. Yet somehow, Julius got them out of it.
Reece wondered what Julius’ experience and background was. He had found no information on either him or Laina in the ship’s computer. In talking with some of the crew, he got the impression that they trusted and respected Julius and were strongly loyal to him. When Reece tried to dig deeper into what they knew about their Captain, they all just smiled and went silent. The only one they did not mind slinging sludge at was Laina—most of the crew did not seem to have too high an opinion of her.
“A dress with some money”, one of them had said to him. “If it wasn’t for Julius, I think that dress would have been ripped off a while ago.”
As for the crew themselves, they all had unstable pasts—criminal data records probably even longer than he and the pilots. Most coming from the fringes of the stellar nations. The Sea Wolf was their only home, and none of them had ever heard of anyone ever leaving after joining the crew.
It seemed odd to him that they would work to increase their share of the plunder, but never stop to enjoy it. Perhaps they knew no other life, or maybe they were simply afraid to leave the ship out of fear of being caught by government authorities. Or maybe this was the only home they wanted to live in anymore?
Reece saw a couple of mechanics working on one of the Z-40 Interceptors they were going to fly. He had researched what he could find on the Z-40s from the ship’s library, but it didn’t provide many details. The fighters were triangularly shaped, with a visible canopy in the middle and three propulsion engines to the rear, at the corner of each apex. Its hull had a charcoal color, and various thruster holes could be seen all along its body for flight control. A deployable weapons bay hung under its belly and could deliver both anti-spacecraft missiles and strike bombs for larger targets. A pair of long accelerated proton cannons adorned both sides of its dorsal hull, looking like lances from a medieval knight’s horse.
“You ever flown a Z-40?” one of the mechanics said to Reece as he approached. Reece noted his voice had an old country twang to it.
Reece shook his head, still looking over the fighter.
“Then you better take it easy with it first time out,” the man continued. “These horses will buck you off if you kick the spurs to ’em too hard.”
A large, burly man, the mechanic sported an unkempt beard and long, wild hair. He had beady blue eyes that stared back at Reece with an unassuming expression. For a uniform, he wore long mechanic fatigues drenched in black stains. Reece got the impression he would be someone that would be at home somewhere in the backwoods back on Earth.
He extended a dirty hand to Reece.
“I’m Ralph, Chief Mechanic for the flight deck. This fella back here…” Ralph said, pointing behind him, “… is Jay, my apprentice.”
Reece shook their hands. “I’m Reece.”
“Yeah, we know who you are,” Jay said as he rummaged through some tools.
“Everyone does,” Ralph said with a broad smile. “There’s no secrets on this ship.”
Reece grimaced.
“Oh don’t worry,” Ralph continued as he turned back to work on the fighter. “We all get the drop on us when we first start. That’s the way it is, you know. Trial by flicker-fire if you know what I mean.”
Reece thought back to the way he and his recruits were suckered into stealing the cannon back on Mars. Then he recalled the way Julius tested them in the junk field.
“Well, I guess we’ve passed the trial, then?” Reece asked.
Ralph looked at him with that same broad smile. “Not yet. You need to get into the thick of a real fight before you get in with the crew and their Capt’n. But I wouldn’t worry, I reckon you won’t have to wait too long for that.”
“Oh? You talking about the next raid? Is it soon?”
Ralph turned back to his mechanical work, grabbing a tool Jay handed him.
“All I can say is that we have to arm these here fighters with live ammunition sometime in the next two days. So you best get some good practice in them. I don’t want to be doing all this work just so your asses get branded.”
So the fight would be soon. The realization of how soon made Reece take in a sudden breath. He had hoped for more time—more time to drill his pilots and learn the fighters. Looks like that wasn’t going to happen.
As he watched the two mechanics work on the fighter, he figured he had better become good friends with these two and learn what he could.
“What can you tell me about these Z-40s? I mean, what should we know?” Reece said.
Ralph stopped working and turned to look at Reece. “How much time you got?”
Reece looked at his wrist-link. “Two hours.”
Ralph chuckled. “I can probably teach you enough to get yourself killed in that amount of time. You sure you want to die so soon, rook?”
Reece ignored the “rook” comment. “Yes, I need to know.”
“Okay. Pull yourself up a chair and sit. I’ll try and give it to you all watered-down like.”
Ralph began with the controls of the Z-40, which were pretty much the same as the Z-33s that Reece was accustomed to flying. The weapons and shield ratings of the little fighter were impressive, but when the instruction turned to the performance capabilities of the fighter, Reece felt a little disappointed, as the performance thresholds of the Z-40 seemed only slightly better than the Z-33.
“You pilots need to be more patient,” Ralph said. “There’s more to this here horse than meets the eye.”
He reached inside the cockpit and operated a control. The nose of the Z-40 extended forward to reveal a round device with hexagonal-shaped indentations around it. It extended less than half a meter in front of the fighter.
“This is the hummingbird boom,” Ralph said. “It is an inertial nullifier—it will put you into zero velocity in less than a second, no matter how fast yer kickin’ the spurs. That makes this steed able to do things nothing else can—if used properly!”
Ralph brought him near the cockpit to peer inside. He pointed out the latched button on the flight stick.
“That’s where you engage it,” Ralph said. “And that lever on your left, that’s the intensity modifier; it lets you control how quickly you wanna come to a stop and how to focus the inertial vector.”
Now Reece was impressed. The ability to come to a complete or partial stop, no matter how much velocity you had going, opened up so many possibilities.
“Now, listen,” Ralph said, waving his hand across Reece’s face. “I see that twinkle in yer eye, and yer probably thinkin’ how much you wanna use the boom. Oh yeah, man, I am going to kick some serious ass now with this boom. Oh yeah, I can’t wait to g
et into a scuffle with some Enforcers.”
Ralph waved his hand in Reece’s face again.
“Forget all that shit, hotshot. There’s a reason this thing is called a ‘boom,’ y’know, and a reason why they discontinued using it after the Z-40 build. Hotshot pilots, like yer lot, would try and put this boom into full-zero stoppage—and guess what that does when you got too much velocity going?”
“Boom?” Reece joked.
“That’s right, hotshot: boom! The steed can’t handle the stress of such a sudden stop.”
The mechanic continued to go over other significant facts of the craft, such as how it could outperform most terrestrial craft in both Martian and Earth atmospheres. This was an important detail since it meant their raids could technically be extended to include planet-side engagements. The Z-40s also had an improved stealth shroud technology that allowed tight formations within the shroud; older craft did not have that luxury and were forced to converge into formation after coming out of the shroud.
Ralph went over the payload capabilities, as well, which included most of the weaponry one would expect. Reece noted one interesting tidbit, though: the weapons bay could be lowered without disturbing the stealth shroud.
“You can fire your first shot before they can see you,” Ralph said.
“Well, actually, point-five seconds after coming out of the shroud,” Jay said.
Ralph shot his apprentice a look. “Don’t correct me, junior—never correct me.”
“Yes, sir,” Jay said, rolling his eyes.
“You’re still pretty much invisible for that half second,” Ralph said. “It takes about a full second before a sensor computer can detect and identify your ship, and about two seconds before they could bring their shields up. So this here cavalry gives us a first-shot advantage, to strike them wherever it hurts the most.”
At that moment, Reece heard the clatter of feet behind him. He turned to see the other pilots show up, in full uniform and helmets in hand. Curiously, he did not see the junior pilots from Wolf Squadron.
“Looks like we finished this just in time,” Ralph said as he closed the engine lid. “All the fighters got duds loaded on them. Have fun, rook.”
Ralph and Jay put their tools away and left the deck.
“So, uh, where’s the rest of the pilots?” Taffy said.
“Any of you seen them?” Reece said.
They all shook their head.
“Rooks,” Tash said. “Maybe they’re too embarrassed to fly with the real pros.”
“Or maybe this is just another bullshit setup,” Taffy said.
Reece grimaced. The thought had crossed his mind as well.
Just then, footsteps echoed behind the group and a lone figure in full pilot uniform came walking out with a helmet on and tinted visor down. He passed the pilots without saying a word and boarded one of the Z-40s.
“Well, ain’t that charming,” Tash muttered.
The pilot’s Z-40 began to power up and a tow beam lifted it into position on the launch catapult.
“Load up pilots,” a voice sounded from the landing bay’s PA system. Reece recognized the voice as Murdock’s. “Let’s not waste any time.”
The pilots looked toward Reece. He waved them on and they began heading to the Z-40s.
“This one’s mine,” Tash said to Taffy as he raced ahead of him to a fighter.
“Why’s this one yours? They’re all the same!”
“I don’t know; b’cause I like it.”
“Bastard,” Taffy said. “Get your own next time.”
Tash gave Taffy the finger and a smile.
Reece entered his craft and got himself comfortable. The sound of the new black leather creaking in the pilot seat excited him for some reason.
Just under the canopy, an empty cavernous control panel greeted him. He powered on the holographic system and a series of holographic dials and controls filled the empty panel.
The main flight control was a flight stick just in front of his lap. It had a series of buttons on the head of the stick within thumb reach, and the conspicuous latch for the hummingbird boom. There was also a throttle and Z-Axis control on the left armrest.
Reece powered up the engines and waited for the tow beam to put him into position on the catapult launcher.
Ralph’s voice came over the conference channel.
“Stand by for catapult launch, hotshots.”
“Comm-check, everyone call in,” Reece said. The pilots all checked in, except for Murdock.
“What about you, Murdock?” Reece said. “You with us or what?”
“This isn’t Murdock,” a voice came back.
Just then, Ralph’s voice came on again.
“Launching in sequence. Stand by for auto-launch.”
The internal lighting of his fighter turned from its neutral color to a bright blue, signifying that his ship was now under the control of the launch bay computer.
Reece looked ahead and could see the main doors open up. In their place was a blue, translucent energy field that held the atmosphere in. They would pass through the field and enter into space. He braced himself, knowing that for the first few seconds he would relinquish total control of the craft to the launch computer.
The catapults activated, pushing the fighters two at a time toward the energy field.
Reece’s turn came and he felt his body press hard against the back of the seat. The inertial force from the catapults pushed them through launch bay and out into space.
Once in space, the internal lighting flashed green, signifying he had control of the fighter again. He grabbed the flight stick and applied some propulsion. His Z-40 skidded into a turn, while dancing on its inertia—it felt good to be flying a real fighter for a change.
Reece maneuvered toward their designated rally point, where they would assume initial formation. Once all his pilots were in position, he activated the conference link.
“What’s going on?” Reece asked. “Where’s Murdock?”
The lone fighter broke off from the group and headed to the far side of the Sea Wolf.
“There’s been a change of plan,” the voice said.
Reece recognized the voice. “I thought I was going to lead,” Reece said, not able to hide his agitation.
No reply came as the lone fighter—Julius, Reece knew—shot off across the hull of the Sea Wolf, diving down at the end and disappearing from view.
“Everyone switch to a new encrypted channel,” Reece commanded.
He heard an audible chime as the six fighters linked their communications into a private conference channel.
“What’s going on, Reece?” Tash said.
Just then, a squadron of other fighters came into view and formed up with Julius. Reece counted six fighters total with Julius—six versus six. Reece had an idea of what was coming, and he was angry for not having had enough time to prepare his pilots for it.
Julius’ ship spun around, breaking away from his squadron. He headed toward them fast, guns blazing with blue streaks of accelerated protons. The lances of light struck Tash’s ship before he could evade. The beams splattered against his cockpit, but left no damage or mark.
Julius maneuvered his ship up, narrowly missing him. Rotating around, and then hitting the throttle, he dove in between two of the other fighters before turning to fly off and meet his own squadron.
“Simulated fire, gentlemen,” Julius’ voice came on. “The Sea Wolf will keep score and record your performance. Get ready.”
Julius’ fighter formed up with the other squadron, poised to attack.
“All right pilots,” Reece said. “Those are our bogeys. Execute shrapnel bloom on my command.”
The shrapnel bloom was a complicated maneuver they loved to use during their time with Stromond. It involved the detonation of a countermeasure to the center of the squadron. The explosion’s inertial force would cause the fighters to break away quickly and i
n a random direction. The brightness from the explosion would also temporarily blind the enemy’s sensor array. Designed to confuse oncoming fighters, it was still difficult to predict what direction the fighters would fly off to when executed.
Reece readied the countermeasure and darkened the tints on his cockpit displays in preparation. Now he waited for Julius’ squadron to make their move. He did not have to wait long.
The squadron came up on them in a scorpion formation, with the fighters on their flank in a U shape. They shuffled so quickly into the formation that he could not even tell which one was Julius.
“On my mark,” Reece said.
The flanking fighters came into their weapons cone and unleashed a salvo. Their firing ports flashed and the streaks of simulated blue protons reached out toward Reece and his group. Reece did not have to dodge it; he accurately predicted the first salvo would miss them.
“Now!” he ordered.