Clean Sweep
Chapter 2
On Patrol
Near Delius II
Delius System
With two missions behind him, Marcus “Mailman” Pershing expected it to get easier. It was not. The same anxiety shook him, and uncertainty that he would live to see another sunrise gnawed away in his gut, turning his small intestine into a Gordian Knot. It was pointless to worry so, for he was not likely to see another sunrise up in space anytime soon. He spoke of to Candice, but her only reassurance was that being scared never ceased. She felt the same on every mission, no matter how routine.
The two Scimitars flew between the orbits of Delius II and Delius III, keeping tabs on Kilrathi movement. A second strike on the base on Delius II scored him no kills, but his squadron successfully escorted the Tennessee River’s whole compliment of Raptors to destroy the base. After they finished delivering their bombs and missiles, nothing remained by radioactive ruins upon the surface of that desolate world. The few remaining Kilrathi fighters were destroyed while trying to reach orbit.
Those first two missions were lucky, even Pershing knew that. The Kilrathi were not expecting an attack, nor knew of the existence of Task Force Thirty-Seven. Now they knew Confed was in system, and Admiral Bellemonte had all available fighters on patrol, even those of escort squadrons. At the moment, only he and Candy were out in space. Aside from the light from Delius, he felt as if he flew in a universe of eternal darkness.
“Look alive, Mailman,” came Candy’s voice, dripping with anticipation. “Time to stop daydreaming.”
“What do you have, Candy?” he asked. He had been on plenty of patrols before entering the Delius System, but those had minimal chances of running into trouble. For all he knew, the two of them were about to fly smack into the middle of an entire Kilrathi strike wing.
He could hear a slight laugh on her end of the comm. “Relax Mailman, it isn’t the kitty armada. I’m picking up a freighter going somewhere in a real hurry, accompanied by a pair of Dralthi.”
“We’re nowhere near the commerce lanes,” Pershing replied. After weeks of transit and briefings, he felt he knew the shipping lanes of this system better than his own quarters. He glanced down at his own long-range sensors, seeing only a large return. His were on passive, while Candy’s were on active. No point in letting the Cats know how many fighters were on patrol.
Candy pondered the situation as well. “Nowhere near those corresponding to jump points. That doesn’t mean the Cats don’t have their own little trade routes in-system. Their trajectory leads back to the Caliban Jump Point. They might not know about us. What do you say we pay this hundred kilotonne freighter a visit?”
Pershing knew he could not argue. Despite sounding like a question, it was clearly an order. The freighter could be carrying reenforcements or supplies, either of which could be trouble for the task force. “After you.”
Pershing watched as the Kilrathi freighter grew in size. Sensors showed no windows and minimal oxygen reserves. Without nanotechnology, the Kilrathi had to carry extra air to stay alive. Judging by the lack of reserves, he and Candy agreed it was carrying cargo. “Too bad,” Candy told him. “The Army would really appreciate us killing a Cat battalion in space.”
The escorting fighters clearly were not briefed on the dynamic situation in the Delius System, for their first reaction to the two Terran fighters was when Candy locked on to one and fired an FF missile. That sort of slothness made Pershing appreciate the sort of drilling that Confed pounded into him and the other rookie pilots while in friendly systems; never knew when a Kilrathi raid might sneak in and pay a visit.
The Dralthi evaded the missile and turned to face Candy. “Mailman, take out the freighter, I’ll deal with the escorts.”
Pershing gawked at his comm unit. Take out the freighter? With what? Scimitars were not equipped with anti-ship missiles. The freighter was of the Dorkir design. The basic ship was small, but could have literally hundreds of containers added on as needed. This one was a monster, bigger than any he had ever seen. In truth, he never seen a Dorkir in person, but he clearly saw no Confed ship of this size. His sensors had the mass topping one hundred thousand tonnes. It would be a big kill.
He quickly ran everything he knew about the general design through his head. Its crew compartment was forward, and accounted for two thousand tonnes. The engines were in the back, but even as it slowed to combat speed to evade, destroying them would only send it drifting endlessly in the void. Pershing targeted the ship’s reactor core, hidden behind several of the durasteel containers. He could see it, barely, but hitting it would be tricky.
Pershing powered up full sensors, toggling fire control over to his IR missile. Lining up his sensors with the reactor module took time, and further time was wasted while the missile locked. It would be a few seconds, but a few seconds that he had to keep station and could not evade attack. Fear vanished as he focused. It would not be missed, for he would have plenty of time to be scared later. If he survived.
Alarms went off in his helmet as one of the Dralthi lined him up. He felt his own ship buck as shots of plasma slammed into his aft shields. Before he could react, the chime of a locked IR missile pinged, and he let loose his missile. For added measure, he sent an FF missile to trail the IR into the heart of the freighter. Once the missiles were clear, he pulled his Scimitar into a sharp climb away from the ship and out of the line of fire.
The Cat followed him like a cheetah running down a gazelle. So focused was he on Pershing, that he failed to see the second Confed fighter sweep across his flank, chewing through shields and armor. Pershing tracked the fighters on his sensors momentarily, until the flash of a powerful explosion lit up space, and overwhelmed his sensors. He did not need to look over his shoulder to know he scored a hit. The fusion warhead of his two missiles detonated within the monstrous freighter’s core, causing the ship to split in half as a temporary star blossomed from within.
With his sensors out, he was in the lethal position of losing all track of the action. “Candy, are you still with me?”
Her voice broke through the cackling of static. “Good kill, Mailman.”
He would celebrate and revel in his first kill later, for now, he wanted to make sure he had the chance. “What about the Dralthi?”
“I killed the first one,” Candy replied. “Think the blast might have knocked out the other one. What do you say we power up to cruising speed in case the Cat gets any crazy ideas of suicide involving crashing into one of us?”
Pilot Lounge
TCS Tennessee River
Delius System
Marcus Pershing sat with his back to the stars, only he knew they were not really stars. All windows within the pilot’s lounge were simple viewers, transmitting real-time images from the Delius System deep into the heart of the Tennessee River. Windows were structural weaknesses, and like most Confed ships, the Tenn kept windows to a minimal. That was not to say the ship was without any. The officer’s mess had its own genuine view of the deep black. Fighter pilots were not part of the crew in the same way as those who actually make the ship function, and thus the pilots created their own recreational zone out of an empty compartment.
“Here’s to you, Mailman,” Candy raised a shot of rum. “If kills were based on mass instead of numbers, you’d have topped us all.”
She knocked the rum back with a single gulp. She was shorter than Pershing, but not slight of build. She was well muscled, a body produced by a couple hours a day in the ship’s gym. Like most female pilots, she kept her hair short, just down to the neck. Helmets and long hair did not mix so well. She was also far more outgoing and relaxed than Pershing, not only because he was still one of the replacements.
Pershing doctored his rum. It was alright, but not something he would drink every day. In fact, that was pretty much ship policy. Alcohol on starships was a tightly controlled commodity, and the pilot’s lounge had only so much. It was broke out to celebrate first kills, making ace, and used in heavy doses to numb the pain of losing a pilot. The lounge was mostly empty at the moment, being late in the night. Not even the bartender, a pilot from one of the Hornet squadrons who serves the roll part time, was to be seen.
“I don’t see the big deal,” Pershing replied to her toast. “You’re the one who handled the fighters; all I did was kill a big dumb object.”
Candy smiled brightly. “Ah, but not even Kali has killed a ship that big.” It was true, escort pilots held the fighters off and let the heavy-hitters come in with anti-ship missiles. “Your kill was enough to put the Raptor pilots to shame.” She looked around the empty lounge. “Too bad you couldn’t have waited a few hours to make the kill; the rest of the squad could have been here.”
Pershing shrugged. “The Kilrathi aren’t too keen on keeping our schedules.”
“Uh huh,” Candy replied suspiciously. “I think you just wanted to avoid the crowd.”
“Tradition is the drink is immediately after the sortie, as you well know Candice,” Pershing reminded her.
Candy laughed. “Don’t quote to rules to me, Marcus,” she added a slightly accentuation to his name. Pilots seldom called each other anything other than their callsigns on board the Tenn. When they did, it was a formal situation, and he would be calling her Lieutenant Elliot, and saluting in the meanwhile.
Pershing smirked at her. He could not recall the last time she called him by his given name. To the rest of Tenn’Court A, he was simply Mailman. “If it makes you happy, I’ll make sure I make ace during happy hour.”