Clean Sweep
Chapter 5
Pilot’s Lounge
TCS Tennessee River
Delius Station
Every one of Tenn’s available pilots crammed into the lounge, celebrating their most recent victory. All of Tenn’Court A’s nine pilots crowded a single table, all in the most joyous mood. For half the pilots, it was the single greatest victory they ever witnessed. As far as Pershing was concerned, any victory he could walk– or fly– away from was a great victory. Where more than a few pilots lived and died in the space of thirty seconds, he and Express managed to elude destruction for a half-hour, long enough for help to arrive.
It was not their own squadron that saved them. No, Tenn’Court A was too busy forming on Tenn’Strike B’s wing. Instead, the hot shot Rapier pilots cleared out that Dralthi squadron with ease. The remaining ones at least. Despite their success, the two Scimitar pilots caught all sort of flak from the space-superiority fighters on how they expended all their missiles. If anything, they should have killed all the Cats and retained a missile each. Despite that, the Rapier’s squadron commander commended them on staying alive that long.
The two of them rejoined their squadron as it approached. Its arrival took longer than expected, with half the pilots out on patrol. By the time they reached the enemy task force, a cruiser and four destroyers, Rapiers pretty much cleared the space around them. Their victory was far from free; several Rapiers were destroyed in the process, though only one from Tenn. These losses did not diminish the victory, for the Cats lost all five of their capital ships in the end.
After returning to the carrier, Pershing marched to his quarters and collapsed, sleeping twelve hours straight. He was amazed exhaustion did not overtake him in the cockpit. Sleeping on the fly was never a good idea, but at least after the battle, his fighter could have flown itself back. Or, it could have, had it not been so badly damaged. Both he and Express did not survive their engagement without some damage. Returning to the squadron for escort duty only added to it. Pulse cannons from one of the destroyers caused some damage to his guidance systems. He was lucky; the same destroyer ripped apart the frigate Wolverine. Fortunately– fortune was relative after all– the frigate was destroyed after it finished its attack run and unloaded eight anti-ship missiles into the Ralari’s path. The Cats shot down most of the missiles, but most was not enough to save them.
Both pilots learned their lesson from Loki’s death. With his navigation systems less than one hundred percent, he parked his fighter along side the carrier and climbed out. He did not care much for weightlessness, and fought to keep his lunch down where it belonged. The space drives that propelled all Confed ships generated a field within the ship that acted similar to gravity. Once his fighter was shut down, his stomach tried its best to climb away.
The carrier had to slow to combat speed to retrieve the fighters, and hauling in free-floating material. Pershing would not have wanted to try any of this at cruising speed, even if he might get a kick out of ‘flying’ a noticeable fraction of the speed of light. Express’s fighter had its own share of damage, including an engine pod that began to fluctuate towards the end. True to her form throughout the mission, she pulled up on Pershing’s wing and disembarked. Since the two did not technically eject, and since their fighters were recovered, they were spared the standard speech about losing an expensive fighter.
While the pilots celebrated, the techs were busy putting the two fighters back in working order. Tennessee River had spare fighters packed away in storage. Fighters might cost more than pilots, but were far easier to replace than skilled fliers. Pershing did not worry too much about his fighter not being ready for the big strike. Techs were exceedingly proficient at patching of wounds, far more so than medics.
Kali, as squadron commander, naturally presided over the table. “To imminent victory,” she said, raising a shot of some brew native to India. Her squad echoed her sentiments. “If Task Force intelligence is as intelligent as it likes to think, Delius Station should be defenseless.”
The dour Snake Eyes corrected her. “Void of any Cap Ships at least. Something as large as a starbase should have at least a whole wing of fighters to protect it. Not to mention the garrison on Delius V’s largest moon.”
Kali scowled reproachfully at her second-in-command. “Quan, the point of a celebration is not to dwell on the minor issues.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Ghost said, raising his own refilled shot and doing just that. “Sixty-four fighters, that’s nothing to worry about.”
Kali made a disgusting face, not so much at what he said, as to what he drank. “How can you stomach something that tastes like burnt wood?”
“Not to mention is strong enough to strip paint,” Snake Eyes added, his expression not changing.
“I dared him to drink a can of paint once,” Bonzo said, proving to be as obnoxious as his younger brother. “He needs it to clean himself out.” Bonzo, though he and Monkey acted alike, did not resemble each other very well. Pershing would not even have guessed them cousins, if he did not already know they were brothers. Switched at birth perhaps?
Ghost glared at Bonzo before speaking. “It cures what ails me. Not to mention is good for amnesia.”
Kali raised a brow in curiosity, though Pershing suspected she heard it all before. “How so?”
Ghost gave her, and the rest of his squad mates, a grim smile. “There’s a lot about this war I want to forget.”
Nobody had an immediate comeback. Nobody except Snake Eyes. “You think you’ve seen horrors, perhaps you should transfer to the Army. My cousin has quite a few stories that will give you nightmares.”
“Or the Marines,” Monkey added. As a rookie– and he would still be considered one until Clean Sweep was completed– his word was not as readily accepted by the veteran pilots.
It was accepted by Bonzo. “My brother’s right. They’re the first ones who get to see all the cute things the Cats do to planets and their inhabitants.”
“Not counting the civilians,” Candy added. All eyes shifted towards Pershing. Yes, his world was still on the wrong side of the front line. His parents escaped the planet, and Pershing experienced the thrill of living as a refugee before signing up. He wondered if Tenn would be involved in liberating Port Hedland. Then he wondered if he wanted to be there, to see first hand what has become of his home. The Kilrathi were not gentled with conquered worlds, though they apparently have done little with Delius III.
“Nobody ever counts the civilians,” Pershing’s tone carried as much weight as his fighter. “The Cats weren’t too choosy about what they bombed when they came. I’d be surprised if any of the arcologies on Hurricane still stand.” Those were some impressive buildings, towering a kilometer out of the ocean.
Kali pounded her palm against the table. “Celebration, pilots, celebration. No more talk about civilians under the Cats’ claws.” Her gaze turned to a slight glare. “The best thing we can do for them, Mailman, is to destroy the Kilrathi Navy. We do our jobs, and one day they’ll all be free.”
After that, Pershing lost any desire to celebrate. He simply looked down into his glass of rum and wondered if the fermented sugar could erase memories as well as burnt wood.
Flight Deck
TCS Tennessee River
Approaching Delius V
Though the techs were methodical in detail, in fact he suspected Tenn’s chief technician’s face would be seen in the dictionary under the entry for methodical, it was still his hide on the line every time he launched. Pershing insisted on going over his rebuild Scimitar personally. The Chief was not offended, far from it. If anything, she approved of pilots inspecting their own craft. After his initial visual scanning, Pershing was impressed. In less than a day, they swapped out anything broken and patched her up like new. He could not even spot welding marks.
He began to wonder if it was his fighter, and not a replacement. Even the small silhouetted paintings of a freighter and a pair of Dralthi just beneath his cockpit canopy were not proof it was his ship. Admiring his work, Pershing could not help but feel empty at the accomplishment. Many pilots whooped at their victories, but not Pershing. No matter how many Cats he killed in Delius, his own world remained in their grasp.
Victory brought depressing memories to the surface of his mind. He did his best not to think about home for the whole voyage to Delius, and the raid through it. Now, now it was the only thing on his mind. What became of his home and his neighbors? Did any of them still live? The house he grew up in, the streets he once roamed, where any of them still intact? He did not bother thinking about his school. If that place was leveled, Pershing saw no great loss. Nothing he learned there could have ever prepared him for war, and the truly important lessons of staying alive.
It was not until he was leaning into the cockpit, checking the new instrumentation, that he heard an all too familiar voice. “Are you ready for the big push, Mailman?”
Contorting himself, Pershing looked down at Candy. “I was ready a few days ago.”
“Hurry up and wait,” Candy repeated the ancient doctrine of war. It was as true in the days that legions tore across Ancient Rome as it was in space. Technology and tactics change, the waiting never did.
“The waiting is the worse part,” Pershing told her.
Candy waved her hand in the direction of the other eight Scimitars of the squadron. They were parked in their alcoves well clear of the runway, each with at least two techs on inspection tours. Pershing could spot Snake Eyes going over his own fighter with the tech, discussing some technical matter or another. Pershing could not hear, and not just because Snake Eyes was soft spoken. The buzzing of electric vehicles and the rattle of carts was enough to drown out those distant words.
“The techs feel the same way. They can’t stand waiting to see if their babies will return.” Candy pursed her lips as she looked over at her own fighter, and a trio of technicians working on it. It galled her that the techs considered her baby to be their baby.
“Yes, but if the fighter doesn’t return, the techs can get another one,” Pershing pointed out. “If I get killed, replacing my own life isn’t as easy.” He suppose they could clone him, but it would be of little use. The original Marcus Pershing would still be quite dead.
“Alright, get down here,” Candy said with authority. “Are you sure you’re holding up well?”
Pershing obeyed the commands of his superior, climbing down to the deck. “I’m fine.”
Candy was not convinced. “You certainly depressed everybody in the lounge.”
Pershing shrugged a rather unprofessional shrug. “I miss home, I can’t help that. Talking about fighting on the ground got me thinking about home, that’s all.”
“How much family do you still have there?” Candy asked. She was lucky enough to know where all her family lived, and that all were safe around the coastal city of Astoria.
Again Pershing shrugged. “I have no idea. If they survived the initial bombings, they’re probably still around. War’s nothing new to my family. I even have an ancestor that fought in the battle our ship’s named after.” When Candy raised a curious brow, Pershing shook his head. “No, not that Pershing.”
At least he did not think he was related to General ‘Black Death’ Pershing, commander of the Federal army during the Battle of the Tennessee River. His family tree was preserved in times well before the third War between the States, and there was no indication that his Pershings had anything to do with those other Pershings. “I have no doubt that if they survived the fusion bombs, they would still be alive somewhere on Hurricane. I just wish I knew for certain.”
Now Candy frowned. “I need you focused on this mission.” What a mission it would be; while fighters from the Victory were pounding away at the moon-based garrison, pilots of the Libertè andTennessee River would spearhead the attack on Delius Station. Right behind their first wave would be the frigates of the Task Force. Even the destroyers and the cruiser Tallahassee would take long-range potshots at the starbase. Not a weapon would be spared
Pershing sighed with some exasperation. Why were they ever talking about this? “Is it so unusual to worry?”
Candy relaxed her stance. “No, not at all. It’s just that you had a distant look in you eyes at the party. I’ve seen that sort of stare before, in one of the previous pilots in the squadron.”
“One that I replaced?” Pershing asked.
“No, different ship, and this was at Enyo. Before the battle, he learned that nearly his entire family was killed during a Kilrathi raid. He was never quite the same after that, and the look you have reminded me of him.” Pershing could not recall Candy sounding so reserve in her speaking. He wondered if there was any sort of history between her and this pilot. He would not ask; he would not want anybody sticking their fingers in a wound like that on him, and planned to return the favor.
He did ask, “What happened to him? Nothing happy I’m guessing.”
Candy shook her head sharply, sending her hair flapping. “No. He took off one day, and never came back. I’m not sure how he received clearance to fly alone, but he did” Her own gaze drifted far off for an instant. The instant ended as quickly as it began, and the fire came back to her eyes. “I don’t want you flying off the handle like that.”
Now Pershing wondered if she was actually concerned about him as a person, and not just a fellow pilot. “I didn’t know you cared,” was all he could think to say.
Candy gave him an amused smirk. “Losing a wingman looks bad on my record.”
Pershing rolled his eyes before he caught the full meaning of her words. “Your wingman? What about Express?”
Candy explained the situation. “She’ll be on Kali’s wing. The flight’s been shuffled a bit; Snake Eyes will be flying solo cover on one of the Raptors. One of Tolwyn’s boys had a monitor explode in his face during the last fight, took the faceplate of his helmet with it. He still lacks a clean medical certificate. I suppose it could have been worse; he could have the whole canopy explode in his face.”
Pershing had nothing to say to that. Words were not required. Victims of exploding cockpits tended to take longer to receive clearance. ‘Not until Judgement Day’, as the ship’s part-time chaplain and full-time cook, a former Catholic priest who volunteered for non-combat service, would say.
“I’m touched by your concern, Candy, but there’s nothing to worry about,” Pershing finally did tell her. “I don’t know what became of my relations, but I have every intent to live long enough to learn the truth. Perhaps even a few years after that too.”
Candy smiled and slapped him on the back. “That’s the spirit!”
Chapter 5
Pilot’s Lounge
TCS Tennessee River
Delius Station
Every one of Tenn’s available pilots crammed into the lounge, celebrating their most recent victory. All of Tenn’Court A’s nine pilots crowded a single table, all in the most joyous mood. For half the pilots, it was the single greatest victory they ever witnessed. As far as Pershing was concerned, any victory he could walk– or fly– away from was a great victory. Where more than a few pilots lived and died in the space of thirty seconds, he and Express managed to elude destruction for a half-hour, long enough for help to arrive.
It was not their own squadron that saved them. No, Tenn’Court A was too busy forming on Tenn’Strike B’s wing. Instead, the hot shot Rapier pilots cleared out that Dralthi squadron with ease. The remaining ones at least. Despite their success, the two Scimitar pilots caught all sort of flak from the space-superiority fighters on how they expended all their missiles. If anything, they should have killed all the Cats and retained a missile each. Despite that, the Rapier’s squadron commander commended them on staying alive that long.
The two of them rejoined their squadron as it approached. Its arrival took longer than expected, with half the pilots out on patrol. By the time they reached the enemy task force, a cruiser and four destroyers, Rapiers pretty much cleared the space around them. Their victory was far from free; several Rapiers were destroyed in the process, though only one from Tenn. These losses did not diminish the victory, for the Cats lost all five of their capital ships in the end.
After returning to the carrier, Pershing marched to his quarters and collapsed, sleeping twelve hours straight. He was amazed exhaustion did not overtake him in the cockpit. Sleeping on the fly was never a good idea, but at least after the battle, his fighter could have flown itself back. Or, it could have, had it not been so badly damaged. Both he and Express did not survive their engagement without some damage. Returning to the squadron for escort duty only added to it. Pulse cannons from one of the destroyers caused some damage to his guidance systems. He was lucky; the same destroyer ripped apart the frigate Wolverine. Fortunately– fortune was relative after all– the frigate was destroyed after it finished its attack run and unloaded eight anti-ship missiles into the Ralari’s path. The Cats shot down most of the missiles, but most was not enough to save them.
Both pilots learned their lesson from Loki’s death. With his navigation systems less than one hundred percent, he parked his fighter along side the carrier and climbed out. He did not care much for weightlessness, and fought to keep his lunch down where it belonged. The space drives that propelled all Confed ships generated a field within the ship that acted similar to gravity. Once his fighter was shut down, his stomach tried its best to climb away.
The carrier had to slow to combat speed to retrieve the fighters, and hauling in free-floating material. Pershing would not have wanted to try any of this at cruising speed, even if he might get a kick out of ‘flying’ a noticeable fraction of the speed of light. Express’s fighter had its own share of damage, including an engine pod that began to fluctuate towards the end. True to her form throughout the mission, she pulled up on Pershing’s wing and disembarked. Since the two did not technically eject, and since their fighters were recovered, they were spared the standard speech about losing an expensive fighter.
While the pilots celebrated, the techs were busy putting the two fighters back in working order. Tennessee River had spare fighters packed away in storage. Fighters might cost more than pilots, but were far easier to replace than skilled fliers. Pershing did not worry too much about his fighter not being ready for the big strike. Techs were exceedingly proficient at patching of wounds, far more so than medics.
Kali, as squadron commander, naturally presided over the table. “To imminent victory,” she said, raising a shot of some brew native to India. Her squad echoed her sentiments. “If Task Force intelligence is as intelligent as it likes to think, Delius Station should be defenseless.”
The dour Snake Eyes corrected her. “Void of any Cap Ships at least. Something as large as a starbase should have at least a whole wing of fighters to protect it. Not to mention the garrison on Delius V’s largest moon.”
Kali scowled reproachfully at her second-in-command. “Quan, the point of a celebration is not to dwell on the minor issues.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Ghost said, raising his own refilled shot and doing just that. “Sixty-four fighters, that’s nothing to worry about.”
Kali made a disgusting face, not so much at what he said, as to what he drank. “How can you stomach something that tastes like burnt wood?”
“Not to mention is strong enough to strip paint,” Snake Eyes added, his expression not changing.
“I dared him to drink a can of paint once,” Bonzo said, proving to be as obnoxious as his younger brother. “He needs it to clean himself out.” Bonzo, though he and Monkey acted alike, did not resemble each other very well. Pershing would not even have guessed them cousins, if he did not already know they were brothers. Switched at birth perhaps?
Ghost glared at Bonzo before speaking. “It cures what ails me. Not to mention is good for amnesia.”
Kali raised a brow in curiosity, though Pershing suspected she heard it all before. “How so?”
Ghost gave her, and the rest of his squad mates, a grim smile. “There’s a lot about this war I want to forget.”
Nobody had an immediate comeback. Nobody except Snake Eyes. “You think you’ve seen horrors, perhaps you should transfer to the Army. My cousin has quite a few stories that will give you nightmares.”
“Or the Marines,” Monkey added. As a rookie– and he would still be considered one until Clean Sweep was completed– his word was not as readily accepted by the veteran pilots.
It was accepted by Bonzo. “My brother’s right. They’re the first ones who get to see all the cute things the Cats do to planets and their inhabitants.”
“Not counting the civilians,” Candy added. All eyes shifted towards Pershing. Yes, his world was still on the wrong side of the front line. His parents escaped the planet, and Pershing experienced the thrill of living as a refugee before signing up. He wondered if Tenn would be involved in liberating Port Hedland. Then he wondered if he wanted to be there, to see first hand what has become of his home. The Kilrathi were not gentled with conquered worlds, though they apparently have done little with Delius III.
“Nobody ever counts the civilians,” Pershing’s tone carried as much weight as his fighter. “The Cats weren’t too choosy about what they bombed when they came. I’d be surprised if any of the arcologies on Hurricane still stand.” Those were some impressive buildings, towering a kilometer out of the ocean.
Kali pounded her palm against the table. “Celebration, pilots, celebration. No more talk about civilians under the Cats’ claws.” Her gaze turned to a slight glare. “The best thing we can do for them, Mailman, is to destroy the Kilrathi Navy. We do our jobs, and one day they’ll all be free.”
After that, Pershing lost any desire to celebrate. He simply looked down into his glass of rum and wondered if the fermented sugar could erase memories as well as burnt wood.
Flight Deck
TCS Tennessee River
Approaching Delius V
Though the techs were methodical in detail, in fact he suspected Tenn’s chief technician’s face would be seen in the dictionary under the entry for methodical, it was still his hide on the line every time he launched. Pershing insisted on going over his rebuild Scimitar personally. The Chief was not offended, far from it. If anything, she approved of pilots inspecting their own craft. After his initial visual scanning, Pershing was impressed. In less than a day, they swapped out anything broken and patched her up like new. He could not even spot welding marks.
He began to wonder if it was his fighter, and not a replacement. Even the small silhouetted paintings of a freighter and a pair of Dralthi just beneath his cockpit canopy were not proof it was his ship. Admiring his work, Pershing could not help but feel empty at the accomplishment. Many pilots whooped at their victories, but not Pershing. No matter how many Cats he killed in Delius, his own world remained in their grasp.
Victory brought depressing memories to the surface of his mind. He did his best not to think about home for the whole voyage to Delius, and the raid through it. Now, now it was the only thing on his mind. What became of his home and his neighbors? Did any of them still live? The house he grew up in, the streets he once roamed, where any of them still intact? He did not bother thinking about his school. If that place was leveled, Pershing saw no great loss. Nothing he learned there could have ever prepared him for war, and the truly important lessons of staying alive.
It was not until he was leaning into the cockpit, checking the new instrumentation, that he heard an all too familiar voice. “Are you ready for the big push, Mailman?”
Contorting himself, Pershing looked down at Candy. “I was ready a few days ago.”
“Hurry up and wait,” Candy repeated the ancient doctrine of war. It was as true in the days that legions tore across Ancient Rome as it was in space. Technology and tactics change, the waiting never did.
“The waiting is the worse part,” Pershing told her.
Candy waved her hand in the direction of the other eight Scimitars of the squadron. They were parked in their alcoves well clear of the runway, each with at least two techs on inspection tours. Pershing could spot Snake Eyes going over his own fighter with the tech, discussing some technical matter or another. Pershing could not hear, and not just because Snake Eyes was soft spoken. The buzzing of electric vehicles and the rattle of carts was enough to drown out those distant words.
“The techs feel the same way. They can’t stand waiting to see if their babies will return.” Candy pursed her lips as she looked over at her own fighter, and a trio of technicians working on it. It galled her that the techs considered her baby to be their baby.
“Yes, but if the fighter doesn’t return, the techs can get another one,” Pershing pointed out. “If I get killed, replacing my own life isn’t as easy.” He suppose they could clone him, but it would be of little use. The original Marcus Pershing would still be quite dead.
“Alright, get down here,” Candy said with authority. “Are you sure you’re holding up well?”
Pershing obeyed the commands of his superior, climbing down to the deck. “I’m fine.”
Candy was not convinced. “You certainly depressed everybody in the lounge.”
Pershing shrugged a rather unprofessional shrug. “I miss home, I can’t help that. Talking about fighting on the ground got me thinking about home, that’s all.”
“How much family do you still have there?” Candy asked. She was lucky enough to know where all her family lived, and that all were safe around the coastal city of Astoria.
Again Pershing shrugged. “I have no idea. If they survived the initial bombings, they’re probably still around. War’s nothing new to my family. I even have an ancestor that fought in the battle our ship’s named after.” When Candy raised a curious brow, Pershing shook his head. “No, not that Pershing.”
At least he did not think he was related to General ‘Black Death’ Pershing, commander of the Federal army during the Battle of the Tennessee River. His family tree was preserved in times well before the third War between the States, and there was no indication that his Pershings had anything to do with those other Pershings. “I have no doubt that if they survived the fusion bombs, they would still be alive somewhere on Hurricane. I just wish I knew for certain.”
Now Candy frowned. “I need you focused on this mission.” What a mission it would be; while fighters from the Victory were pounding away at the moon-based garrison, pilots of the Libertè andTennessee River would spearhead the attack on Delius Station. Right behind their first wave would be the frigates of the Task Force. Even the destroyers and the cruiser Tallahassee would take long-range potshots at the starbase. Not a weapon would be spared
Pershing sighed with some exasperation. Why were they ever talking about this? “Is it so unusual to worry?”
Candy relaxed her stance. “No, not at all. It’s just that you had a distant look in you eyes at the party. I’ve seen that sort of stare before, in one of the previous pilots in the squadron.”
“One that I replaced?” Pershing asked.
“No, different ship, and this was at Enyo. Before the battle, he learned that nearly his entire family was killed during a Kilrathi raid. He was never quite the same after that, and the look you have reminded me of him.” Pershing could not recall Candy sounding so reserve in her speaking. He wondered if there was any sort of history between her and this pilot. He would not ask; he would not want anybody sticking their fingers in a wound like that on him, and planned to return the favor.
He did ask, “What happened to him? Nothing happy I’m guessing.”
Candy shook her head sharply, sending her hair flapping. “No. He took off one day, and never came back. I’m not sure how he received clearance to fly alone, but he did” Her own gaze drifted far off for an instant. The instant ended as quickly as it began, and the fire came back to her eyes. “I don’t want you flying off the handle like that.”
Now Pershing wondered if she was actually concerned about him as a person, and not just a fellow pilot. “I didn’t know you cared,” was all he could think to say.
Candy gave him an amused smirk. “Losing a wingman looks bad on my record.”
Pershing rolled his eyes before he caught the full meaning of her words. “Your wingman? What about Express?”
Candy explained the situation. “She’ll be on Kali’s wing. The flight’s been shuffled a bit; Snake Eyes will be flying solo cover on one of the Raptors. One of Tolwyn’s boys had a monitor explode in his face during the last fight, took the faceplate of his helmet with it. He still lacks a clean medical certificate. I suppose it could have been worse; he could have the whole canopy explode in his face.”
Pershing had nothing to say to that. Words were not required. Victims of exploding cockpits tended to take longer to receive clearance. ‘Not until Judgement Day’, as the ship’s part-time chaplain and full-time cook, a former Catholic priest who volunteered for non-combat service, would say.
“I’m touched by your concern, Candy, but there’s nothing to worry about,” Pershing finally did tell her. “I don’t know what became of my relations, but I have every intent to live long enough to learn the truth. Perhaps even a few years after that too.”
Candy smiled and slapped him on the back. “That’s the spirit!”