Clean Sweep
Chapter 3
One Light-Minute ahead of the Task Force
Delius System
Marcus Pershing piloted his Scimitar in yet another routine patrol. Despite the terror of combat and possibility of a quick and sudden death, Pershing would much rather be with the fighters fromLibertè and Victory in their attack on Delius III. They were not bombing the planet, and the human colonists held down by the Cats, but rather a Kilrathi fighter garrison on some near-orbit asteroid. Intel reported the base only held two squadrons of fighters. Sixteen Dralthi or Sartha were not enough to warrant a full-scale attack. That would come later.
No doubt the whole point of this raid into occupied space was to destroy Delius Station, where the Cats have their system HQ. Pershing would get his fair share of terror when it came time to escort the bombers on a bombing run against a starbase. It was a demoralizing thought, but at least he did not have to fly in a straight line right down the chute like those Raptor pilots. War vids always showed that bomber pilots required nerves of steel, but they did not know the half of it.
Instead, the lavished attention upon fighter jockeys. All the glamour and glitz of the vids was not what convinced Pershing to sign on; having his home overran by the Cats played a minor role in that decision. He and his family fled Port Hadland just ahead of the Cats. Too many of his former neighbors were not as lucky. Pershing did not spend too much time dwelling on what became of them. A number of Tenn’s crew had families trapped behind enemy lines, so he was not alone there.
He was, however, alone in that regard in Tenn’Court A. Aside from the Powell brothers, every pilot in his squad hailed from the homeworld. Kali was from the capital, New Delhi. Candy was from some town called Astoria in North America. Even the brothers were not that far away from Earth, both born on Luyten I. The junior of the brothers, Monkey, served as Pershing’s wingman. He had no idea how Monkey was assigned to the same ship as his brother. Up until Kali decided to shuffle flight rotations, so that the rookies did not get to set flying wing on one pilot, Monkey flew on his brother, Bonzo’s wing.
Pershing missed flying on Candy’s wing, who was currently flying with Ghost, another of the ‘old hands’. After training with her all the way out to Delius, he could predict her moves even before she planned them. In that respect, he admitted Kali had a point. Candy would not always be in the cockpit, and Pershing had to learn to play with others. Bonzo lacked her charm, but made up with strangeness. Like his brother, he earned the call sign by his sheer strangeness. Sometimes, Pershing thought the man would be more at home in the trees than a carrier.
Pershing’s radio beeped as it received a narrow-band laser from Monkey. “Another exciting patrol, eh Mailman?” he asked in his thick Luyten Deutsche accent, far thicker than Bonzo’s, who has been in space far longer.
Pershing could not deny the boredom. “Just stay awake, Monkey. Can’t have you sleep through any skirmish.” Dogfights were a quick affair, so quick that Pershing worried that should he blink, he might miss it.
Monkey snorted over the radio. “What, and let you have all the kills!” They were tied on the kill rally. Monkey scored his kill early in the campaign, during the fighting around Delius II. He use to give Pershing grief about his own blank slate, at least up until he killed a freighter that outmassed a Sartha by hundreds of times. Of the rookies, Pershing had a most definite lead in terms of tonnage. With the competitive nature of fighter pilots, it would only be a matter of time before one of them tried to take down a corvette.
Or a frigate.
“I think making it home alive counts for more than kills,” Pershing told him. He knew he should not talk so much while on patrol, but so close to each other, it was next to impossible for anyone to intercept the communication laser. A ship would have to pass between the two of them, and said ship would be visible long before then.
“Speak for yourself, cap ship killer,” Monkey shot back. It was not a completely accurate declaration, for freighters were hardly capital ships. They just carried cargo, and no doubt the Kilrathi crew resented the assignment even more than humans. Violence was in their blood even more so than in humanity. To a Kilrathi warrior, such labor was females’ work.
Monkey said not a word more after that, and the two passed the patrol in silence. While in flight school, Pershing thought flying a state-of-the-art fighter would be more exciting. He never imagined how much waiting it involved. Even on patrol. Perhaps patrol was not the best word to describe the mission, but it was the one Kali used. In truth, all he and Monkey were doing was sitting out ahead of the task force at the ten o’clock position as advance warning.
Should Kilrathi fighters appear, they were expected to sound the alarm and try to deal with them. If Kilrathi warships showed up, they were expected to sound the alarm, and try to slow them down. If a Kilrathi fleet appeared– Pershing asked Candy about that once. Her response was a shrug followed by ‘sound the alarm and then die’. Perhaps not even that much; no doubt the Cats would have jammed any transmission.
He wondered just why pilots were even needed for this sort of scouting. Probes could see just as well, and never grew bored. True, probes could not fight worth beans, but they would sound the alarm Pershing wondered just how many pilots flying out ahead of their ships ever set their sensors to an alarm clock and then proceeded to sleep off the patrol. He would not want to try it. As he already told Monkey, it was best not to sleep through a fight.
Only a few minutes before their boring four hour tour came to an end, Pershing’s radio flared to life. It was not Monkey this time, he could tell by the beeping. It was an omni-direction radio broadcast. His partly melted brain came back to life. There was only one reason he could think of for such a general transmission; somebody stumbled upon the Cats.
From what he could tell, the twelve o’clock patrol stumbled across a half-squadron of Kilrathi out on patrol. That was not good. Not only where they outnumbered two-to-one, but one of the Cats was bound to be smart enough to ask, ‘what are a pair of Terran fighters doing out in the middle of nowhere?’.
Monkey, if was asleep he certainly was not now, asked the Obvious question. “Do we help them?”
Pershing had no clear answer. Who was out on patrol there? Two more rookies; Express and Loki. He did not know either pilot that well, save they were from Earth. When he stopped to think about it, Pershing did not know anybody ‘that well’, save Candy, and he only knew her because he spent all that transit time training on her wing.
“We’ll have to call back to the hanger,” Pershing said, and could already picture Monkey scowling. He did not like it either, not least because the reply would take two minutes to reach them. The warning only took seconds. Pershing cursed physics, the bane of all pilots. At the time he sent his request, the Task Force would not even have known the twelve o’clock patrol discovered anything. They could fly between the stars in a blink of an eye, but it still took forever to communicate.
To his surprise, the reply took less than two minutes, though only be a few seconds. “Epsilon Patrol, your relief–“ Smitty paused for a long moment. He must sent out his first communique before Pershing’s request arrived. He waited longer while kicking the message upstairs. Some days, it felt like the Chain of Command was forged from red tape. Today would not be one of those days. “Epsilon Patrol, you are ordered to assist Alpha Patrol. You relief is on its way, and your sudden departure would not create an appreciable gap in our detection.”
As far as Pershing was concerned, there was no such thing as an appreciable gap. Still, any Cats trying to slip past them would run right into the replacements from Tenn’Court B. “Copy that, we’re on our way,” he said, knowing that they would quite literally be on their way by the time any response caught up to them. He switched his comm laser back to his wingman. “Alright Monkey, looks like we’ll be seeing some action today after all.”
Pershing throttled his fighter up to cruising speed before Monkey could have the last word.
Flight Deck
TCS Tennessee River
Delius System
Pershing climbed out of his cockpit, shaking from exhaustion as the adrenalin rush finally ebbed. Funny, it never happened while in his fighter. Each time after a hair-rasing mission, Pershing found himself ready to collapse upon the deck. He knew it would never happen in the middle of a firefight, but there was still a half-hour trip back to the carrier. Surely he could feel the effect then. Not a chance. His body always waited until it had something beneath his feet before it wanted to collapse.
This time was no exception. He and Monkey arrived at twelve o’clock in time to save the patrol. Express’s fighter was still in decent shape. He watched it come in for a smooth landing. He watched it pass through the atmospheric curtain with ease. A good thing too. Though he was still in his flight suit, sealed against vacuum, the numerous techs were not. Oh, they wore environmental suits, but seldom had them sealed. A few even worked barehanded, their gloves hanging from a belt. The suits techs wore would protect them, provided they remained on the flight deck. Should they get sucked out into space– Pershing was not confident of their surviving. If nothing else, they would likely smack into a large piece of equipment on deck.
Upon touching down, Express’s fighter found itself quickly towed to its alcove. Techs might not be as protected as they should, but they knew their stuff. From touchdown to parking, they took less than twenty seconds. Express popped the top of her fighter and began to climb out. Pershing could tell she was far shakier than himself. Of course, he was part of the cavalry, not one of the besieged.
The fight was short, and almost ended with the sudden arrival of Pershing and Monkey. Pershing damaged two of the Cats, but made no kills. Monkey finished off the second, claiming another kill for himself. Claiming being the operative word. The official tallies would mark it as a half-kill for each, but that would not stop Monkey from bragging about it. After that, the Kilrathi decided it better to live to kill another day.
Kilrathi were odd in that respect. If they thought they could win, they would fight until they won. If not, they would retreat. Though they fled today, they would always be back tomorrow. Yet, when trapped, they would fight to the death. Otherwise, they would abandon the fight. The odd part came in that the Cats saw a great disgrace in surrendering, yet none in running away. Rumor has it that the Cats did not even have a word for surrender.
Loki’s was the last to land. His fighter was the most damaged, and though he might need assistance the most, he was put at the bottom of the line. It made sense, in a cold, calculating way. If he crashed, then the flight deck would be out of action, stranding the other three in space until the debris was cleared. The Swede had been serious shot to pieces before the calvary could arrive. Just why the fighter did not explode, was beyond him. One of its fuel tanks was blown wide open, and part of a wing missing.
He should have come along side Tenn and ejected. That way there would be no risk to the flight deck, and the fighter could still be recovered. Loki refused vehemently. It was foolishness; if the fight disemboweled a fuel tank, what did it do to his guidance system? Totally screw it up as Pershing discovered.
Loki came in high. Too high. The top of his fighter clipped the ceiling as he passed through the curtain. The Scimitar bounced off the ceiling and slammed down, hard, into the flight deck. Fuel lines and oxygen tanks cracked open, spilling out on to the flight deck. Sparks from electrical shorts were quick to ignite. His fighter did not simply stay put. No, that would have made matters simple. It retained enough momentum to carry itself forward, spreading fire as it moved. It stopped short of an ordinance trailer, to which Pershing sighed in relief. If those went up– even disarmed, their fuel was enough to blow a hole in the flight deck.
Maddening loud alarms ripped through the flight deck faster than the flames. Instead of running towards the fighter, and trying to save the pilot, the entire deck crew bolted in the opposite direction. Pershing was slower on the pick up, for his specialty was not flight deck operations. The alarm roaring was not one of help, but one of ‘get off the flight deck!’. The racket of the emergency decompression alarm chilled him.
“Come on Mailman,” Monkey said over his comm, rushing past Pershing. “In a few seconds, this will not be the place to be.”
Pershing had to agree. He was about to run for the safety of the ship’s bulkheads when he noticed one of people actually was running towards the burning fighter. It did not take a quantum theorist to figure out she was not one of the techs. “Express!” Pershing shouted, though it did little good with his faceplate down.
Instead, he ran after her, determined to overtake the pilot. Monkey stopped and cursed. “Mailman! You’re going to be the death of me!” He was a strange fellow, no doubt, but a loyal one as well. He was not about to abandon a wingman, not even after the mission.
Both pilots, despite their fatigue, overtook Express before she came across the burning fighter. She was smaller than either of them, though not in spirit. Pershing and Monkey grabbed her by shoulders and waist, and Express fought to wiggle free. “Have to save Loki!”
“We can’t,” Pershing told her, managing to drag her back a step. “Come on, Express. The curtain is about to raise.” Fire in space was a serious matter. The only thing more serious were explosions, which fire tended to lead towards. In event of a catastrophic fire– Loki’s fighter qualified– the flight deck was to be sealed and atmospheric curtain raised, venting all the flammable oxygen into space. If any of the crew were trapped– too bad. Safety of the ship as a whole superseded any of the crew, the Captain included.
“Over there!” Monkey freed one hand to point at a hatch in the floor. By freeing a hand, Express nearly freed herself from their grip.
“I’ve got her,” Pershing said, clamping his arms around her in an embrace a bear might envy. Express did not envy it. She fought him, kicking and swinging the whole way.
Monkey moved quicker than humanly possible to reach the emergency shelter. Since the ship was more important than an crew member, designers placed emergency shelters upon the flight deck, just in case crew could not exit the flight deck before the bulkheads sealed it shut. Dozens of these shelters littered the flight deck, their surfaces so perfectly blended into the deck that fighters could role over them without even noticing.
Monkey hit the controls, sliding the door open. Pershing burned every calory still in his body hauling Express towards the shelter. He did not waste time with niceties. Instead, he threw her into the shelter and jumped in on top of her. Monkey was less than a second behind Pershing, sealing the shelter quite literally on his heels. Any slower, and his feet would have been left on the flight deck. Any slower, they might all be out in space.
No more than two seconds after the shelter sealed itself, the whole ship shuddered as the atmospheric curtain abruptly rose and the entire flight deck experienced the joys of explosive decompression. Any unprotected crewmen out there was dead before he knew it. Protected crewmen were usually dead slower, beaten to death by equipment not heavy enough to stay on the deck.
“That was too close,” Monkey said, his words coming between deep breaths. “Let’s not do this again.”
Pershing had to agree. His own breath was ragged, and his pulse off the charts. Nothing like a close brush with death to make a man feel alive. Express said nothing. Instead, she just sat there, staring ahead blankly. Pershing could not see through the tint of her visor, but could easily picture the expression upon her face. She just lost a wingman.
Without atmosphere, the fire did not survive long. Once the deck was open to space, techs cycled through air locks in their E-suits to check out the crashed fighter, and dispose of hazardous material. Only after the Captain Sinwall was satisfied his ship was safe was the deck repressurized. Afterwards, it was another matter of waiting. Pershing did not care for it, but supposed he best get use to it. He would be spending the rest of his naval career waiting.
When the emergency hatch slid open, for it could only be opened from outside– a stupid design, but Pershing suppose it prevented unprotected crew from accidently killing themselves– he was not surprised to see his former wingman looking down at him. “Hey Candice, how you doing?” he asked, trying to sound casual.
She wore no helmet, so the expression on her face was as plain as day. She was both relieved and furious. “Lieutenant Pershing, are you trying to give me a heart attack?” Any more proof of her fury was in her addressing him by rank.
Pershing climbed out of the cramp confines of the shelter. Who ever designed it did not take flight suits into the equation. After stretching once, he took in the view around him. The flight deck was a total mess, equipment littering every corner. Explosive decompression sure packed a powerful punch. “What a mess,” he said.
“Another understatement for the books,” Monkey said, following him out of the shelter. Express was slower to follow. Shock must have kicked in while cooped up below deck.
Candy shook her head. “Fool.” She was not talking about Monkey. “That fool! He should have ejected along side us, but no! He had to prove himself, and his pride nearly cost us the ship!” She turned on Pershing with the seriousness only a superior officer could wield. “Don’t you ever do something this stupid, you hear me? You pull up along side the Tenn and punch out.”
Pershing nodded. “Sure thing, Candy.”
Candy visible relaxed. “I’m glad to see you’re alright.” she said, placing her hands upon his shoulders.
“Hey, what about me?” Monkey asked.
Candy gave him a scornful glance. “I suppose you’re vital to the war effort too.”
“What of Loki?” Express lifted her faceplate, betraying her pale face. Her voice was weak and still shaken.
Candy looked at her as if she were as big a fool as Loki for even asking. “Dead. His fighter’s a total loss. The techs are salvaging it right now.” A couple dozen tech swarmed over the broken Scimitarlike ants on a carcass. Her expression softened again. “Come on. Kali’s waiting to debrief you.”
Chapter 3
One Light-Minute ahead of the Task Force
Delius System
Marcus Pershing piloted his Scimitar in yet another routine patrol. Despite the terror of combat and possibility of a quick and sudden death, Pershing would much rather be with the fighters fromLibertè and Victory in their attack on Delius III. They were not bombing the planet, and the human colonists held down by the Cats, but rather a Kilrathi fighter garrison on some near-orbit asteroid. Intel reported the base only held two squadrons of fighters. Sixteen Dralthi or Sartha were not enough to warrant a full-scale attack. That would come later.
No doubt the whole point of this raid into occupied space was to destroy Delius Station, where the Cats have their system HQ. Pershing would get his fair share of terror when it came time to escort the bombers on a bombing run against a starbase. It was a demoralizing thought, but at least he did not have to fly in a straight line right down the chute like those Raptor pilots. War vids always showed that bomber pilots required nerves of steel, but they did not know the half of it.
Instead, the lavished attention upon fighter jockeys. All the glamour and glitz of the vids was not what convinced Pershing to sign on; having his home overran by the Cats played a minor role in that decision. He and his family fled Port Hadland just ahead of the Cats. Too many of his former neighbors were not as lucky. Pershing did not spend too much time dwelling on what became of them. A number of Tenn’s crew had families trapped behind enemy lines, so he was not alone there.
He was, however, alone in that regard in Tenn’Court A. Aside from the Powell brothers, every pilot in his squad hailed from the homeworld. Kali was from the capital, New Delhi. Candy was from some town called Astoria in North America. Even the brothers were not that far away from Earth, both born on Luyten I. The junior of the brothers, Monkey, served as Pershing’s wingman. He had no idea how Monkey was assigned to the same ship as his brother. Up until Kali decided to shuffle flight rotations, so that the rookies did not get to set flying wing on one pilot, Monkey flew on his brother, Bonzo’s wing.
Pershing missed flying on Candy’s wing, who was currently flying with Ghost, another of the ‘old hands’. After training with her all the way out to Delius, he could predict her moves even before she planned them. In that respect, he admitted Kali had a point. Candy would not always be in the cockpit, and Pershing had to learn to play with others. Bonzo lacked her charm, but made up with strangeness. Like his brother, he earned the call sign by his sheer strangeness. Sometimes, Pershing thought the man would be more at home in the trees than a carrier.
Pershing’s radio beeped as it received a narrow-band laser from Monkey. “Another exciting patrol, eh Mailman?” he asked in his thick Luyten Deutsche accent, far thicker than Bonzo’s, who has been in space far longer.
Pershing could not deny the boredom. “Just stay awake, Monkey. Can’t have you sleep through any skirmish.” Dogfights were a quick affair, so quick that Pershing worried that should he blink, he might miss it.
Monkey snorted over the radio. “What, and let you have all the kills!” They were tied on the kill rally. Monkey scored his kill early in the campaign, during the fighting around Delius II. He use to give Pershing grief about his own blank slate, at least up until he killed a freighter that outmassed a Sartha by hundreds of times. Of the rookies, Pershing had a most definite lead in terms of tonnage. With the competitive nature of fighter pilots, it would only be a matter of time before one of them tried to take down a corvette.
Or a frigate.
“I think making it home alive counts for more than kills,” Pershing told him. He knew he should not talk so much while on patrol, but so close to each other, it was next to impossible for anyone to intercept the communication laser. A ship would have to pass between the two of them, and said ship would be visible long before then.
“Speak for yourself, cap ship killer,” Monkey shot back. It was not a completely accurate declaration, for freighters were hardly capital ships. They just carried cargo, and no doubt the Kilrathi crew resented the assignment even more than humans. Violence was in their blood even more so than in humanity. To a Kilrathi warrior, such labor was females’ work.
Monkey said not a word more after that, and the two passed the patrol in silence. While in flight school, Pershing thought flying a state-of-the-art fighter would be more exciting. He never imagined how much waiting it involved. Even on patrol. Perhaps patrol was not the best word to describe the mission, but it was the one Kali used. In truth, all he and Monkey were doing was sitting out ahead of the task force at the ten o’clock position as advance warning.
Should Kilrathi fighters appear, they were expected to sound the alarm and try to deal with them. If Kilrathi warships showed up, they were expected to sound the alarm, and try to slow them down. If a Kilrathi fleet appeared– Pershing asked Candy about that once. Her response was a shrug followed by ‘sound the alarm and then die’. Perhaps not even that much; no doubt the Cats would have jammed any transmission.
He wondered just why pilots were even needed for this sort of scouting. Probes could see just as well, and never grew bored. True, probes could not fight worth beans, but they would sound the alarm Pershing wondered just how many pilots flying out ahead of their ships ever set their sensors to an alarm clock and then proceeded to sleep off the patrol. He would not want to try it. As he already told Monkey, it was best not to sleep through a fight.
Only a few minutes before their boring four hour tour came to an end, Pershing’s radio flared to life. It was not Monkey this time, he could tell by the beeping. It was an omni-direction radio broadcast. His partly melted brain came back to life. There was only one reason he could think of for such a general transmission; somebody stumbled upon the Cats.
From what he could tell, the twelve o’clock patrol stumbled across a half-squadron of Kilrathi out on patrol. That was not good. Not only where they outnumbered two-to-one, but one of the Cats was bound to be smart enough to ask, ‘what are a pair of Terran fighters doing out in the middle of nowhere?’.
Monkey, if was asleep he certainly was not now, asked the Obvious question. “Do we help them?”
Pershing had no clear answer. Who was out on patrol there? Two more rookies; Express and Loki. He did not know either pilot that well, save they were from Earth. When he stopped to think about it, Pershing did not know anybody ‘that well’, save Candy, and he only knew her because he spent all that transit time training on her wing.
“We’ll have to call back to the hanger,” Pershing said, and could already picture Monkey scowling. He did not like it either, not least because the reply would take two minutes to reach them. The warning only took seconds. Pershing cursed physics, the bane of all pilots. At the time he sent his request, the Task Force would not even have known the twelve o’clock patrol discovered anything. They could fly between the stars in a blink of an eye, but it still took forever to communicate.
To his surprise, the reply took less than two minutes, though only be a few seconds. “Epsilon Patrol, your relief–“ Smitty paused for a long moment. He must sent out his first communique before Pershing’s request arrived. He waited longer while kicking the message upstairs. Some days, it felt like the Chain of Command was forged from red tape. Today would not be one of those days. “Epsilon Patrol, you are ordered to assist Alpha Patrol. You relief is on its way, and your sudden departure would not create an appreciable gap in our detection.”
As far as Pershing was concerned, there was no such thing as an appreciable gap. Still, any Cats trying to slip past them would run right into the replacements from Tenn’Court B. “Copy that, we’re on our way,” he said, knowing that they would quite literally be on their way by the time any response caught up to them. He switched his comm laser back to his wingman. “Alright Monkey, looks like we’ll be seeing some action today after all.”
Pershing throttled his fighter up to cruising speed before Monkey could have the last word.
Flight Deck
TCS Tennessee River
Delius System
Pershing climbed out of his cockpit, shaking from exhaustion as the adrenalin rush finally ebbed. Funny, it never happened while in his fighter. Each time after a hair-rasing mission, Pershing found himself ready to collapse upon the deck. He knew it would never happen in the middle of a firefight, but there was still a half-hour trip back to the carrier. Surely he could feel the effect then. Not a chance. His body always waited until it had something beneath his feet before it wanted to collapse.
This time was no exception. He and Monkey arrived at twelve o’clock in time to save the patrol. Express’s fighter was still in decent shape. He watched it come in for a smooth landing. He watched it pass through the atmospheric curtain with ease. A good thing too. Though he was still in his flight suit, sealed against vacuum, the numerous techs were not. Oh, they wore environmental suits, but seldom had them sealed. A few even worked barehanded, their gloves hanging from a belt. The suits techs wore would protect them, provided they remained on the flight deck. Should they get sucked out into space– Pershing was not confident of their surviving. If nothing else, they would likely smack into a large piece of equipment on deck.
Upon touching down, Express’s fighter found itself quickly towed to its alcove. Techs might not be as protected as they should, but they knew their stuff. From touchdown to parking, they took less than twenty seconds. Express popped the top of her fighter and began to climb out. Pershing could tell she was far shakier than himself. Of course, he was part of the cavalry, not one of the besieged.
The fight was short, and almost ended with the sudden arrival of Pershing and Monkey. Pershing damaged two of the Cats, but made no kills. Monkey finished off the second, claiming another kill for himself. Claiming being the operative word. The official tallies would mark it as a half-kill for each, but that would not stop Monkey from bragging about it. After that, the Kilrathi decided it better to live to kill another day.
Kilrathi were odd in that respect. If they thought they could win, they would fight until they won. If not, they would retreat. Though they fled today, they would always be back tomorrow. Yet, when trapped, they would fight to the death. Otherwise, they would abandon the fight. The odd part came in that the Cats saw a great disgrace in surrendering, yet none in running away. Rumor has it that the Cats did not even have a word for surrender.
Loki’s was the last to land. His fighter was the most damaged, and though he might need assistance the most, he was put at the bottom of the line. It made sense, in a cold, calculating way. If he crashed, then the flight deck would be out of action, stranding the other three in space until the debris was cleared. The Swede had been serious shot to pieces before the calvary could arrive. Just why the fighter did not explode, was beyond him. One of its fuel tanks was blown wide open, and part of a wing missing.
He should have come along side Tenn and ejected. That way there would be no risk to the flight deck, and the fighter could still be recovered. Loki refused vehemently. It was foolishness; if the fight disemboweled a fuel tank, what did it do to his guidance system? Totally screw it up as Pershing discovered.
Loki came in high. Too high. The top of his fighter clipped the ceiling as he passed through the curtain. The Scimitar bounced off the ceiling and slammed down, hard, into the flight deck. Fuel lines and oxygen tanks cracked open, spilling out on to the flight deck. Sparks from electrical shorts were quick to ignite. His fighter did not simply stay put. No, that would have made matters simple. It retained enough momentum to carry itself forward, spreading fire as it moved. It stopped short of an ordinance trailer, to which Pershing sighed in relief. If those went up– even disarmed, their fuel was enough to blow a hole in the flight deck.
Maddening loud alarms ripped through the flight deck faster than the flames. Instead of running towards the fighter, and trying to save the pilot, the entire deck crew bolted in the opposite direction. Pershing was slower on the pick up, for his specialty was not flight deck operations. The alarm roaring was not one of help, but one of ‘get off the flight deck!’. The racket of the emergency decompression alarm chilled him.
“Come on Mailman,” Monkey said over his comm, rushing past Pershing. “In a few seconds, this will not be the place to be.”
Pershing had to agree. He was about to run for the safety of the ship’s bulkheads when he noticed one of people actually was running towards the burning fighter. It did not take a quantum theorist to figure out she was not one of the techs. “Express!” Pershing shouted, though it did little good with his faceplate down.
Instead, he ran after her, determined to overtake the pilot. Monkey stopped and cursed. “Mailman! You’re going to be the death of me!” He was a strange fellow, no doubt, but a loyal one as well. He was not about to abandon a wingman, not even after the mission.
Both pilots, despite their fatigue, overtook Express before she came across the burning fighter. She was smaller than either of them, though not in spirit. Pershing and Monkey grabbed her by shoulders and waist, and Express fought to wiggle free. “Have to save Loki!”
“We can’t,” Pershing told her, managing to drag her back a step. “Come on, Express. The curtain is about to raise.” Fire in space was a serious matter. The only thing more serious were explosions, which fire tended to lead towards. In event of a catastrophic fire– Loki’s fighter qualified– the flight deck was to be sealed and atmospheric curtain raised, venting all the flammable oxygen into space. If any of the crew were trapped– too bad. Safety of the ship as a whole superseded any of the crew, the Captain included.
“Over there!” Monkey freed one hand to point at a hatch in the floor. By freeing a hand, Express nearly freed herself from their grip.
“I’ve got her,” Pershing said, clamping his arms around her in an embrace a bear might envy. Express did not envy it. She fought him, kicking and swinging the whole way.
Monkey moved quicker than humanly possible to reach the emergency shelter. Since the ship was more important than an crew member, designers placed emergency shelters upon the flight deck, just in case crew could not exit the flight deck before the bulkheads sealed it shut. Dozens of these shelters littered the flight deck, their surfaces so perfectly blended into the deck that fighters could role over them without even noticing.
Monkey hit the controls, sliding the door open. Pershing burned every calory still in his body hauling Express towards the shelter. He did not waste time with niceties. Instead, he threw her into the shelter and jumped in on top of her. Monkey was less than a second behind Pershing, sealing the shelter quite literally on his heels. Any slower, and his feet would have been left on the flight deck. Any slower, they might all be out in space.
No more than two seconds after the shelter sealed itself, the whole ship shuddered as the atmospheric curtain abruptly rose and the entire flight deck experienced the joys of explosive decompression. Any unprotected crewmen out there was dead before he knew it. Protected crewmen were usually dead slower, beaten to death by equipment not heavy enough to stay on the deck.
“That was too close,” Monkey said, his words coming between deep breaths. “Let’s not do this again.”
Pershing had to agree. His own breath was ragged, and his pulse off the charts. Nothing like a close brush with death to make a man feel alive. Express said nothing. Instead, she just sat there, staring ahead blankly. Pershing could not see through the tint of her visor, but could easily picture the expression upon her face. She just lost a wingman.
Without atmosphere, the fire did not survive long. Once the deck was open to space, techs cycled through air locks in their E-suits to check out the crashed fighter, and dispose of hazardous material. Only after the Captain Sinwall was satisfied his ship was safe was the deck repressurized. Afterwards, it was another matter of waiting. Pershing did not care for it, but supposed he best get use to it. He would be spending the rest of his naval career waiting.
When the emergency hatch slid open, for it could only be opened from outside– a stupid design, but Pershing suppose it prevented unprotected crew from accidently killing themselves– he was not surprised to see his former wingman looking down at him. “Hey Candice, how you doing?” he asked, trying to sound casual.
She wore no helmet, so the expression on her face was as plain as day. She was both relieved and furious. “Lieutenant Pershing, are you trying to give me a heart attack?” Any more proof of her fury was in her addressing him by rank.
Pershing climbed out of the cramp confines of the shelter. Who ever designed it did not take flight suits into the equation. After stretching once, he took in the view around him. The flight deck was a total mess, equipment littering every corner. Explosive decompression sure packed a powerful punch. “What a mess,” he said.
“Another understatement for the books,” Monkey said, following him out of the shelter. Express was slower to follow. Shock must have kicked in while cooped up below deck.
Candy shook her head. “Fool.” She was not talking about Monkey. “That fool! He should have ejected along side us, but no! He had to prove himself, and his pride nearly cost us the ship!” She turned on Pershing with the seriousness only a superior officer could wield. “Don’t you ever do something this stupid, you hear me? You pull up along side the Tenn and punch out.”
Pershing nodded. “Sure thing, Candy.”
Candy visible relaxed. “I’m glad to see you’re alright.” she said, placing her hands upon his shoulders.
“Hey, what about me?” Monkey asked.
Candy gave him a scornful glance. “I suppose you’re vital to the war effort too.”
“What of Loki?” Express lifted her faceplate, betraying her pale face. Her voice was weak and still shaken.
Candy looked at her as if she were as big a fool as Loki for even asking. “Dead. His fighter’s a total loss. The techs are salvaging it right now.” A couple dozen tech swarmed over the broken Scimitarlike ants on a carcass. Her expression softened again. “Come on. Kali’s waiting to debrief you.”