Ep.#8 - "Celestia: CV-02" (34 page)

Collision alarms sounded as his wheels touched the deck and his ship rolled backward toward the open, port-side transfer airlock. He applied wheel brakes to slow his ship, taking great care not to over steer. His fighter finally came to a stop just inside the port-side transfer airlock. He breathed a sigh of relief. “Flight, Talon One down.”

He looked out his canopy, aft toward the forward slope of the Aurora’s main drive section, watching as the rest of his fighters came in to land in the same backward fashion. As promised, the quad rail guns on either side of the flight apron were no longer firing.

The major’s wingman was already on the deck. He could see the nose of his wingman’s fighter barely sticking out of the larger, center transfer airlock. Two more fighters touched down nearly simultaneously, one of them rolling in next to the major’s wingman in the center transfer airlock while the other rolled backward into the starboard transfer airlock.

Major Prechitt checked the time display on his console as the landing procession continued outside his canopy. They had twenty seconds until the Aurora would jump away. A quick count revealed that more than half of his fighters had already made it down onto the apron. He ducked his head slightly in order to see out from under the overhang of the transfer airlock alcove as the last five Talons descended along the sloped hull of the drive section. Four of them were descending perfectly. The last one was not. “Fifteen!” the major called over his comms. “Thrust down! You’re too high!”

“
Something’s wrong!
” the young pilot replied. “
I’m losing power in the vertical thrusters!
”

“Can you roll?” the major asked urgently.

“
I’m trying!
”

A few small squirts of thrust shot out of the wounded fighter plane, causing him to descend, albeit too slowly. His nose drifted downward as well.

“
I’m not getting enough thrust!
”

“You’re starting to translate down,” the major told him, “but it’s not enough!”

“
I can make it! I can make it!
”

“You’re going to hit the upper hull and bounce off!” the major yelled. “Eject! Eject! Eject!”

It was too late. The fighter slammed tail first into the hull of the Aurora just above the major’s head. He could feel the vibrations of the impact. “Lieutenant!”

“Two missiles have breached our point-defenses!” Mister Randeen reported.

“Jump point in seven seconds!” Mister Riley announced.

Nathan felt a distant thud, as if something had struck the ship from behind. “What the…?”

“Ten seconds to missile impact!” Mister Randeen added.

“Flight reports Talon Fifteen has struck the hull!” Naralena announced.

“Jumping in five…” the navigator reported.

“What about the rest of the fighters?” Nathan demanded.

“Four……”

“Flight reports all fighters are down,” Naralena answered.

“Three……”

“Damn!” the young pilot yelled as his damaged fighter slid up the sloped backside of the Aurora’s forward hull section.

“
Two……
” the Aurora’s navigator counted over the comms.

“Damn!” the pilot swore again as his ship continued to slide up the Aurora’s hull. At any moment, his ship would slide past the curvature of the upper hull and tumble into space.

“
One……
”

He knew what would happen if he was partially caught in the Aurora’s jump fields. He had seen the images of the ill-fated shuttle that had experienced a partial shield failure while jumping out of a hot landing zone during the battle of Answari.

“
Jumping!
”

The young pilot took his last deep breath and closed his eyes. He felt a prickly sensation sweep over him as the blue-white flash of the jump made the inside of his eyelids appear as a bright, pinkish hue. There was a ripping sound and a sudden whoosh of air as if the canopy of his fighter had been ripped away. Even inside his helmet, the sound was deafening. Then the light was gone, and silence and darkness enveloped him.

“Jump complete,” Mister Riley reported from the navigation console.

“Verifying position,” Lieutenant Yosef announced. “Three light years from Sol. On course for the Barnard system.”

“Threat board is…” Mister Randeen stopped mid-sentence. “I’ve got something just above us by only a few meters, and it’s drifting away from and forward of our port beam!”

“Put it on the screen!” Nathan ordered.

The main view screen changed exterior cameras. The new image from the upper, port-side camera revealed the nose of a Talon fighter. Everything from just behind the pilot’s seat to her tail was gone.

“Holy shit!” Nathan exclaimed, recognizing the fighter’s nose section. “Is there anyone alive in that thing?”

There was a brief pause, as Naralena listened to a report over her comm-set. “Flight reports the pilot is alive! They’re launching a rescue shuttle!”

Nathan felt a wave of relief come over him, not just from the survival of the Talon pilot, but also that the Aurora had escaped two nuclear armed missiles by only a two-second margin. There was, however, still one other matter.

“Lieutenant,” Nathan said, turning toward the sensor station to his left. “Did you happen to notice the exterior temperature on Jessica’s suit before we jumped?”

“Yes, sir. It was over sixteen hundred degrees Celsius and climbing,” she answered solemnly.

“The suit can survive such temperatures,” Lieutenant Montgomery insisted, “I promise you.”

“I’m not worried about the damned suit, Lieutenant,” Nathan said. “I’m worried about the woman that’s inside it.”

“I’m sure the lieutenant commander will be fine,” Lieutenant Montgomery responded.

Despite the confidence in the lieutenant’s voice, Nathan could tell he wasn’t entirely convinced of his answer. Nathan had a pretty good idea of what had caused the eight percent failure rate in the suit.

Nathan glared at Lieutenant Montgomery as he turned to leave the bridge. “For your sake, Lieutenant, you’d better hope she is.”

Lieutenant Montgomery had no response. Lieutenant Yosef was sitting next to him. He looked at to her for support but got nothing but silence.

“Secure from general quarters,” Nathan ordered as he headed aft toward his ready room. “We’ll recharge for a few hours before we jump to Barnard.”

* * *

Ducks floated quietly on a large pond in the middle of a dairy pasture far outside of Winnipeg, the city that was once the capital of the North American Union. It was a clear and peaceful night, with the occasional sound of distant cattle interrupting the regular sounds of the night. The pond served as a watering hole for the dairy cows, as well as being a home for various species of fowl native to the area.

All at once, the ducks took to flight in a panic, flapping their wings in urgency as they left the pond and leapt into the air in a bustle of noise. A large, human-shaped object suddenly landed twenty meters from the pond with a thud, toppling over to one side. A large parachute fell to the ground downwind of the object a few seconds later.

Arms extended from the human-shaped object as whiffs of smoke rose from its still smoldering joints. Its legs separated slightly and the object seemed to rise to its hands and knees. Its motion seemed to trigger the chute retraction system that immediately sucked the parachute back into the pack on the back of the human-shaped object. Once the chute was fully retrieved, the object bent over again, its right hand reaching for a release mechanism. The top of the object fell away, revealing the occupant’s head.

Jessica gasped and coughed as more smoke came from inside the upper torso of her space-jump rig. After a few seconds, she sat upright, still on her knees, and looked around. Her long, black hair had fallen out of its bun and was soaked with perspiration and matted against her head, back, and shoulders. She paused for a moment to enjoy the fresh air and the cool evening breeze on her face.

Jessica moved her right hand to her chest pack and pressed another release button, dropping the chute pack from her back. With the weight suddenly released from her back, her chest pack threatened to send her tumbling forward, and she quickly released it as well. She then pressed two releases on her chest that had been covered up by the chest pack, and her torso section separated along the outer edges of her back. The back half of the torso section sprung outward, still hinged at the upper edge of her buttocks. She reached down to her waist and released the hinge, dropping the back plate to the ground along with her knapsack and several pieces of clothing that had been stuffed inside with her to help fill the additional space inside the space-jump suit.

Jessica pulled the forward section of the torso up a few centimeters and away from her, more clothing spilling to the ground. She tossed the torso piece aside and savored the cool breeze across her sweat-soaked body.

After a minute of blissful cooling, she twisted to one side and fell backward onto the ground. She reached down and released clamps on either side of her thighs, allowing the front of the upper part of the leg section to spring forward. She reached inside the leg pieces and pulled out the last of her clothing that had been used as space filler, tossing it aside as she went. Finally, she wiggled out of the leg section, freeing herself once and for all of the Takaran coffin that had nearly roasted her.

She lay motionless for at least another minute. The form-fitting undergarment that was supposed to wick moisture away and help cool her body was completely saturated with her sweat to the point that it felt unusually heavy. She was pretty sure it had failed at its job.

As she lay there staring up at the clear, starry night’s sky, she heard the sound of one of the ducks as it returned to the pond. She knew that sound, as there had been duck ponds at the Fleet Academy. Ponds had water, and she was terribly hot and thirsty. She raised her head enough to see the moon’s reflection in the water only twenty meters away. She immediately rolled over and struggled to get to her feet, stumbling toward the pond. She didn’t stop at its edge but continued in until she was up to her waist in the cool water. She dove in.

Jessica’s head broke the surface a few meters farther out in the pond. She brushed her wet hair back, feeling amazingly refreshed by the water. She could hear the sound of a stream running in the distance and concluded that it must be feeding water to the pond. She dipped her mouth into the water and took a drink, knowingly disregarding the risk of disease. She was extremely dehydrated, and she simply did not care about sickness. The water tasted fine to her, and there was a med-kit among her belongings that the doctor had put together in unmarked wrappers to hide the fact that it was an EDF med-kit.

After quenching her thirst and looking around from her spot in the middle of the pond to see that she was alone, she removed her undergarments and walked out of the water completely naked. She felt so much better after her dip, and her energy had returned. She hurried up the shore and back to her pile of belongings, quickly pulling on pants, a shirt, shoes, and a bulky sweatshirt. She tied her wet hair back and donned a sports cap that Nathan had given her to wear in order to better fit in among the residents of the northern parts of the continent.

She pulled on her jacket, stuffed the rest of her belongings into her knapsack, and set it aside. She gathered up all of the pieces of the Takaran space-jump rig and placed them together in a pile. She then took a small container out of the rig’s chest pack, opened it, and carefully sprinkled the powder evenly across the pile. After striking the top of the lid against the bottom of the container, the container began to burn, and she tossed it onto the pile. The powder instantly ignited, and the pile was engulfed in an acrid, gray smoke that glowed a subdued red at the center as the pile of high-tech components burned away.

A minute later, the smoke began to clear, revealing a pile of ashes where her space-jump rig had once lain. The smoke dissipated quickly, and the ashes began to scatter in the evening breeze.

Jessica tucked her ponytail inside her jacket collar and turned the collar up to cover her damp neck from the chilly Winnipeg night. She kicked at the ashes with her foot to help them disperse as she looked about, surveying the dark pond and the surrounding landscape once again. The lights of Winnipeg glowed in the distance. That was her destination.

Jessica took a deep breath. She was back on Earth. She was home. She also had a mission to perform. She needed to make contact with the resistance, and the former capital of the NAU was as good a place as any to start. She picked up her knapsack and slung it over her shoulder as she headed off toward the city lights.

Thank you for reading this story.

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COMING SOON

“RESISTANCE”

Episode 9

of

The Frontiers Saga

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