Noah - 4. Chapter 4

Date: 9^th March 2395
Location: Tiger Debris Field, 3,000,000KM from Europa Colony

“Pointman, Cadet.” I called over the radio from my Dagger. Ever since Lieutenant Cole had started calling me Cadet, it had stuck and now everyone used it as my call sign. Eventually I gave up fighting and accepted it; I would at least get a chance to start with a clean rep at the academy meaning I would be able to choose a new one.

“Cadet, Pointman go ahead.” Cole’s voice returned from the tinny system.

“Bravo squad turning for attack run.”

“Roger Cadet, you are clear for attack run on targets fifteen one-five through two-nine. Weapons free.” Finally after an hour’s flight from the City we were at the target range. A number of various ships that had been retired or captured over the years had been towed here, equipped with sensors for the training systems, and left for practice.

“Roger Pointman.” I replied then switched to the channel for my wing. “Bravo, targets right, one-five through two-nine. Form up Epsilon and ready weapons.” My order was quick and confident, telling my wing which targets we were using and to enter formation.

Moments later I was flying at the head of a chevron of ships towards the targets.

“Bravo, weapons free.” I announced when we were inside weapons range. A mass of purple laser fire shot past either side of my cockpit, my own joining in. From my position I could see that the only shots consistently landing on target were my own, the others in my wing were occasionally hitting but it was much more like random firing.

“Bravo, hold fire. Safety weapons and return to stage.” I ordered. I knew that the rest of the pilots in my wing weren’t heading to Flight but their poor performance still annoyed me. My annoyance grew as minutes later Cole’s wing faired far better scoring nearly four times the points that mine did.

Over and over the same pattern repeated, with my wing taking attack runs on the stationary targets and then getting beaten by Cole’s wing doing the same but better.

“Cadet, Pointman.” Cole hailed over the closed channel between our fighters.

“Pointman, Cadet go ahead.” I replied.

“Prepare your wing to head back. I think that we’ve had enough out here.”

“Roger, Pointman.” The thrill of target practice was subdued by the performance of my wing, and it showed in my voice.

“You did well, Cadet.” He continued, saying Cadet in his usual manner instead of as a call sign. “Don’t blame yourself for your wing’s marksmanship; you know they’re not really pilots.”

Instead of replying I switched to my wing channel and gave the order to form up for the flight back.

An hour later we were all touching down on the school’s small landing strip. I had barely climbed out of the cockpit and began to clean the fighter when Cole shouted over the din of everyone else doing the same.

“Cadet, Deskjob and Breakneck! Briefing room!” Without waiting for any response he stepped into the briefing room, leaving myself and the two other pilots to follow.

“Take a seat.” He motioned us to the front seats. The two others were also heading to Flight Academy and while not as enthusiastic as myself, were very competent pilots. Both were in different classes and I had not noticed them waiting in the flight bay when we had landed.

“You three have all proven to be excellent pilots, the best in your class year. I know that you are all looking at taking Flight as your career but before I can tell you what I am about to, I need you to confirm that intention.” He said seriously from the podium. All three of us nodded certainly. “Good. In that case we can continue.” He tapped his head in a gesture to enter his Mindscape and moments later the four of us sat in a room identical to the briefing room, virtually.

“These are the three?” A voice asked as another person appeared behind Cole.

“Yes Sir.” He replied proudly. “Larenko, Lark and Jones; the best three from this year.”

“They performed well?” The man asked. He was dressed in the uniform of a pilot, complete with red bend. He looked young, but that meant nothing thanks to the periodic cloning and the symbols on his collar showed he held the rank of Captain, the highest rank a pilot could achieve.

“Superbly, all three led their wings out, commanded them and led them home without incident. I believe that they are all ready.”

“You would be willing to put them forward?” He asked. I disliked it when people talked about me as if I wasn’t there but as both the Captain and Lieutenant were senior to me I said nothing.

“Definitely. I’ll be willing to bet that any one could best any first year cadet.” Cole was overflowing with pride as he spoke.

All three of us sprung to attention when the Captain addressed us, at the prompting of Cole. As we had no rank technically we did not have to salute or stand to attention but it was a sign of respect to do so anyway.

“Your Flight Master has recommended all three of you to attend the Flight Academy’s accelerated program. I trust Lieutenant Cole’s judgement, but I also must protect the reputation of my Academy.” He said in a very neutral tone. I couldn’t find any hint of emotion or prejudice behind his words and it seemed like he was ready to give us the benefit of the doubt based upon Cole’s recommendation. “To be accepted into the program you will have to first pass a series of basic challenges. Should you pass you will be accepted into the program and will rate amongst the top pilots we have in the service, should you fail you will still be able to attend the Academy as any normal student. A word of warning first, the accelerated program is highly strenuous and you will spend the next few years eating, sleeping and living flying. There will be little time for any other activities, so I am offering you the chance to back out now without repercussion. If any of you wish to do so, leave now. Otherwise we will begin immediately.”

None of us moved, and after a moment the Captain continued:

“Good. As of this moment you are all hereby enlisted to the Flight Academy with the rank of Cadet 2^nd Class.” He nodded to Cole, who closed his eyes and logged out of the mindscape. “When you leave the ‘scape, you will be given your new uniform, orders and fighter. Dismissed.” With that he vanished and left us in the virtual briefing room, shocked.

The accelerated program was legendary, the only way in was to be recommended by your school flight master, and then there were a series of gruelling tests before you were admitted but once you were in the advantages were amazing.

Second Class Cadets were not only senior to other cadets in the academy but they were also given as standard a suite of bio augmentations. A Cadet 2C had far faster reactions than any normal cadet could ever hope for without earning the augmentation themselves, in addition while regular cadets shared Dagger fighters, a 2C was assigned their personal Cutthroat. The Cutthroat was the latest and best fighter in the M Military, far faster and more manoeuvrable than any Dagger and not only that, they were equipped with live weapons. Most cadets wouldn’t get to fire a live weapon until their fourth year in the Academy whereas a 2C would be using live rounds for all exercises but war games.

When we logged out of the Mindscape we sat before a grinning Lieutenant Cole, holding a stack of uniforms, each one with the red bend of a pilot and the gold emblem of a Cadet 2^nd Class.

“Congratulations Cadets.” He said exuberantly and handed us each a uniform, which we immediately changed into.

“The colours look good on you.” His grin had dimmed slightly to a proud smile. “You have all gained grades in your other subjects to earn early passes, and you have been granted early graduation from schooling. The next ten weeks are your own, then you are to report to the Academy on New Moscow.”

The sound of several ships landing and a lot of commotion outside gave Cole his cue.

“Why don’t you go take a look at what’s going on out there. It must be something big from the sound of it.” His smile was growing again.

Stepping outside the briefing room I saw what the noise was about – three Cutthroat class fighters had just landed and were being surrounded by students ogling the craft. Cole ordered the students away from the fighters and allowed us to go in closer, each of us earning a few shocked stares from the students ourselves.

The Cutthroat was the most modern fighter in the fleet and was still entering service in most areas. I could tell that these were brand new, just off the assembly line.

Eighteen meters long from the engines to nose, the ship was symmetrical and clad in the electric blue armour used on all M Military ships. At the rear two wings extended just over a meter and pointed downwards, each mounting an MSM-1 ‘Bullet’ missile, the wings ran into the main body of the fighter about seven meters from the rear, at which point the forward section of the ship split in two. At the tip of each arm was mounted a single MAC-3 ‘Mace’ antimatter cannon. Between the two arms and running the full height of the ship sat the glass sphere of the cockpit. As I looked over the brand new fighter I came across the panel on the top side of the right hull identifying the ship;

CUTTHROAT 09939471

C^2C ‘Cadet’ Jones

The fighter was mine. Mine!

And it had my call sign listed as Cadet. Cole had pretty much ensured I would now be known as Cadet forever more.

Looking at the other two fighters I could see the two who had been promoted with me looking over their own fighters with looks of amazement.

“Cadets!” Cole’s voice called from behind us, calling us to attention. All three of us quickly hurried over to him and snapped to attention. “Your fighters are cluttering up my landing bay. Please remove them immediately.”

Myself and the other cadets looked at each other puzzled.

“Ah yes, I almost forgot.” He added with a smile, “Your orders.”

He handed us each a holopad, which we examined immediately.

<<Source: M Military Fleet Command>>
<<Target: Cadet 2^nd Class Jones, MFA-236452>>

Effective immediately you are now a fully commissioned Cadet 2^nd Class in the M Flight Academy. Your training will begin on New Moscow on the 4^th May, 2674. Until that date you are cleared from all responsibilities and granted full access to all data and resources appropriate to your rank.

Fleet Captain P. Montgomery

<<MESSAGE ENDS>>

“Your fighters can be docked at any M outpost and used without restriction until you report to the academy. I suggest that you three go take them on a shakedown together until you are used to their handling. Now, you have ten minutes to get them out of my bay.” He finished still smiling. “Dismissed, Cadets.”

Saluting, we turned and headed towards the docking platforms where the shining vessels were sat.

“Wow.” The red-headed cadet to my right said in amazement of what had happened.

“Yeah, wow.” The blond on my other side agreed.

“We’re…going to the academy.” I added.

“Not just the academy, the AP. That’s like, the Holy Grail. By the way, I’m Larenko, Alexi Larenko.” Bringing us out of the trance the blond reminded me that none of us had ever met before today.

“Simon Lark.” The red-head introduced himself.

“Sven Jones.” I said as we each shook the others’ hands. “Damn, my dad’s not gonna believe this.” I commented in disbelief.

“Hey, where are we going to dock these until we go to the academy? Lieutenant Cole doesn’t seem to want us to keep them here.” Lark asked, the only one of us who had managed to bring himself back to earth.

“We’re active, we can dock anywhere.” Larenko replied. As active pilots we were granted access to any dock in the M colonies, along with rearm and repair facilities there.

“My dad runs the northeast sector port.” I stated, as I would be attending the Academy for the next five years with these two, I thought it would be a good idea to befriend them and if they were locally based for the next few weeks it would make that easier.

“He got space for three ships for a few weeks?” Lark asked, apparently unaware that the Northeast sector was a fairly quiet base with just a few assigned fighters. The majority of the planet side docking facilities were nowadays little more than stop offs for shuttles to drop off and pick up passengers, and most fighters were based aboard the orbiting stations.

“Of course, there’s not much traffic anymore on ground docks.” I replied.

“Great, should we head there now or do you guys fancy taking a spin first?” Larenko asked, clearly emphasising that he wanted to take the new craft for a test flight.

“We’ve got a full fuel reserve and complete freedom. I’m up for a joyride.” I said with a grin, anticipating my first real chance to fly solo.

“Where do we want to go?” Lark asked, “I’ll check the region for activity and log us there.” It was quickly becoming apparent that Lark was the most sensible and prepared of the three of us. It was a requirement for all flights to be accounted for, had it been left to us, Larenko and I would have flown off and not thought about the small points like registering our presence until we were challenged by a warship.

“Somewhere quiet, I want to try out these babies.” Larenko said quickly, staring at the two seven inch openings at the front of his fighter, the openings of the cannon barrels.

“There’s a small asteroid field a few hours from here, my father used to take me joyriding around there in an old Dagger. Nobody is ever out that way and who cares about a few rocks?” I suggested.

“Perfect! Let’s go get changed. I can’t wait to get into the sky.” Larenko was starting to bubble over with excitement again.

All three of us ran to the bay’s sequencer and created our new flight suits. The new suits were exactly the same as our old ones but held our rank insignias and the red bend. Getting into the flight suits was always a bit of a hassle, being nearly skin tight and one piece meant you had to get in at the neck opening, stretching the material as you needed. Once in the suit it quickly repaired any damage and clung to you. Technologically the suits were a masterpiece; while skin tight they were completely airtight and supportive, and had a heating system in every fibre allowing them to be used as an EVA or survival suit. They were tied into the wearer’s neural implant and were able to act as medical devices by constricting if needed into a makeshift tourniquet and growing back over any breaches.

The pre-flight checks seemed to last hours, and all three of us had to resist the urge to hurry them. We knew that losing these fighters in a stupid accident that could have been avoided would end our Flight careers before they began. Once we had completed the checklists and climbed in, Lark forwarded our flight plans to Command and, once they were authorised we were finally ready to take our first flight in our new, personal fighters.

Unable to control himself any further, Larenko was the first to launch. His fighter leapt ten meters from the deck when he engaged the antigrav thrusters, reared around like a steed then shot down the tunnel leading outside. Lark followed in a far more dignified manner, his fighter gently rising and rotating then accelerating along the tunnel.

On my turn, I fired up the twin engines and pushed the speed control to the maximum permitted in the planet’s atmosphere. The tunnel vanished behind me and I emerged into the weak sunlight. For as far as I could see the city stretched below, towers and residential buildings, dotted with open areas covered in snow. Above me the two Cutthroats belonging to Lark and Larenko were circling, waiting for me to join them before we left the atmosphere.

Though we were travelling at a fraction of the fighter’s top speed the responsiveness was amazing. Daggers were old, their top speed was 1/3 of the Cutthroat and they took longer to reach it. The new manoeuvring thrusters were far more precise than the Dagger and that made the Cutthroat feel almost twitchy to me; small movements of the control stick that would not have elicited any response in a Dagger were now making the fighter roll and pitch small amounts almost instantly.

“Form up guys.” Lark called over the radio. “Let’s get out of the atmos.”

“Who’s gonna take lead?” Larenko asked. From his tone of voice I knew he didn’t want the job; he was having too much fun just flying to look after the other two of us.

“I’m playing with some of the settings here, I think I can make her a little more responsive.” Lark replied. More responsive? I don’t know what he thought he could do, this was already the most responsive thing I’d ever been in.

“I suppose that leaves me.” I sighed dramatically. I didn’t really mind, in fact I quite liked the idea; if we three stuck together then it could mean that I took lead more often and more experience is never a bad thing. “Form up echelon and prepare for planetary exit.”

The two fighters fell in on either side of and slightly behind my own, Lark on my right and Larenko on my left, pulling a barrel roll just as he got into position.

“Europa control this is Cutthroat Wing seven-one-nine, requesting planetary exit.” I radioed to the planetary flight controller.

“Seven-one-nine you are cleared for exit, good flying.” The reply came after just a few seconds.

With my two wingmen following my lead I increased power to the engines and pulled the nose skyward. Ten seconds later we were leaving behind the atmosphere of Europa and had entered the vast emptiness of space.

I watched the speed meter hovering in my mind pass the 50,000KM/s mark that was the top speed of the Dagger and the fastest I had ever been, then continue rising through 100,000KM/s and up to the 150,000KM/s top speed. Setting course for the asteroid field Lark had indicated to us we settled in for the journey.

“I’ve got something on my scanner. Do you guys see it too?” Larenko asked over the radio an hour later. Checking my scanner display I saw a strange contact forty million kilometres away. We were approaching the asteroid field but this was nothing like an asteroid.

“I see it, contact at forty million, zero three six.” I replied, “I don’t remember seeing any operations scheduled out here, do you?”

“There is nothing going on out here that we can know.” Lark added, “I checked the ‘net before we left, this is dead space. Command wouldn’t let us near here if there were anything classified going on.”

“Think we should go take a look?” Larenko sounded concerned and at the same time excited. If there was nothing registered as happening out here it meant that either it was a scanner glitch or someone was deep in M Military space without permission.

“We’ve got to. We have to investigate and report any suspicious activity, pilot’s duty.” I reminded him. With no dedicated police force, pilots were tasked with watching over the borders of M space for anyone who shouldn’t be there.

“Right.” Lark sounded nervous. “I’ll send a message to command, let’s get a better look.”

Two minutes later I could just begin to make out the form of a large vessel. At this range even with magnification at full it was tiny and hard to see, but was definitely a vessel.

“Unknown contact this is the M Military, you are in restricted territory. Identify yourself and state your purpose here immediately.” I called out confidently. Immediately my scanner started beeping madly as it registered new contacts; five small ships with power signatures consistent with frigates and a rising power signal in the middle of them. When the vessels had been powered down they were seen by the scanner as space debris, the only reason we detected the large vessel was due to its size and unusual composition. Now the ships were powering up rapidly and they were lit up like Christmas trees.

“I repeat; this is the M Military, identify yourself and your purpose immediately.” I repeated when I received no answer to the first challenge, my voice cracking slightly.

Suddenly an alarm screeched out and a red dot appeared on my HUD, indicating an incoming missile, fired from one of the frigates and rapidly approaching.

“Missile! Break! Break!” I shouted to the others, jamming my stick down and hitting the emergency boost, propelling me at nearly 250,000KM/s.

As the missile flew past me, the alarm reduced from the screeching ‘Incoming’ alert to a less obstructive one to say that there was a missile in the area. I spun my Cutthroat around just in time to see a massive yellow flash as the missile destroyed Lark’s fighter.

“SHIT! Lark’s gone!” Larenko screamed at me as the shockwave from the blast shook my fighter.

“Weapons live!” I shouted back as the Incoming alarm started screeching again. “Target the missiles.”

Hitting various controls and reorienting the fighter I locked onto the missile that was heading towards me. A stream of bright blue dots sprayed from the front of my craft as I desperately crushed the trigger into the stick. Seconds later the missile exploded harmlessly in front of me, a flash from my left indicating Larenko had also managed to neutralise the one targeted for him.

“M Command! This is Cadet 2^nd Class Larenko, sector one nine eight, three one one, seven two six. We have been engaged by unknown capital vessels; one fighter down, requesting immediate assistance!” I heard Larenko’s distress call. There was no longer any excitement in his voice, only the steely resolve of a fighter pilot who was engaged in battle mixed with the fear of an inexperienced pilot who was out of his depth.

“They’re launching fighters.” I stated neutrally, seeing a number of small flashes coming from the side of the large ship and a number of small blips appearing on my scanner.

“To hell with this.” Larenko replied, “If we’re gonna go out here we’re gonna go out in style. Arming all weapons, a beer says I get more than you do.”

“You’re on.” I answered with a grin. From the number of flashes on the side of the ship I could see that we were going to be badly outnumbered. We probably would not last very long but we could at least try to take out as many as possible.

Activating the combat systems a new display appeared in front of my eyes, detailing craft status and showing a three-dimensional image of scanner blips. A quick glance said it all; two blue dots marking myself and Larenko, and ten red showing the rapidly approaching fighters. I picked a single red blip and set course.

As soon as the crosshair on the HUD turned yellow, indicating the target was within range I let loose a stream of cannon fire. The unknown fighter was engulfed in a mass of tiny antimatter explosions as the rounds impacted it, finally exploding as its power systems overloaded. Picking two more targets I released the two missiles my fighter was armed with and then chose another target for the cannons.

The unknown fighters entered their weapons range before I could bring my cannons to bear on my chosen enemy and my fighter was pelted with the solid rounds they were using. As they passed me and the shots stopped raining onto me I could see the hundreds of dents and holes in the once shimmering blue armour in front of me.

Moments later, the hammering started again as the remaining enemies had reoriented themselves and had a solution on me. The armoured glass bubble of my cockpit shattered around me, leaving me exposed to space and the rounds flying at me. I quickly flicked the rear of my craft towards the attackers and pushed the throttle fully open. In the distance I could see several ships converging on Larenko’s fighter, the HUD being transmitted into my neural link showed he was being engaged by three fighters while there were four chasing me. Once I felt that my attackers were far enough behind so that turning would not open me up to immediate fire I headed towards the engagement.

Two of the three fighters engaged with him were destroyed in my opening volley, they had been paying all their attention to Larenko who was displaying excellent skill at avoiding their lines of fire and hadn’t seen my approach. The third seemed to hesitate for a moment on whether to continue pursuing Larenko or to engage me, but it didn’t hesitate long when one of Larenko’s missiles slammed into it and turned it into dust.

I felt a violent jerk from behind me as one of my engines exploded, and I felt my heart miss a beat when, spun from the explosion I saw a missile heading towards me, fast.

The impact of the missile nearly broke the restraints holding me onto what was left of my fighter. When I opened my eyes the right arm of my fighter was missing, while it seemed the missile had failed to detonate the force of the impact had pushed it straight through the hull of my fighter and severed the arm.

My head went light when I looked down to my legs and saw that below my right knee was nothing but a stream of blood flowing into space and embedded in my right side was a chunk of metal. It was a very strange sensation, I was looking at my own mutilated body, seeing the blood and wounds but feeling no pain.

Another missile tore past mere meters in front of my fighter, following its path I watched it curving to follow Larenko’s fighter before it hit and destroyed the craft.

I was drifting in the cold for what felt like hours, the controls aboard my fighter were completely destroyed, it was spinning at a slow rate and I could for short periods see the large vessel that had caused this. My suit had constricted around my leg, stopping the blood flow and the wound on my side had been ‘grown’ over to protect it from space. I was wondering how long I had left when a massive blue bolt flew from behind me and hit the large vessel; I took pleasure watching explosions rip out of the hull before the whole thing exploded in a massive fireball, triggering three more from some of the surrounding frigates.

Moments later a hail of missiles flew past, followed by seven Cutthroats, heading for the two remaining ships. Several flashes later and the fleet we had originally detected was gone, all that remained was a field of slowly expanding debris.

“HEY! CADET WAKE UP!” An unfamiliar voice shouted over the radio. Opening my eyes I saw a pristine Cutthroat hanging in front of my own battered fighter, the pilot visible strapped into his cockpit.

“He’s moving.” The voice said when I tried to look around. “He looks like he’s in pretty bad shape, have the doc meet us at the bay.” To my right was a large blue capital ship, bearing the red-trimmed yellow and blue quartered circle that adorned every M Military vessel. “Hey, Cadet! You got any control left over there?” The voice asked. I tried to transmit back to him but my hand waved in space where the manual control used to be. “This guy’s in no shape to dock, we need an Ant out here.” I heard before a garbled message.

A few minutes later the fighter backed away from me, flicked around and headed upwards out of my line of sight. It was replaced by the boxy underside of an Ant shuttle, from which a small turret protruded, emitting a beam of white light onto the engine section of my fighter. I felt a jolt as the shuttle started towing me and a minute later found myself entering the bay of whatever capital ship had responded to our distress call.