'Good thinking.'
Minh-Chu, or Ronin, as every pilot and Flight Command officer called him, fired the six engines sending it towards the nearby asteroid field. The other fighters followed, fanning out in a predetermined forward pointed V formation so they could coordinate and get a more complete scan.
The asteroid field was massive, hundreds of thousands of kilometres across and even though it had settled in a rapidly rotating plane it was still several thousand kilometres deep. They approached the edge of the field quickly, drifting out on course to pass across the seemingly flat top of the asteroid field.
“I was wondering, why doesn't the Triton do this? I mean, doesn't she have a better sensor suite?” Asked Jaime, coined 'Joyboy' because of his great big toothy grin, though he liked to tell people that the name was inspired by a few very memorable dates.
“Sure they do, but they're also a great big juicy target for anything that could be hiding in this mess. For all we know there's an EMP or nuke trap hiding in this mess.”
“So they send seven fighters. And here I was thinking we were too important to be expendable.”
“If it makes you feel any better there are another fourteen fighters and a gunship ready to launch on my say so. Hey Tempest, you're drifting too far to port. Get back in position,” Ronin ordered.
“Aye, sorry sir.”
“All right, we're moving on to formation two. Forty two hundred kilometres apart in a lateral V. SIO's coordinate so we're getting complete readings. Our top priority is finding signs of defence platforms, transmitters, outposts and anything else that could cause a problem or be worth communicating with,” Minh ordered as he looked at the grey, white and blue expanse of asteroids ahead. There were no operable monitoring posts or other pieces of technology above the field. A few long shipping containers and the wreckage of several old ships had been picked up by the Triton, but they were nowhere nearby.
“What about composition analysis or scouting for dense material for Triton’s manufacturing systems?” asked Sprocket, so named because Mia had qualified as a pilot after being on the maintenance team ever since Triton was taken.
“Our uplink to Triton is feeding all that information to people there who can analyse the data better than any of us,” Slick answered from behind Minh-Chu. “Now keep your eyes on what's important. There should be some kind of defence perimeter ahead.” Minh's SIO sighed and spoke exclusively to him. “I can't wait until they finish rebuilding the analysis and status software without the AI components. I have to admit, I wouldn't mind being out of a job and taking the stick.”
“If you're trying to distance yourself from me it won't work. You're already slotted as my wingman,” Minh flipped the Uriel fighter upside down, continuing in a straight path towards the centre of the asteroid field. 'Maybe even as a Squad Leader if you can get your scores up a little.'
“With your cover and kill record I don't much mind. All I ask is that you try being a little more predictable.”
“Ha! Fat chance!” Minh burst as he looked across the churning, level field of asteroids. The group of fighters were starting to drift to the right, slowly matching the spin of the expanse of ice and stone. He watched for anything that didn't seem to belong, for something to lock his focus on that might tell him what happened before the Triton arrived. “There should be a ton of traffic if the information Alice included is even half right. She's the only one aboard who knew anything about this spot.”
“I just think it's amazing that she even found this place. There's got to be a story behind that,” Slick added from behind Minh as he looked through sensor data.
“I'm sure she'll be happy to tell you all about it as soon as she wakes up. Until then I'm just glad she found us a cool place to park while Triton makes repairs.”
“How long did they say it would take?”
“At least two days to rebuild the engines, the rest is mostly minor structural stuff so it'll be done before the rebuild.”
“Damn, they really knew where to hit us. I saw the damage they did to the engines, they're a write off. If we didn't have our own manufacturing systems we'd be down to two engines indefinitely.”
“You've got that right. Triton used to be Wheeler's ship so he knew exactly where his shots would count. He manned her with about a hundred people and a ton of automation.”
“I believe it. Sprocket was saying that they're still finding looped circuits and control taps. She couldn't be happier to be out of maintenance.”
“She earned it. Mia's a steady stick.”
“Her name is Mia? I always have trouble getting to know people by their civie names.”
“To know a thing's name is to have power over it,” Minh muttered as he scrolled through his threat assessment interface. The overlay on his vacsuit faceplate found no identifiable threat so he paid more attention to the formation of his fighter squad. Everyone was in place, doing a broad scan and gathering a fantastic amount of data, most of which would be reviewed in the Triton flight control Centre.
“I thought that's what rank was for?”
“When someone's starting to panic they might not answer to a call sign, so it's important to know their real name. They didn't cover this when you trained with the military?”
“Well, they did in basis psyche, but that was a long time ago. That, and I'm an infantry field analyst. I'm still learning to apply that to being a Sensor Intercept Officer.”
“Funny thing, I was in the infantry before I discovered the wonders of being a pilot. How goes the scanning?”
“A few terabytes of data. I'm seeing a lot of heavy metals, there really should be some kind of defence systems down there but there's nothing bleeding power or registering on thermal.”
“Check your silhouette recognition,” Minh advised, bringing a small display up and starting the software up for himself.
“Here? I mean, there's got to be a few thousand objects per square klick.”
“I bet we'll find something before the barrier,” Minh said as he brought up a shape and cross referenced it, manipulating the interface with nothing more than his eye movements and nerve impulse sensors in his vacsuit's headgear. “There, an armed hauler. It's right behind us, got twisted up in the asteroids.”
“Scanning. You're right, and it was badly damaged by energy weapons fire.”
“This is Luckshot, my SIO just found two disabled perimeter cannon emplacements. The blast profile she picked up on one of them matches Eden Fleet. The damage is dead cold though, so it happened at least a week ago.”
“Good work. This is Ronin to Flight Operations.” Minh addressed. “We have evidence of Eden Fleet here. Looks like they've been and gone though.”
“I show you just about to breach the obscuring field. Proceed with caution. I want to know exactly what's in there. Remember, our resident astrophysicists said there could be a class two giant planet in there, so you could run out of space real fast,” Oz replied.
Minh momentarily cleared all the secondary displays from his viewpoint and looked at the field ahead with his naked eye. The vista was blurred severely, but he was certain that there was a lot of empty space ahead. “I'm eyeballing the field and I'll bet my oversized officer's quarters that we'll just find a really thick rock in the middle of this.”
“He says refraction could be to blame for black space. Just be careful,” Oz retorted neutrally. “It'd be pretty embarrassing to nose into a big rock on your first mission.”
“You speak the naked truth, my friend.” Minh checked the weapon systems and powered down the three particle accelerator cannons he'd loaded onto the fighter, leaving two missile pods, a pair of 21mm rail guns for him and another pair on a turret for Slick. “All right everyone, passing through the barrier. Redirect everything you can to your shields. We don't know what's waiting for us.”
He watched the small flight status display at the bottom of his visor as the other six fighter crews followed orders. One of them had loaded themselves with energy based weapons and he shook his head. “You're no longer allowed to determine your own loadout Finger. Looks like you need babysitting.”
“What? What'd I do?”
“You need to load at least two hull piercing weapons that can fire on reserve power alone. You knew it, you ignored it and now you'll be leaving yourself unarmed every time you shunt all power to shields.”
