Purge of Prometheus

CHAPTER 26:

“Spin number two,” Warrant Iana Morven yelled to the fighter pilot as she stood in front of the craft. The second of the two automatic weapons spun without its ammunition loaded, an audible whir filling the cubicle in which the fighter sat.

Iana flashed the thumbs up. “Looks good. Go ahead and power her down.”

Turning, she ran headlong into Yen, who had been standing behind her with his arms folded behind him. Stepping back, she braced in a quick salute, which he returned before a wide grin broke across his face.

“You really are a jerk,” she said, playfully punching him in the arm. “You could have warned me that you were there.”

“And miss out on that irritated expression?” he replied. “Not in a million years.”

The Uligart pilot left the fighter and walked up beside Iana, laughing to himself. Reaching out his hand, he shook Yen’s, nodding in respect to the senior officer.

“And you could have warned me too, Gregario,” she said, punching him as well.

“He told me not to,” answered Warrant Pelasi, gesturing toward the Squadron Commander. “You don’t really expect me to disobey a direct order, do you?”

“Men,” she grumbled to herself as the trio stepped away from the fighter and walked through the cavernous hangar bar.

“How are the ships looking?” Yen asked as they passed a line of the dart-like Duun fighters.

“They’re immaculate,” Iana responded, “just as they always are. You wouldn’t have expected any less after ordering me to do another inspection, would you?”

Yen shook his head as the trio stopped. He watched as one of the lifters loaded crates of ammunition into the back of one of the Cair personnel carriers. Large enough for an assault team, the Cair transports were some of the most instrumental ships in the Squadron. Yen, however, still found pleasure in flying one of the more heavily armed Duun fighters.

“Do we have enough ammunition and fuel to sustain a multiple-staged assault on the Terran Fleet?” he asked, running through a checklist of questions in his mind.

“Yes, sir,” Iana said. “Current storehouses of supplies will allow us to conduct three or four prolonged maneuvers in deep space.”

“Good, good,” Yen replied absently. He had barely heard the response, focusing instead on the complex tactical formations he was planning for their first attack on the Terran vanguard.

“Sir, if I may,” Gregario interrupted. “You wouldn’t have us conduct such a thorough refit of all the ships unless we were finally ready to engage the enemy. Am I completely off base?”

“You’re not wrong, Gregario,” he said, turning toward the Uligart.

“With all do respect, it’s about damn time.”

Yen smiled and shook his head, disapprovingly. “You’re too enthusiastic for your own good,” he replied, cuffing Warrant Pelasi across the back of the neck. “Don’t let your trigger finger get in the way of your common sense.”

Gregario leaned closer to Iana. “Does the Squadron Commander really think we forgot about his application of common sense during the Earth invasion? I’m not quite sure where dropping a world landmark on top of an opponent falls into the family of common sense, but I’m guessing it’s somewhere around creepy uncle status.”

“Or maybe kissing cousin,” Iana helpfully added.

“Maybe you both would like to discuss genealogy while scrubbing debris from the hull of the ship?” Yen offered. “Seriously, though, I need you both focused. You’re two of my best pilots and we’re going to need all your skill over the next few engagements.”

“We joke, sir,” Iana replied, “but we’ve been preparing for this ever since we left Earth. We’re ready to kill Terrans.” She put her hand in between the three pilots.

“Kill Terrans dead,” Gregario said, adding his hand to hers.

“Deader than shit,” Yen finished, placing his hand on top. He squeezed both their hands before pulling his away and becoming serious once more. “I need you both to make sure we get all the ships inspected, fueled, and loaded with as much ammunition as they can hold. In the Cairs, if the space is not going to be taken by a warm body, I want extra ammunition loaded instead. Believe me when I tell you that we’re going to need everything we’ve got to win the rest of this war.”

“But we’re going to win, right?” Iana said, her eyebrows arched inquisitively.

“I made the plan,” he replied, smiling disarmingly. “Of course we’re going to win. Finish up here and get the rest of the pilots together. Can you have everything finished and ready in the next four hours?”

“Leave it to me, sir,” Gregario said, stepping forward. “I’ll get these pathetic pilot slugs moving. We’ll be ready in four.”

“Good, then get the pilots together and meet me in the mission analysis room in four hours.”

Both pilots braced in salute as Yen exited the hangar.

Nearly a hundred and fifty pilots sat and stood around the spacious analysis room. Their combined conversations echoed throughout the vaulted ceiling, turning their voices into the roar of waves crashing against the rocks; their individual conversations disappeared in the din.

Iana sat in the front along with Gregario and another group of older pilots, some of whom wore the black blazoned on their grey uniforms signifying them as Duun pilots while others wore the Yellow of the Cair ships. Still others, though few within the room, wore the vibrant green of the resupply vessels and even fewer wore the stark tan of the weapons platforms. Built as simple control bridges surrounded by a dozen plasma missile tubes, the weapons platforms launch massive salvos of missiles, the individual rockets of which could be picked up remotely by the Duun ships and directed through their computers toward the target. The maneuverability of the Duun fighters allowed greater flexibility for the rockets and lessened the chance of them being shot down before reaching the intended enemy ship.

As Yen entered the room, the roar quieted, all pilots eagerly awaiting the briefing of what was to come. He took his place at the front of the room and remotely dimmed the lights. A spotlight lit the podium and screen behind him.

“Welcome, Revolution Squadron,” he said as he flipped through the notes on the podium before him. Looking up, he continued. “I originally had a pretty speech prepared that discussed your feelings and the stressors you would experience over the next few days as we accelerated toward the ambush site.”

The room erupted into a combination of boos, hisses, and laughter.

“However,” Yen continued, motioning for everyone to quiet down again, “I realized my speech sounded a little too much like one of Captain Hodge’s touchy-feely speeches, so I trashed it and went a different route.”

Yen pressed a button on the podium and the screen came to life behind him. Depicted in three dimensions was a view of the typical Terran Destroyer, its hull glistening under the spotlight.

“We’ll be engaging a difficult enemy. We’re expecting approximately twenty-two Terran Destroyers to be entering the system only shortly after we do. The Destroyers possess a dozen forward plasma launchers and twenty forward rail guns. If you do the math, that means our fighters will be flying through a barrage of over two hundred and fifty missiles and nearly five hundred metal slugs. To complicate matters further, they carry nearly the same number of fighters that our ships do. That means that when we get into the thick of battle, there will be literally thousands of fighters weaving and firing into the space between the larger ships.”

Yen paused, letting the immensity of what they were to face completely sink in with the young pilots. Many of his pilots were new, having replaced those who were killed during the attack on the invading Terran ships nearly a year ago. They didn’t see action on Earth, meaning that their combat experience was entirely simulated during training at the Academy. The fear in their eyes was apparent as he continued.

“Keep the sheer enormity of our upcoming conflict in the back of your mind while I continue.”

Pressing a button, the image shifted to the display of the galaxy, very similar to what he and Captain Hodge had used to war game earlier.

“We will be arriving in the galaxy only shortly before the Terran Fleet. It won’t leave a lot of time for decision