The others seemed to feel the same way too. Noodle and Uno wore uneasy expressions, their lips tight, eyes slightly downcast, and Squawks, for once, had nothing to say. Most of the officers ignored Coda and the rest of the academy graduates, but others weren't so kind and regarded them as if they were nothing more than fresh meat for the grinder.
“Good morning,” Commander Coleman said, his voice easily carrying to the back of the room. “I stand before you, looking at a sight I never expected to see again. Take a look around, ladies and gentlemen. Take note of your fellow wingmen. You all come from different backgrounds. Some just graduated and are serving in your first deployments. Others have already been deployed and have fought on the front. Still others have made a name for yourselves through years of battle. But listen to me when I say this: in this, you are all students. Your backgrounds and any previous successes mean exactly dick. Here, you are all nuggets.”
The lights suddenly dimmed, and the digital display behind the commander flickered to life. A chill of excitement snapped down Coda’s back, and he found himself sitting forward in his seat, staring at a still image taken from battle. The sleek Hornet drones of the Sol Fleet were engaged in a massive space battle with the insectoid ships of the Baranyk.
“What I'm about to show you is a galactic secret that will not be discussed beyond these walls. Failure to comply with this order will result in stiff punishment.” Commander Coleman stepped away from the podium, stopping in front of the first row of seats. “This is your last chance, nuggets. If any of you are having second thoughts, now is your chance to leave. You will not get another.”
Coda surveyed the room, waiting for someone to take the bait. Nobody did. It appeared everyone else was like him—utterly captivated.
“All right.” Commander Coleman toggled something on his tablet, and the still image behind him began to play.
The hornet drones flew in a series of tight formations, wing to wing, nose to tail, with incredible precision. They moved fluidly, attacking like a swarm of their namesakes. And there were dozens, maybe hundreds of squadrons, each assaulting the Baranyk fighters and ships with devastating efficiency.
Coda had seen similar vids in the past, but many of them were classified beyond his clearance level, and without the proper instruction, they were impossible to emulate. That was one of the things that excited him the most about fighting on the front—becoming a fighter pilot and learning the secrets behind such precise tactics.
“This was taken thirteen days ago in the Dakara System,” Commander Coleman said. “Our ships had been engaged with the Baranyk Fleet for seventeen minutes when… well, see for yourselves.”
The ships on the vid continued their assault. Missile trails and tracer fire filled the vacuum between the larger vessels, carving into the reinforced ship exteriors with little resistance. Smaller points of light flashed briefly then disappeared as drones and Baranyk ships exploded. The human fleet was pressing their advantage and making for the Baranyk capital ship when the drone fleet just… stopped.
They didn't stop in the traditional sense—there was no stopping in the vacuum of space—but all navigational movement ceased. As if the pilots had lost all navigational control, the drones continued on their course, never deviating or avoiding fire.
The Baranyk made quick work of the drones, eliminating the human fleet in moments before turning their sights on the human capital ships. As the alien fleet closed on the human vessels, Commander Coleman paused the vid, freezing the enemy fire as it hurled toward the metal constructions with violent intent. He stood silently as if encouraging questions.
“With all due respect, sir,” said a pilot in the front row. “But what the hell just happened?”
“According to Fleet Intelligence, the Baranyk have developed a new weapon that knocks out all communication between our drones and the drone pilots aboard our battle cruisers.”
“But that would mean…” The pilot’s voice trailed off as he came to the silent conclusion.
“That our ships are sitting ducks,” Commander Coleman said. “Yes, if Fleet Intelligence is correct, the Baranyk have eliminated our greatest advantage in this war.”
Coda ran through the implications in his head. The Baranyk were a fierce enemy with superior firepower and a technological edge. The humans’ only advantage, if they even had one, was in numbers. Maybe not human numbers but fighter numbers. And only because drones were easier to replace than pilots.
At some point after the early years of the war, when the fleet had faced catastrophic losses among its fighter wings, Fleet Command had realized it was easier to manufacture new starfighters than it was to train new pilots, and within a year, Fleet Command had shifted away from manned starfighters to drones that could be operated from the relative safety of the heavily armored battle cruisers. The Baranyk, for all their technological advancements, hadn’t adopted a similar strategy against their human enemy. Until now.
Of the many theories why the Baranyk hadn't altered their original tactics, the prevailing one was that the Baranyk fighters were some kind of lesser creature akin to drones themselves, something easily produced in large numbers. Still, humanity, with its vast network of colonized planets and moons, could manufacture drones faster than the Baranyk, and that had given them the advantage. If that was no longer the case, then the Baranyk had a bigger advantage than they had ever had before.
“Fortunately,” Commander Coleman said, “Fleet Intelligence believes the Baranyk were reluctant to use the weapon, which explains why they didn’t use it until human victory was clearly at hand, and why we haven’t seen it used since.”
“Why would they be reluctant to use it again, sir?” another pilot asked. “I understand them wanting to keep it a secret, but use it once, and the secret’s out. What advantage do they have by not using it again?”
“Intelligence has a couple of ideas. The first is that it’s some sort of new weapon, and with
