The final step to his preflight routine was pulling the creased and faded picture from the inside of his G-suit. He hadn’t flown in battle since losing his wife and daughter, since his wife had given him the ultimatum: his Nighthawk or them. And Coleman, not knowing that the X-23 program was about to be discontinued, had picked his fighter.
Well, that was only half true. He hadn’t necessarily picked his fighter; he just hadn’t picked her. Any person who forced another to pick between two things they loved wasn’t a person he wanted to spend his life with. It was Aniyah, though, who had suffered the true tragedy. Growing up without her father couldn’t have been easy, and had he known his ex-wife would win sole custody of their child then refuse to let him see her, he might have chosen differently.
Stroking the side of his daughter’s young face with his thumb, Coleman apologized, uttered a quiet prayer, then set the picture on the instrument panel where it would be on the edges of his vision, just as his family would forever be on the edges of his mind. One day, he would see them again. One day, he would hug his daughter tightly enough to make up for the countless hugs they’d missed over the years. But first, Commander Coleman needed to win the battle.
Being the last to arrive, Coleman was the last pilot loaded into the launch tube. His pilots were antsy, chattering over the comm.
“All right, quiet down,” Commander Coleman said. “Launching in one minute. Sound off. Hawk One is a go.”
“Hawk Two is a go.”
“Hawk Three is a go.”
One by one, they sounded off, confirming there were no malfunctions and that they were green to go. When the final confirmation came in, they had twenty seconds to launch.
“Remember,” Commander Coleman said, “keep it tight. Fly together. And trust your training.”
“We’ll do you proud, sir,” Squawks said.
“Good to hear it, Squawks. It’s my pleasure to fly with each and every one of you. Now settle in. Here we go.”
Coleman was thrown back in his seat as his fighter raced through the launch tube. The pulley screamed, the seat of the Nighthawk vibrated, then… Commander Coleman was hurled into the silent black. The other twenty-three Nighthawks were shot out of the bow in less than four seconds.
“Form up,” Commander Coleman ordered. “Delta formations.”
Behind him, the rest of the squadron fell into four separate V-shaped formations made up of six fighters apiece. He plotted a course for the nearest human vessel, the SAS Washington, which was little more than a black dot against the green of the planet behind it.
“Looks like we’ve been spotted, sir. I’ve got five Baranyk fighters closing.”
Commander Coleman glanced at his HUD, seeing the red indicators marking the incoming Baranyk fighters. Only five? Against a number five times that?
They think we’re drones.
“Jamestown actual, this is Commander Coleman. Are you reading the signal of the Baranyk Disrupter?”
“Affirmative, Commander,” Captain Baez said. “It appears as if the Baranyk are attempting to use it against you.”
“Well, it’s good to know it doesn’t work on us.” Truth be told, Coleman had harbored a nagging concern before their training had ever begun that the Baranyk weapon would fry the Nighthawk computers just as it did the Hornets. “Can you tell where it’s coming from?”
“There’s a lot of distortion,” Captain Baez said. “We’re working on it.”
“Acknowledged. We have other fish to fry, but if you locate the source of that signal, you let me know.”
“Of course, Commander.”
“Thank you, sir.” Coleman closed the channel then reopened the one with his pilots. “Do not engage the incoming fighters. I repeat, do not engage. Stay on me. Three-quarter thrust.”
Punching the throttle, he swerved, plotting a new course that would keep them wide of the incoming fighters. The rest of his squadron followed.
“They’re swinging around!” came a panicked voice on the radio. “They’re moving onto our six.”
They’re scared, Commander Coleman realized. Nervous and not thinking straight. “They’re not in firing range,” he said calmly. “Shooting them down might have alerted the enemy that their weapon doesn’t work on us. We need to provide support to our ships before that happens. Understood?”
“Understood, sir.”
“Good, because it looks like we’ve piqued more interest.”
More of the enemy fighters attacking the Washington broke off their assault, moving into an attack vector to meet the Forgotten head on. They moved as a single unit, like a flock of birds or school of fish. Early on, Sol Intelligence had thought the Baranyk were a hive mind, not unlike aliens in the popular science fiction novels of the twentieth century, but that wasn’t the case at all. Like their human counterparts, the Baranyk were capable of individual thought.
“Prepare to break formation and fire on my mark.” Commander Coleman watched as the enemy fighters closed the distance. “Break!”
The human fighters broke formation, twelve pairs shooting off in twelve different directions. Commander Coleman’s Nighthawk came alive, vibrating as he opened fire. Two incoming Baranyk fighters broke apart as he zipped through the threshold and into the thick of the battle. It was pure chaos, with ships everywhere, flying at speeds human evolution hadn’t yet caught up with.
Alternating between manual guns and computer-aided targeting, Coleman shot down four Baranyk fighters in as many seconds then brought his Nighthawk parallel with the Washington, though at a safe distance from its point-defense cannons. Not that there was a true “safe distance,” of course, but there were perhaps a hundred Baranyk fighters between him and the Washington, and that, at least, gave him the illusion of cover.
The maneuver kept him in prime firing position. He opened fire again. There were more flashes of light as Baranyk mass became space dust. Missiles streaked in from other vectors as more of his pilots came to the Washington’s aid.
With the exception of a few enemy fighters, the Baranyk
