Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Shamus O'Cuinn was not an overly large man. He stood about 5' 10" and weighed on the heavy side of 150 lbs. He wore his light brown hair cropped very short as it had started thinning early. He was only 23 years old. He sported a neatly trimmed beard and mustache to decorate his oval face and accent his black eyes. He was of Irish ancestory, but almost a dozen generations later, the family blood of his ancestors was thinned down to the point that barely more than the name remained of the once great clan of Conn. He hoped someday to return to the Tyrone area of Ireland and rediscover his roots.

Shamus stepped out of the shower into his bathroom. "Temperature 24," he said aloud. The environmental computer responded by activating the room's heating system to warm the air to the requested temperature. Heatlamps came on overhead and warm air wafted Shamus' legs.

"Blower on." A warm air dryer came to life and Shamus' body was bathed in a warm strong breeze that air dried the water from his flesh. When the timer halted the procedure, Shamus opened the chothes drawer and took a fresh uniform from the container. The clothes were a fiberous substance made from paper and totally recyclable. There was no telling how many times the molecules of that uniform had been worn, broken down into pulp, and then refashioned into a uniform again.

Shamus exited the bathroom into his apartment. Actually it was not his apartment but his crew's apartment. The commons area was a large room with a sunken den. In the den was a modular couch and a two meter stereo/video monitor. At the moment the huge screen was playing an electronic video of Dvorak's New World Symphany.

In the unsunken part of the apartment was a long bar seperating a kitchen from the den. Two of the four barstools behind the bar were occupied by a woman and a man. Lee, the woman was about 5'6" tall and weighed around 170 lbs. She was not fat, but fairly muscular. She had red hair which she kept cut in the wedge hairstyle characteristic for military women. She was already in uniform having waken earlier than the others. She was eating some kind of cereal.

The man was still wearing his undershorts. He displayed no sign of embarrassment; there was no room for that kind of thing in the crew family. Blake was eating what appeared to be bacon and eggs. He noticed Shamus enter the room. "I hope you left some hot water," he said as he stuffed a fork full of food into his mouth.

"There will be by the time you get around to getting in the shower," Shamus assured the man. Blake responded with a grunt.

Shamus entered the kitchen and prepared a light breakfast of his own. Blake made room for him at the bar by announcing he was going to shower. The shorter man, about 5'6" and weighing about 150 lbs ran his hand through his short blond hair and squinted his blue eyes against the light of the room. He shuffled around the bar towards the bathroom.

"Looks like Blackjack is going to have one of those days," Lee observed referring to their crew commander by his call sign.

"I hope not," Shamus replied. "He flies like a seasick jackass when he is in a bad mood." Captain Blake McCoy was not only the commander of their ship, the Wildcard, a Sonica class VRAD, but he was also the ship's pilot.

Shamus, was the ship's gunner and navigator. Lee was the defensive systems operator, and the fourth member of the crew, Ben "Longshot" Lochlear was the engineer and communications officer. They were one of five crews of the Ghost Squadron under the command of Major Jack "Spectre" Duncan.

Lee finished her cereal and tossed the steelwax bowl into the recycler. The wax would be melted, separated from the food, and then reformed into another eating or cooking utensil. The steelwax had a melting point of about a thousand degrees and was easily extractable from garbage. Recycling was crucial to a military vessel operating in space.

Ben entered the common room from his sleeping quarters. The four bedrooms surrounding the commons area allowed them to each have privacy at their leisure. "Good morning Roulette," Ben said.

Shamus responded to his own call sign with a wave. "There are some eggs and bacon left," he said. "Blake didn't eat it all."

Ben was average in height, about two inches shorter than Shamus. He weighed in at about 160 and wore his black hair in a butch cut. His brown eyes were narrow and a hard face told the tales of years spent as a laborer.

"What time are we supposed to be at the briefing?" Ben asked as he plodded in bathrobe and slippers into the kitchen.

"In three hours," Lee answered after checking her watch. "The briefing is at 0930 on the main mission deck.

Shamus treated himself to a pastry while Ben finished off the eggs. Lee switched the video monitor to a computer interface logo. The cyber-net for the Andromeda, the carrier starship they were stationed on, gave them access to certain information concerning schedules and maintenance reports for their VRAD, the Wildcard, a virtual reality attack drone.

Lee entered her password into the terminal, and the screen responded by displaying the Wildcard's status for her inspection. Shamus walked out into the den and joined her.

"The maintenance crews replaced that backup gyro package," she said absently. "But she still needs to have a diagnostic done on the redundant homing beacon."

Blake emerged from the bathroom in his uniform. He was the ranking crew member and took a personal interest in how the Wildcard's maintenance was carried out.

"Ben get cleaned up," Blake ordered. "It looks like we are going to have to go in early to get maintenance done."

Lee flopped down onto the couch. "If you would speak to their supervisor, we might not have to fight for maintenance so much."

"If I did that, you would be surprised how many parts would appear on back order and how many snafus we would encounter," Blake assured her. "It is not wise to sick a supervisor on someone you are going to have to work with unless he is going to totally replace them."

Shamus leaned against a casino slot machine standing in a corner. The device was the crew's mascot. "How are the others?"

Lee tapped at the terminal again inquiring about the status of the other four ships in their squadron. She read the display. "Maintenance complete on the Wraith, Bandit and the Storm, but incomplete on the Dixie. Other than that it doesn't say. We aren't cleared for specific information about other ships."

"You know, boss," Shamus called to Blake, "Highwayman told me that the way he keeps Bandit well kept is by bribing the maintenance crews. If we did that we might get the royal treatment as well."

"What does he bribe them with?" Blake asked.

"Fresh fruit," Shamus answered. That answer lifted his commander's eyebrows. Shamus remembered his own reaction. Fresh fruit of any kind was forbidden on a spacecraft. In such a strictly controlled environment, bacterial growth mediums were discouraged. All food was dehydrated or frozen.

"Well we won't be able to match that bribe," Blake concluded. "But perhaps we can offer them something to wash their fruit down with."

"We still have those two cases of brandy Shamus and I procured while we were visiting Aries Metro. It is Mars vintage from 2052," Lee offered.

"Hey," Ben objected from the bar. "That is ours!"

"Would you rather get drunk or have a top notch ship?" Lee countered.

"It is not as if we would get killed," Ben pointed out.

"No," but without a ship guess where we would be?" Shamus interrupted. "When a ship is lost there is an investigation. Wine is as illegal on spacecraft as fruit. Do you really want to visit Charon on a permanent basis?"

Ben gulped. Charon, the moon of Pluto was the final destination of anyone convicted of a serious offense. Due to overcrowding of Terra, and the lack of livable space of the other planetary outposts execution had become a common punishment for serious crimes. For crimes that did not result in a death or those resulting in a death due to negligence of heat of the moment killings, expulsion had become a common sentence.

In expulsion, a convict was trained in space craft repair, placed into hibernation on an inexpensive deep space robot probe and fired into deep space at near light speeds. In that way, the criminals could repay society by conducting deep space reconnaissance.

The only drawback was that the probes never came back. So like execution, expulsion was irreversible. It was amazing how quickly the violent crime rate had dropped when those policies had been implemented in the middle 2000s. The only ones who returned from Charon were those serving time for non-violent crimes.

"No thanks," Ben conceded as departed to the bathroom.

"There is really nothing that is desperately in need of repair on the Wildcard," Drake stated. "She can fly as she is. Everything is working fine. Only the new standby beacon is untested, and there is every reason to believe that it will work. Besides we would only need it if the primary failed and it is okay."

"Of course," Blake agreed. "We can fly as we are, but if we let the work be put off, it will continue getting put off and that beacon won't be tested until the primary does fail and we are flying blind and lost."

Shamus winced at that phrase. Flying blind was the term used to describe a VRAD that had lost contact with its host. Since the VRADs were robot ships and carried no passengers, to lose contact with the host, was to lose control of the VRAD. The onboard computers would initiate an automatic return to the last know course of the host and activate the beacon so that the host could recover the craft, but if something happened and the contact was not made, the VRAD would shut down and become a drifting derelict or worse. If unable to return to its host vessel in time of war, the VRAD would self destruct.

Longshot emerged from the bathroom dressed and shaven. "Well, another day, another credit.

"Nonsense, Lochlear," Blake countered. "You are a captain. You get twenty credits each day."

"Plus five credits for flight pay," Drake added. "That is twenty five in all. That is five credits more than Roulette and I get. We are only lieutenants."

"People," Blake calmed his menions. "We have a job to do. Save the bickering for down time."

Blake herded his crew to the door. For luck they each pulled the handle of their mascot as they passed the slot machine by. It was an actual antique from Las Vegas. Blake had purchased it three years ago when he had formed his crew and named their ship the Wildcard.

The quartet left their apartment and entered a corridor of the Andromeda, the large carrier ship that was their home. The corridor was white and highly polished. Technicians pushed past them from both directions each in a hurry to finish some unknown task.

Blake led his crew down the corridor to a travel tube. The tubes were the decendants of elevators, except that on large spacecraft they were used to move people quickly from the forward areas to the aft areas and vice versa. Since the Andromeda was nearly two kilometers in length, the tubes were the most efficient means of movement over large distances.

Blake and his people did not have to traverse the entire length of the ship. Their quarters were aft of the reactor core, and the starboard hangar bay where the Wildcard was stored was midship. The trip took only two minutes. When the pod door opened they exited into a corridor with a long window which overlooked the two VRADs in their transport cradles.

Blake turned to the right and walked one hundred feet to the hangar entrance. His crew followed closely. When he keyed the door, the hatch opened to admit the crew into the airlock. At a desk in the airlock was a guard. The guard, recognized the Wildcard's crew and waved them on through. The second door opened and they stepped out on the hangar deck.

The Wildcard and its wingmate, the Wraith, stood ready with dozens of umbilicals streatching from the bay walls to various ports in the ships' bodies. The sleek VRADs were the deadliest weapons in the Sol Defense Command's arsenal. Their size resembled their ancestors of the late twentieth century bombers, but their configurations were more like that of the fighter interceptors of that same time.

The Wildcard, a Sonica Class VRAD, was the closer of the two and was being attended to by a pair of techicians who had a side panel open. Blake immediately walked over to converse with them while the others walked around inspecting their craft.

Shamus spent considerable time visually examining the heavy particle cannons at the tip of each of the forward swept wings. The particle beams were excellent weapons for nonatmospheric combat where the wings were useless except as weapons platforms.

The wings were attatched to the body of the ship at the very rear beneath the twin verticle stabilizers. The elevators were up front in the smaller forward wing that attatched to the ship's nose.

Since the Wildcard was a VRAD, there was no cockpit and no space at all was used for life support or environmental control systems. Where the cockpit windscreen might have been, was the muzzle of a very nasty weapon, the KW-4 rail gun. The KW-4 fired a ten centimeter projectile of depleted uranium at hypersonic velocities. The result was devistating on anything it hit.

The Wildcard very closely resembled the ancient XB 70 Valkirie bomber from the mid twentieth century. The exception was that in place of the delta wing the Sonica Class VRADs sported forward swept wings set to a pair of mini hydrogen fusion reactors.

Lee, or Lady Luck as her crewmates called her, passed beneath the craft and around the fuselage checking the many blisters and antennae that were the functional parts of her electronic warfare and the communications systems while Ben checked out the hydrogen collector scoops and reactor thrust chambers. He was the flight engineer and was responsible for the ship's powerplant as well as the operation of the control surfaces. So when he finished his tour of the engines, he checked the stabilizers, elevators and rudders.

Blake summoned his crew at the hangar entrance. He waited patiently until they all arrived then made his announcement. "The Wildcard is ready to go," he said. "The techs have finished all the outstanding maintenance and the launch crew is due in here in ten minutes to prep for flight."

Ben glanced back at the ship. The launch crew would disconnect the ship from its ground support systems and coordinate power start with them over the radio. "What time does the Wraith launch?"

About one hour after we do," Blake answerd. "We will rendevous on the sunside of Callisto, then make four simulated attack runs on AR 510. Afterwhich we will make a cell refuel run on RF 523 before returning here. We launch early because we need to make some combat sims to give the new nav backups a workout."

That seemed to satisfy Ben and Blake activated the airlock door. They entered the small room and as the door closed, the desk sergent bade them a good mission. "Everything okay?'" he asked.

"Everything looks fine," Blake answered. "I think it is going to be a good mission."

"Good luck."

Blake waved as the outer door opened to reveal the crew of the Wraith. Major Duncan, or Spectre, waved happily as he led his crew into the airlock. His crew consisted of a bald white man of about thirty-five who went by the call sign of Haunt, a young woman with long brown hair piled up beneath her cap who answered to Poltergiest, and a tall black man who had chosen the name Spook.

Blake returned the greeting to each one and kept in mind that the unusual group was a razor sharp VRAD crew. They were the standard against which all others were measured.
His own crew, Longshot, Roulette, and Lady Luck, were far from perfect, but he would match them up against anyone else. In spite of their laid back style, they consistently showed a greater potential in combat simulations than any other crew.

As the Wraith's crew disappeared into the airlock, Blake led his own bunch back to the transport tube. The command modules were located in the Andromeda's interior to protect them as much as possible.

The Andromeda itself was a massive spearhead shaped craft called a "carrier" for the deadly cargo it supported just like the ancient sailing vessels of many decades ago. The carriers boasted meter thick armored plating protected by electromagnetic field shielding which refracted beam weapons and charged particles into glancing blows. The combined defenses made the Andromeda and its sister ships, Whirlpool, Sombrero, and Blackeye formidable opponents in battle.

Only once had the four carriers seen actual combat. The Terran Market, the super nation that occupied most of the solarsystem had constructed them primarily to defend against invaders, but their first and only action actually came when the Indiopac Syndicate, the other major power in the Sol system, had launched an all out attack on the Market's military stronghold, Aries Metro, the large city-state on the planet Mars.

At one time the civilized solar system had been confined to Terra, the planet once called Earth. Many of the fragmental nations allied themselves in the early part of the twenty-first century to form a single monetary system. That was just the beginning. What quickly followed was the merging of governmental ideals and finally the formation of one large central government. The Terran Marked was formed from the combining of the various states of Europe, North America, Austrailia and Northeast Asia. The Indiopac Syndicate was a conglommerate composed of the Indonesian, southeast and middle Asian regions that came together out of fear of the Market's growing stability and power, but upon their own alliance, found themeslves to be a power of considerable influence as well. The Continental Confederation was born of the African, and South American nations. They were quite harmless and lacked guidance in the form of a weak government. As a result, they were eventually gobbled up by the young Persian Empire which in turn joined with the Indiopac Syndicate. In the end, there were only the two unions: the Terran Market and the Indiopac Syndicate.

Aries Metro was the command center of the Market's Solar Defense Command. It was a combination of shipyards and commercial mining. Asteroids were blasted from the asteroid belt and into the Martian orbit where orbital mining stations digested the raw material for commercial use.

It was also the Market's nerve center of defense. That was why the Syndicate had launched the attack in the late twenty-first century. The Market had won that battle, but it was common knowledge that it was impossible for either union to destroy the other without risking its own destruction. That was twenty years ago. Since then there had existed an uneasy truce, but the Syndicate still conducted raids on various outposts as did the Market.

Blake and his crew stood as the transport car slowed at their destination. History had a way of repeating itself and that was why they trained.

Exiting the transport, they emerged in a hallway with a pair of armed guards and an officer seated at a desk. The officer verified their scheduled flight against his log. Identification, though required was not requested as this officer knew them all by sight. "Good day, Captian Blake," the officer greeted. "Your module is ready and programmed. You are scheduled to fly module three."

Blake nodded. The command modules were all identical so it did not really matter which one they were assigned. The only reason the assignments were made was to keep a crew from being interrupted while in flight.

Blake logged his crew in at the main terminal while the others filed down the corridor to the locker room. When Blake entered, the others were each at their lockers removing and donning flight suits and checking out their helments.

Blake opened his own locker. He removed the thin flight suit and boots and began to undress. Stripping down to his underwear, he proceeded to climb into the light suit. As he dressed, he paused to make sure that each of the sensors in the suit was intact and appeared undamaged. The sensors would provide feedback about his body attitude and position during the flight. He then donned the boots and connected the sensor net in the boots to the sensor net in the suit. Finally he did the same thing with the bulky helmet. As a last check, he lowered the visor. The opaque visor was completely black. Since the suit was not connected to any powersources, that was normal so Blake raised the visor and joined his crew who had departed the locker room and gathered at the door to module number three.

Blake keyed in his security code and the door opened revealing a small room, blue-grey in color. The room contained two consoles each having two seats. Both consoles faced a blank wall and were arranged one in front of the other. The rooms were completely devoid of instrumentation with the sole exception of a quartet of data sockets built into each chair,
Blake and the others each took their seats and connected their suits to the data sockets. Lowering his visor he was treated to a virtual reality reproduction of a cockpit. The activation of the virtual environment also activated the feedback units in his data suit. Not only did he see the various controls on the console, but his gloves allowed him to feel the texture and shape of each control as well.

There was a short tone in his headset that signaled the initialization of the sonic feedback unit and that was followed by the sounds of the cockpit as well as the voices of the crew intercomm.

"Lady Luck on line with a comm check," Drake's voice said. Blake reflexively turned his head to gaze at the electronic warfare console. At first it was unoccupied, but a split second after the radio call, a figure warped into existence as Drake's own virtual environmental system was activated.

The figure was neuter and showed no features. Crewmen and people changed so much from day to day that far too much computer effort would be spent trying to reproduce a virtual image of the actual person. The figure at the console simply appeared as a maniquin with the letters E W written across a sexless chest indicating which crewmember it represented.

"Roulette on line." A second image popped into existence next to Blake. This figure was labled as NAV / GUN.

When the third and final crewmember, Longshot, was on line, Blake responded to their com checks. "This is Blackjack. All comm checks are lima charlie." The lima charlie call was the alphanumeric vocalization for the letters L and C which were the abbreviations for the phrase: loud and clear. The military abbreviation and then code wording of the phrase wound up actually requireing more syllables and effort than to have simply said, loud and clear in the first place. That was military logic.

"Blackjack to gamblers, complete preflight and report," Blake ordered and his crew responded. After several minutes, the each reported in.

"Engineering ready to launch," Longshot stated.

"Offense ready to launch," Roulette added.

"Defense ready to launch," Lady Luck finished.

Blake checked his own equipment and completed a diagnostic program. "Longshot what is our telemetry status?"

"All datalinks are go," Longshot replied. "Telemetry is encoded and checks out."

"Wildcard to Haunted House," Blake called to the Andromeda's command center. "Comm check and ready to launch."

After a moment of static, the answer returned. "Roger, Wildcard, you are cleared to launch."

Blake dialed up the power-up and launch checklist on his prompter monitor. The screen of his helment immediately fed him a heads up display of the steps. "Battery power on?"

"Check," was Longshot's reply.

"Bring reactor up to fifty percent."

There was a moment of silence as the instruments responded to the Wildcard's engines coming to life in the launch bay. "Reactor at fifty percent," Longshot finally announced.

"Wildcard to bay. Stand by for release." Blake gripped the steering controls.

"Bay standing by," a voice answered.

"Wildcard to bay. Release VRAD."

Almost instatly the indicators showed that the Wildcard was free of its restraining cradle and umbilicles.

"Wildcard to bay. Stand by to launch." Blake made the final call and nudged the ship's engine thrust putting the Wildcard in a slow forward motion. Within moments, the craft had cleared the lauch bay and was in open space.

There was a slight shudder as the VRAD passed through the shields of the Andromeda, but that was normal. As the seconds ticked by the Wildcard put hundreds of kilometers distance between the ships.

"Nav is oriented and initialized," Roulette reported.

Blake thumbed the heads up display and the nav cursor appeared slightly to the right of his present course. Blake banked the Wildcard and brought the cursor dead center in the forward screen. "Increase reactor to ninty percent," he ordered.

Regulations required that VRADs only operate at half power until their navigation systems were confirmed because without a living crew, the ship would be very difficult to retrieve should anything go wrong. Tractor fields could overpower a fifty percent operating engine, but one at full power would either overpower the tractor, or destroy the VRAD while under traction.

"Reactor at ninty percent," Longshot confirmed.

Blake eased the throttle forward and the Wildcard's engines belched forth fusion heated plasma. On the view screen a countdown started in the lower right corner indicating the amount of time that the engines needed to run to achieve the velocity they had planned for. Blake maintained the indicated course for the full three and a half minutes that the engines burned. When the counter reached zero, he pulled back on the throttle and the thrust ceased.

"We are at cruise," Blake announced. "Configure to cruise stations."

With that announcement, Longshot reduce the reactor back down to fifty percent. With the engines off, the reactor only needed to generate sufficient energy to operate onboard systems. "Reactor at cruise."

Roulette, having finished with his navigational duties, directed his attention to his weapons panel. He turned and applied power to the various systems and began checking for operational readiness.

Lady Luck also began her own checkout procedures. She powered up her jamming equipment as well as her scanners. The scanners had remained off until they could get underway because the Andromeda would have overwhelmed them. There was no danger of running into any problems without scanning capability, though as the Andromeda's own scanners would act as the Wildcard's eyes and ears until the VRAD could bring its own systems on line.

While the jammers and scanners were booting, Lady Luck took the opportunity to verify the status of her only offensive system. The dorsal part of the Wildcard housed a miniature lazer turret that was used for defensive fire. Though incapable of destroying a large spacecraft, it could cripple a single seat fighter, the Syndicate's weapon of choice, or a missile. A matching turret was nestled between the engine intakes on the underside of the Wildcard as well.

"Offense ready for hot check," Roulette announced.

"Defense ready for hot check," Lady Luck added.

There was a pause, then Longshot joined in. "Reactor at sixty percent and ready for hot check," he said as he increased the reactor's output in preparation for the firing of the Wildcard's weapons.

"Hot check at will and report," Blackjack ordered his crew to test their systems.

Roulette armed the particle cannons and fired. Outside the cockpit window, a pair of blue beams stretched into the void. Of course the particle cannons did not actually fire visible beams out in space, but in the virtual world the crew were in, the actual cannon blast was augmented for visual feedback.

Particle cannons functional, Roulette checked the status on the railgun. To fire off an actual round in a test would be a waste of ammunition, so the launch crew had placed a simulation round in the chamber prior to launch. It would be the first shot fired. The cap, as the test round was referred to, was cheap, expendable and would simulate actual ammunition.

Roulette verified that the magnetic accelerators had built up the necessary charge and keyed the trigger. The instruments indicated a successful shot and the computer enhanced display showed a point of light race away from the ship at a high velocity.

"Primary weapons fully operational," Roulette announced.

Lady Luck had powered up the top and bottom turrets and as the cap round emerged from the ship's nose, she locked the defensive tracking system on it and activated the automatic defenses. Immediately the twin guns on both turrets opened fire on the cap. The four shots vaporized the tiny piece of flimsy material. Though it would not have so easily destroyed an actual railgun round, such firepower would be enough to damage the mechanism of a missile or controls of a fighter.

"ADF operational," Lady Luck announced informing her crew that the automatic defensive fireing system was working.

Blackjack listened intently as the reports came in. When the hot checks were complete, he ordered a scanner check.

Lady Luck brought her scanners on line and swept the area in a sphere around them. "Debris at zero mark 355 degrees range one hundred kilometers and extending," she announced. It was the shattered remains of the cap ahead of them and slightly below their flight plane as a result of the defensive cannon fire. It was extending because the railgun had fired the cap at a velocity greater than the one they were cruising at. "No other contacts."

"All checks are complete," Blackjack announced. "We have one hour to kill on autopilot until our first action point."

"Did anyone bring any cards?" Longshot asked.

"Only the kind with dirty pictures," Roulette replied.

"That leaves you out, Longshot," Lady Luck interrupted. "You are too young for that."

"Can the chatter," Blackjack cut in. "If you can't find something useful to do, I'll help you. Run an interception simulation."

"Must we?" Roulette asked.

"It will help the time pass and give us a chance to warm up before the Wraith shows up," the commander explained.

"If you say so," Longshot relented. "Pick a scenario."

"Run number six," Blackjack ordered. "That is a new recon mission around Titan."

Longshot turned to the computer keyed his alternate microphone and voice selected the simulation from the Andromeda's main computer. Hundreds of meters away, the huge carrier's computer banks took over the remote operation of the Wildcard and disconnected the VR module. Then the computer began providing preprogrammed displays to the module.

In the VR module, there was only a faint flicker as the consoles were put into the simulations. Lady Luck was the first person to react. "Long range scan shows a pair of bogeys at 330 mark 25 degrees two hundred thousand kilometers and closing. Configurations and power curves match Syndicate Raven class fighters."

"Bring reactor up to 90% and stand by defense and evasive," Blackjack ordered.

"Plotting evasive escape course," Roulette reported as he turned to the navigational plotter. The screen displayed the Saturnian system with the present locations of all moons, debris and ring systems overlay with a topological gravity plot showing wells and saddle point Lagrange locations. He marked various points along the gravity lines that would make the most effective use of their power and velocity while at the same time making a pass by the large moon of Titan that was their objective. When he was satisfied that the course would safely carry them through the rings and around the backside of the planet, he initiated the nav course change and the nav cursor on the pilot's heads up display shifted to compensate the new course. "Evasive course plotted," Roulette announced.

"Bogeys closing to one hundred fifty megameters," Lady Luck announced. "Still no sign of hostility. Defense weapons are in line of sight mode only." The defensive laser cannons were still motionless, but the optical aiming sights were tracking the incoming vessels and the track was true. Lady Luck needed only press a single button and the guns would slew about and come to a dead lock with active sensors. The line of sight track allowed covert tracking without appearing hostile. By interplanetary law, the initiator of hostilities was always in the wrong.

"Steady, Gamblers," Blackjack coaxed his crew to relax. "It is only a sim."

Lady Luck continued counting down the distances. "Bogeys at one hundred megameters and closing."

"They're squawking," Longshot announced that the approaching spacecraft were attempting to communicate.

"What is their IFF?"

Longshot glanced at his console. "They do not show an IFF operating."

Blackjack slammed the throttle to full thrust and banked onto Roulette's evasive course. "Energize defense shield and lock all cannons on the lead fighter." If the approaching craft had defective Identify Friend or Foe transmitters, by law they should not close in. To do so is an act of aggression, the approaching spacecraft had initiated hostilities without even firing a weapon by turning off their IFF and making an interception.

"Comm is picking up a beacon," Longshot announced. "It could be their IFF."

Blackjack hesitated. If it was an IFF then he had a chance to halt hostilities then and there. But if it was a ruse... What the heck, he thought. It was only a sim. "Open a channel," Blackjack ordered. "Let's see what they want."

"Channel open," Longshot announced. "Damn!"

"What?"

"They slipped us a virus!"

"Losing defensive shielding," Lady Luck announced as the electromagnetic field around the ship began to collapse.

"Virus identified as Beta-six version 4.8. Implementing antibody." Longshot announced.
Lady Luck acknowledged the virus type and passed the secondary ECCM computer the appropriate commands and the ECCM system began to combat the software virus.

"Close in scan confirms configuration," Roulette announced.

Lady Luck reacted instantly "Defensive fire control online and active."

Blackjack slammed his throttles into a full accelleration. Though the Wildcard had larger reactors and engines, the agile fighters had less mass and had the advantage in maneuverability. The Wildcard could outrun them, but it would take time to get up to full speed.

"Incoming!" Lady Luck's voice cracked. Her warning was punctuated by a shower of sparks erupting from Longshot's console.

"We took multiple laser hits on the dorsal intercooler and power converter," Longshot advised. Reactor limit has dropped to 70%."

Blackjack cursed. The loss of power meant that it would take even longer to build up enough speed to escape.

"Missiles on collision course!" Lady Luck announced. "ECM has drawn two off but one is
getting through. Damn that virus!"

A flash of light blinked outside their view screen and a shockingly calm voice settled into their ears. "Simulation ended. VRAD destroyed by laser cannon fire. Sorry guys. Transferring back to real time."

Just as quickly they were back in direct control of the Wildcard.

"Thank you Haunted House," Blackjack replied. "Please run off a transcript of that sim for review when we get back."

"Will do Wildcard. Haunted House out."

"Well that was fun," Lady Luck announced dryly

"We probably needed that," Blackjack sighed, catching his beath. He noted that he was sweating. Real or not, it was easy to get caught up in a VRAD sim. "Okay," he started with a forced calmness, "let's get a recap."

His request for the recap was to review the actual status following the simulation. It was a sensible precaution to keep one scenario's characteristics from intruding on their actual mission.

"We are on course and ten minutes from the first action point," Roulette announced. The simulation had taken up more time than they had realised which was usually the case.

"Time sure flies when you are having fun," Lady Luck noted.

"Or when you are sweating bullets," Longshot added.

"So true," Blackjack agreed. "Now let's get those systems ready. We have an ECM run and an attack run to make before the Wraith gets here for our combat exercise."

Lady luck placed her ECM and ECCM gear on standby and shut down her long range scanners since the rad emissions could give their presence away.

Longshot was on the comm. "Calisto station this is Wildcard we are at the IP and holding."

The reply came in almost immediately. “Wildcard this is Calisto station. You are cleared to proceed to primary and secondary targets. Maintain SR scan on epsilon band and do not jam theta band."

Longshot acknowledged. "Wildcard understands clear for primary and secondary action and free transmit on epsilon and theta scan. Wildcard out."

Roulette set his short range scanner to epsilon band. They really did not need the SR scan, but it was used during exercises for safety sake. They had been assured that Calisto station would not use that band to track them.

At the same time, Lady Luck locked out the theta band jammer. That was the scanner that would be used to score their activities.

"We are coming up on the initial point in ten seconds." Roulette announced. He counted down the seconds to the IP.

"Status," Blackjack asked.

Longshot knew what was being asked and replied. "VRAD-host separation is twenty light seconds. Quantum receiver operating normally. Data link secure."

That was an important part of the VRAD concept. Drones that relied on radio transmissions were limited in range because radio waves travelled at the speed of light.

The VRADs did not use conventional radio. A result of Patterson's quantum second theory was the quantum oscillator which in layman's language vibrated the fabric of space-time. There were no waves propagating. A quantum second vibration appeared instantaneously but at a limited range of about one light minute. So remotely controlled drones could be operated at real time within a certain distance without having to account for time lag.

Roulette concluded his countdown, and at zero, Longshot keyed the radio.

"Wildcard IP inbound at this mark."

"Bring reactor up to 90%," Blackjack ordered as he pushed the throttle forward. He nosed the VRAD down until the HUD crosshairs were centered on the nav cursor.

"Crew," Roulette announced. "Our primary target is a missile release on a hardened target. That will mean opening the bay. Our secondary target is a strafing run across a soft target."

"Defensively," Lady Luck countered, "our primary target will be guarded by two missile launchers and a Kappa band laser battery. The open bay will make us especially vulnerable, so we need to coax the laser battery into firing before we open the bay. It will take almost a minute for them to recharge their capacitors and we can use that window to launch. The missiles reload almost instantly so we need to keep our bay open only as long as absolutely necessary."

"That will take about fifteen seconds for selection, acquisition and firing," Roulette advised.

"That is pushing it," Lady Luck warned.

"Alright," Blackjack interrupted the brewing argument, an age old tradition between offensive and defensive personnel. "That is our mission, let's get to it."

The Wildcard dropped out of the sky over the landscape of the large Jovian moon. It dove into the valleys between the mountain ridges on the dark side and skimmed the surface at several thousands of meters per second.

Almost instantly Lady Luck announced an attack. "Gamma band tracking detected."
It was truely unrealistic. Their course through the zone was pre-established and the station operators knew exactly when and where they would be. The worst case scenario was designed to numb the crews into accepting horrible odds and working the best they could to get by. In a real attack, the enemy would not know when or where the VRAD would approach.

"Gamma band jammed," Lady Luck gloated. "Watch for laser batteries on the peak to the right. They like to use Kappa band to track with."

Blackjack began to maneuver the Wildcard in an erratic path to make tracking more difficult.

"There's the Kappa burst," Lady Luck piped and activated an ECM package.
Blackjack banked the ship port, and was pleased to see a quartet of red beams pass harmlessly off the right wing.

"They are getting nasty with those things," Lady Luck commented. "The ECM did not even have time to cycle onto their frequency before they opened up on us."

"Good flying, boss," Longshot commended.

"Primary target in fifteen seconds," Roulette interrupted. "Weapons bay open." The belly of the Wildcard split exposing a collection of missiles on a rotary selector.

"Gamma band has a lock on us," Lady Luck advised. With the weapons bay doors opened, the missile launcher that was tracking them had regained a solid lock and her ECM could not break it.

"I am getting a guidance uplink," she added. "They've launched against us."

"Just a few more seconds," Roulette urged.

"I have their uplink jammed," Lady Luck returned. "If we change course now, we will escape."

"Almost there," Roulette's voice was steady.

"Punch it nav," Longshot urged.

"Missile away, bay door closing, cleared for evasive." Roulette's relief could be heard easily.

Blackjack banked hard and a telltale flash of light showed as the missile barely missed the Wildcard.

The nav cursor on Blackjack's HUD moved off to the left and he adjusted his course to compensate.

"On course for the secondary target," Roulette announced.

"Good job on the primary," Blackjack complimented. "They are getting nastier every time we make this run."

"Two minutes to the secondary IP," Roulette added.

"Haunted House to Wildcard," the comm channel crackled.

"This is Wildcard," Longshot answered. "Go ahead, Haunted House."

"Haunted House to Wildcard, abort your mission and return to base immediately. Acknowledge."

Longshot frowned but obeyed. "Haunted House, this is Wildcard we copy RTB ASAP. Wildcard out."

"What do you think that is all about," Lady Luck wondered.

"I don't know," Blackjack admitted. "I guess we will have to wait to find out." He eased off on the throttle and pulled the Wildcard out of the canyons they here flying through.

"Callisto station, this is Wildcard aborting secondary target," Longshot announced.

"Roger Wildcard, we heard the directive. Have a safe trip home."

"Thanks Callisto. Wildcard out."