Drew Blake's Musings

Chapter 8 Part 8

2009-04-24T19:15:00.001-07:00

Nathan Thomas relaxed as the sub orbital shuttle made reentry into the Terran atmosphere. It had been a long trip, and he was looking forward to a vacation in the Rocky Mountains. He had never been to that part of the Market.

To his left the young woman he had met on Mars was seated. She had agreed to return with him. They had a few adventures that they were interested in partaking.

END

Chapter 8 Part 7

2009-04-24T19:14:00.000-07:00

Blake walked the long walk back to their apartment. But instead of going in, he passed it up and went down to the fighter's lounge. There was a sound of celebration and revelry coming from within. Several pilots had been killed in the skirmish, and they were being remembered by celebrating the survival of those still alive.

Tradition demanded that VRAD crews not attend that particular party since they generally did not risk their lives in combat, but Blake felt that there was something that needed doing. He keyed the door and stepped inside.

The room was trashed as men laughed and joked and threw rolls of paper and food about in celebration. But with the entrance of the VRAD commander, the room became deathly quiet. All attention was focused on Blake.

"What is he doing here?" Render muttered acidly.

Blake responded by taking four steps over to the fighter pilot and looking him square in the eye. "Did you get your kills?"

Render's frown turned into a thin smile. "Yes I did. I risked my life and downed two by myself and assisted in six more. That makes me an ace."

"Congratulations," Blake offered. At he same time he decked the young rash pilot with a haymaker which sent the man sprawling to the floor.

Blake walked past the angry jock as the downed pilot glared back, rubbing his jaw.
Blake stepped up to another young pilot with long black braids and a bandanna about his head. "Searchinghawk?"

"Yes?" The Indian stood tall and firm as if expecting equal treatment.

"Stand down, son," Roundhouse told his junior. "This is Blackjack."

Searchinghawk's eyes softened slightly. "You have my thanks, sir," he said. "If it had not been for your sacrifice, I would not be here now."

Blake nodded. He tried to speak, but choked. He settled for holding out the Wildcard's nameplate. Finally, he found his voice again. "I want you to have this. She served you as well as she served me."

Roundhouse reached out and took the placard from the stunned Indian. All eyes followed the senior fighter pilot as he reverently walked over to Speedway Squadron's trophy wall. There, he placed the placard on the wall higher than any other plaque.

"A place of honor," one of the other senior pilots explained to his fellows. "Honor for a mindless drone that made the ultimate sacrifice to save one of our own when his wingman abandoned him and went glory hopping."

"From this day on, the tights are welcome here any time they please," Roundhouse announced.

"And any man who ducks out and goes chasing after kills and leaves his wingman does not deserve the honor of being called and ace," another voice added.

There was several cries of agreement, but they were cut off as the door closed behind Blake after his departure. There were some thing's that had to be done, and the memory of the Wildcard had been secured.

Blake found that he was suddenly very very tired. It was time to go back to the apartment and get some sleep. When he stepped inside the commons room of the apartment, it was unoccupied. Blake had almost expected to see the rest of his crew there, but they were all probably too excited about the new assignment to sleep.

Blake looked slowly around the room. Lochlear was right about one thing. He should have a memento of his first command, and Blake knew exactly what that was to be. He walked up to the slot machine and pulled the handle one last time as the commander of the Wildcard. He did not wait to see what it stopped on.

Chapter 8 Part 6

2009-04-24T19:13:00.001-07:00

Blake and his crew stood in the hangar gazing at the remains of the Wildcard. "Things will never be the same again," Drake stated. "Now we are dispossessed too. Just like the Storm."

"What will they do with her?" Shamus asked.

"She is too damaged to repair," Major Duncan advised the crew. He had insisted on being present when the wreckage was brought aboard. "Don't worry about this piece of junk anymore. Soon you will have other things to worry about."

"What about the Storm and her crew?" Drake asked.

"Don't worry about them," Duncan advised. "They too have been reassigned. Bandit, Wraith and Dixie will stay here as will the new replacement for the Storm.

"What about a replacement for the Wildcard?" Blake asked.

"There won't be one," Duncan answered.

"Wait, the Storm is getting a replacement and they lost the whole thing," Drake objected.

"The Wildcard was wrecked, but you didn't lose her," Duncan answered, "and Col. Pharr has recommended you be assigned to another VRAD."

"Another VRAD?"

"That is correct," Major Duncan smiled. "The five of us have been assigned to a new VRAD squadron being formed. After shore leave, we will be reporting to the Whirlpool. I have been placed in command of the new VRAD squadron being formed their and you four are going to be my lead crew. Your new ship is a newer version of VRAD. Starting next month, you will be the crew of the Pheonix. You will have to work hard to train three more crews to man the Pegasus, the Dragon and the Griffin.

Blake glanced at his crew excitedly. Their thoughts were on their faces. "Thank you, Major Duncan," he choked. "We won't let you down."

"Of course not," Duncan replied. "But when we get to our new station, it will be 'Lieutenant Colonel Duncan,' so don't forget."

"Congratulations," Blake offered. "It is well deserved."

"Congratulate yourself, Major Blake McCoy," Duncan laughed. "Yours is also well deserved."

"It certainly is," Shamus and Drake agreed together.

Ben Lochlear, elected not to speak, but instead left the small group in the midst of their elation and walked over to the twisted remains of the Wildcard. He pried the name plate from the damaged hull. The placard was undamaged.

He rejoined the others and passed the item to Blake. "Every commander should keep a memento of his first command," Ben told him.

"Thanks," Blake whispered as he held the plate tightly. Then he turned to leave. His crew started to follow, but Duncan stopped them.

"Sometimes a man needs to be alone," the commander of the Wraith advised. "Let him be."

Chapter 8 Part 5

2009-04-24T19:10:00.001-07:00

In response to that command, the two VRADs banked in opposite directions with particle cannons blazing. Like a pair of gates opening, Roundhouse saw the large drones part revealing a multitude of enemy fighters rushing in towards them.

Several blooms of hot gas replaced a few of the fighters as the drone particle cannons scored vital points. Roundhouse did not wait. He steered with his feet and used his hands to select the first target. When the enemy fighter turned to follow the drone, Roundhouse closed into range and opened up with his own guns. Though not quite as powerful as those on the VRAD, the Adder's cannons were still deadly to an unshielded fighter. Roundhouse scored his first kill.

The Wildcard banked hard to the left and lined up on a medium sized gunship. Lady Luck confirmed an earlier scan and informed her crew of some grizzly news. "It looks like they took all the wounded ships to the rear," she said. "They are going to make us fight through the toughest part of their lines."

"That's what I would do if I were in their place," Blackjack muttered respectfully. "They have long scans. They know that we don't have a battle fleet. If they can get past the fighters and us, the Andromeda will be a sitting duck."

"Missile lock," Lady Luck announced as she instantly activated her ECM systems. "They tried to slip a virus at us at the same time."

Roulette triggered the rail gun and a twin burst from the particle cannons. The gunship responded with dozens of lances of coherent light. Only one beam struck the agile VRAD, and it was only a glancing blow easily deflected by the electromagnetic shielding.

The VRAD's particle beams were also turned aside by the gunboat's own shields, but the rail gun's shot blasted tons of armor outward from the larger vessel's outer hull spilling precious air from its insides.

"I have missile launch," Lady Luck responded excitedly.

Blackjack saw the points of light. Three missiles came at them closing the distance with frightening speed. By reflex, he pulled into a hard climb and fell into a course perpendicular to that of the missiles. They of course adjusted their angle to follow.

Ten seconds went by as the missiles closed the distance. "Turrets active," Lady Luck announced, and the dorsal and belly laser cannons came to life targeting the small but deadly missiles. Long seconds of anxiety preceded the hoped for report. "Missiles destroyed," Lady Luck announced with a release of held breath.

Blackjack banked again, and the Wildcard dove at the gunship from above. The battle craft began to roll about its axis, and lasers flashed out by the dozen. As a cannon discharged, it would roll away from the diving drone, and a freshly recharged cannon would roll into view. The maneuver was deadly, and the onslaught forced the VRAD to break off its attack.

Blackjack cursed. They had taken several jolts from the lasers. None of which had passed through the shielding with enough energy left to do damage, but they had broken the attack.

Blackjack flipped the drone over and then performed a split S maneuver. Suddenly the gunship's engine section loomed in front of them. Immediately Roulette triggered the rail gun and the rocket pods at the same time. The rail gun slug plowed into the hull wrecking the mechanisms within as the multitude of rockets obliterated the surface structures of the larger ship's engines.

"That did it," Lady Luck announced. "She is dead in the water."

Blackjack came about and the Wildcard lined up on the next target, a heavy battle cruiser.

"Be careful with that thing," Lady Luck warned as they skirted around to approach the deadly opponent from head on. "Our shields won't be able to stand a direct hit from its laser or particle cannons."

"Bay coming open," Roulette announced as he opened the Wildcard's weapons bay.

"Make it quick, sport," the woman warned. "They have a hard lock on us with the bay open."

"One, two, three missiles away," Roulette concluded. "Bay closed, clear for action."

"They tried to slip another virus to us again," Lady Luck reported.

Blackjack ground his teeth with a firm jaw. The heavy battle cruiser was definitely more than the VRADs were designed to tackle. He knew that they should turn and run, but that was not an option. They absolutely could not allow the heavily armored and armed warship to get within striking range of the Andromeda.

"Wraith, this is Wildcard," he called over the com. "It looks like we have found their ace in the hole. We are definitely outclassed here and could use a hand if you can spare it." It was not Blackjack's style to call for help, but too much was at stake.

"Sorry guys," Specter's voice returned. "We have our hands full as it is. You are on your own."

"Four seconds to impact," Roulette announced referring to the trio of SRAMs he had launched only moments before. Almost immediately two brilliant plumes of light erupted. Two seconds later a third explosion flowered and convulsed wildly.

"They shot two of the SRAMs down," Lady Luck announced. "The third one got through though." Then, "here comes the reply," she added abruptly. Half a dozen tiny plumes materialized along the huge ship's spine. The telltale signs of missile launches lighted gently away from the ship and curved towards the VRAD.

Blackjack throttled to full velocity and reversed direction. There was still a lot of distance between the two ships and they needed time to defeat the missiles.

"Jam them, Lady," Blackjack said. "Jam them and shoot them."

Lady Luck worked diligently at her console. She banked jammers onto the scan wavelengths. She put white noise interference on the missile guidance uplink, and she activated the defense laser turrets. "Put 'em on the gee limit," she advised her pilot.

Blackjack instantly obeyed. He threw the drone into a course that would cause the missiles to have to turn more sharply than they were designed to do. As a result, they would lose their lock and the countermeasures would have a much better chance of shaking them.

The maneuver worked for the most part. Only one missile hit but it took off most of the starboard wing including one of the particle cannons.

"What do we have left?" Blackjack asked his gunner.

Roulette checked his status. "We have half a load of HERPs, eighty percent of our kinetic load, five SRAMs on the forward rotor, a full eight on the aft rotor and one proton cannon. We have both laser turrets and we haven't used any of the electronic package yet," he added.

"Okay," Blackjack decided, "it's time to roll the dice. Let's go in at full speed, pass over their dorsal while they are reloading their missiles. Hit them with all guns and give them the rest of the rockets. Then we will go over-the-shoulder with two more SRAMs."

"Off we go," the pilot said. "Longshot give me one hundred percent on the reactor."

"Break it down," Longshot replied as he complied.

Blackjack answered his engineer's request for power allotment. "Put fifty into thrust, twenty into weapons and thirty into shields until we pass. Then drop weapons to five percent pn weapons and increase shields to forty-five."

"We are riding a star," Longshot replied using the engineer lingo for a fusion reactor at full power.

The Wildcard shot straight at the battleship and unleashed three shots from her rail gun and four shots from her remaining particle cannon before pulling up slightly to pass over the enemy ship's upper hull.

As the drone passed over the hull, the rocket pods fired repeatedly blasting chunks of armor and sensory equipment into useless scrap. At the same time, the belly turret spat globs of laser light searing into the pockmarked upper hull of the huge ship.

The battle cruiser's own guns belched forth energy in reply, but the drone was too close and too agile for the defending guns angular tracking to be effective. And when the drone passed to the aft of the battle cruiser, the weapons bay opened and another pair of missiles dropped out, ignited their engines, and reversed course to fly right into the vital areas of the engineering section of the big ship.

"They are trying to decipher our data link," Lady Luck warned. That was a serious problem. It meant that the enemy was trying to wrest control of the Wildcard from her crew.

"Give them something to chew on," Blackjack ordered.

The electronic warfare specialist activated a previously unused panel and dialed a number on the selector. Then she initiated the program and hit a transmission button. "Let's see how they like this one," she mused. "Get us some distance," She suggested to her crew.

"What did you hit them with?" Roulette asked curiously.

"I slipped the Bulldog 7 into our transponder frequency," she answered. "If they don't catch it in time, it will foul up their stabilizer routine badly. That is why we don't want to be too close."

Lady Luck was right on the money. As Blackjack brought the VRAD around for another attack run, the heavy ship began to yaw and roll randomly.
"She's out of control," Blackjack laughed. "I don't think we need to worry about her for a while."

"Don't get too comfortable," Lady Luck advised. "The Bulldog series of viruses are good at getting in, but they are also easy to wipe out. We probably have about five minutes before they regain control of their attitude systems."

"Then let's make the best of this run," Roulette urged.

The Wildcard dove in for another attack run. This time the only defensive response was a token shot or two from independent gunnery stations on the ship's undamaged sides that badly missed. The VRAD came in low with turret, rail gun and single remaining particle cannon blazing. The damage was enormous as armored plating ruptured exposing vital sections of the huge ship.

"Hey, gang," Longshot warned as the other three watched the heavy cruiser suffer from their furious attack. "One of the smaller gunships is trying to sneak past us."

Blackjack brought the Wildcard about and lined up on an intercept course with the smaller and quicker battle craft. He gunned the throttle and took pursuit.

The Wildcard closed the distance quickly, but before they could close to attack range, the enemy ship launched a pair of missiles towards the bright point of light in the distance that was the Andromeda.

"Heads up," Longshot warned abruptly. "Those missiles have fusion warheads!"

"Damn," Blackjack swore. "Push it to the edge, Longshot," he urged. "We have to catch those things."

"Power down the weapons," Longshot advised. "We are going to need everything we have to catch those nukes."

Blackjack gave the VRAD a kick in the rear and burned the engines to their maximum rating. "Lady," he calmly ordered, "as soon as you can, start hacking into those things. Try to shut down their drives, alter their course, disarm, or if necessary prematurely detonate those warheads."

"I'm on it," she confirmed. If the missiles attacked the Andromeda, that would be the end of them all.

Dozens of seconds passed, and the distance between the missiles and the VRAD was decreasing, but was doing so very slowly. "Roulette," Blackjack asked, "are we going to catch them?"

"No," Roulette answered calmly. "Not close enough for me to shoot them down. How about you, Lady?"

Lady Luck sounded unsure. "I think we can get within ECM range," she admitted, "but I don't know if there will be time enough to hack into their systems."

"I have notified Haunted House of the missiles," Longshot interrupted. "They are putting out interceptors."

Blackjack eased back on the engines. "Well, there is no need in burning out our drive," he remarked. "The carrier's defenses should be capable of stopping two unprotected missiles. Our primary concern should be to keep that damn gunboat from launching any more of them."

Blackjack brought the VRAD about and lined up on the light battle craft. They made one pass and Roulette sent three SRAMs and another round from the rail gun slamming into the other ship's hull. One of the SRAMs obliterated the enemy's bridge and the ship began to drift.

They were about to go in for the kill when the Wildcard lurched violently to one side.

"Bandit coming in from the port beam," Lady Luck announced sheepishly.

"No kidding," Blackjack muttered as he struggled to regain control of the space craft.

"We have lost the port proton cannon too," Roulette announced.

"Turrets are active," Lady Luck announced as the defensive lasers came on line.

Blackjack redirected the VRAD to give chase to the new arrival. But when they came onto the prescribed course, the attacker had moved off to their flank again. "Whoa!" the pilot exclaimed startled. "Where'd he go?"

Once again the VRAD lurched. "I think he is to port again," Roulette mused.

"He has a tighter turn radius than we do," Lady Luck advised. "It must be a drone."

"That last hit did not cost us anything vital," Longshot added. "But that could change if he keeps up these attacks."

"Put shields at fifty percent and drop thrust to forty five and weapons to five," Blackjack ordered. "We know that he is shielded, so our defensive turret won't be able to hurt him. On the other hand, with our shields at fifty percent, his won't be able to hurt us either."

Blackjack throttled the Wildcard back to where most of the other ships were slugging it out. They needed a little help to get rid of the pest fighter drone. "Lady see if you can mess with him some," he ordered as they cruised back with the drone in chase.

Lady Luck opened her sensors and began to read the drone's telemetry messages. "Their coding is pretty complex," she reported. "I can interject garbage into their steering signals, but it may or may not do any good. And if I do, it would leave us open to a viral attack."

"Don't risk it then," Blackjack decided. "We will get one of the fighters to work it over."

"Their lasers probably won't be able to hurt it either," Roulette doubted.

"That is true, but their ordinance should be able to," Lady Luck explained. "Those thirty millimeter cannons are quite formidable to lightly armored craft. They are useless against the big ships, but the fighters and that drone should be easy prey."

Blackjack keyed the comm transmitter; "Wildcard to Daytona Lead."

"This is Daytona Lead," Roundhouse's voice returned hesitantly. "I am a little busy if you don't mind, Blackjack. What do you want?"

"Sorry for the interruption," Blackjack apologized, "but I seem to have one of those Syndicate fighter drones on my tail and he is really getting on my nerves. Do you think you or one of your boys could give us a hand?"

"This is Atlanta four," a youthful voice interrupted. "I am not far from Ghost two. I'll bail the tights out."

"All right Atlanta four and five, break formation and rendezvous with Ghost two. After you save his butt, stay with him as escort. I will send Darlington six and seven to do the same for Ghost one."

"Thanks Roundhouse," Blackjack replied. "Who is Atlanta four?" he asked Longshot as he turned the drone onto a rendezvous course.

"Lieutenant Searchinghawk," Longshot replied. "He is okay. Unlike most of the rookie jocks, he has his head on right."

"What kind of name is Searchinghawk?" Roulette asked.

"Native American," Blackjack guessed. "But I could not tell you which tribe."

"He told me he is Sioux," Longshot offered, "the grandson of a tribal leader of some sort."

"Here they come," Roulette advised.

The scene which followed was quick and well coordinated. The two fighters skimmed just beneath the VRAD's hull and then popped up from the larger craft's cover and opened up on the pursuing fighter drone. The combined firepower of the two fighter's cannons disabled the lightly armored drone before its controller could react.

"That was some good shooting Atlanta four," Blackjack complimented. "Thanks."

"No need for thanks," a youthful and irritatingly familiar voice replied. "You weren't in any real danger, were you?"

"Cool it, Render," the voice of Atlanta four interrupted.

"Hey, we are risking our necks for an empty overpriced robot ship," Render snapped.

"Listen to me, Render," Searchinghawk advised calmly. "If those battleships get within striking distance of the carrier, where are you going to land that Adder when your fuel runs out? The Syndicate executes prisoners as corporate saboteurs."

The two fighters circled and formed up off either side of the VRAD. Searchinghawk continued his lecture. "The VRADs are the only weapons we have capable of holding the battle craft at bay unless you want to take your fighter in on a strafing run yourself."

"That's telling him," Roulette muttered.

"I wouldn't cry too much if our turret cannon accidentally blew Lieutenant Render into next year," Longshot agreed.

"Can it," Blackjack ordered. Then over the radio he addressed his escort fighters. "Atlanta four and five, we are going in for another attack run. Our target is the vessel at twelve mark seven degrees. Follow us in and lead us out."

"Roger Wildcard," Searchinghawk replied. "We will follow you in, strafe and then lead you out."

"Very well," Blackjack agreed. Then to Roulette he asked, "what do we have left?"

"We still have a few shots left on the railgun, a full rotary launcher of SRAMs and the defensive cannon turrets."

"We also have a few electronic bugs we can throw at them if we catch them probing us actively," Lady Luck added.

"Okay team," Blackjack decided, "our best results seem to come when we lead with a kinetic attack. So, let's follow the rail gun with a pair of SRAMs if we can get them off. Then as we pass by, rake them with the belly turret. Their shields will probably turn the lasers aside, but you never know."

"Wildcard to Atlanta squad, we're going in," Blackjack radioed.

"We're right behind you Wildcard," the fighters answered.

The VRAD nosed over and dove at the surface of the enemy ship. At Roulette's command, the massive rail gun which made up the drone's backbone shuddered and hurled a projectile into the battle craft's external structure. Immediately following that, the weapons bay doors snapped open, and a missile jettisoned and fired its engine. The rotor launcher inside the bay rotated another missile into position, and then jettisoned that one too. Then the bay doors snapped closed as the second missile fired and sped towards its target.

The Syndicate cruiser fired volley after volley at the unpowered projectile speeding towards it, but the speed and small size of the object defied their attempts to destroy it. Even so, when it struck the ship, it tore into the hull obliterating a power distribution station and blacking out part of the ship.

Seconds later the first missile detonated ripping a massive hole in the craft's hull. The second missile was destroyed prior to impact.

"Fighter's off the port," Longshot announced excitedly. "But they are ignoring us and moving on to the engage the carrier."

"This is a perfect opportunity," Render's voice interrupted over the radio. "We can take them by surprise."

"Let the other fighters take care of them," Searchinghawk decided, "we stay with the drone."

They completed the attack and pulled out of the dive. Both fighters moved out ahead of the VRAD as the drone's shields protected the two Adders from the cruiser's laser turrets.
A second pair of Syndicate fighters skipped by off in the distance headed for the melee taking place near the Andromeda.

Without warning, one of the two escort fighters peeled off and took pursuit. "Atlanta four to Atlanta five: Render, get back here," Searchinghawk's voice indicated his anger.

"I'll be right back," Render replied. "These will be a pair of easy kills."

"Our task is to work with the VRAD," Searchinghawk insisted. "You are putting the mission at risk with this glory hunt. Now get back."

The conversation was fierce and distracting. Searchinghawk's attempts to regain control over his rogue wingman almost cost him his life.

"Atlanta four watch your six!" Longshot warned suddenly

From the far side of the battered cruiser, a lone Syndicate fighter drone had emerged and flown at a fantastic velocity closing the distance between itself, and the fighter.

"He can't outrun that thing," Lady Luck announced. "And without a wingman he can't fight it."

"Hang on," Blackjack advised. He yanked the controls and placed the Wildcard between the drone fighter and its prey. Lady Luck opened up with the defensive turrets, but the laser beams simply skipped off its hull like stones on water.

"We can't stop it and we can't keep ourselves between it and Searchinghawk forever," Roulette noted.

Blackjack made a rash decision. At the last second, he brought the Wildcard about and rammed the enemy fighter.

His three crew members all gazed at him in stunned silence as hundreds of status indicators changed inside the VR cockpit. "Status report," he ordered.

There was a long silence. "We have lost the rail gun," Roulette began. "In addition, the ship's frame has been torqued. We can't open the weapons bay any more."

"What about navigation?"

"We still have directional control for now," but it you pull any more stunts like that we may lose all control," Roulette answered.

"We lost the dorsal laser turret," Lady Luck added. "Our electronic warfare package is intact, but we probably lost a lot of jamming ability due to external damage."

"We still have telemetry," Longshot completed the list. Otherwise we would be flying blind and self destructed by now. The bad news is that we took a nasty jolt and our reactor's maximum potential is now forty percent. And we lost the dorsal shield generators."

Blackjack cursed. "Shut all power to weapons off," he decided. "We can't use them anyhow. Pour everything into thrusters."

"Atlanta four to Wildcard: are you guys still alive in there?"

"Yeah, we are still here," Blackjack answered. "But we just lost everything we had to fight with."

"Maybe you had better return to base. I'll cover you. The Market knows I owe you that."

"He's right," Longshot advised. "We can't do any good out here."

"Well if you are going to do something, do it now," Roulette interrupted. "Because that cruiser has recovered from our attack and is coming."

"Can we outrun him?" Blackjack asked Longshot.

"No. Our reactor can't generate that kind of speed anymore."

"Atlanta four, this is Wildcard." Blackjack made a decision, "break formation and return to your flight."

"Negative, Wildcard. I'll cover your withdrawal."

"Thanks, four," Blackjack refused graciously. "Thanks, but you would be defending an empty, useless drone. Don't risk your life over it."

There was a long pause. "Roger, Wildcard," came the reply at last. "I will find Render and rejoin the fight."

"Wildcard out," Blackjack replied and turned off the radio.

"So what now?" Lady Luck asked.

"Now we try to sell the Wildcard as expensively as possible," Blackjack replied.

"You mean to ram that cruiser don't you," Longshot guessed.

"I do," Blackjack answered. "Any objections?" There were none. "Okay crew. Let's go out in a blaze of glory." He brought the battered VRAD around and lined up on the cruiser, aiming for the already weakened hull structure.

"I wonder what my next assignment will be?" someone asked, but Blackjack concentrated only on guiding the Wildcard into its death dive.

The cruiser slowly swelled in size as the large craft closed in. Lances of laser light reached out to the VRAD, but Blackjack kept his only operating shield between them and the cruiser.

"We are losing power!" Longshot yelled surprised. "We have lost maneuverability.

"Did we take a hit?" Blackjack demanded.

"No we picked up a virus," Lady Luck answered. "Our electronic filter was damaged in the collision. Damn! There is no way to tell if it's damaged until a virus gets past it."

"How deep is it?" Blackjack demanded.

"We've lost maneuverability and we are losing navigation," Longshot sounded almost panicked. "It will hit our telemetry next unless we shut command and control down now."

"Do it," Blackjack commanded angrily. They could not afford to lose telemetry. That would mean flying blind and an automatic self destruction.

Longshot complied with the order and began cutting interfaces off. "Done," he reported. "We can monitor what happens, but we can't control the ship. We are almost blind."

"Maybe they will think its dead and ignore it," Blackjack offered.

"Or if they try to capture it, we could power it up in their hangar and blow their cruiser apart," Roulette suggested.

The cruiser loomed ever larger in their viewer. As it grew they could see the heavy damage their first attacks had inflicted. The cruiser shifted its course slightly in order to avoid the collision.

"She is locking her guns," Lady Luck announced regretfully.

"I can't watch this," Roulette announced and disconnected himself from the VR interface. He did not want to see the Wildcard destroyed as it drifted powerless. He removed his helmet and left the module.

In the hallway, Roulette made his way to the ready room. The red corridor lights indicated that the Andromeda was at battle stations. He was not worried. With the destruction of the Wildcard, his career was ruined. He would be lucky to get an assignment as a simulator instructor. And that, itself would be nothing short of torture.

"Roulette disconnected," Longshot announced as they watched the cruiser close in for the kill.

"He didn't want to watch our ship die," Lady Luck stated with a hint of emotion. "And neither do I." With that she too disconnected and left the VR cockpit.

"She sure was a good ship," Longshot said reverently. He reached around to his left and unplugged his own suit from the VR interface and promptly disappeared from the cockpit leaving Blackjack alone in the cockpit of the Wildcard.

The commander of the VRAD was determined to ride out the fate of his ship. He could see that they were almost within range of the rocket launchers and cannons of the enemy ship. Soon it would not matter whether the drone was shielded or not. They would blast him from the sky. Blackjack's thoughts recalled something about ancient sea faring captains going down with their ships.

The cruiser hovered monstrously over the Wildcard like a giant predator about to snatch up its helpless prey when suddenly a brilliant bolt of lightning slammed into the side of the huge battle craft sending shorts and static crawling along the damaged shielding of the Syndicate ship. Blackjack stood frozen. At first he thought that the Wraith had come to the rescue, but as the shock wave of the attack swept over the Wildcard's dead hulk, the view slowly rotated and Blackjack beheld his savior.

A Market destroyer eclipsed the sun and engaged the damaged cruiser at point blank range. The Whirlpool's battle group had arrived and taken the enemy by total surprise.

Chapter 8 Part 4

2009-04-24T19:05:00.001-07:00

The bridge of the Andromeda was strangely quiet for a ship about to go into battle alone. The intercom was alive with the voices of the various flight commanders as they talked their pilots up for the rapidly approaching fight. Many of those pilots were green rookies that had never been in combat before, and in their hands lay the large carrier's safety.

One relatively small station in the corner of the bridge was receiving an extra ration of attention. It was the station that monitored and maintained the data link between the virtual reality cockpit modules deep within the Andromeda's belly and the two drones which represented the spearhead of the attack.

Carol Garret, the ensign in charge of that station was well aware of the tremendous responsibility entrusted to her. Should the data link fail, the VRADs would be flying blind and unusable. Without the VRADs, their fighters would be overwhelmed and the Syndicate battle craft would obliterate them carrier and all.

To ensure the security of the precious data link, the VRAD signals were being broadcast on nine separate, changing wavelengths simultaneously. The VRADs were only monitoring one of them at any given time. Even then the data was encoded by a complex polynomial which had been randomly selected and loaded onto both VRADs just prior to launch.

It was next to impossible that some technician of the Syndicate Hacker Corps would seize control of the drones. Even so, Colonel Pharr hovered nervously behind the ensign's station keeping a constant vigil for some damning indicator that would signal the doom of the entire VRAD program.

Commodore Becker, on the other hand stood patiently before the large transparent portal. He gazed serenely out at the stars. He refused to look at the instrumentation or monitors during the attack. The peace of deep space helped calm him as he meditated on the silence only an arm's reach away. Long ago the commodore had learned that watching a battle develop could emotionally cloud one's judgment. He would let his subordinate's follow the battle. He himself would calmly make whatever decisions were necessary at the appropriate time.

"They are engaging," Pharr announced from the ensign's side.

"Wildcard," Specter's voice crackled over the comlink, "this is Wraith, break formation and pursue assigned targets at your discretion."

Chapter 8 Part 3

2009-04-24T19:03:00.000-07:00

Roundhouse climbed into the fighter and strapped himself into the prone acceleration couch. The forward tilting couch molded itself to his body automatically. Roundhouse slipped his feet into the steering stirrups and checked the feedback from the various motions. By rocking his feet forward or backward either together or oppositely, the fighter would respond by accelerating, decelerating or rolling. By raising both knees and pulling the stirrups forward, he could initiate a dive or by pressing the stirrups backward, he could climb. His support crewman outside the canopy verified the systems' functionality and then saluted Roundhouse. The pilot returned the gesture and signaled his readiness to launch.

Roundhouse keyed his com receiver and contacted his flight. "Daytona Flight this is Daytona Lead, stand by for launch. Sing out with exceptions." No reply came from any of the ten fighters in his flight. They were ready.

"Daytona Lead to Victory Lane," Roundhouse addressed the fighter control deck of the Andromeda. "We are go for launch."

"Stand by Daytona Flight," a voice returned. A few seconds later he received his orders.

"Daytona, close formation with Darlington, Atlanta, Rockingham and Talladega Flights. You will assume command of Speedway Taskforce."

Roundhouse signaled his deck crew. They cleared the fireway and the hydraulic ram gently loaded his egg shaped fighter into the magnetic acceleration launcher. He felt the telltale clicks as the fighter's undercarriage engaged in the hundred yard long tracks. The status light for launch changed from the amber transit light to ready green.

"Gentlemen, start your engines." With that, Roundhouse touched the trigger which activated the linear accelerator. His Adder shot down the tube and into the vastness of space like a bullet from a rifle.

All around him the sky began to fill with the flat egg shaped Adders as the launch order was relayed by the fighter control deck. The fighters themselves were not pretty, but the compact shapes allowed for maximum performance with minimum size and mass. Roundhouse keyed his IFF and his flight began to take positions in formation about him. Like wise, the other four flights were forming up as well.

When all of the fighters were ready, Roundhouse ordered them towards their targets at half speed. A few moments later, two blazing fusion driven engines flashed past the fighters and drove hard for the distant bright spots which represented sunlight reflecting off metal.

Roundhouse moved his feet to line his fighter up behind the VRAD which had just passed and then ordered the rest of the squadron to fall in behind the drones as well. "Darlington, Rockingham and Talladega," he ordered, "fall in behind Ghost Lead. Daytona and Atlanta fall in with Ghost Two."

Roundhouse lined his fighter up behind the Wildcard as did his sister flight. The other three flights fell in behind the Wraith. "Ghost Squadron, this is Speedway Squadron, you have the lead."

"Speedway, this is Ghost," Specter's reply came quickly and calmly, "hang on back there and stay close. We are picking up their outer defenses. We will be engaging in twelve minutes."

Chapter 8 Part 2

2009-04-24T19:01:00.001-07:00

Several hours later, Blake awoke and checked his clock. There was just enough time to wake the crew, get them washed and fed, then report to the main briefing room.
Blake flipped his clock back and touched a switch in the panel beneath. In the other three rooms, the alarms responded and woke the crew of the Wildcard.

Blake stepped into the commons area and turned the heat up a little bit. He entered the kitchen and dialed a dozen hard boiled eggs and eight strips of bacon. Then he powered up the beverage dispenser and requested a pot of coffee and four mugs.

A noise behind him caused Blake to glance over his shoulder in time to see Shamus sitting at the bar with his head resting in his arms. "Good morning," Blake offered.

"Are you sure it's morning?" Shamus asked. He lifted his head and reached out to grab the remote control for the wall sized video monitor.

"It had better be," Blake stated. "Because if it isn't then the colonel is going to take us apart."

Shamus flipped through the ship wide network until he found the broadcast he was looking for.

A newscast from the Mars showed citizen stock prices. After the Syndicate attacks, the prices had dropped sharply, but as a result of the recent VRAD raid, the Market's stock value had jumped considerably.

"Well I hadn't expected that," Shamus exclaimed with a grin.

"What is it," Blake asked as he offered Shamus three eggs, two strips of bacon and a mug of coffee.

"My stocks just jumped five percent as a result of yesterday," Shamus said. "I never thought that I could have that much affect on my earnings."

"How much of your commission is in stocks, if you don't mind my asking?" Blake inquired.

"Twenty percent of my salary is in stock," Shamus answered. "I invested in Research and Development. It is a little more risky than the more popular stocks, but when it does pay off, it pays off big."

"So the success of the VRAD program increased your net worth by five percent?" Blake asked.

"Right," Shamus turned around and began to peel an egg. "How about you? Are you buying into the Market?"

"Yes," Blake answered. "But I am less risky. I am buying into medical and pharmaceuticals. It is a fairly steady yield."

"I thought about that one too," Shamus concurred. "But for some reason I decided against it."

"I knew one fellow who made a partial investment in public entertainment. Six months later he had increased his value one thousand times. A year later and he was flat broke." Blake recalled a former roommate at flight school.

"Those erratic stocks can be like that. You have to know when to get in and when to get out."

"Next," Lee said as she came around the corner with her damp hair plastered against her bare back. She was wearing only her trousers and her breasts were still damp where she had not dried them properly.

"Put a shirt on," Blake requested. "I don't need you getting sick." Her nudity did not distract him or any of the other two men in the least. Drake was a comely enough woman, but the crew looked upon each other as siblings more than anything else.

Shamus finished his breakfast and made a bee-line for the shower that Lee had just vacated. Blake himself finished his food more slowly since he had to wait for Ben to finish bathing before he could take a shower himself.

Half an hour later, Blake's crew were sitting before the monitor looking at the maintenance records from Ghost Squadron.

"Man that sucks," Ben griped.

"What is it," Blake said as he struggled into a clean tunic.

"The Dixie has had a major fault in the guidance system," Shamus informed him.

"Serious?" Blake asked his navigator.

"She can't fly," Shamus replied.

"Damn," Blake swore. "That just leaves the Wraith and us."

"I really wish we had not lost the Storm now," Lee mused. "If we had more time, the Bandit could be ready to fly again. Her problems are not too serious, but there are an awful lot of them."

"So we are down to two flyable VRADs," Ben leaned back and propped his feet up. "This is just wonderful."

"What is our weapons load?" Blake asked.

"A belly full of SRAMs," Shamus reported. "The cannons are pre-charged, and the rail gun has a full load. In addition Major Duncan ordered a case of Herpies for us."

Blake smiled. Herpies was slang for the HERPs, the high explosive rocket pods. The pods were attached to the forward kinard stabilizer structure, one to either side of the rail gun. The rockets could be launched in a volley, or singly. Firing all rockets at once actually did considerable damage and was referred to as giving the enemy a case of Herpies.

"What is our ECM status?"

Lee stood from her chair. She felt better talking on her feet. "As before, the ECM is unrestricted. This time, since we are not carrying nukes, we are loaded with a cyber combat package as well. We didn't have to worry about cyber attacks before because we caught them off guard, and it takes time to set up a cyber attack. But you can bet they will be ready this time."

"I really don't like the idea of cyber warfare," Blake cursed.

"Well our data link is almost invulnerable since we use fractal polynomials to modulate the quantum frequency," Ben promised.

"Our most vulnerable area is our sensor array," Lee warned. "If they slip something by us, that is what we will lose first. If I can't catch it before it gets too deep, we could lose the ship. If the CCP senses that we are flying blind in a combat theater, it will self destruct the Wildcard."

"Let's try not let that become necessary," Blake hoped. He tied his shoe and walked over to the slot machine. He pulled the handle and watched two bells and a cherry pop up.

"Come on, Gamblers," Blake McCoy urged as he keyed the door. His crew followed, each pausing only long enough to pull the handle on the slot machine.

They passed by the hangar bays on their way to the briefing room. Through the observation portal they could see the crew of the Storm assisting with the maintenance of one of the remaining VRADs. Though they each saw the scene, they averted their eyes when they saw one of the dispossessed crew glance their way.

"I don't know if you guys saw Thunder and the rest of his crew, but I don't want to end up like that," Ben declared after they had passed the hangar.

"They looked like ghosts," Shamus recalled.

"They might as well be ghosts," Blake informed them. "Without a ship, they will be reassigned to support duties."

"I thought the colonel promised that the loss of our ships as a result of combat would not be charged to us," Ben argued.

Blake shrugged. "To err is human," he began.

"To forgive is not Market policy," Shamus concluded. It was an ancient quote whose origin was lost in military antiquity.

"I know its not fair," Blake agreed. "But military life rarely is fair. Do you remember the Veterans of the Cold War Memorial in Toronto? More careers were lost in the Cold War due to small mistakes than at any other time in military history."

"And that wasn't right then either," Ben objected. "Imagine, one wrong action and your entire career was over."

"The VRAD program is a lot like that," Blake pointed out. "Back then they dealt with thermonuclear weaponry. They could not afford any mistakes. The VRADs are under such scrutiny that we can't afford to make mistakes either."

"At least there is a Cold War Memorial," Lee mused.

"There is now," Blake agreed. "But it was not dedicated until one hundred years after the end of the Cold War."

"I've seen that memorial," Shamus offered. "It is a three sided marble pyramid. Bombers, ICBMs and submarines are engraved on the sides. It gives you something to think about really. No blood was shed, but a lot of sacrifices were made."

"No one made the ultimate sacrifice," Ben pointed out.

"Believe it or not," Blake countered, "sometimes dying is an easier sacrifice to make than one you have to live with."

Shamus opened the door to the main briefing room. At that moment it was vacant. "Some of those people gave up most of what they had and lived their lives in isolation and near poverty for an ideal," he said as he followed Blake into the room.

"And some of them were hated by the very people they defended," Lee added, "especially the ICBM crews. They didn't even have the glory of flying to solace them."

"They were all martyrs," Blake stated. He took a seat and leaned back. He propped his feet up on the back of the seat in front of him. "They did their thankless jobs because they believed in their purpose."

The door opened again and Major Duncan entered with his elite crew in tow. They wore spotless, pressed uniforms and highly polished boots.

"I guess you are aware that we two are the only ships flying in this next segment," Duncan began. "That changes things slightly, but the major plan remains the same. We have to punch a hole through their fighters and keep the heavy ships preoccupied. We don't want them to get close enough to the Andromeda to destroy her."

"Once we get through their fighters, we shouldn't have to worry about them any more. Our own jocks will work them over. We can give our undivided attention to their battle craft. If we keep them busy enough, they will never see our own battle fleet until it is too late."

"How you going to hide all those destroyer?" Lee asked.

"The Whirlpool's ships are coming out of the sun with the whole asteroid field between them and the Syndicate ships. The sun, our own ECM systems and the millions of rock fragments will degrade their scans from that area."

"CCP?" Blake asked.

The ECM officer of the Wraith answered. "The cyber combat packages have been loaded with every antibody that we are aware of. In addition, we are setting a new virus in the CCP armament. We have far more experience with remotes. If the new Syndicate fighters are a form of drone, we may be able to infect their systems, and perhaps capture one."

The door opened again and a few jocks drifted in. They wordlessly took seats near the front of the room. Both VRAD crews seated themselves properly and quietly conversed as the room continued to fill.

Several of the younger jocks entered, flashed looks of hatred at the VRAD crews then glanced nervously at their seniors. Obviously they had been reprimanded for their previous attitudes.

There was surprisingly little said as the rest of the command staff entered. The commodore was absent and Colonel Pharr opened the meeting.

"Gentlemen, our moment of truth is here. Within the hour you will be launching against superior forces. It is your sole mission to get their attention, inflict as much collateral damage as possible, and return safely. If you can keep them occupied until our reinforcements arrive, we will gain a numerical advantage."

The General stepped down and yielded the podium to the senior fighter pilot. Roundhouse stepped up and outlined the jocks' mission objectives and strategies. "Mix it up with them," he urged. "After the VRADs' raid, they are down to comparable numbers and we should be able to face them on a one to one ratio. Don't tangle with their newer fighters solo. If they try to engage you, pair off and use the tactics we discussed earlier. If all else fails, lead them into the Andromeda's defensive envelope."

"Don't try to engage the heavier ships," Roundhouse warned. "That is what VRADs are for. Just keep the fighters occupied."

Roundhouse stepped down and Major Duncan replaced him. "When we launch," he told the jocks, "form up behind the two operational drones. We will use the drones to provide ECM cover and hide your numbers until we engage the enemy. We will use our heavier firepower to blast a hole in their fighter screens. That should throw them into a temporary chaos and give you an unmolested first shot at them. Once we get through, they are all yours. We will be going after the bigger fish."

Colonel Pharr resumed the podium. "If there are no questions, you are to proceed to your assignments."

Major Duncan eyed the people in the ready room. They had left the briefing and reported directly to the conference lounge next to the VRAD modules. Each occupant was in full battle dress with helmets in hand. Duncan had very few words to say.

"By no means are we safe," he reminded them. "The Andromeda is going into full combat with heavy battle craft. It is entirely possible that we could take crippling blows. Unfortunately all we have left are two drones. Even though the attack was a success, the others were beaten soundly by the enemy in our last raid."

"We can not afford to let fresh battle craft launch attacks on the Andromeda. As a last resort, you are to follow the Storm's lead and ram the enemy ships, but only as a last resort. Bandit and Dixie will be held in reserve for defense. So you will not be completely without backup. But considering their degraded status, they will not be much good."

Specter critically surveyed the seven people in his command. They were all aware of the stakes. "All right Ghost Squadron, go get em."

Chapter 8 Part 1

2009-04-24T18:55:00.001-07:00

Chapter 8

The Wildcard tore across the vast emptiness between the leading Trojan asteroid field and Jupiter. The crew were restless and tense. They had been in battle and fled the scene without much more than a scratch. Their hearts raced, their breath was still short, and all they could do was sit and guide their ship back to the com shuttle and the three remaining VRADs waiting with it. When they arrived, the remnants of the squadron fell into formation and resumed a slow course back to the Andromeda which in turn was rushing to meet them.

"Reactor at forty percent," Longshot reported. "If the Andromeda is on schedule and we aren't sidetracked, we should have enough fuel to make it back at this rate of fuel consumption."

"Man that was awesome," Roulette muttered quietly. He had not spoken since they had evacuated the battle space and outrun their pursuit. Since then only what was absolutely necessary had been said.

Blackjack began to have reservations about his crew and about the whole VRAD weapon system. It was too clean and easy. They had killed hundreds of Syndicate personnel whose only crime had been to be citizens of a competing economic union. All dead; and his crew had pulled the triggers. There had been no resolve, no taste of death, and no risk. Of course, had they lost their ship, they would have been grounded and probably reassigned to other duties with marred careers, but they were in absolutely no danger of losing their lives.

In a way, Blackjack tasted the loathing that many of the jocks held for VR crews. As for his people, they had always taken the jibes and teasing about their tight suits with a grain of salt, writing the abuse off to jealousy. Blackjack wondered if perhaps flying a VRAD was not just a little bit cowardly.

The final leg of the mission was uneventful. The appearance of the bright dot in the distance made everyone long to return to their apartments. When that bright dot swelled to the familiar rhomboidal kite shape of the carrier, impatience intruded upon discipline.
"Haunted House to Ghost Squadron, stand by to relinquish command to docking units."

"Haunted House this is Ghost Lead." Specter's voice betrayed his fatigue own. "We are ready to dock."

"Ghost Squadron, stand down and welcome home." The greeting was traditional and not necessarily sincere.

"We have docking telemetry," Longshot advised.

"Stand down," Blackjack ordered releasing his own controls. Almost immediately he reached up and detached himself from the VR module's systems. Without waiting for his crew members, he stood and vacated the module.

In the hallway, Duncan was waiting. "I know everyone is tired and hungry, but we have been ordered to the main briefing lounge."

"Why?" Drake asked.

"Because tonight we are going to be within striking range of that base again and the jocks are going to have to get out there and finish what we started. And I want them to have every scrap of intelligence we can squeeze from our flight recorders."

When the five crews entered the briefing room, it was filled with fighter pilots and fleet battle officers. Obviously it was expected for the Andromeda herself to take an active part in the upcoming battle.

The commodore opened the briefing. "Gentlemen," he began as the room's lights dimmed. "This morning's raid has yielded some very surprising results. Even though we lost one of the VRADs and a second one took enough damage to keep it from flying again for several weeks, we accomplished our primary objectives and inflicted massive amounts of collateral damage. "

"Ghost Squadron managed to destroy a Syndicate battle cruiser, a gunship and a total of thirty six fighters. In addition, three other gunships were heavily damaged as well as another battle cruiser, their flagship. Further, we have obtained invaluable data on a new fighter that they are using and its capabilities."

"Their own carrier was undamaged in the raid, and they still have an effective battle group. Between our own fighters, the Andromeda, and the VRADs, things are panning out to be an even fight. In this we are assuming that three VRADs will be effective in combating their damaged battle fleet and holding their fresh ships at bay. Already the VRAD project has paid for itself."

The audience murmured a bit in response. There was no arguing with the results of the raid, even so, many fighter pilots were less than appreciative.

Commodore Becker continued. "The Whirlpool's battle group will arrive about the same time that we do only from a different direction. That puts us in a very good position. Most of the Syndicate's attention is going to be on us. They have the bulk of the asteroid field between them and our reinforcements. If we can preoccupy them, our forces can sneak up behind them and work them over without having to deal with their defenses."

The commodore turned the briefing over to Colonel Pharr. The colonel approached the podium and keyed the viewer. A diagram of the fighters that attacked the Wildcard appeared. The rear ball on a flat disk shape still reminded Blake of a plate with uneaten mashed potatoes.

"From the telemetry we gathered during the raid, we have some information about the new Syndicate fighter. There are several puzzling advantages it seems to have and we still do not know what it is capable of."

"First and foremost, the new fighter appears to be ray shielded." This statement produced several groans from the fighter pilots.

One pilot raised his voice. "Sir, how is that possible? We have been trying to do that for years. It is generally accepted that the energy drain of the craft's reactor is too great."

"We have a theory that would explain the presence of the shield, but it is only a guess. Also if what we suspect is true, the new fighters will be more maneuverable and aggressive than yours."

"More aggressive?" Lt. Colonel Farland asked.

Colonel Pharr clarified. "Unfortunately, that is the only way I can explain it accurately. It is not meant to question your courage or patriotism."

"Our engineers and technicians are of the opinion that the new fighters are the Syndicate's first attempt in unmanned combat craft."

"You mean VRADs," a junior pilot offered.

"That is a possibility," the colonel admitted, "though they may not actually use Virtual Reality. They may just use a mockup. That was the way our VRAD system began. We went with VR when we realized that a mockup was far too difficult to maintain. It had to be repeatedly disassembled, repaired and monitored. VR is simply a program."

"But their pilots are in no physical danger, so they don't have to fear for their lives," the junior pilot added. It was apparent that he was a VRAD hater. It was also apparent from most of the other pilot's faces that they agreed with him. Several of the senior jocks, however, made their displeasure at his outburst known.

"Lt. Render," Roundhouse interrupted. "If you don't mind, I would like to hear the rest of the briefing."

"Let him speak, colonel," Pharr urged. "His fears are based in fact. I want him to respect the power of these new fighters. Maybe that respect will save his life."

The colonel glared at the outspoken jock who retreated back into his seat silently. "We have some suggestions that may help in neutralizing some of those advantages," he continued.

"First, fly in pairs and let each pair fly in pairs. If you maintain a foursome, you can take a lot of their maneuverability away from them."

"Their shields appear to be the standard kind. If they are indeed drones, the lack of a cockpit and life support would give them enough space to install a larger reactor and shielding systems. Ray weapons may not work well against them, but missiles and kinetic weapons should. We are reconfiguring your adders with rocket pods instead of particle cannons. That drops your ability against armored battle craft. To compensate for that, we are refueling and rearming Ghost Squadron. They will go out with you and keep the battle fleet off your backs until our reserves get here."

"You will get your flight profiles prior to launch. Until then, are there any further questions about the general attack plan?" the colonel asked.

There were none so Colonel Pharr dismissed the members of Ghost Squadron. "I know the VRAD crews have been just landed for the most part and would like to get some rest. Major Duncan, would you have your people return in six hours. I would like to fill them in on the next phase of the mission."

Major Duncan saluted smartly in reply. As he led his squadron out the door, he heard a remark from the room. "Don't see why they would be tired, they haven't done anything."
He wouldn't have responded even if he wanted to, but he was pleased by the outburst that followed from one of the senior pilots.

"Shut up snot nose," the voice said as the door slid shut.

"One of these days I am going to punch Render in the nose," Ben muttered.

"Don't waste the effort," Lee advised. "It will only let them know that they are getting to you. Then you'll really hear it."

"I still think," Lochlear conceded, "that a good belting would solve more problems than it would cause."

"Don't worry about Render," Shamus urged. "The more experienced jocks will take care of him for you."

"Yeah," Ben laughed. "It sounded like Roundhouse was getting a little tired of that smart mouth."

"Where does he get that attitude?" Shamus wondered. "Most jocks are content to silently hate us in private."

"His grandfather was an ace in the first extraterrestrial conflict. The old man was awarded the Terran Star of Valor." Lee Drake was a history buff in addition to being a former intelligence officer. "I think he is afraid that VRADs will make jocks obsolete before he can make a hero of himself as well."

They reached their apartment and immediately went to their respective rooms to get some rest. None of them were eager to bluff insomnia.

Chapter 7 Part 4

2009-04-24T18:47:00.001-07:00

Blackjack followed Roulette's navigating instructions closely. The gunner was carefully weaving a course through the tumbling asteroid field in an attempt to maintain their concealment while at the same time keeping them from crashing into the huge planetesimals as they crept ever closer to their prey.

Blackjack concentrated of following the navigational cursor even as he listened to the various reports coming in over the com. Another advantage of the VRAD weapon system was that the other crews were no more than fifty feet away even though their ships were thousands of miles distant. It was the ultimate method to communicate with each other without the enemy intercepting the messages.

Roulette continued to work furiously. When they used terrain masking on the planets, the terrain was usually already mapped out and stationary. The asteroids, on the other hand, were in constant motion. Passing planets, and impacts from rogue debris easily set of chain reactions of bumping and reverberating solid bodies.

The only break in the gunner's concentration came when Thunder announced the destruction of the Storm. Then Roulette glanced up and briefly locked eyes with Blackjack. The reality that they could not be killed if their ship was lost had always been a comforter. The sudden realization that Thunder and his crew were without a ship was unsettling. Though they had all wondered at one time or another, no one had dared to ask what would happen if that should occur.

"Keep your mind on your jobs," Blackjack urged. The best way to keep the Wildcard from ending up a drifting cloud of scrap was to play the game the best they could.
When a few moments later, Highwayman relayed that they too were bugging out of the fight, no one took much note. Spectre's solid sounding voice and confidence was like a tonic.

"Blackjack?" Spectre's voice was calm as it drifted over the com.

"We're here." Blackjack assured him.

"We are about to emerge from the larger rocks into the area they have cleared out. When we do, they will pick us up and begin throwing everything they have at us. If you take too long, they will be waiting for you when you emerge."

Roulette keyed his own com, a slight breach of protocol, but generally overlooked. "We are about five seconds behind you," he said.

"Sounds good," Spectre decided. "Let's go get them."

"We'll make them fear the VRADs," Blackjack added.

"From the sound of things, Thunder and Highwayman have already done that," Spectre added.

After a few more moments, the Wildcard skirted around a particularly large asteroid and out into open space. There in front of them was the Syndicate base. The large solar array loomed to their left and the Wraith peeled off and made a bee-line towards it.

Roulette keyed in the final coordinate on his computer and the nav cursor in Blackjack's HUD changed from defensive red to attack blue. "Crew we are IP inbound at this time," Roulette announced. He immediately began programming the weapons load.

Lady Luck made a quick appraisal of their situation. "There is nothing between us and the primary at this time, but if that carrier held some of its fighters back, they could be in position to intercept us in ninety seconds."

"All systems are nominal," Longshot added.

Blackjack lined up the cursor and nudged the throttle to attack power. At the rear of the ship, the twin fusion fed drive thrusters burned a colorless energy, but the surrounding insulation glowed a blue-white with unimaginable heat.

"Primary release point in thirty seconds," Roulette announced.

Blackjack held the VRAD on course and watched the looming carrier. He was not altogether surprised when the tell tale flashes of light appeared heralding fighter launches.

"We have company," Lady Luck announced as her scan picked up the new readings.
"About thirty fighters. They are forming up on the Wraith. More than likely they will make a pass on her then come after us."

"If what we have seen is any indication," Longshot offered, we shouldn't have much trouble blasting our way through them."

"Wait," Lady Luck interrupted. "A second set of fighters just launched. I count five. They are different in configuration and are moving to intercept us."

"What configuration is this," Blackjack asked.

Lady Luck worked furiously at her database. "They aren't on record."

"Spectre to Wildcard, watch out for new bogeys." The other crew had picked the signals up as well.

"Roger, Spectre, do you have a make on these guys?" Blackjack asked.

"Negative," Spectre answered. "Poltergeist tells me that they are unknowns."

"Well then," Blackjack boasted, "let's find out what they are made of."

"The Wraith is making its attack run," Lady Luck noted.

Far off and ahead to their left, the other VRAD sliced through a swarm of fighters. Twin beams of azure cut a path through the midst of the pesky but otherwise harmless Devil-Rays. Three of the smaller craft exploded as the dorsal and belly laser turrets opened fire from the passing VRAD.

There was no time for Blackjack to make further observations as their own opponents were rapidly closing the distance.

"These guys are faster than the Devil-Rays," Lady Luck warned.

"Ten seconds to primary release point," Roulette stated.

"That is just great," Lady Luck swore. "We are going to be in our most vulnerable state just in time for those unknowns to commence their attack."

"Primary is priority," Longshot recited the VRAD attack policy. It was the command's directive that target destruction took precedent over VRAD defense.

"The jocks don't have that burden," Lady Luck muttered in reply.

"Bay coming open," Roulette announced. "Five, four, three, two, one, hack!"

"They have a lock on us," Lady Luck yelled.

"Bay closed, clear for evasive."

"ECM on line! Jink hard left!"

Blackjack complied immediately. He was aware of the severity of the situation since Lady Luck rarely raised her voice.

The evasive maneuver was only partly completed when the screen flashed red then blinked with static. The returned image showed them Wildcard spinning wildly.

Blackjack fought to get the ship under control while Longshot made a damage assessment. After a moment he breathed a sigh of relief. "That was a proximity blast," he said. "No physical damage."

"Not entirely true," Lady Luck disagreed. "That was a radiation blast. It is designed to radioactively kill all crew members of a lightly shielded ship. We knew that they were working on that, but we did not know they had it deployed."

"Come about to two seventy mark sixty," Roulette interrupted. "Let's get out of here. You can talk about that weapon later."

"Getting away may be harder than you thought," Lady Luck stammered. "Here they come again."

Blackjack did not even wait for the suggestion, he threw the throttle to full thrust. "Longshot give me one hundred percent on the reactor. We've done our bit for king and country, now let's get our ship home in one piece."

"Hunker!"

Lady Luck's shout caught them all by surprise, but Blackjack instantly reacted. He shoved the Wildcard's nose over so hard that he thought he had slammed his fist against the blank panel in the VR module.

As fate would have it, the reflexive reaction turned out to be both a life saver, and a stroke of tactical luck. The Wildcard performed a negative loop so tight, that she ended up less that one kilometer behind the quintet of enemy fighters.

"Roulette and Lady Luck wasted no time. While the EW officer activated her laser turrets, Roulette triggered the proton cannons. To everyone's surprise, Roulette's bolts glanced the underside of one of the fighters and bounced harmlessly away.

"Impossible!" Roulette exclaimed, "no ship that size has shielding."

"I beg to differ," Blackjack replied. "The proof is in the pudding.

Lady Luck's turret lasers had equal luck. "They are ray shielded," she cursed.

"Let's see if they are armored," Roulette hissed as his hand came down on the firing stud for the rail gun.

The KW-4 bucked and the center fighter disintegrated. The other four arced away in opposite directions.

"Returning to course," Blackjack stated as he lined back up on the nav cursor. "Lady Luck, keep an eye on those four."

She stayed glued to her scanner for several long minutes. "The don't seem to be much faster than the other fighters," she noted. "We can stay ahead of them at full thrust."

Blackjack did not get a chance to respond, for a brilliant flare erupted to the left of their flight path. "There goes the solar array," Roulette reported. "Five seconds to our own detonation."

"Assuming you hit the target," Longshot teased.

"Bets?" Roulette challenged.

"No," the flight engineer answered. He was not about to gamble against Roulette on a bombing run.

Right on schedule, a second flash erupted. This one was far off to the right and behind them. "That is a shack," Roulette announced triumphantly using the traditional phrase for a bulls-eye."

"The only thing between us and home is an attack cruiser," Lady Luck announced. "The Wraith just unloaded her SRAMs on it, and took only one hit in return. They won't have any problem getting back."

"Setting targets," Roulette said as he compared the data relayed from the Wraith in order to select strikes that would do the most damage.

He was intrigued to note that two of the other VRAD's missiles had hit in the same spot near where the ship's reactors were located. If they had weakened the armor enough, he might be able to take the cruiser totally out of commission.

"Boss," the gunner began, "line up on her dorsal midship and hold a straight and steady course.

"Hey, guns," Lady Luck warned, "the goulies didn't take out many of that thing's defenses," she said referring to the Wraith's crew by their collective nickname. Their sister ship had not scored enough hits to sufficiently hamper the cruiser's defenses.

"We have a chance to score big here folks. Let's take a chance."

"You mean gamble?" Longshot asked.

"Don't you believe in fate?"

Longshot remembered what he had gotten on the slot machine before they had left. "Go for it," he urged.

Roulette opened the weapons bay and launched all eight missiles. Then he lined up the rail gun and triggered it as rapidly as it could recycle. He managed to get of three shots before Blackjack pulled out of the dive.

As the VRAD streaked by, several of the heavy guns reached out yearningly to erase the craft from existence, but only one shot hit, and though it punctured the shield and severely scarred the right kinard, the Wildcard remained otherwise untouched.

Without a second thought, the crew burned their way back towards their base ship, and the safety of their own fighters.

Chapter 7 Part 3

2009-04-24T18:45:00.000-07:00

No further than thirty feet away, Highwayman and his crew had seen the Storm plow into the bridge of the gunboat. There had been no time to ponder the event, for they themselves were in dire straights.

After breaking formation with the Storm, the Bandit had driven straight at the onrushing fighters. They had flown through the midst of them with all weapons blazing. Almost ten fighters had been destroyed in that single pass, but a lucky shot from one of the Devil-Ray's pulse laser has ruptured a cooling unit for the VRAD's reactor. The backup unit came on line automatically, and the Bandit was spared any major problems.

The fighters did not give chase, and the Bandit found itself nose to nose with a heavy Scimitar class battle cruiser. This monster was more than a dozen times the size of the smaller gunboats, and was quite probably the command ship of the battle fleet. Next to the huge carrier ship, the cruiser was the largest ship and also the most heavily armed and armored.

Highwayman had immediately ordered his EW officer, a slim and graceful young woman of Hispanic ancestry, to augment their ECM with a powder charge.

The problem with more advanced weaponry like the SRAMs and HERCULES weapons, was that they were guided by imagery as well as active sensors. So even if they could jam the scanner frequencies, they were still vulnerable to attacks homing in on reflected light from their ship's hull. To combat that, the ship's surface contained s series of spray nozzles that could throw a shroud of black powder around the VRAD to hide it in the blackness of space. The drawback was that the powder reservoir only contained a single charge and the stuff tended to cause problems with external instruments and could not change direction with them if they needed to.

Highwayman ordered the powder used and kept the Bandit on a steady course that would take it over and behind the cruiser.

"At this range," Brigand, the EW officer warned, "they will be able to burn through our jamming."

"Sing out if they do," Highwayman instructed. "Burglar," he addressed the flight engineer, a tall black man, "give me all the power we have. If we get a clean shot, I want to unload both of those HERCULES at this tub."

Highwayman looked at his gunner. "All right, Thief, don't miss."

Thief, a stout and short young woman with a generously blessed chest, made some adjustments to the weapons systems.

"They have a lock!" Brigand warned excitedly.

Highwayman yanked the steering column back and drew the Bandit into a steep climb. He maintained the climb, but lessened the rate of turn so that the ship followed a long wide loop.

A jolt hit the ship and his screen flashed red and was followed by a moment of static. The image returned and he saw a bolt of energy flash outside the screen.

"We have broken the lock," Brigand reported.

"Bay coming open," Thief announced, them almost immediately the two large missiles were away. Thief closed the bay and Highwayman brought the VRAD about in a hard turn to put as much distance between them as he could.

"We lost the left wing," Burgular announced. Not that it mattered in space except that a proton cannon was at the tip of that wing.

"Our port deflectors are only operating at twenty percent," Brigand added.

"I don't plan to hang around long enough to let them get another shot at us," Highwayman said. "Lets unload those SRAMs and get the hell out of here.

"What about the Storm?"

"They are playing tag with one of the gunboats," Thief informed her crew mate.

"The cruiser's sensor power has dropped to almost nothing," Brigand noted. "Turn us around for a look."

Highwayman was not too keen on the idea of going back towards the cruiser, but it was somewhat important to know what they had done to it.

When the huge ship was again in view, they could see the scars of where the HERCULES missiles had peppered the outer hull wiping it clean of sensory instruments and weapons controls.

"Hey," Thief exclaimed. "We have a decent chance to make a dent in that thing." She manipulated a few controls and fired her rail gun. The projectile punctured the armor and produced a jet of air from within. She then launched the remaining eight missiles. The SRAMs were set for radar guidance since the cruiser was showing itself incapable of jamming their scans.

The eight missiles tore holes the size of fighter craft in the larger vessel's hull.

"Don't underestimate that thing," Brigand warned. As if to confirm her warning, the cruiser began to roll over. Suddenly a fresh set of gun emplacements began to appear.
Highwayman flipped the Bandit around and fired his thrusters at full power.

A multitude of flashes of light appeared outside the screen and again the screen flashed red. When the image reappeared, the damage was hardly worth mentioning. "We lost a rudder," Burgular told them. They had lost another useless component in space.

"We seem to be leading a charmed life," Brigand observed.

"Let's not push our luck," Highwayman urged. "Let's rejoin with the Storm and get out of here."

"It was about that time when Thunder's voice broke over the intercomm and informed Spectre that the Storm had been lost.

After a moment, Spectre called. "Wraith to Bandit. How are you holding up?"

Highwayman answered. "We have taken some heavy hits, but we dished out better than we took."

"Can you make it back to base?"

"That is affirmative," Highwayman confirmed as Burgular nodded.

"Then go ahead and disenguage. We are about to make our attack runs and even if they know we are here, they won't be able to get to us in time." Spectre sounded somewhat pleased.

"Do you want us to wait for you?" Highwayman offered.

"No, you get out of there. We and the Wildcard will hit our targets and then blast our way through their pickets. We will rejoin you en route to base."

"Wilco," Highwayman stated and lined his ship up on a course for the Andromeda. Then he kicked the thruster into full acceleration. The VRAD was capable of outrunning every other ship in the vicinity, and Highwayman planned to make good use of that statistic.

Chapter 7 Part 2

2009-04-24T18:44:00.001-07:00

The Bandit and Storm barreled straight at the enemy. Their shields were at full strength and weapons were primed. Thunder, the ship's commander and pilot muttered an invocation for his ancestors and the Samurai code of the warrior that had taken him to his present status. His oriental heritage was laying beside him in the VR module. A katana blade, passed to him from his grandfather on the day he was promoted to the command of a combat crew, lay on the featureless floor beside the console mockup.

Ahead of them, four battle craft and a hoard of fighters reminiscent of Genghis Khan's Mongols closed rapidly on them.

The four Devil-Ray fighters that had rushed our to meet them had not even gotten a volley of fire off. The two VRADs' particle cannons had hammered the smaller craft to rubble before the fighters could get close enough to attack.

The other fighters were much more patient. They followed under the formidable firepower of the huge gunboats bearing down on the VRADs.

Already, the long range of the gunboats was getting uncomfortable. Though still missing badly due to the VRAD ECM systems, the gunboats were closing the distance and with their superior firepower and heavy shields, may very well herald the end of the attack drones.

"Bandit to Storm. Those fighters are forming up to make a pass at us." Highwayman, the other ship's commander was off their port flank.

Thunder had indeed noted that the enemy were performing a half pincer. "Okay let's entertain our guests," he answered. "You break to the left and we will burn right. come about after twenty seconds and let's strafe the heavies. Then we can swat the flies."
Thunder's instructions were cryptic, but understood and no sooner had they been concluded did the Bandit peel off and pull away to the left.

Simultaneously, Thunder rolled the Storm around to the right and gunned the thrusters. The VRAD jumped out and began to accelerate.

Lightning, his gunner, busily programmed the missiles in their weapons bay to the home in on the schematic detail of the Syndicate's gunboats. The fruits of years of intelligence work was about to pay off. The SRAM, or Simulated Radar Attack Missile, used an active radar to fool enemy vessels into concentrating their countermeasures on radar jamming. In truth the missile was guided by digital optics. The missile homed in on a given hull configuration, in this case, the shield generators, power production and power distribution centers.

"Lightning, as soon as we complete our attack run, I want the chaff net dropped. Lets throw as much confusion into the fray as we can." Thunder wheeled the ship around and lined it up on the leading gunboat.

"All right lets rain on their parade. Bonzai!" With that, Thunder slammed the thrusters to their maximum.

"Weapons on line," Lightning announced. "Bay coming open."

"They are lining up on us," Cyclone, the EW officer warned. The screen flashed red. "That was a deflected hit form their forward laser battery," he added.

"Reactor holding steady at ninty-five percent," the flight engineer muttered. His call sign was Sleet. They called him that because he never got excited. He was always ice cold.

"Bay coming closed," Lightning announced. "Clear for evasive."

"Jink left," Cyclone ordered.

Thunder fired the lateral thruster and the Storm slipped several hundred feet to the left. A pair of bright green plasma beams illuminated the area they had just vacated.

"Jink up," another order came. and the space they were crossing came alive with dozens of red lines.

"Several deflections, but no hits," Sleet yawned.

"Recover to course," Cyclone ordered.

As Thunder complied, Lightning began to make adjustments on the KW4 rail gun. "We got four SRAMs out," he reported.

The closest gunboat loomed ever larger in their view screen. Cyclone snickered. "They are throwing every watt of jamming power they have at the SRAMs," he told his crew.

The action was for naught, though, for seconds later the four missiles slammed into the larger ship's hull. The explosions wrecked tons of hardware and disrupted vital control systems. This was evident when the gunboat began a slow yaw and ceased to fire its smaller guns at them.

"Hold this attitude," Lightning urged. "I want to get one shot in before we pass this turkey."

"Make it quick," Cyclone pleaded. "Flying in a straight line makes us very vulnerable."
Lightning's targeting system aligned, and he hit the firing stud. "Clear for evasive," he announced as the weapon fired.

"Come about to 110 mark 70 and extend," Cyclone ordered. That course would carry them out of the lethal range of the gunship's weapons as rapidly as possible.

Even as Thunder adjusted the course, a gaping hole opened in the upper hull of the heavy battle craft in a blossom of bright orange.

"That is a good hit with the rail gun," Lightning whooped. "Most of that explosion is coolant from their reactor deck."

"Congratulate yourself later," Cyclone warned. "We have company."

Flying up from ahead and below a quintet of fighters flew in a classical V formation. Above and to the right five more dove on them.

"Twenty degree dive. Head straight for the lower flight," Cyclone ordered.

Thunder complied and closed the distance between the fleet fighters and themselves much too quickly for the smaller ships to line up their weapons.

Cyclone, being in control of the dorsal and belly laser turrets had no such difficulty. He aligned the optical sensors on the reflective surfaces of the fighters and allowed the auto tracking systems to guide the guns. When they closed into cannon range, Cyclone's lethal defense turned two of the five Devil-Rays into rapidly expanding blossoms of hot gas.

The other three scattered and turned in wide sweeping arcs to fall in with the five perusing fighters.

"Hard about, Thunder," Cyclone urged. "Let's play chicken."

Thunder wheeled the Storm around in a tight half loop. The turn radius was so tight, that the ship seemed to almost flip over from the indications on their control panels.

The fighters suddenly were no longer chasing a fleeing attack craft, but were in a head on collision with a vessel well over five times their own individual masses. The Devil-Rays flushed and scattered like a star burst with the VRAD piercing the formation's heart.

Again the dorsal and belly turrets belched forth lethal bolts, but this time the range was too great for effective accuracy and the prey escaped.

"Bay coming open," Lightning announced. "We are free to maneuver," he added indicating that he was not aligning a missile so they were not restricted in movement.

"Another gunboat is bearing down on us," Cyclone warned, "eighty six mark three forty-three."

"Chaff net away," Lightning countered. "Bay closed. That should confuse their laser and radar guided systems."

"They have optical tracking as well," Cyclone reminded them.

"That has a very limited range," Lightning pointed out.

"Let's put some damage on this new tub," Thunder ordered.

"Come to eighty mark zero," Lightning replied. "Hold her steady while I get these other four SRAMs out. Bay coming open."

Thunder held the course as steady as possible for Lightning to launch their remaining four missiles. Unlike the last time, he saw each missile streak out ahead of the ship as it was launched. Just as the last one fired, the screen flashed red twice and the image flickered.

"We just took a hit," Sleet said flatly. "The number four ventral shield was damaged."

"The open bay made us vulnerable to laser attacks, and a fighter sneaked in from below," Cyclone explained.

"Bay closed. Cleared for evasive," Lightning answered.

"Thunder," Cyclone urged, "adjust your course to fly across his bow and dive underneath him. We have to keep his heavy guns away from our belly."

Thunder nosed the ship into a steeper dive and dropped below the gunboat's flight plane even as the missiles tor gaping holes in the battle craft's armor. Then he leveled off and put the ship in a slightly nose up attitude.

"Hold it steady," Lightning muttered in a level tone as he sighted the deadly rail gun again. The gunner fired the KW-4. The aft section of the vessel ballooned and ruptured flinging bits of metal, and frozen fluids into the vacuum.

"That took out most of his belly guns," Lightning announced jubilantly.

"Fighters at six and closing," Cyclone warned. "Punch it boss. Zero mark three hundred."

Again Thunder put the Storm in a steep dive. Only this time the VRAD did not have a speed advantage. The fighters were already at maximum velocity. Before the Storm could outrun them, they had closed the distance sufficiently to launch their own missiles.

"Four uplink's," Cyclone shouted, warning his crew that four guided missiles were incoming. "I jammed two of them, but the other two are too close."

Again the screen flashed red and the flash was followed by static as the virtual reality cockpit winked out and then came back.

"We took two major strikes in the rear," Sleet casually announced. "The reactor is down to sixty percent of capability and both rear deflectors were lost."

"Come about and steer into the fighters," Cyclone ordered. "Don't give them time to line up another shot at out aft section."

"Reroute power from rear deflectors to forward deflectors," Thunder ordered as he adjusted the course.

The Storm streaked straight towards the seven fighters. As the distance closed, Thunder outlined his plan. "All right here is what we do," he said. "As we pass, I will bring us about in a high gee half loop. That should drop us in position just behind them. I'll line up on the lead ship. Lightning can take him out while Cyclone let's the rest of them know what for."

The fighters, broke just as they had before. And just as they flashed by, Thunder flipped the Storm around on the Devil-Rays' tails.

Almost instantly, Cyclone activated the laser turrets. The resulting fire lowered the count of fighters by two more.

Almost as quickly, the proton cannons on the VRAD's wingtips flashed and vaporized the lead fighter sending all the surviving craft in a mad scramble of evasive maneuvers.

Taking advantage of the disarray, Thunder wheeled the Storm around and lined back up on the second gunboat. "Let's get a few more shots at this thing," Thunder urged.

They dove hard at the ship and Lightning fired the rail gun twice more with each shot opening gaping holes in the battle craft's hull. In addition, he opened up with the proton cannons as well. The SRAMs and the KW-4 had destroyed much of the gunboat's shielding and the charged particles from the cannons ripped deep gashes along the length of the ship.

"Fantastic," Thunder whooped as he guided the VRAD beneath the ship and passed under the larger craft.

His elation died in the air as they rounded to the back of the vessel. They emerged in a head on course with several dozen of the small fighters.

"Not good," Cyclone noted.

"Don't mix it up with them if you can help it," Lightning advised. "Let our own jocks take care of them. Get us back on course to hit that tub," he urged meaning the crippled battle craft.

"That thing is little threat right now," Thunder decided. "We need to beat up on the first one we hit first."

"Fly through the fighters at full speed," Cyclone ordered. We don't dare turn our rear to them without deflectors."

"I don't think we will be able to ward off too many of their shots from the front either," Sleet said. "We still only have sixty percent on the reactor."

"Open a hole in them, Lightning," Thunder ordered. "Make them get out of the way."
Lightning began rapidly pulse firing the proton cannons vaporizing several fighters and opening a channel directly in front of them. At the same time Cyclone had the dorsal and belly turrets running hard and six more fighters were destroyed by the time they made it through the swarm.

Cyclone checked his proximity scan and his fears were confirmed. "We have well over thirty fighters on our tail," he said, "and with only sixty percent on the reactor we can't outrun them. That plus the lack of shielding is going to make this a very nasty ride."

Thunder did not like where this was leading. "Sleet," he asked, "if we shut everything else down, can we outrun them?"

Sleet's answer was typically cold. "No."

Thunder was faced with a dilemma. Behind them were more fighters than they could possible handle. Ahead of them was a damaged gunboat. He was going to lose the Storm anyhow, but he wanted to squeeze as much value out of her as he could.

"Crew," he announced, "my ancestors believed in something called the Divine Wind, the Kamikaze." He lined the Storm up on a collision course with the gunboat.

"Those ancient warriors would crash their aircraft into enemy vessels to inflict as much destruction as they could. That is what we are going to do."

Lightning nodded and fired the rail gun again as they dove towards the gunship.

"When this is over, I will share a little something special with you," Thunder promised. "Before taking off, the Kamikaze were given a shot of Saki. And I just happen to have a small flask hidden in my quarters."

"I have never been so anxious to crash," Cyclone laughed.

The Storm accelerated as hard as its reactor could push it. As they closed on the gunship, Lightning got two more shots off with the rail gun and several shots with the proton cannons. The rail gun slammed into the forward armor severely damaging the vessel, but because the shield generators in that part of the ship were still intact, the proton cannons were ineffective.

Thunder watched as the ship swelled to fill their viewer. At the last minute, he recognized the unique structure of the ship's bridge. Instinctively he pulled the VRAD around and guided it straight into the battle craft's command center.

The screen flashed red and then went dark. The words "Terminal Impact" and "Link Disrupted" appeared on the inside of his VR helmet.

"Storm to Wraith," Thunder called over the intercom from module three to module one.

"Go ahead Storm," Spectre's voice replied.

"We are out of action at this time."

"Are you blind?" Spectre asked wanting to know if they were flying blind.

"Negative," Thunder replied. "The Storm was destroyed."

"Understood," Spectre replied at last. It sounded as if he had actually expected the squadron to fly in destroy all of the enemy ships and fly back out without a scratch. "Make sure we ge the intelligence summaries."

"Will do," Thunder agreed. He unplugged himself from the VR module and followed his crew out of the room. While they went to the locker, he walked down the hall to the control desk. The officer on duty was compiling all of the recorded data that the Storm had collected.

"You crippled two battle craft and destroyed eighteen fighters," the officer informed him. That information has been relayed to the other VRADs.

Thunder took a printed copy of their flight log and returned to the locker ready lounge where he and his crew began to review their actions.

Charter 7 Part 1

2009-04-24T18:41:00.001-07:00

Chapter 7

"Oh, they definitely know we are here now," Lady Luck announced as her sensors lit up from all the scanning energy directed at them.

"Uh, Boss?" Roulette muttered hesitantly.

"What is it," Blackjack answered.

"There are a lot of really big rocks at the outer edge of that asteroid group."

"So?"

"If we can get some of them between us and those sensors, we could cruise right up to their doorstep and ring the bell without their being any the wiser."

"You know," Lady Luck cut in, "he's right. A lot of our training has been in terrain masking. Well there isn't any terrain out here, but asteroid fields are as close as it gets."

Blackjack mulled it over briefly then keyed the intercom. "Lead, this is Wildcard, we have an idea."

Spectre listened as Blackjack outlined the plan. There was a long few seconds as he conferred with his own crew.

"Lead to two, run silent and follow us."

"I guess he bought it," Longshot offered.

"Never mind," Blackjack ordered. "Everyone run silent."

As the crew complied, Blackjack kept the Wildcard in the tail of the Wraith as the latter ship changed to a new heading."

"Three and four this is lead. Good luck and keep em busy until we can sneak in their back door."

"Roger, lead," the commander of Bandit replied. "We will throw enough jamming out to hide your maneuver. Good luck to yourselves."

"Two this is lead," Spectre called to them. "There has been a slight change in plans. We are going to skirt the edge of the asteroid field and try to keep the larger bodies between us and their base until we can get close enough to attack."

"Are you sure it will work?" Blackjack asked.

"It worked last month in the mountains of Callisto when you waxed our rear ends. We will mask ourselves with the bulk of that asteroid field."

"You realize we are giving that big pop gun of theirs another shot at us," Blackjack pointed out.

"They won't even be looking for us," Spectre replied. "Bandit and Storm are going to keep jamming their sensors and making enough of a fuss out there to keep them occupied."

"Don't you think they got a count of our numbers?"

"Poltergeist tells me that they didn't have time," Spectre relayed his own EW crewman's analysis.

Blackjack glanced over his shoulder at Lady Luck. She nodded her agreement.

"Okay," Blackjack conceded, "we'll follow your leader, but if we get blasted out of the sky, you are buying every drink we can chug until we get back to Terra."

"Agreed," Spectre said. "Haunt will hardwire the course to your nav."
Momentarily, an data stream came across Roulette's console via a direct interface between VR modules. Roulette worked quickly and soon the new course was plotted and a fresh navigational cursor appeared on Blackjack's HUD.

They flew for several long minutes in silence. The nagging doubt that their plan would work played on each mind. If they had been detected moving away from the other two VRADs they would be sitting ducks because the petawatt particle cannon would recharge and blow them from existence.

Over their com, they could hear the Bandit and Storm engaged in combat and meeting token resistance.

"It sounds like the fighter patrol is learning about the capabilities of a VRAD," Longshot murdered.

"It won't be patrol fighters for long," Lady Luck assured him. "You can bet they launched everything they had as soon as they picked us up. When seventy fighters and a battle fleet catch up to the others, it won't be a pretty sight."

"The sooner we get in and take out the primary targets, the sooner we can get in on the action," Longshot urged.

"That shouldn't be too long," Blackjack interrupted. "Now keep still and concentrate on what we are doing.

Chapter 6 Part 2

2009-04-24T18:38:00.001-07:00

Blake reintegrated into the module and again found himself surrounded by the virtual reality cockpit of the Wildcard and his crew.

"Trouble?" Roulette asked.

"No," Blackjack answered as he resumed command of the ship. "Spectre just wanted to review strategy. We are going to split the two primary targets."

"Let me guess," Roulette mumbled irritably. "We get the more difficult of the two."

"Give that man a cookie," Blackjack teased in an effort to raise his gunner's spirits. "That is what you get for being the best gunner in the squadron."

"Is that what the nuke is for?" Lady Luck asked.

"Absolutely," Blackjack confirmed. "We get to barrel our way through the blazing cannons of the Syndicate gun ships with a thermonuclear warhead in our weapons bay. If we make it through the barrage, we have the honor of launching one of the only two nukes to be used in combat in over a hundred years."

I guess the defense command is not worried about what will happen to the Terran Life Form treaty if we use atomic weaponry," Longshot yawned.

"By using that meteor gun, the Syndicate opened themselves up for nuclear strikes. The TLF treaty allows the use of atomic devices to prevent collisions of celestial bodies with populated areas."

"Meteor gun?"

Blackjack shrugged, though he knew that the motion would not be reproduced in the VR cockpit that his crew saw. "What else would you call it?"

"How about an astronomical projectile cannon?" Longshot asked.

"How about you getting a life," Lady Luck countered.

"Children," Blackjack headed off the verbal attacks before they became distracting. "We have a mission to fly."

Right on cue, Spectre's voice came over the com. "Ghost flight this is lead. Maintain cell formation and configure for silent running."

Blackjack acknowledged and then guided the Wildcard into a line directly behind the Wraith with about five seconds of separation between them. Lady Luck's proximity scan showed that the other VRADs and the comm shuttle had done likewise. By doing this, they presented a minimum profile to any enemy scans coming from ahead. When the formation had been established, all active scans and external emissions were shut down except for the directional tight beam data link between the VRADs and their shuttle relay and the Andromeda. Their scanning systems were operating passively. They were running silent.

Several hours later, Shiloh's voice sounded over the com. "Dixie to lead, we are breaking off with the comm shuttle and setting up the relay point."
"Roger Dixie," Spectre answered. "All elements switch telemetry to relay mode and check responses."
Longshot switched the command datalink to the Wildcard into the relay mode. Instead of directly controlling the VRAD from the Andromeda, the crew would control it via a relayed signal through the comm shuttle. This allowed the VRADs to operate beyond the one light minute range limitation that the quantum second oscillator telemetry system operated on.

"We are in relay mode," Longshot announced. And each member of the crew went through his console checks to verify that everything was operating normally.
The visual scan of the aft cameras showed the comm shuttle and the Dixie falling behind very rapidly. Without a functioning quantum second ocillator unit, the Dixie could only be operated by normal radio transmissions. For that reason it had to stay within close proximity to the command shuttle.

While the Dixie fell behind with the comm shuttle, the rest of the flight tightened their formation. They cruised for several long hours more passing the time as best they could.
When at last Spectre announced thier arrival at the PCTAP, everyone was overly anxious for some activity to begin. The positive control turn around point, was the boundry seperating exercise from the real thing. The PCTAP was the final defense against unauthorized warfare. Should the base fail to give the proper attack orders, the squadron would abort the mission. It was imperative that the order to attack be given prior to the PCTAP. Beyond that point, they could not retreat quickly enough to escape enemy fire.

"Haunted House, this is Ghost Squadron," Spectre called the carrier. "We are approaching the PCTAP."

"Ghost Squadron, this is Haunted House. You are cleared to proceed. Your authorization code is Echo Six Four."

Spectre acknowledged their orders and notified the squadron. "Ghost lead to cell, we are going in. Stick to your stations and watch for the sensor lock."

The four remaining VRADs spent another three hours flying in tight formation without even a sign that the enemy was anywhere near. Then in the fourth hour, faintly at first, the passive sensors began to register a search beam sweeping through space at regular intervals.

"Lead to cell, we have a search beacon at zero mark five degrees, range indeterminable."

"I have it as well," Lady Luck agreed. "It is still too soon to determine their range, but if they are using a standard deep space search routine, I would guess they are about half an hour away."

"They expect something, but not this soon," Longshot recalled from the intelligence briefing.

"The Syndicate views VRADs as a novel but ineffective weapon system. I doubt they even considered that we would be used in this fight, much less that we would deliver the first strike." Roulette's analysis generally proved to be right, and Blackjack hoped that this was not an exception.

"If that is the case, we are going to have a major advantage," he remarked.

"I am also picking up some low power scans," Lady Luck interrupted. "It is the kind consistent with a standard fighter patrol."

"Is there any chance that we have been spotted?"

Lady Luck reassured her commander. "Not at this time. Their power levels are too low to pick up anything smaller than a destroyer at our range."

"I thought we didn't know the range," Longshot reminded her.

"We do have a lower limit on the range," Lady Luck explained. "We know that they are no closer than twenty minutes at our present velocity. They could be further away, but no closer than twenty minutes."

"If we accelerated, we could get closer faster," Longshot suggested.

"That would require increasing the reactor and firing the thrusters," Lady Luck pointed out. "That would make us about fifteen times easier for their scans to pick up. As we are, we resemble nothing more than a small meteor cluster."

"How ironic," Roulette interrupted. "It was a weapon disguised as a meteor that started this whole skirmish, and now we are attacking under the same guise."

Blackjack paused and reflected on his gunner's observation. His thoughts were disrupted when Lady Luck became excited. "They have increased their output in the scanners and have narrowed the search pattern."

"They know something is out here," Blackjack translated. "Stand by to bring the reactor up to combat power."

"Standing by," Longshot responded.

For several long moments they flew in silence awaiting the dread event which would indicate their discovery. When it came, Spectre's voice was the one broke the news even as a warning alarm sounded from Lady Luck's console.

"Lead to cell, we read a locked scan. Launch decoy!"

"Trail to Lead," the commander of the Bandit replied. "Decoy away and singing."

On Lady Luck's sensors, as well as on Roulette's attack scanner and the main viewer, the Quail 7 decoy emitted a signature so strong that it would cover their own and render them practically unseen. "I am picking up acquisition signals on the decoy," Lady Luck informed them.

The view screen showed the decoy speeding away and to the left of their flight path for several long moments when suddenly the blackness of space took on a brilliant violet hue. A beam of light sliced through the darkness and disintegrated the Quail instantly.
The display on the viewer was for the crew's benefit. The actual beam of the particle cannon was colorless and millions of kilometers away.

"Lead to cell, go to full thrust and accelerate to attack profile." Spectre's voice betrayed his excitement. At last the VRADs were going to be tested in real combat. "Lead to three and four, break formation at your discretion."

"There is no reason to run silent now," Lady Luck declared, and brought her ECM gear and defensive scanners on line.

Roulette did the same with his attack sensors. "Fire control is ready."

"Reactor is running at ninety-five percent," Longshot reported. "Shields coming up."
As the shields were activated, a powerful electromagnetic field was generated across the VRADs exposed areas. The field was strong enough to defelct any charged particle not striking within thirty degrees of perpendicular.

With weapons and defenses ready, the quartet of attack drones leaped to their date with the enemy.

Chapter 6 Part 1

2009-04-24T18:36:00.000-07:00

Chapter 6

The five VRADs performed a flawless launch. They passed through the carrier's EM shielding and came about on a direct course toward the dark backside of Jupiter. Even at the speeds that they would soon be cruising, the trip to the giant planet would take many long hours.

Under the furious thrust of the fusion reactor that was the VRAD's heart, the robot craft accelerated to cruise velocity and began their long flight. They flew in the conventional V wing formation with the command shuttle, also a drone operated from the Andromeda's own bridge, in the slot of the flight. The quintet of deadly drones made a mad dash through deep space tethered to their commands by a tight, telemetry signal.

Deep within the belly of the giant carrier, the VRAD crews of Ghost Squadron went through their post launch checks to verify operation. In module number two, Blackjack and his crew were settling down for the long voyage. Roulette had fired the KW-4's cap and Lady Luck had verified their defensive systems by blasting it into nothingness.

Predictably, the other crews were doing likewise, and their activities had not gone unnoticed by the Wildcard's sensory systems. "Dixie to Wraith," Shiloah's voice sounded over the intercom from VR module 5. "All checks are complete and we are dropping out of formation to join with the comm shuttle."

Spectre's own voice replied. "Roger, Dixie, we copy your maneuver. How do we look from trail?"

There was a pause as the trail, or last ship in the formation, observed the rest of the flight. Finally she answered crisply: "all units look good from our vantage."

"Roger," Specter confirmed. "Lead to Ghost Squadron, we are several hours from refueling, but I want to go over a few things while we are in cruise. After we refuel, I don't want any mistakes. We can't afford any. Acknowledge lead."

"Two," Blackjack responded indicating that his crew were listening. The Bandit and the Storm respond likewise.

"Three."

"Four."

Finally the Dixie closed the acknowledgment. "Trail."

The squadron commander addressed them all over the intermodule intercom. "All right, folks, I want this thing to go smoothly. We have all trained well and there is no reason to be afraid. Your lives are not in danger and that is one more advantage that we have. Let the enemy jocks be afraid. They are the ones who could get killed."

Specter continued. "We will make our refueling runs in flight order. Keep an interval of five seconds between each of you and keep your attention on your task. Any break in formation for any reason should pull up and reverse course to starboard. If possible fall into the back of the trail and make a second attempt to refuel. If the malfunction is severe, pull into formation with trail and try to work it out. If you lose your 'go' status, notify the squadron lead and assume supportive posture. Lead transfer will go in flight order. Acknowledge, lead."

"Two."

"Three."

"Four."

"Trail."

"After refueling, we will go to cell formation and run silent. That should hide our approach as much as possible. They know we are coming, but they don't know when or how we will attack. If I were in their place, I would expect an all out attack by a carrier and battle group. There is every reason to believe that we might catch them with their pants down."

"The first sign that they have located us will be when their broad scan changes to a tight scan or even a tracking signal. When that happens, we will launch the decoy to draw out their fighters and tease that big gun into firing. Once the decoy is lost, we will have to burn at full power to get within its minimum effective range. If we can mix it up with their fighters, they will have to fore go any shoot and forget weapons and manually track us. That will also help." The pep talk was precise and to the point.

Spectre did not wast time by carrying on on the radio. He had said what was necessary and left it at that. The squadron knew how the chain of command would regress if the Wraith were disabled. He felt certain that Blackjack, the next most senior crew commander, could take over the mission if necessary.

The squadron had also been given their contingency orders if they had a malfunction. If their ship became dysfunctional, it was better for the VRAD to pull out of the fight than to lose control over it and let the enemy capture it.

The time to refuel came several long hours into the flight. Far behind them, the Andromeda was burning her own reactors as hard as she could to join in on the upcoming battle. The squadron of VRADs approached the huge gas giant's dark side and prepared for their refueling run. "Wraith to Ghost Squadron, we are at the initial point for the refueling run."

Upon hearing Spectre's announcement, Roulette made a final entry into the navigational system and Blackjack's HUD altered to show him the necessary course changes that would place them on the refueling track.

Slowly the Wildcard came about onto a course that dove into the outer layers of the Jupiter's hydrogen atmosphere.

"Refueling run checklist," Lady Luck announced. She began reading off a list of steps necessary to take to insure a safe and successful refueling run. It was her task to read the checklist because the her position was relatively unused during refueling. "Reactor at fifty percent," she ordered.

"Reactor at fifty," Longshot replied. Because they were taking on raw hydrogen, it was a safety measure to reduce the reactor's heat and static electricity emissions. The last thing they wanted was for the hydrogen in their fuel cells to ignite.

"Set load selector to scoop," she continued.

"Refueling selector set to scoop," Longshot answered.

"Set holding tanks to purge."

"Tanks set for purge."

"Verify Nav course." Roulette compared his readings with the sensory positions of several beacon satellites in Jupiter's orbit. Everything appeared to be within acceptable parameters.

"Nav shows course and timing okay."

"Control surfaces preliminary." Blackjack flipped a switch on his console and began making motions with his yoke and steering pedals. Though in the vacuum of space, the atmospheric control surfaces had no effect, the feedback systems told him that they were in operation.

"Control surfaces operable," he said as he returned the ship to normal control.

"Ghost Squadron, this is lead" Spectre's voice came over the com. "We are commencing our refueling run in ten seconds. Maintain a five second interval for safety."

On the Wildcard's instrumentation panel, the sensor image of the Wraith moved away and dove into the planet's outer atmospheric layers. Five seconds later, Blackjack fired the thrusters and brought the Wildcard around , lining the nav cursors up on his HUD.

"We are I P inbound crew," he advised. "Decent attitude is within limits and our glide path is stable."

"I show lead's penetration of the first layer in twelve seconds," Roulette stated. Precisely twelve seconds later, the image of the Wraith wavered as it entered the Jovian atmosphere.

"Atmospheric in eight seconds," Roulette announced, "two, one control surfaces."

"Control surfaces," Blackjack responded as the VRAD switched from deep space to atmospheric mode. In truth they had been in the thinner part of the planets atmosphere for the last five seconds, that was a fairly deep range where the air was so thin that the aircraft's control surfaces were ineffective, so the ship did not activate its control surfaces until it was in thicker air.

"Steerability check," Lady Luck ordered.

Blackjack performed response tests on the pitch yaw and roll motions of the craft. When he was satisfied of the ship's performance, he confirmed the test results. "Steering check good."

"Telemetry," she continued with the checklist.

"Data link secure," Longshot replied. "No atmospheric interference."

"Track position?"

Roulette responded almost immediately. "I show a good entry. We are on track and on time. I have a positive ID on all flight members."

Lady Luck resumed her checklist. "Proceed with refueling. Thrusters to idle."

Blackjack complied. "Thrusters at idle."

"Shunt start scrams," she ordered. Longshot made some adjustments on his controls and rerouted some power from the reactor to the atmospheric scram jets. He was rewarded with operation indicators. "Scrams on line," he stated.

"Accelerate to ram refueling speed."

"Blackjack throttled forward as the secondary engines drove the VRAD to hypersonic velocities, slamming huge amounts of hydrogen into the ram scoops where the fuel was compressed and stored in high pressure holding tanks.

Blackjack kept the craft lined on his Nav cursor for many long moments. Perhaps an hour later, Longshot announced their status. "Holding tanks full," he said.

Lady Luck recited the last few steps of the refueling checklist. "Proceed with track egress procedures."

"Egress window coming up in nine seconds," Roulette announced.

"Accelerate to maximum scram," Lady Luck dictated.

"Scrams at MRT," Blackjack replied when the engines were at maximum rated thrust. "Approaching mach nine."

"Reactor at seventy percent."

"Coming up to seventy," Longshot replied. "Fuel pressure steady."

"Egress window is at thirty two degrees up pitch in four seconds," Roulette advised, "two, one, execute."

Blackjack nosed the Wildcard up and the VRAD began a smooth climb.

"Control surfaces interplanetary," Lady Luck continued.

"Control surfaces interplanetary," Blackjack concurred.

"Thrusters normal?"

Blackjack verified that the scram jets had shut down and the thrusters had come online. "Thrusters normal."

"Continue to egress point and resume flight plan." Lady Luck closed her log book.

"Egress in three seconds," Roulette announced. "We are on course and on time."

Several minutes later, Spectre's voice came over the intercom. "That was very pretty people. Let's hope the rest of our day goes that well."

"Now I want everyone to line up in cell formation and go to cruise. Maintain one minute of orbital standard separation. Otherwise, we have a good long ride ahead of us so if you want to clear off feel free to do so as long as your autopilot is operating." "I would like to see all commanders in the ready lounge in ten minutes."

Longshot was the first person to clear off, or take a break. "Blackjack, I have to clear off for relief."

"Fine, Ben," the commander said breaking tradition by using the flight engineer's actual name during the mission. "I am going to put the ship on auto. Lady Luck and Roulette are to stay on line until Longshot or myself returns."

Roulette and Lady luck acknowledged and Blackjack followed Longshot out of the VR module. Blake watched as his flight engineer trotted to the latrine. Ben must have been needing to go badly.

Blake entered the ready lounge and found two of his counterparts already waiting. When Major Duncan entered, he seemed quite pleased. "That is one of the best refueling runs we have made on this tour," he beamed. "Everyone looked fairly sharp."

Spectre's face became grim. "Now is the dangerous part. Don't let your people fall asleep on the job. We have several hours before we come within the enemy's scan range, so if they want to relax let them, but when we hit the PCTAP, the positive control turn around point, make sure that they are on their toes."

He opened a portfolio and took a set of cards out. "This mission has a high security level, so I want you to load these chips into your modules. Up until now we have been running on standard data link security, but as we said earlier, we can't afford to lose a VRAD so that it could be picked up. The Syndicate still can't quite match our technology, and we don't want to give them any help."

When one of the cards was passed, Blake took it and examined it quite closely. The label on the card's cover was identified with the number, two, coordinating to the module number that they were flying. "That is all I had for you," Spectre concluded. "Watch each other's backs, and don't lose your ship if you can help it."

The group of pilots filed out and Blake fell in line. He was almost out the door when Duncan tapped his shoulder. "Blackjack, could you wait up?" Blake waited as Spectre gathered up his materials. "Since we are the ones who are going to penetrate the enemy base, I thought we might try to decide how to go about it."

"I noticed that you have us loaded with a nuke," Blake said. Does that mean that you want us to go after one of the primary targets?"

"Definately," Duncan answered. "We have one too. The Defense Command only authorized two for this mission. If we split them up, it increases the chances that we can deliver one of them on target."

"It also increases the chances of us losing on of them too." Blake pointed out. "That is true," Duncan conceded, "but to be successful we only have to take out one of the two primary targets. If we take out the meteor gun, they can't fire it, and if we take out that solar collector, they won't have the power to fire their meteor gun."

"Meteor gun?" Duncan shrugged. "What else would you call it?" Blake nodded. "Okay, a meteor gun then." They can't fire the gun on reactors?

"Probably not, or else why would they have the collector out there in the first place?" Blake tugged at his chin.

"So do you want to split up and go after the targets at the same time?"

"That would split their attention." Duncan had a knack for getting right to the bottom of the issue.

"I guess your right. Which one do you want us to go after?"

"Actually I want you to go after the gun. Roulette is the better gunner and the meteor gun is most likely going to be the more difficult target. We will go after the collector. The blasted thing is over five kilometers across. If we can't hit it, I will personally serve the whole squadron a prime buffet at our next shore leave."

"Who has the decoy?"

"Bandit has it. They will launch it when we think the ememy has a solid scan and is going into acquisition on their particle cannon. By the time they get it recharged, we should be mixing it up with their fighters. Then if I am right, they will try to move their battle craft in front of us to block our path. We can skip around them and attack the main base while Bandit and Storm keep the gunboats busy."

Duncan noted that Blake was frowning. "What's bothering you?"

"A lot of our success depends on how well we avoid taking damage. A single hit could conceivably cost us a VRAD."

"Not from a fighter," Duncan said confidently. "The VRADs can withstand several direct hits from fighters without losing anything."

"Our shield are not designed to stand up against gunships," Blake pointed out.

"Don't let them get a good shot at you," Duncan cautioned. "Our shields will turn glancing shots aside. Don't let them hit you solidly. That won't be too hard, because we are going to give them a bloody nose before they can get too many shots at us. Did you noticed the SRAMs in your weapons bay?"

"I was about to ask about them."

"Well the Bandit is carrying a set of mini-HERCULES in addition to the SRAMs and the Storm is carrying a chaff net. Between the two of them, the gun ships should be so confused that they won't be able to get a solid lock on us until our SRAMs are slamming into their hulls. If we do it right, we can disable a healthy portion of their fire control systems."

"You have gone over this with the others?" Blake asked referring to his fellow commanders.

"Yes," Duncan assured him. "You would have heard it as well if you had not been late to the pre-launch briefing."

"We were not late," Blake complained. "We were here exactly when you told us to be here."

"In the military, being on time is late," Duncan reminded him. Blake knew that the major was right. He had long been told to always be early.

"Don't sweat it, Blake. Just get back to your children and get them ready for the show."

Blake nodded and followed Duncan out into the corridor which led back to the VR modules. The audible throb in the corridor indicated that the huge carrier was running at near flank speed to try to close the distance with the enemy. He stopped in front of module number two and removed the card from it's plastic cover. The translucent crystal could contained over ten terabytes of information. This particular program was nothing more than a complex mathematical function which synchronized the data link frequency shifting and encrypting to prevent jamming of interception. Blake slipped the card into a slot on the module's master control panel and opened the door.

Chapter 5 Part 6

2009-04-24T18:30:00.001-07:00

Time passed very quickly to those who could sleep, but for Ben Lochlear, and those like him, there was too much excitement for him to relax. The rest of his crew, however were seasoned veterans. They had all seen action of some kind or another. Ben himself had only recently transferred from the quartermaster corp to combat duty and was eager to feel the thrill of battle, even if it was virtual combat.

Ben had originally applied as a fighter pilot, but his height proved too troublesome. It had been decided that he would not be able to properly function in the cramped cockpit of a fighter.

When the time finally came for the others to wake up and prepare for the upcoming mission, Ben was halfway through a wedge of lemon pie. The others simply entered the commons area, some detoured directly into the bathroom while others ordered up food of their own.

Blake wandered in and took a flask of fruit juice from the dispenser. He would rather have had the real thing to eat, but juice concentrate was the only thing allowed in space faring vessels.

Shamus simply sat at the bar in a daze, obviously not completely awake. Ben found the scene somewhat funny. "That must have been some sleep," he said.

"Like a log," Shamus assured him.

"Did you stay awake the whole time?" Blake asked.

"Just couldn't relax," Ben replied.

"You could have taken a depressant," Blake countered. It was evident that the crew commander was displeased. "I don't need you nodding off during the mission."

"I don't like those pills," Ben complained, "and we are going to have plenty of cruise time for me to snooze."

"I had intended to run a few sims during cruise," Blake informed him.

"Oh God, please don't," Shamus interrupted. "It is going to be bad enough without getting ourselves so wired that we second guess every decision we make."

Blake listened quietly. It was after all his choice, but though Ben's complaining irritated him, he took careful note of what Shamus had to say. He found that Shamus' advice was rare and usually well considered. Almost automatically he agreed to dispense with the simulations. "Well I don't want to mix simulation with real combat," he conceded. "I just thought it would give us something to pass the time."

"That is what the Wraith is for," Lee Drake said as she emerged from the bathroom. She was only half dressed, but among the crew, there was little room for bashfulness nor were interpersonal relationships allowed within the crew. As far as the crew members were concerned, they were all siblings. That was the main reason behind the crew non-segregation regulation which housed the VRAD crew in the miniature apartment complex.

"We can play games with them if we get too bored," Ben said hopefully. "They have been itching for a rematch since we stole their title last month anyway."

"Okay," Blake gave in. The last thing he wanted was for them to be angry at him before an important mission.

Blake finished his juice and headed for the bathroom himself. "I'll mention it to Spectre. Our main concern is getting in and back out as fast as we can. Roulette, don't drag around until the last minute," he warned. One of Shamus' vices was his tendency to procrastinate.

At the appointed time, they all gathered in the commons room refreshed and ready to go. Blake surveyed his crew. Lee and Ben were gathered around the video going over the Wildcard's status.

"She looks ready to go," Ben said as Blake approached. "It is almost amazing how hard it is to get maintenance done before a peace time mission, but let the fires of war erupt, and anything you ask for gets done well before you need it. Every system on the old girl is green status."

"What is the weapons load?"

Ben keyed the inquiry. "Spectre has assigned us four SRAMs and a single fusion bomb."

Drake whistled. Her interjection was not alone. "Def Com must be serious about this if we are carrying a nuke."

Blake's lips tightened. The mission was getting top priority. That meant that an awful lot was riding on it. It was possible that the high command did not think that they could effectively intercept meteors fired from that Syndicate outpost. "Let's hope we don't have to use it and try bring the Wildcard back with as little damage as possible," he stated.

"Let's hope we bring her back period," Lee offered.

"That will require us to all work together," Blake said beginning his pep talk. He nudged a dozing Shamus with his foot causing the man to sit upright in his chair. We have targets to bomb and Roulette has to get them without wasting time. Try to hit them with the first shot," he directed the last to Shamus.

"And Lady Luck has to keep us from being blown to smithereens. Longshot has to coax every watt of power from the reactor and maintain what may very well be a shaky data link. We can't afford to fly blind in this and our link is already going to be on a long distance relay. If we make a mistake, we could lose all five VRADs in one shot."

"That is the Dixie's responsibility," Ben stated.

"Not really," Shamus yawned. "If we let them launch an attack on the comm shuttle, then we are responsible for what happens as well."

"Remember the Dixie is not in good shape," Blake added. "Their problem is very severe. It requires more than just swapping out a module, it requires a complete avionics overhaul, and that can't be done on the carrier. That is why our leave dates at Terra were moved up to next month."

Ben nodded his understanding. The whole squadron was going to have to cover each other to pull off the impossible.

Blake wordlessly initiated their mission's commencement by walking over to the slot machine which stood by the door. He pulled the handle and watched the display. He got two lemons and a cherry. He grunted with satisfaction. He was not superstitious. "All right Gamblers," Blackjack began, "let's play."

Blackjack opened the door and exited. Lady Luck and Roulette each pulled the handle watched the result before following their commander. When Longshot's turn came, he pulled the lever and watched as three bells appeared in the window. Excitedly he ran after the others. "Hey you guys are not going to believe what I got," he yelled.

Chapter 5 Part 5

2009-04-24T18:27:00.000-07:00

He met his crew as they were emerging from their apartment. Blackjack did not really expect them to disregard the bosun, but he did want them to be on time. That was the main reason for going after them.

Longshot had wet hair and the back of his flight suit was damp. Apparently he had been working out and did not spend enough time drying after an abbreviated shower. Roulette was still eating the last bit of a food bar and there were crumbs on his face. As always, there was not a thing that could be found incorrect on Lady Luck's attire. They fell in with Blackjack as they made their way towards the briefing room. Along the way, the other four VRAD crews joined them.

"Any idea what is going on?" Blackjack asked of the squadron commander.
Major "Specter" Duncan was dressed in his spotless black flight suit. His crew were similarly dressed. Their VRAD, the Wraith was the Wildcard's sister ship and the two crews were like night and day. The command Wraith's crew was by the book perfect with ice cold nerves and razor sharp reflexes. The Wildcard's crew was a mixture of opposites. They were laid back and took almost nothing serious.

"You know about as much as I do," Spectre said.

They turned a corner and filed into the flight briefing room. Seventy seats were in the process of being occupied. Fifty of those seats were in five rows of ten and evenly spaced. Those were the jocks seats. Behind them two rows of ten seats were set slightly up on a dias so that their occupants could see over the fighter pilots' heads. The VRAD crews seated themselves there.

After a few long moments of low mutterings, the lights dimmed and a lone individual stepped to a podium in one corner flanking a large view screen.

"Good morning men." Colonel Alexander Pharr of the 72nd Lightning Vipers, the Andromeda's fighter/bomber wing, began the briefing in his usual steely voice. It was a voice that could set raw nerves afire, a voice that could not be tuned out no matter how sleepy of bored the listener was.

"I am sorry for having to interrupt your routine activities, but we have just gotten word form SDC Command at Aries Station to go on full alert." A collection of stunned faces could be seen and a few gasps were heard about the room.

The colonel waited until the noise had again ceased before continuing. "I have been given an assignment and Commodore Becker's staff and I have spent the last three hours planning an operation of serious dimensions."

Colonel Pharr yielded the podium to Commodore Becker, the Andromeda's commanding officer. The commodore's voice was a soft droning sound not much more than a whisper. "The Syndicate has established a military operation in the Trojan asteroid field ahead of Jupiter," he told them. "From that location, they have made at least three strikes against Market assets. The tragedy on Luna you heard about was one of them."

That piece of news sent a rapid muttering through the audience. They had heard the new casts, but had been told that it had been a freak natural disaster.

"Most recently a second attack took out the new tracking facility on Mars, and a third attack on Terra was only barely intercepted." The commodore activated the large view screen and a chart of their part of the solar system was displayed.

"The probe that we launched earlier was destroyed at this location," he continued as he marked the point of destruction on the chart. "We got enough intelligence data to learn that they have constructed and manned one of their Barracuda class star carriers with supporting battle craft. We could not get anymore as the probe was quickly destroyed by a massive particle cannon operating in the petawatt range."

There was a low whistle of hopelessness from somewhere in the midst of the pilots. The sentiment was universal as the grim faces of many of the veterans showed. "Even though we are without our battle group for support," the commodore went on, "we are the only Market unit within immediate striking range of the outpost."

None of the listeners liked where the briefing was going, but they had little choice. The commodore revealed their fears. "We have been ordered to strike the Syndicate outpost, and destroy the mass driver that they are using to shoot asteroids at our families, and if possible, destroy as much of their collateral as we can."

"Sir?" Lt. Colonel Vincent Farland, senior pilot of the Vipers, interrupted. "After destroying our probe, they must surely know that we are coming, and it will take almost a week for us to get within striking range. They will be waiting on us with their defenses at full alert. How can we hope to get through all that without our battle group?"

"The Whirlpool's battle group is running their reactors to the limit to coordinate an attack with us. The Whirlpool will be about a week behind them." The commodore could not fault the fear on the fliers' faces. No pilot wanted to go into battle against superior numbers.

"We will be attacking, but as it was pointed out earlier, it will take us a long time to get into position to launch our fighters. In the meantime, they will be taking pot shots at the inner solar system, and with the tracking facility on Mars out of commission, rocks could be slamming into New St. Louis with very little or no warning at all."

In the back of the room, Longshot leaned forward and whispered his fear into the ear of the flight engineer of Storm, one of the other VRADs. "I don't like where this is heading," he said. Longshot received a silent reprimand smartly in his ribs by Lady Luck, and he sat back immediately returning his attention to the front of the room.

Colonel Pharr resumed the podium and began to outline his strategy. "It will take us a while to get within striking range," he recalled, "but the VRADs can be there much sooner." He changed the view screen so that it displayed the planned flight route. "We will launch the VRADs and send them ahead with a command shuttle in tow. They can refuel at Jupiter and close to within attack range the next day.

Once they begin their attack runs, we expect the particle cannon to open fire. Therefore, we plan to launch a Quail 7 decoy drone to take the cannon's initial attack. A petawatt is a lot of power, and our experts do not think that the cannon can possibly have a rapid rate of fire, even if it is drawing directly off the solar collector they have erected out here. To compensate, they more than likely will have to sick their fighters and battle craft after the VRADs."

"Wonderful," a lone voice abruptly broke the dead silence. Pharr ignored the outburst and continued. Dixie is inoperative due to a bad quantum oscillator terminal, so she will have to stay in operation close to the command shuttle. There she can act as a defensive unit. The other four VRADs will have to handle whatever the Syndicate throws at them. I have some ideas for your strategy that I will go over with you later."

The display changed from the tactical display to show enhanced photos. "Your primary goals will be to knock out the mass driver, and if possible, the solar collector and the big particle cannon. Secondarily you are to take out as much of their battle capacity as you can before we arrive. They will undoubtedly throw fighters at you and you will be grossly outnumbered."

"As soon as we get within range," the commodore added, "we will launch our own forces and the Whirlpool's battle group will engage as soon as they possibly can as well. But if you don't take out that heavy particle cannon, those destroyers will be sitting ducks."

"We will discuss your strategy after this briefing," Pharr stated. "The flight crews will also meet at 0700 ship standard tomorrow morning for their battle assignments as well. Are there any questions?"

There were none and the commodore dismissed the assembly. "Until then you are dismissed." The jocks all stood and began filing out. Many of them offered words of encouragement to the VRAD crews, but most grimly kept to themselves. They were about to enter a deadly battle and cared very little about the VRAD crews who would not directly be endangered.

When the contents of the briefing room had dwindled down to Colonel Pharr and the crews of the five VRADs under his command, the colonel became visibly relaxed and informal. "General Briten is putting a lot at stake on us," he began. "He was one of the designers of the VRAD weapon system, and if we do not produce, the whole thing may be scrapped. Sol Def Com is getting a lot of pressure from the Market about how much a VRAD costs. They are looking for any excuse to discontinue the unit."

"That would make several jocks I know happy," Major Duncan commented dryly.

"They resent the fact that when they fly, they could be killed whereas when your ship flies, you are safe and sound in the armored belly of this beast," Pharr answered slapping the bulkhead of the carrier. "If you prove yourselves to them, you would be surprised how their attitudes would change. The bomber theory hasn't been tried in over a hundred years. It will take some convincing for them to accept it again. I know, I was there when the general sold the idea to the Command Staff."

Blake was studying the displayed chart. "They are going to see us coming long before we get withing striking range," he said.

"We have and estimate as to the range of their new cannon, Pharr assured him. "And the Mark 7 decoy drone will have an EM signature the size of a destroyer. That will undoubtedly be the one they attack. If our calculations are correct, before they can recharge their capacitors, you will be close enough to launch a few long range missiles and hopefully disable the damn thing."

"And if your calculations are wrong?" one of the Bandit's crew asked.

"You will know about it before anyone else," Pharr replied. "The loss of your ship will not be charged to you for erroneous intelligence."

Pharr illuminated a spot on the chart roughly halfway between Jupiter and the Trojan asteroid field. The command shuttle will park here. It is beyond the range of their fighters, but close enough to establish a QSO relay. The time lag will be almost undetectable, but that is the price we pay for having you operate so far away. In addition, the Dixie can stay on station with the command shuttle and be run via secure EM telemetry. We will use her as a shuttle escort."

Pharr glanced at the Dixie's crew. "I am sorry, but your bad oscillator simply won't allow you to get that far away from your command post. When the carrier catches up with the shuttle, you can join with the fighters. I assure you you will see all the combat you can stand."

"At least you'll have a ship to fight with then," the Storm's gunner sounded. "We probably will be nothing but rubble by then."

Pharr ignored the comment and proceeded with his plan. "You four will split up in pairs, he told the others. I want the Wraith and the Wildcard to make the main attack on the station. The Storm and the Bandit can draw their fighters out and if possible attack their carrier. Remember, you have certain advantages over the fighters. You have better weapons, you are faster in the long run, and because there are no passengers, you can turn sharper."

"But there are seventy five of them and only four of us," the same crewman pointed out. "That won't be easy to overcome."

"Try not to get destroyed," Pharr suggested. "Inflict as much damage to them as you can, and be sure to take out the primary and secondary targets, but don't try to win the war by yourselves. Let the dog fighting be done by jocks. That is what they get paid for."

Pharr left it at that and departed leaving the five VRAD crews in total silence. Major Duncan didn't waste time. He stood and addressed his squadron. "Our VRADS haven't seen much action," he reminded them. "The whole VRAD concept is unproven," he added. "So we have a chance to really make something happen. If we fail, the jocks will dominate space warfare for decades to come, but if we can show just how effective a heavy attack ship can be, we may very well revolutionize conventional strategy."

The major stepped behind the podium and keyed the display screen. An image of a small space craft resembling a three pronged pitchfork was displayed. "This is the most advanced Syndicate fighter craft," the major reported. "Since this station of theirs is so secret, and the carrier is brand new, we are making an educated guess that they are manning it with their latest and best weaponry."

He keyed the screen again and the image shifted to show various views of the craft. "This is their new Scorpion 7 fighter. It has an acceleration almost three times that of the Sonica class VRAD and boasts two four megawatt pulse lasers and two hard points that may very well support missile launchers. What kind of missiles they may be, we still do not know. We are only guessing at some of these statistics."

Duncan let the display continue to run but stepped away from the podium. "I can tell you a few things that we can assume. They will be able to change velocities faster than we do, our ships are just too heavy and have a lot of inertia. However, we can make harder turns and pull more gees. No matter how their ships are made, they can't exceed the limits of the pilot within. Keep that in mind."

"We can outgun them singly, and we can stand up to them on a ratio of about five to one. We have shielding, they do not. We have a steerable turret, they don't, so they will have to line up on us for cannon shots. They could try missiles, but our ECM systems are the best in the Market. Don't let them gang up on you and you will be okay."

"What about the battle craft?" Captain Jean Freeman, the blond haired, blue eyed the commander of Dixie asked.

"Stay away from them?" Longshot answered.

Freeman, whose call sign was Shiloh, gave Longshot an icy stare. "Not funny Lochlear," she scolded. "If those things get close enough to the command shuttle, you will lose your relay link to your drone and that will be the end of the Wildcard, the VRAD squadron, and only the jocks will be between them and the Andromeda."

She turned back to Duncan. "Well Spectre?" The major shuffled his foot. "There isn't much we can do," he said. "Our best chance of success is to split our forces. Wraith and Wildcard will attack the base, while Storm and Bandit harass the battl fleet."

He addressed the crews of the latter ships. "Don't get too close to them," he warned. "Stay far enough from them that your ECM can defeat their tracking systems. If you get too close, your counter measuers will be useless."

"Your best weapon will be the KW4 Sledgehammer," Thunder, the Storm's weapons officer advised. The oriental man was on the original testing staff under General Briton and knew the capabilities of the VRAD weapons systems better than anyone else. "The battle craft have shield generators too powerful for our particle cannons to do much more than scratch the hull and bounce the enemy's crew around some. But the KW4 slugs won't be affected by electromagnetic shielding. If you can aim for their field generators you could knock one out, then you will make a vulnerable spot to use your cannons on."

"Just two of us against an armada of battle craft?" Julio Lopez ,the Storm's EW officer asked exasperated. "It won't be two the whole time, Lightning," Duncan answered. "Wraith and Wildcard should be able to punch through the fighters and deliver a hard enough blow to their main station to at least prevent it from being involved in the main battle or launching more of those meteors at the Market."

"Once we do that we double back and help with the battle fleet?" Blackjack guessed.

"Right, Blake," Spector agreed. “Between the four of us we should be able to soften them enough for our own fighters to dish out some punishment when they get in striking range."

"Hopefully by that time, the Whirlpool's battle group will join in and help out." Shiloh guessed.

"That is the plan," Duncan confirmed. "Any more questions?"

"New fighters, new carrier, new space station," Lady Luck noted. "Are there any new bugs as well?" Poltergeist, the Wraith's EW officer answered. "We have no intelligence on anything new," she said, "but just in case, we are removing all restrictions on the ECM systems. If all EWOs will meet me in the ready room one hour before launch, we will go over the variables on the data link and download electronic ammo from the Andromeda's bionet mainframe."

"Anything else?" Spectre asked. No one could think of anything else. "Okay then," he said. "I want to see you all in the ready room by launch minus ten minutes with all pre flights accomplished and in VR neurals. Dismissed."

The assembled VR warriors filed out and into the corridor. There they split up and headed for various locations. Ben tugged Shamus' sleeve. "You want to play a round of handball?"

Shamus shook his head. "Not this time," he decided. "I think I want to get plenty of sleep. I get the feeling that we are going to be putting some long hours in over the next few days." He turned and headed for the travel tube.

Chapter 5 Part 4

2009-04-24T18:25:00.000-07:00

The ready lounge of the Andromeda was a most unusual room. It was the recreational hangout of the large carrier's fighter pilots. The fraternal ism of the fighter pilots was well known and very few non-jocks dared intrude upon this sacred ground.

Of those very few, were the VRAD crews. Though viewed with distrust and disdain by the jocks, the VRAD crews, or "tights" as they were called in reference to their sensory suits, were tolerated by the jocks because they shared a common tradition. In keeping with tradition, the fighter and drone crews maintained the order of rank as defined by the historic air forces and air corps of the early fliers. The rest of the carrier's crew maintained their traditions by conforming to the naval order of rank.

Even though they were tolerated in the ready lounge, most drone crews preferred to keep together in their apartments. On occasion, though when a drone crewman needed to get away from the rest of his crew he would make his way to the ready lounge and intrude upon the company of the jocks. Such was the case when Captain Blake "Blackjack" McCoy entered the lounge. The room was fairly large since fifty fighters were stationed on the Andromeda. The antique paraphernalia decorating the walls were artifacts of flying craft dating as far back as World War I.

"Well if it isn't my favorite tight," a huffy voice said from the bar at one side of the room.
Blackjack grinned as he recognized the short man sitting on the barstool. He weaved his way across the floor dodging furniture to the bar and pulled up a seat of his own. "Well, Dan, I see that you are enguaging in your favorite past time. How long have you been drinking?"

"About two hours," Dan "Roundhouse" Porter replied. "I was scheduled to take Mamba Squadron out for maneuvers this morning, but we were canceled."

"Yeah," Blackjack concurred. "We were making attack runs on Callisto when our mission was scrubbed."

"Yeah, but for you guys its just a matter of turning the thing off. Fighters have to be launched with the pilots inside. That means we have to schedule ourselves to be available when we fly. You can always put your ship on autopilot and step out of the cockpit to take care of business."

It was a common point of needling, Blackjack knew. The fighter pilots were always bringing up just how much the VRADs were babied by the fleet. Usually with no response. VRAD crews were notoriously well controlled and passive. "So you keep telling me," Blackjack muttered. "Do you have any idea what is going on?"

Roundhouse refilled his mug. "Nope, and I hope it doesn’t take too long to find out. I don't feel like standing around all day. I had my heart set on whipping the Bushmasters today in some space superiority exercises."

The 43rd Bushmasters, the 27th Mambas' sister squadron was the other fighter detachment on the Andromeda. A friendly rivalry was always in play between the two units. Of course when the 3rd Ghost squadron, the VRAD unit was considered, both of the fighter squadrons would join forces in an uneasy truce to make the drone crews lives as miserable as possible.

"Why are you here?" Roundhouse asked. "You guys have your private little clubs."

"That is true," Blackjack replied, "but when you live with the same three people all the time, you tend to try to get away from them on occasion. Besides," he goaded defensively, "you're welcome to drop by if you want. We aren't exclusive."

"You had best not be," Roundhouse pointed out. "We are the ones covering your precious butts. Fighters have always played babysitter to the attack penetrators since the old bombers of the early wars."

"You guys sure have a perverted view of history," Blackjack commented.

Roundhouse did not feel like argueing much more and decided to change the subject. "Speaking of history, did you attend the lecture on the sexual revolution?"

"No, I was in a pre flight meeting all morning."

"It was very strange," Roundhouse recalled. "It was about the period between the late 1960 and early 2015. Did you know that there was actually a rising movement of homosexuality?"

"Of what?"

Men having sex with other men and women having sex with other women," Roundhouse answered. It was evident that he himself hardly believed it.

"Are you pulling my leg?" Blackjack asked suspiciously.

"I kid you not," the fighter pilot assured him. "That was a confused era. Conservatism was waning and liberalism was on the increase and sexual freedom had deteriorated the morals of people to the point that it was actually said to be natural and acceptable."

"That is insane."

"To us, yes," Roundhouse agreed. "But back then tolerance at all cost was the watchword and it almost brought the world to a dismal fall. On the other hand reaching an all time low like that probably played greatly in the formation of the Market."

"What happened to those people who did the sexual thing?" Blackjack was genuinely interested. He was going to make an effort to attend the next lecture.

"Well according to Master Galen, the ship's historian, in 2015, the Common Sense movement began. They stated that no matter how you dressed the action up, no matter what pretty names you called it, and no matter how nice the people who practiced it were, the act of homosexuality was biologically unnatural and therefore the people were suffering from a mental disorder. Of course that was met with severe resistance and the homosexuals accused the Common Sense movement of intolerance and discrimination, but the truth was that morally, scientifically and logically, homosexuality was wrong. Once that concept began to sink in, the sexual revolution began to falter and the political support for it waned."

"Political support?"

"Yes. Back then the governments were run by periodically elected and re-elected officials. Those officials were granted great amounts of influence and were therefore influenced by various causes. The causes that made the most noise got the political support."

"How ridiculous. Such a government is subject to corruption," Blackjack pointed out. He was becoming more interested by the minute. His own education had been science academics and not social academics, so most of his knowledge of history was very broad and generally confined to who discovered or invented what and when they did it.

"You are right, but the governments back then were mostly modeled after the first successful democracy, The United States. That government was designed by men two hundred years earlier and they could not have foreseen how their ideals would be corrupted."

Blackjack interrupted defensively. "But that government was the model for the Market's government."

"With a few changes." Roundhouse reminded him. "Our elections only occur when a former official dies. Any one can be elected, but once elected, the officials forfeit all their belongings and become property of the Market. They are also disconnected from any family that they may have. They are totally isolated from society so that they may not be influenced by material offerings. They must always act in the best interest of the Market, and can not be lobbied for support. Service as an elected official is a lifetime commitment and few people are willing to make the sacrifices to volunteer for office."

"That I know," Blackjack admitted. The basic workings of the Market's oligarchical government was mandatory to each citizen.

"It was a hard change to make, and the Population Liability Command was a terrible thing to enforce upon the people, but it was a necessity. The PLC's method of thinning the population was brutal, but it did wipe out almost all crime. Everyone knew that they were going to get audited each year, so they worked hard and honestly to make sure they were passed over for execution. As a result, there was plenty for all and room for everyone who was willing to work. The only excuse for failure was yourself, and you could rise as high as you were willing to work for."

"I am familiar with the Over Population Revolution," Blackjack told him. He wanted to hear more about the idiocy of homosexuality. "I just have a hard time believing that men wanted to have sex with other men."

"Master Galen told us that the whole problem arose from the rationalization of the disorder. He called it the anagenderic phenomenon. See the feeling at the time was that basic human rights covered the freedom to put virtually anything on public display. That meant sex as well. In that time sex was used as a draw and means of entertainment. It was glorified and exploited."

"In many ways it still is," Blackjack pointed out.

"That is true, but effective birth control was still in its infancy and the youth of that time were running rampant. Their parents forbade it and the moral majority frowned upon it so it was kept in private. That caused the initial outbreak of homosexuality. Young males and females were bombarded by glorified sex and were anxious to try it out. The moral majority, however resisted the freedom of sexual expression and unconsciously kept them segregated from each other until they were of legal age. Instead of waiting, as they were being asked, the males and females turned to themselves for sexual experimentation."

"That is weird. You say that the over exertion of morals of that time caused homosexuality?"

"Not at all, the glorification of sex caused the youth of that time to become sexually active much too early. The misalignment of the age of physical maturity with emotional maturity is what caused males to seek out other males and females to seek out other females. After a few years, the wrongness had been numbed to the point that they accepted it and they were in sufficient numbers to press their acceptance on the law makers of that time."

Blackjack finished the synthetic citric juice he had been drinking. "Roundhouse, that is the craziest thing I have ever heard."

"History is crazy," Roundhouse agreed. "You should try to catch Master Galen's lectures more often. Two weeks ago he told us about a man who turned an entire race of people against another race by blaming all problems on them. He was the key personality in the second of the great wars."

Blackjack recalled hearing about that one. "That was the Nazi leader wasn't it?"

"Right. Try to sit in on some of the lectures. They don't cost anything except time."

Blackjack did not get a chance to reply. A loud pitch that both men recognized as the ship's bosun system sounded interrupting their discussion. "Attention all combat crews. There will be a mandatory briefing in the flight room in ten minutes. All appointments are canceled until further notice."

"What do you suppose that is all about," Roundhouse asked.

"I guess we'll find out in ten minutes," Blackjack answered as he stood. "I am going to round up my children and drag them to the meeting otherwise they will pull the fuse on their bosuns and claim they never heard it."

"That is the price you pay for being a tight," Roundhouse stated. "If you ever want to become a real man, you can join the rest of us jocks."

Blackjack smiled as he headed for the door. That line of teasing was common.

Chapter 5 Part 3

2009-04-24T16:31:00.000-07:00

He boarded a mass transit shuttle and rode until the conductor announced their arrival at Ft. Leonov. Nathan disembarked and proceeded as the admiral had instructed him. It was not long before a private tram arrived at the checkpoint and escorted him to a high security area. His palm print and retinal patters were read and verified before he was admitted into a large briefing room where he found Admiral Fisk and a handful of other high ranking officials gathered around a strategy board.

"Nathan," the admiral called to him. "Please come in." Fisk met him halfway across the room. "I would like some people to meet you." He presented a tall thin man whose face Nathan remembered as being named Stanton. "This is General Stanton of the Colonial Army's Rapid Deployment Advanced Regiment. We hope that we won't be needing his people in this operation, but you never know. If we can't destroy that blasted gizmo in the Trojans, we may have to land the army there to take it by force." Stanton acknowledged Nathan, but took little pleasure in it. It was apparent that he was still sore about being threatened with an audit.

Admiral Fisk moved on to another man. This man was characteristically short and stocky, a telltale trait of fighter pilots--tough and compact. "General Briten, here is in command of the Aerospace Forces. He is an old fighter jock, and was on the development team that laid the groundwork for the new VRADs."

"It is a pleasure," Nathan said as he shook the outstretched hand.

"The pleasure's mine," Briten replied. "It isn't often that you meet a real live MIRA operative," and he added with a wink: "especially one who can order a personal audit." It was obvious that Briten had overheard Nathan's challenge to Stanton.

With an equally amused smile, Nathan joked. "Not many people want to meet a MIRA operative with that kind of authority."

"No doubt," Briten laughed.

The Admiral ushered Nathan to another pair of men. "This is Captain Gerand, my aide, and Commodore Beasly of the Colonial Fleet's Aries Metro station." Both men exchanged cordial greetings. Nathan felt that everyone there with the exception of Stanton were people of good character and thoroughly professional.

"Gentlemen," Fisk began, "we are here to devise a plan of operation. Forty five minutes ago, we received a priority communique to deal with the problem that Mr. Thomas and MIRA revealed."

The Admiral touched a control on the large plotting table, and the surface illuminated with a holographic projection of that section of the solar system. "We have correlated our intelligence data and have produced the scenario like this."

He touched another control and an area of the display expanded to show a representation of the Trojan asteroids. "The Syndicate has taken up residence here in this part of the Trojans. They have an rather large solar collector in operation, a proton cannon of unprecedented power defending it and a heavy mass driver operating from the power it collects. They have an advanced station there that they managed to build in secret as well as a brand new ship which appears to be their third carrier. Its configuration is similar to that of the other two carrier ships. They have at least three battle cruisers and a dozen gunboats in the area as well. We can't get close enough to get any better recon data than that. They know we are looking and are taking steps to keep us from finding out too much." The admiral leaned back. "The mass driver has already wiped out a research station on Luna and the deep space tracking station here on Mars. It has to be taken out ASAP. Suggestions?"

"What is the Whirlpool's status?" The commodore asked.

"She is too far ahead in the Martian orbit to be effective. We would have to burn her reactors at full strength to accelerate her in the counter orbital direction. And if we did, it would be almost a week before she could be within her fighters' striking range and she would risk reactor damage."

"How about her battle group?" General Stanton asked. "They are smaller and quicker."

"They wouldn't stand a chance alone against one of the Syndicate's carriers and three battle cruisers," Captian Gerand objected. "Besides those ships are standing in for the destroyed tracking station and are intercepting any attacks that are detected."

"Any other battle groups in the area?" General Briten asked.

"Battle group? No," the captian answered. "But there is the Andromeda. Her battle group is standing down at Terra for leave and refit. The carrier itself is doing training maneuvers at the Jovian Training Facility. They are on the trailing side of Jupiter right now."
Anticipating the next question, the admiral interrupted. "At flank speed, she could be within striking distance of the leading Trojans within three days."

"That is a long time to wait," Nathan muttered.

"It is, Mr. Thomas," the commodore agreed. "However the Andromeda is outfitted with five VRADs as well as fifty fighters, unlike the Whirlpool which has a full contingent of seventy five fighters."

"The VRAD can extend a carrier's strike potential greatly if there is a refueling source available," General Briten offered.

"We do not have any tankers in the area," the captain explained.

"You won't need one," Briten answered. "Jupiter is practically all hydrogen. One of the original options we designed into the VRAD was the hydrogen ram scoops. From the looks of this map, we could launch a VRAD, and refuel it in the outer atmosphere of Jupiter about one third the way to the Trojans. Put the carrier in full thrust, let the VRADs go in do their work and on the way back, the carrier can meet them before they run out of fuel."

The admiral and the others studied silently for several long moments. "Does anyone have any objections to that?"

"The idea is sound," General Stanton interjected. "I don't think, however, that the Syndicate is going to let us fly in there with guns blazing. They have early warning too. As soon as they pick our ships coming in, they will put up a screen of fighters and gunboats. Can your four VRADs get through all that?"

"We have every reason to think that at least one will, and that is all that it takes," Briten responded."

The admiral drummed his fingers for a moment and then accepted the idea. "Okay," he decided, "we will go in with the Andromeda. I am going to take a chance and send the Whirlpool's battle group that way in support. They won't get there before the VRADs do, but they will be there in time to go in with the carrier if necessary." He began writing on a sheet of paper. "I am also putting Terra of notice that they will be unscreened for about a week while the Whirlpool's battle group is in action. That should not be too much trouble as the Sombrero battle group is patrolling in the Terran system."

Chapter 5 Part 2

2009-04-24T16:29:00.000-07:00

Nathan returned to the club and shared a lunch with Harriet. "You seem preoccupied," she observed.

"Actually," Nathan objected, "if anything I should be releived. A problem that has been on my mind has been passed on to someone else."

"I hope it was because you finished your assignment," Harriet offered.

Nathan nodded. "It was. I solved a mystery and referred it to the proper authorities."

"Does this mean that you will be leaving?"

"Not immediately," he answered. "The problem still exists and I will stick around until it is taken care of."

"So you will have more free time?" she asked coyly.

"You have something in mind?"

"We could always go roving."

Nathan had never been roving. Driving around the Martian landscape in a pressurized dune buggy was a popular sport, though. The lower gravity of Mars made the rides very exciting. "I would like that," he decided.

"I have the next two days off," she informed him. "Let's rent a rover and go wheeling."

Nathan relented. "Fine," he said. "I don't expect that my help will be mandatory tomorrow, but just in case I can't promise you anything."

"Fair enough," she agreed. They ate a little more in silence. "I don't suppose you can tell me what this is all about?" Nathan glanced at her hard. The look told her the answer. "Point taken," she conceded. "I won't pry any further."

"Most people would," Nathan commented.

"Remember that I wasn't always a dancer."

"Right," Nathan acknowledged. "Then you will understand if I can't stay much longer either. As I said, I won't be needed much tomorrow, but today I want to be there when the decisions are made."

"I will still be here," Harriet remarked. They finished their meal, and Nathan departed pausing only long enough to give his friend a quick kiss of affection.

Chapter 5 Part 1

2009-04-24T16:26:00.000-07:00

Chapter 5

Nathan and Cain were going over a set of intelligence reports when the news of the recon probe came in. "Sir," the administrative assistant chimed in. "Admiral Fisk is here."

Nathan and Cain glanced at each other. "Did you say he was on the line or that he was actually here," Cain asked the intercom.

"I am here, gentlemen, the admiral, an elderly but active man said as he barged into the room. "Circumstances have arisen that require my personal involvement."

"Come in, Fisk," Nathan offered. "Tell us what you have in mind."

The admiral removed a disc from his portfolio and passed it to Nathan. "Please display the recon report."

Nathan passed the disk to Cain who set about calling the requested file onto the terminal. At the same time the admiral began to brief them.

"Yesterday morning, per your request, I ordered the Andromeda to launch an unmanned probe past the Jovian system and into the leading Trojan asteroid field." The terminal screen flared and the display was that of the probe's course from the trailing edge of the Galilean moons around Jupiter and outward towards the asteroid field.

"The probe slept for most of the trip after its final boost and was unmolested. But at intercept minus two hours, as is standard procedure, it became active, oriented itself and ran a diagnostic of its capabilities. All systems checked out and for about ten minutes we got a good look at the asteroid field from a distance. Then the probe went dead." The admiral typed a few characters into the terminal. "This was the last thing it recorded as it was about to enter its surveillance mode."

On the screen, the probe was swinging about to bring the asteroids into view when a flash of light arched out from a large shiny asteroid. The steady amber beam swung closer and when it met the probe, the image disappeared.

"Our experts suspect that that was one of the Syndicate's new Petawatt Proton Cannons," the admiral informed his audience. "Whatever they have out there they don't want anyone getting close enough to get a good look at it."

"Is that all we have?" Cain asked.

"No," the admiral answered. He entered a few more commands and the scene played over again at a reduced speed. "Watch closely," he told them.

The scene swung about to include the asteroid field, just as it had done earlier. "Freeze," the admiral said as he tapped the keyboard's pause button. "Enhance grid twelve mark eighteen." The computer blew up the image. One of the asteroids looked just a little too regular.

"A Syndicate Star Carrier," Cain recognized the shape. The craft was long and blocky. with dozens of protrusions along its spine.

"Sharp eye," the admiral commented. "That she is. About three quarters the length of one of our own, but more heavily armed for combat. The Syndicate believes exclusively in fighter craft. They don't need extra space for VRADS."

"Wait a minute," Nathan interrupted. "We have intel reports that both of the Syndicate's carriers are elsewhere."

"It would appear that they now have three of them," The admiral pointed out. "Actually I am somewhat jealous. I wish I had been the one to come up with the idea of turning an out of the way asteroid field into a shipyard."

"Well that is all fine and dandy," Cain agreed. "So we found out that the Syndicate is in the leading Trojan field. That still doesn't explain the proton cannon or the meteors."
The admiral lifted a finger. "Enhance grid nine mark twelve."

Cain followed the request and the screen shifted. The large shiny asteroid came into focus and took on the shape of a massive parasol with the handle pointed towards the sun. Hundreds of artificial lights speckled the length of the structure. The open fabric of the parasol turned out to be an enormous solar collector.

"We estimate that that thing can generate up to two hundred gigawatts per hour of power," the admiral stated. "And if you enhance grid six mark fifteen, you will see the answer to your question."

Cain did so. The screen changed and they were greeted with an image of a large engine attached to the back side of an large rock. "A mass driver," Cain spat.

It was a mass driver. Not a tool of war at all, but a large and powerful engine used to move large chunks of rock about for industrial purposes.

"Rather inventive if you think about it," Nathan commented dryly. "But I have never seen one that large."

"We think that they use it to accelerate massive bodies on their target course, and then detach before reaching the main asteroid belts," the admiral offered.

Nathan studied the screen and thought long and hard. "All right," he stated at last. "I am convinced. We have identified the source of the threat. MIRA's part in this is done. Now it is up to the military." He addressed the admiral. "I will make my report within the hour. If I were you, I would expect orders to come down from the Commander in Chief of SDC not long afterward."

"You are probably right," Fisk agreed. "It will be better if we get a head start on the planning." The admiral gathered his materials. "Gentlemen if you would care to take part, I would value your advice."

"I think I will pass," Cain declined. "I have to get back to what I was doing before all this began."

"I was in Omaha before all this began," Nathan admitted. "So I can't go exactly pick up what I dropped. I guess I'll drop by later and lend a hand if possible."

"You are more than welcome, Nathan," the admiral assured him. "When you arrive at Ft. Leonov, dial this number at the guard shack." The admiral scribbled a number on the back of a sliver of paper. "It is a non-priority comm line to the command post. I will alert them that you will be coming in. They will give you directions." Nathan took the note and watched as the admiral left.

"How long have you two known each other?" Cain asked.

"A fair age," Nathan admitted. "The admiral was an instructor back when I went through flight school."

"I didn't know that you were in the military."

"Oh yes. A long time ago," Nathan reminisced. "I flew and Adder in the 88th Fighting Cobras."

"Adders were single seat fighters, weren't they?" Cain asked.

"That they were. They were good ones too until the VRADs and Sidewinders were developed. Now they are obsolete. Some are still in operation, mostly as reserve craft. And a few others that are still on active duty are scheduled to be replaced over the next year or so."

"Don't feel bad," Cain advised. "The Sidewinders are the most advanced fighters in the Market's arsenal, and the VRADs are still untried in full combat. Their concept is sound, but in reality, who knows?"

"They had better hold up," Nathan warned. "An awful lot has been banked on their development." He stood and left Cain Bostik with those thoughts. "I'll see you around, Cain," Nathan said as he left.

Chapter 4 Part 6

2009-04-24T16:14:00.001-07:00

Nathan burst into Cain Bostik's office unannounced. "I have an idea," he proclaimed. "I think I know what happened to the missing rocks."

"The what?" Cain asked puzzled.

"Remember the recon holos we took of the asteroid belt? We concluded that there was nothing large enough to have destroyed the lunar station that was missing from the holos. But there was some smaller debris that had disappeared."

"Yea, so?"

"So, I know what happened to it." Nathan insisted.

"Big deal," Cain sneered. "That is not what we are after."

"But what got rid of them is," Nathan challenged. "The meteor that took out the lunar facility, and the one that was blasted on its way to Terra, and probably the one that hit in the southern part of Mars did not originate in the asteroid belt, they originated from beyond it. It was when they passed through the belt that they swept the areas they moved through clean of small objects; like a bowling ball knocking pins out of the way or a rubber ball picking up trash on the ground."

Cain looked thoughtful. "That may indeed be true. So you think the meteor came from beyond the asteroid belt? But where?"

"Place a query with the central computer to project the original rock's course back through the asteroids," Nathan suggested.

Cain typed at his keyboard. The antique non vocal terminals were very popular in sensitive areas because the input was difficult to intercept with listening devices or cameras. The keyboards themselves had powered ROM to encode the keyed input and were tamper resistant.

When he finished he leaned back and angled the monitor screen so that it could be viewed by Nathan as well. "This will only take a minute," he promised. Almost as soon as he had spoken, the requested course flashed onto the screen. "This assumes that the meteor came from outside the solar system."

"Can you put the second rock's course up as well?" Nathan asked.

"Not a problem," Cain assured him and resumed his typing. Before long a second course was plotted as well.

"Look," Nathan pointed to a point where the two paths crossed. "This must be the point of origin. Can you elaborate on it?"

Cain entered more data, talking as he did so. "I am referencing the heliocentric longitude and elliptical declination to the computer. That point is on the Jovian orbit, but Jupiter is far beyond that location at this time of the year."

"Then what is?"

In response to his question, the computer screen displayed the answer. Cain and Nathan looked at each other. "The Trojans?" Cain asked.

"I remember them now, they are a collection of asteroids and large meteors that are in the same orbit as Jupiter only offset by sixty degrees from the planetary system both ahead and behind. They are in some kind of Lagrange point, perturbation, or something like that. It is a kind of gravitational anomaly."

"Do we have an accurate star chart of them?" Cain asked as he typed his query into the system.

"I don't know," Nathan admitted. "They were summarily prospected, but when nothing extraordinary was found, they were practically ignored. The asteroid belt is much closer and easier to mine."

The computer display presented the disappointing news. There were no charts available for the Trojan Asteroids. "Another testament to the need for accurate planetary atlases," Cain muttered.

"Well, we need to investigate it," Nathan declared. "What is available and can do the job the quickest?"

Cain keyed his terminal and addressed the monitor. "As I told you earlier, we have the Whirlpool and her battle group in this orbit, and the Andromeda is at the training range in the Jovian system."

Nathan tagged the comm terminal. After a brief pause it was answered. "This is Ares control SDC. Captain Norman speaking. Can I help you?"

"Captain, this is Officer Thomas of the MIRA at the Ares Metro Liaison Office. Could you please put me through to Admiral Fisk?"

The officer seemed nervous and hurriedly complied. "Yes sir, please hold."

After a few moments, the screen changed to view an elderly man in his mid sixties. Though in his decline, the eyes sparkled with the fierce light of a warrior. "This is admiral Fisk," he began. "Is that you, Nathan?"

"Good day admiral," Nathan greeted the man. They had worked together on other occasions and held a mutual respect for one another.

"It is good to see you again Nathan. What brings you so far from Terra? Would it have something to do with the meteor strike on the southern part of Mars and the one intercepted by the Raven?"

"Yes it does," Nathan confirmed. "At first we thought that these meteors were being launched into the inner system by the Syndicate from the asteroid belt."

"And now you think otherwise?"

"More or less," Nathan admitted. "We still think the Syndicate is responsible, but now we suspect that the meteors are being launched from this set of coordinates." Nathan forwarded the heliocentric longitude of the Trojans. "We need a recon probe of that area."

"Hmmm," the admiral sounded as he studied the coordinates. He briefly compared them with his charts. "The Whirlpool has moved too far away in the Martian orbit to do the job and her battle group is tied up with you as interceptors and tracking platforms. The Andromeda is in the right orbit but in the trail of Jupiter several days back."

"But the Andromeda could launch probe drone and sling shot it around Jupiter. The drone would be on location in just over a day." The Admiral smiled regretfully. "I hope that is acceptable because it is the best we can do. The Trojans are one sixth of the Jovian orbit away. That is quite a haul for a massive warship. A small robot probe is no problem though."

"Then it will have to do," Nathan relented. "Could you see to it, sir?"

"I will pass the order on, Nathan. Anything else?"

Nathan could think of nothing in particular. "Thank you," he finally said.

"Your welcome. SDC out."

"Now we wait again," Nathan muttered.

Chapter 4 Part 5

2009-04-24T16:12:00.001-07:00

Nathan escorted Harriet back to the club where she worked and they ordered the best on the menu. "How did you know I was with MIRA?" he asked.

"You have the disposition of a MIRA agent," she explained. "You are quiet, reserved, ask a lot of questions and watch everything. What else could you be?"

Nathan laughed. "I can't argue with logic like that. But what made you associate those characteristics with MIRA operatives?"

"I wasn't always a dancer," Harriet informed him. "I used to work for MIRA as well, as a manpower deployment director."

Nathan smiled broadly. That explained her quick mind and attitude. "Why did you leave?"

"I got tired of the same old routine, and had enough investments to fall back on if dancing went sour. It hasn't."

"Where were you assigned?"

"Twilight Station," she answered. "I got tired of the sun filling half the sky so I moved here."

"Didn't you miss your friends?"

"I don't make many friends. The only ones I do make know ahead of time that I may up an leave at a whim. You know a rolling stone gathers no moss."

Nathan grinned and nodded. "Yes I do understand how...." Nathan froze in mid sentence. What she had said struck a nerve in his mind and he fought to capture the connection.

"Nathan?" Harriet was getting worried after a minute of silence.

"Please, I just caught the tail end of a thought," Nathan asked for silence. Something he had seen earlier added to what she had said seemed important. The rolling stone, and the kids bowling kept whirring in his brain.

"Ah-ha!" Nathan exclaimed. he stood hurriedly and kissed Harriet on the cheek. "I have to go," he explained. "I just realized something important that can't wait. I'll call on you later."

Harriet sighed. "I'll be here," she said as he left the table.

Chapter 4 Part 4

2009-04-24T16:03:00.001-07:00

Nathan stood before a balcony that looked out over the tunneled street of the residential section of Ares Metro. Harriet walked up behind him and placed her soft hand on his forearm. "You didn't tell me that you were a MIRA agent," she said.

"I was not aware that that was a prerequisite," Nathan explained.

That remark failed to impress her. "So are you going to arrest me now?"

Nathan turned and looked closely into her eyes. "You did not ask for money," he reminded her. "That makes our activity a private contract. So long as one of us is sterile or a contraceptive is used, there are no laws broken."

"I thought unlicensed sex was illegal," Harriet stated.

"That law would be unenforceable," Nathan assured her. "No it isn't illegal, just discouraged outside of marriage. Part of a marriage license is the temporary sterilization to prevent free births. The population must never get out of control again. Couples can petition to have children if they want them. Rarely are the petitions refused. By law each adult is allowed one offspring. For married couples, that is two."

"And unlicensed births?"

"Are investigated vigorously," Nathan finished. "If it is determined that the sterilization failed, the couple is allowed to keep the child naturally."

"And if it did not fail?"

"The child is placed in the custody of the state and the parents are indicted."

"What of the other children."

"Placed with relatives if possible, fosters if necessary."

"Isn't that cruel to the children? What of their rights?"

Nathan looked away. "It is cruel, but human rights must take a back seat to the survival of the human race."

"One child could not threaten the human race," Harriet argued.

"One child could destroy the human race as easily as a super nova. If an exception is made in just one case, then the zero tolerance of infraction is nullified. In all fairness, others will want the same exception. Then eventually the whole solar system will be starved to the point of war on an interplanetary scale. What then? Just for the sake of a single child who was taken from his criminal parents because they were too greedy to be satisfied with two children, society would die."

"Don't you think that you are stretching it a little on that?"

Nathan sighed. "Look at the politics of the late twentieth and early twenty first century. Liberalism became so powerful that murderers, rapists, and arsonists were not put behind bars because their crimes were a result of their environment. They were deprived of the same privileges as everyone else, so they were pitied and released from prison. They almost destroyed civilization by turning honest citizens against each other. The rally cry of their champions was 'I am not being treated as well as my neighbor'."

"I still don't agree with you," Harriet said.

"Like a parent caring for a small child, it is not important that you agree with us, what is important is that the PLC and MIRA will make sure that you stay alive and well."

Harriet stood at his side silently for several long moments. Below in an alley some kids were playing ten pins. They rolled a large ball made of what appeared to be old rubber along the ground to knock over the pins. The old rubber was brittle and picked up dirt and bits of rubble as it rolled.

Nathan watched the scene for long moments. He wished silently that he could return to the simplicity of childhood. What Harriet had said had stung him. It always did. He truly understood what his father had meant about spankings hurting him more than they did Nathan.

Nathan himself had broken several families up and taken the children to live with relatives. The looks on the parents faces as they were dragged to prison spoke volumes. But the effect made its point. Over the last twenty years, only six infractions on that law had been recorded.

"Will we ever be able to return to free births?" Harriet asked sadly.

"Yes," Nathan assured her. "There are several planets in nearby solar systems that may be able to support life. When colonists settle there, they will be allowed to multiply as they see fit."

"When will that be?" Harriet asked.

"Hopefully no more that ten years from now." Nathan stated. "Plans for a fleet of ships large enough to carry all the necessary equipment is already in the planning. But once these people leave, they can never come back. It is just like the criminals sentenced to banishment at Charon Ward.

"That is good to know," Harriet decided.

Nathan leaned back in a stretch. "How about dinner?"

She smiled and tossed her hair. "Sounds good."

Chapter 4 Part 3

2009-04-24T16:01:00.000-07:00

Nathan sipped his drink as the dancers upon the stage performed. After leaving the MIRA office, he had decided to look Harriet up again. It would be good to talk to her. She was fairly intelligent and would make good company and a pleasant distraction.

Harriet was singing a song as part of her act. Nathan only half listened. There was something uncomfortably tugging at his mind. It had started when they had gotten word of the meteor impact on the southern tracking station. Something was out of place or simply did not add up.

The song finished and Nathan was jarred from his thoughts by the applause. He keyed in another tip for Harriet and returned to his drink. He had hoped that she would help him relax. After a few hours of diversion, he might be better able to concentrate.

"Well Nathan it is good to see you again. Have you come to seduce me?" Harriet sat across from Nathan.

"That is not my plan, though it is a nice thought," Nathan answered. He really did not have sex on his mind, but he did not want to be rude. "I just need someone to talk to."

Harriet laughed. "That's what they all say."

"Do they?" Nathan asked.

"Yes, they do. They never want to come right out and admit that they are here for sexual stimulation, but eventually that is what it leads to."

Nathan frowned. "You must get tired of that," he said.

"Not really," Harriet admitted. "There are two sexes for a reason. The ultimate goal of any relationship between two people of opposite sexes that is not strictly intellectual is sex." She took Nathan's glass from the table and sipped his drink. "Do you mind?" she asked afterward.

"No," he answered. "Would you like one of your own?"

"No I only wanted to wet my throat. Singing makes it dry."

"By all means," Nathan urged her, "go ahead. You were saying?" He wanted to hear what she had to say.

"About sex?" Harriet swallowed. "Well, a lot of women don't really like to admit it, but the old line of 'lets be friends,' is just so much gunk. If I wanted a friend, I would be better off getting another woman to hang out with. We would understand each other much better than a man and I would. It is the same way with men. With the exception of intellectual stimulation, men and women only get together for one reason: sex. Of course, the relationship may sour before it reaches its goal, but that is the ultimate goal, make no mistake."

Nathan leaned forward, intrigued. "What of siblings?"

"Oh that is entirely a separate issue," Harriet amended. "I was speaking of persons not related by blood."

Nathan chuckled silently. "Harriet you have a unique view of society."

"In my business, you can't afford some of the illusions that most people like to believe in." She smiled knowingly.

Nathan smiled back. "Would you accompany me to a play?"

"What did you have in mind?"

Nathan removed a flyer from his vest pocket. "Tonight is the opening night of King of Blood. It is the new play by Arthur Bass about the assassination of Matt Ronalds, the first Oriental American President."

"Isn't he the one who came to office because a militant group assassinated the white president while Ronalds was the vice president?" Harriet asked. It was a well known era in history.

"That's the one," Nathan agreed. "It happened way back in 2023. Ronalds was cleared of any connection with the crime, but it was too late. That instance was the beginning of the end of all racial tolerance in that country. It was their ultimate downfall. They had perverted their own governmental core with ultra liberalism so much that it was on the verge of collapse. If the Free Market hadn't been formed, the American nation would have regressed into a bloody civil war. And that country had a massive number of nuclear weaponry. It could have gotten ugly."

"I guess it was a good idea that the Market came about," Harriet commented.

"Things could have been much worse," Nathan agreed.

"They could also have been much better," she countered.

"That is also true," Nathan admitted.

"What do you say we skip the play and study a little more history, say of the late nineteen sixties," Harriet suggested slyly.

"Nineteen sixties?"

"You know, 'make love not war'?"

Chapter 4 Part 2

2009-04-24T15:57:00.000-07:00

Cain sat at the console in his office. Nathan paced the floor nervously. Both awaited word of the Raven's interception. "Walking around in circles is not going to speed things up," Cain advised. "We will get the word when it arrives."

Nathan paced on, almost defiantly. The monitor displayed the positions of both the asteroid and the Raven. "Something is wrong," he finally muttered. "This was too easy. We were on guard for this and this is exactly what we should not have seen."

"Maybe the Syndicate did not give us credit enough to realize that the incident on Luna was no natural phenomenon," Bostik suggested.

"That is very unlikely," Nathan countered. "How long have we been sparring with them. They are as devious as devious gets. It is almost as if they went through all this trouble to lure us into destroying that rock."

"What would they gain by having us destroy an asteroid?" Cain wondered.

Nathan stopped pacing and stood rigid. "Nothing unless . . ." he paused. "Unless they used the rock to distract us?"

At that moment, a tone sounded urgently on the com panel. Cain tapped the key and the monitor changed to present the face of a fair haired middle aged woman. "Mr. Bostik," she began. "There has been a meteor strike in the southern hemisphere."

Nathan and Cain looked at each other and already knew the answer to Bostik's question. "Was anyone hurt?"

"Sir, it totally destroyed the deep space early warning station."

Nathan cursed quietly. "The most advanced early warning system in the solar system and it gets bushwhacked by an asteroid."

"All tracking effort had been redirected to looking for inbounds to the inner planets. No one thought we would be a target. No one was watching our own back," Cain responded as he keyed off the monitor. "That is sloppy work."

"What are our losses?" Nathan asked forcing himself to calmness.

Cain sat dejectedly across from him. "We can still monitor planetary space," he answered. "Some of our military craft are capable of assuming the deep space monitoring load, but that will temporarily bind them to their present locations. The Asimov's battle group has a support frigate that is set up for that kind of thing. They are intended to be the flag command and control barges for large military operations."

"Well get a message to it and get them on the job. They are going to have to monitor everything in this area," Nathan ordered. "I will authorize you to commandeer the ship if necessary."

"You think the Council of Commerce will support your authority?"

Nathan scoffed. "If the Market Board of Directors think that one of these things is about to hit one of their regional capitals, they will back the devil himself." Cain understood. The regional capitals were the primary cities of the Free Market. Each was a home to one of the Board of Directors, of the governing body.

Nathan hit the intercom button and spoke to the administrative assistant out front. "Please get me Sol Defense Command Headquarters. They are going to be in a panic, but don't let them put you off. Get in touch with Admiral Fisk. Tell him that MIRA suggests he activate his command frigates and use them as deep space monitoring platforms."

Nathan looked back at Cain who was observing a map of the inner solar system. "Why would they take out the early warning station?"

"To blind us and open us for more attacks," Cain offered.

"How long until the other destroyer reaches the origin of the second meteor?" Nathan asked.

"About twelve hours," Cain answered. "They had to reduce the load on their drive for several hours or it would have gone critical."

"Tell them to push it to the edge," Nathan ordered. "We have to solve this puzzle. And now that we are partially blinded, we have to solve it even faster. If just one of those rocks gets through our sector undetected, we could lose something vital."

The intercom sounded again and Nathan spun it around to face him. He answered. "MIRA, Thomas here."

"Mr. Thomas, this is General Stanton of the SDC. Can I help you?"

"General," Nathan managed holding his temper in check. It was obvious that the general was none too pleased at the demands MIRA was making. "This is Nathan Thomas of the Population Liability Command, MIRA division. As you are no doubt aware by now the deep space tracking station on Mars has been destroyed in a similar manner to that of the Luna Beta Six outpost. I am advising you to order your command frigates into action as deep space tracking and early warning units."

"Nonsense," the general argued. "The redundant tracking station on Deimos can take care of those duties."

Nathan glanced at Cain with an unspoken question. Cain shook his head negatively. "Deimos does not have the range necessary to do that."

"General," Nathan responded, "my sources tell me that the redundant station on Deimos is insufficient to handle the full load by itself."

"Now, Mr. Thomas," the general countered. "I think you are overreacting. There is no need to activate those frigates."

"General I do not have time to argue." Nathan was beginning to get angry. "I am hereby exercising my authority as a MIRA level nine operative and make a formal request for you to comply."

"The MIRA does not scare me," the general barked back. "I told you that you were being overreactive. I see no reason to honor your request regardless of who you are."

Nathan's face went blank and unreadable. "General," he replied coldly. "It is obvious that you do not want me to have those frigates moved. For what reason, I cannot say. Perhaps you are making a personal use of them?"

The general's face went white.

"Perhaps I should request an audit of your personal record. I am sure that it is in good order, but you never know what might turn up. I do hope that you are not involved in something illegal. Charon is so crowded."

"Mister Thomas," the general stammered in a voice thick with honey. "I was not refusing to help you, just expressing my concern that you may be jumping the gun. Of course I will comply with your request."

"I was sure that you would," Nathan commented dryly. "I expect to see those frigates in orbit within the hour. MIRA out."

As the screen darkened, Cain could not help but chuckle. "Wow," he laughed. "You really shook him up. Could you really order up an audit of his records?"

Nathan smiled in return but did not answer.

Chapter 4 Part 1

2009-04-24T15:54:00.001-07:00

Chapter 4

Gary Noll studied the hurtling rock on his monitor. They were in range of the Raven's main weapons arrays and were debating the best method of destroying the asteroid.
"It is far to large for the main cannons to have any effect on it. They would just dig holes in the rock," the weapons ensign reported.

"Sir," Lt. Bree offered. "We have some small fission torpedoes. If we bore one into the surface then detonate it, it might shatter or at least split that thing into a smaller pieces.

"It is illegal to detonate nuclear weapons in peacetime," the ensign reminded them.

"The Terran Security Treaty does allow the use of fission and fusion devices to defend Terra from natural hazards," Bree countered.

"The idea has merit," Noll agreed. "Billy," he addressed the weapons officer, "load a fission torpedo and set it for one hundred meters of hard penetration. That should get it deep enough to crack that thing. If we can break it down a little more than it is, we can hammer at it with the main weapons array."

"We have some HERCULES in the dorsal launcher," Ensign Billy McCanty offered. The High Explosive Rocket Cluster Using Long-range Evasion Systems was a heavy missile that homed in on its target using a limited artificial intelligence. When it reached its target, it jettisoned dozens of short range rockets at that target and then attacked with its own considerable warhead. They were expensive, but deadly. The problem was that they were also bulky. No vessel smaller than a destroyer could carry them. Even the Raven had only one rack of ten.

"A perfect time to test one I should think," Noll beamed. "Let's see how this rock handles a HERCULES. If we can avoid the use of a fission weapon, we can avoid any possible criticism. If the missile fails, then we will follow it with one of Bree's fission torpedoes."

"Aye, sir," Bree responded and began maneuvering the Raven into a firing position, while McCanty selected his weapon activity and entered the targeting data.

"Missile number one has a hard lock," Billy reported.

Noll took a breath and slowly released it trying not to show his excitement. "Fire."

"Missile away," McCanty announced. His words were punctuated by a light shudder as the ship vibrated from the huge missile's backwash.

"Secondary launch in twenty seconds," Bree announced and commenced with a countdown.

Noll magnified the view in his monitor as he listened to the countdown. When Bree hit zero, the missile blossomed like a deadly flower as a multitude of smaller missiles emerged from the casing of the main booster and ignited their tiny engines. Within a few seconds, a series of many flashes could be seen on the surface of the asteroid.

"Preliminary indications coming in," McCanty announced. "Sensors are showing no significant effect. Conventional weapons are too small. We could blast at that thing for days without making any serious progress."

Noll sighed. "Okay stand by on the fission torpedo."

"Torpedo ready," McCanty replied.

"Fire," came the order.

"Torpedo away," Bree announced and began another countdown.

"Reactor at ninety percent," Ensign Wilhelm, the engineer, announced. "Radiation shield at full intensity."

Withina few moments the destroyer lurched slightly and then settled down. "Impact," Bree announced.

"Full scan," Noll ordered. "Lets see what happened."

The monitors recycled from the momentary overload of the fission explosion, and displayed an image of the asteroid broken down into hundreds of large chunks. "It shattered." Noll concluded happily.

"These fragments are still headed for Terra," Bree interrupted, but they are now small enough to pulverize with the ship's weapons array."

"Ease us into range," Noll ordered. "Alert all gun crews. Fire at will and blast those rocks until they are too small to survive passing through the atmosphere."

"Aye sir," Bree acknowledged.

Chapter 3 Part 6

2009-04-24T15:52:00.001-07:00

Thomas was awaken from his sleep by the buzzer on the comm unit. He rolled over and noted that it was only an hour before dawn. Keying the receiver, he rubbed his eyes to wake up. "Thomas," he answered.

"Nathan," Cain's face appeared on the monitor. "I don't know how you knew, but you called it right. We have a positive track on a rocky NEO inbound on a direct heading for Terra."

Nathan was instantly on his feet and reaching for his pants. "Target?"

"It is on a collision course with Madrid. The accuracy factor is now up to ninety-four percent."

"That figures," Nathan muttered. "Now I am sure of the Syndicate's involvement. Madrid is where all of the Market's financial records of the past are kept."

"We have already dispatched a destroyer to intercept it. Unless something goes wrong, we will be able to prevent the collision."

Nathan slipped his shirt on and reached for his shoes. "I am coming down," he said. "When is the interception?"

"We expect to be in interception envelope in six and a half hours. Seven hours to be in firing range," Cain advised.

"That will give me time to get something to eat," Nathan mused. "There is no real need to hurry."

"Take your time. It will still be out there," Cain laughed.

"Have you back tracked the object?" Nathan asked.

"Way ahead of you on that one," Cain answered. "We dispatched the second destroyer to the point of origin at flank speed. Maybe we can get a scan of the culprits before they can clear out of the area."

Nathan logged off and sat on the edge of his bed. Seven hours until intercept, he reminded himself. That left plenty of time to finish sleeping and get breakfast, so he set the PC to alarm at sunrise plus two hours and lay back on the bed. He had a little trouble getting back to sleep as the excitement of the interception danced in his mind, but years of discipline kicked in and he dismissed the thoughts on things he could do nothing about.

Chapter 3 Part 5

2009-04-24T15:50:00.002-07:00

Gary Noll watched his crew with satisfaction as they maneuvered their destroyer, the Raven, from position in the Asimov's battle group and engaged an intercept course. The twenty-five man crew of the quick and tough war craft had been longing for action for some time. It had been almost a year since their last war game exercise and their sister ship, Rhyme of the Mariner, had whipped them mercilessly. Since that time, the crew of the Raven had been anxious to prove themselves.

The Market's star fleet had commissioned twenty one destroyers in all but only eight had been built before support for the project had faltered. The destroyers had been designed to provide a rapid response of firepower for emergencies. The cruisers, were heavily armed, but cumbersome and slow. Their huge mass was difficult to accelerate. Likewise, the gigantic carriers, though possessing extremely quick interceptors and VRAD combat ships, were slow to move from one place to another. The VRADs had an impressive range to compensate, but they could not carry the raw firepower of a destroyer.

LieutenantCommander Noll noted that his orders were to intercept an unidentified object bound for the inner system and if he found it unpiloted, to destroy it. or alter its course sufficiently to insure that it would avoid any collisions.

The Destroyer, a one thousand metric ton needle shaped cylinder, heaved about and fired its primary engines. Colorless plasma leaped toward the Martian surface as the craft blasted its way out of orbit. Within moments, the planet's image began to shrink noticeably as the destroyer made use of the characteristic for which it was designed.

The ship's tracking system had a positive lock on their target, and the ranging data indicated that they would need to burn their reactor at ninety percent or better for seven hours to intercept the intruder. That was a serious thrust level, but still within their operating limits. The cruiser would not have been able to make the intercept. Its slow rate of acceleration would require over eleven hours of military rated thrust and that would deteriorate the reactor's magnetic bottle beyond safety limits

"Report on systems," Noll ordered.

"Engineering reports reactor at ninety-four percent and stable," one ensign responded.

Another ensign followed. "Sensors have a positive track and weapons show ready. All gunnery turrets are under manual control at this time."

"Communications are clean and steady," the third bridge crewman, an enlisted technician reported.

Lieutenant Bree, the first officer, completed the report. "Helm and navigation are clear and capable."

Noll fingered a monitor at his acceleration couch. It displayed a tactical plot of their course and the relevant isogravs that denoted levels of gravitational influence. The plot reminded him of a meteorological temperature display.

He mentally double checked the navigational system's computations and then deactivated the screen. He pushed the display terminal, suspended on a retractable arm anchored behind him, out of his way and surveyed his bridge.

To his left, his first officer was busy at the helm, while on the secondary deck directly below her, the weapons officer monitored the defensive and offensive systems in his usual way, snoozing. Noll almost remarked about that but decided against it. They had seven hours before those systems would be needed. There was no reason to have the ship's ten gunners and five defenders in battle mode the whole time.

To his right, the engineering officer, was worrying over the readouts of the thrust reactor. The other reactor, the one designated for ship power systems rarely had problems, but the main thrust reactor when pushed was a touchy thing.

Beneath the engineer, on the second deck, the communications crewman maintained a telemetry link with the Asimov and their group command.

Noll relaxed and gazed forward through the transparent nose of the Raven. It would be several hours before anything would happen, but when the time came, he wanted to make absolutely certain that they did their jobs to perfection.

"Okay people lets go over what we have to do."

Chapter 3 Part 4

2009-04-24T15:50:00.001-07:00

LieutenantCommander Brian D'Artanga stood on the command deck of the Issac Asimov. It was late in the morning shift and the primary crew would be arriving in a little over an hour to relieve his graveyard crew. Though a dull shift, the graveyard was still in command of the ship for one third of each day, and the shift leader, D'Artanga, was in command of the ship for those eight hours. It was his first command assignment.

Brian and the other five officers on the bridge usually spent the evening talking, reading, and pursuing various other diversions. The graveyard was not noted for excitement.

On this occasion, Brian was reading an article on ancient history of the First World War of Terra. No one was asleep; sleeping was an offense punishable by discharge and a back charge of wages. In spite of that, unless there was something important going on, light snoozing was generally overlooked.

On that particular night, the orders of the day were to monitor inbound traffic passing toward the Terra-Luna orbit or the orbit of Mercury. The previous shift had noted no activity, but the orders had been recorded and the ship's commander, Captain Kamisha, a highly decorated woman of Swahili decent, had gone to great pains to emphasize that this was not a routine training exercise. It may be for that reason that Brian was not totally surprised when the proximity alarm at the surveillance console broke the silence.

Brian quickly walked over to the console which was being manned by one of his junior officers. Ensign Wu Domato was focusing a long range sensor on the intruding unknown when Brian arrived.

The screen flickered and a tactical display showed a solid mass moving outward from the asteroid belt toward the inner system. A second screen gave a telescopic view of the object. It was a large rock slowly tumbling but moving at a fairly quick pace.

"The computer confirms that this is not a periodical NEO," Wu announced. If the rock had been a charted asteroid in an independent near-earth-orbit, it would have been in the navigational banks. If it was not in the banks, it could be a danger.

"Please plot a course projection," Brian ordered.

There was a brief moment as Wu and another officer, Lieutenant Dealingham, the navigator, conferred. Finally the lieutenant confirmed what Brian had feared.

"The object is on a course for the Terra-Luna system," she announced. "There is an eighty-six point four percent chance that the course will result in a collision with Terra on the European Continent."

Brian exercised his best command decision. He addressed the bridge. “Set an intercept course, and alert the battle group. Bring the reactors up to eighty percent and engage the drive as soon as possible." As the bridge crew became a flurry of activity, Brian turned to the com panel at his console. He entered a trio of digits and waited.

"Kamisha," the voice from the panel responded and a screen illuminated showing the face of the ships captain.

"Captain we have a situation."

Chapter 3 Part 3

2009-04-24T15:48:00.001-07:00

When Nathan arrived at the office, Mr. Bostik was waiting. "The news is not very good," he began as he led the way into his office. When Nathan entered, he shut the door and took a seat.

"The holos show almost no deviation in the asteroid configurations. That invalidates our idea about blasting a chunk of rock from one asteroid." Mr. Bostik displayed the holos of the asteroid field. "Each and every one of these asteroids have been compared to holos taken four years ago. They are all unchanged."

Nathan examined the charts and then inspected the holos. "Has there been any change at all?"

"Not in the larger asteroids," Bostik answered.

"What do you mean?"

"Well," Bostik explained, "there have been some minor changes. In particular, some of the smaller rock fragments are missing. There were several chunks of matter about the size of a meter of so that are missing."

"Could they have caused the damage to the lunar station?"

Bostik shook his head. "No the rock that hit the station was picked up just before impact and its velocity was recorded. The energy that was released in the collision required a rock of about fifteen metric tons. The total mass of all the small rocks that are missing is barely more than two."

"So we have another mystery. Not only where did the large meteor come from, but what happened to about two tons of rocks that have disappeared"

Bostik pointed out. "They may not be related."

"That is true, but then again, they may."

Bostik leaned back. "You are in command of this investigation, Nathan. What do you want to do next?"

"What resources do we have?"

"Of course there is Ares Metro at your disposal. The Phobos research facility will probably give assistance if we need them for anything. The Whirlpool is co-orbital on a routine training maneuver. Her battle group, two destroyers and a one cruiser, the Issac Asimov, are here in orbit. In addition, should you need it, the Sombrero and her battle group are resupplying at New St. Louis, and the Andromeda is stationed in the Jovian system. They are working the training range on Callisto."

"All in all," Bostik summarized, "you have some serious clout at your fingertips."

"But I have no idea what to do about it," Nathan sighed.

"May I make a suggestion?"

"Please."

"Send the Whirlpool out to the asteroid belts. They can launch recon ships to check nearby locations. It is possible that the calculated point of origin is a little off. I mean if the Syndicate was smart, they'd toss a rock towards Luna with a few mass drivers attached to curve the orbit a little. That would foul up any calculations."

"That is a fair idea," Nathan agreed, then had another thought. "Cain, how is that cruiser armed?"

Cain scratched his head. "The Asimov? It is a Jules Vern class cruiser. Primarily designed for orbital to ground attacks. I think it carries several batteries of magnetokinetic weaponry, some heavy particle cannons and a bank of terawatt lasers. Why?"

"I wanted something that could act as an interceptor in case another asteroid decides to visit the inner system," Nathan explained.

"That is a thought worth thinking," Cain agreed. "But the cruiser is probably two slow. The destroyers are much faster. We can use the cruiser as a command post and keep an eye out for another attack. If they pick one up, we can sick the destroyers on them."

"Sounds like a plan," Nathan smiled. "Can you see to it?"

"Just give the word."

"Thank you. Please proceed and let me know if there are any developments. I am going to get some sleep."

Chapter 3 Part 2

2009-04-24T15:46:00.001-07:00

Nathan seated himself and inserted his card into the table bank. A small screen popped up and displayed the menu. Nathan selected a small appetizer and settled back to await its delivery.

A young lady had stepped out on the stage and announced that the evening entertainment was about to commence. She greeted all of the patrons and then introduced the first act.

"For your viewing pleasure," she began. "Our very own Harriet Whodeenee." There was a sparse round of applause accompanied by an electronic rendition of some classical piece as a tall and slender woman stepped out from the curtain. She wore a black body suit with a tuxedo coat, spike heels, and top hat.

She was obviously a magician of some sorts as she immediately removed her hat and let her hair tumble about her shoulders. As it did a pair of doves flew from the hat. Then she tumbled the hat about and suddenly she held a cane as well. She shook the cane and a long black cloth fell towards the ground making a miniature curtain. The woman gripped the curtain solidly with both hands and slowly passed it over her body. When she removed the curtain, the tuxedo coat had vanished.

A young man stood and stepped over to the stage and inserted his personal account card into the computer and tipped the entertainer. Again she passed the curtain across her body and Nathan noted that at no time did either of her hands leave the cane. When the drapery cleared her body once again, her blouse had disappeared leaving her in a lacy bra and tight fitting briefs.

Several other men likewise lined up to tip the stripper. She could view the amount of each tip via a monitor on the stage. When a particularly large tip was made, she would smile and drape the curtain out to brush against the tipper's head and hands. Her trick was only partly finished though, for when she repeated the process again, she wore nothing more than a skimpy brassiere and G string.

The other guests were urging her to perform the trick again and Nathan felt himself also desiring to see the rest of this enchantresses charms. He too walked up to the stage and made as sizable tip. He noted that her eyes widened slightly as she viewed the monitor, but he did not tarry long enough for her to thank him. He quickly returned to his seat.

The audience were urging her on. The populace was not to be disappointed, for when she yet again passed the curtain before her figure, the last of her clothing was removed. There was a brief glimpse of her finely chiseled body before a puff of smoke obscured the entire stage and she disappeared.

Nathan was startled out of his stupor by a caterer who delivered his order. He thanked the server and included a tip with the payment for his food. While another stripper sang a seductive song, Nathan nibbled at the breaded shrimp he had requested.

The singer was a medium sized woman with a light mahogany hue of skin and long black hair. She wore a costume made of numerous multicolored veils and was prancing about in some primitive dance which displayed various body parts quite blatantly.

She continued to remove veil after veil revealing more and more flesh. Just as she was getting down to the last veil, Nathan sensed his table move. He glanced about and found himself gazing into a pair of bright blue eyes. It was the magician.

"I wanted to thank you for the tip you gave me," she offered.

"I enjoyed your act. It was very unusual." How else could it be described, he wondered silently. "How long have you been a stripper?"
"I am a dancer," she insisted.

"A rose by any other name?" he returned.

"Perhaps, but it is what we call ourselves," she nodded to the dancer on the stage who was totally nude.

"Do you have a name?" he pressed.

"I do," she answered. "Harriet. Weren't you listening to the intro?"

"That is your real name or your stage name?"

"What do you think?"

Nathan laughed lightly. "A stage name. What is your real name?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"So I know who I am talking to."

"Does it matter?"

"You are very cryptic," he observed. "Why won't you tell me your name?"

She smiled. "As a rule, we never reveal our real names to strangers. For all I know you might track me down by my name and be waiting for me when I walk through my front door."

"A good point," Nathan conceded. "Okay, Harriet it is."

"Thank you for seeing it my way. What is your name?"

"Nathan." he answered. "Is the rest of your life so secretive?"

"Not really," Harriet answered. "Very few people are aware of my occupation and those are friends."

"Do you have a boyfriend?" Nathan wondered.

"Not at the moment," Harriet replied. "Why, are you interested?"

"Unfortunately not," Nathan answered. But he quickly added: "You are indeed lovely enough to pursue, but I simply won't be on Mars long enough to get involved in a relationship."

"Then how about a nice innocent friendship?" Harriet offered. "It is so refreshing to meet someone who just wants companionship and not a trip to the altar."

Nathan smiled. "That sounds fine. What would you like to do?"

Harriet pointed at his snack. "You finish your food and we will go to the beach. For all I know you could still be an axe murderer, so we will have to stick to public places."

Nathan stuffed the last shrimp in his mouth and drained his drink. "I was not aware of any beaches on Mars," he said between chews. "I was not even aware that there was any free standing water."

"Well the beach is simply what we locals call this place. Actually it is a power station. You will have to see it to understand."

Harriet stood as Nathan finished his food. She led him out into the street and to the curb. A bus pulled up and the two boarded and found seats.

"What happened to your last boyfriend," Nathan asked.

"He couldn't deal with my profession," Harriet said. "He knew what I did before we started getting serious, and he promised that he would be able to deal with it, but in the end he simply gave me an ultimatum to choose between dancing or him."

"You chose dancing," Nathan concluded.

"Obviously. And yourself?"

"What?"
"What do you do?"

Nathan paused. "I work for the government. I am a military liaison." Not entirely accurate, but it fit this particular mission well enough to be the truth, he decided.

"Oh, are you here to audit me?" she asked laughingly.

Nathan wondered what she would do if he told her that he was indeed from MIRA. "No," he joined in on the joke. "The Market stopped doing that some time ago. Besides, I am not sure how they would view your worth. Just how much does a dancer like you earn?"

Harriet studied him closely for a moment and Nathan feared he might have asked an uncomfortable question. "Well," she finally relented, "on an average a good dancer can make fifty to seventy five thousand shares a solar year."

"That is not exactly easy street," Nathan admitted, "but it is a comfortable living. I would say that were you audited, you would be passed over as a positive contributor if for no other reason because you keep a significant amount of currency in circulation."

"That is true," she agreed. "What I make pays for my living quarters, food, and necessities with a little to spare."

The bus slowed and Harriet advised Nathan that they had arrived at their destination.
Exiting the bus, Nathan found himself in an industrial area of Ares Metro. The directory on the corner informed him that they were next to the twenty first solar station. One of the solar power plants that provided Mars with energy.

Harriet led Nathan to the station's maintenance entrance and spoke to a plant worker who sat at a control desk. He smiled as she approached and opened the door to let her through.

Nathan followed her into a long corridor at the end of which was a very bright opening. When they reached the exit, Nathan blinked his eyes in intrigue. Dozens of sunbathers were gathered around a pool of water. Far overhead, the large dome was made of multifaceted lenses which focused the sunlight to a large boiler which was supplied by the pool of water."

"The water is fairly cool when it comes back from the generator stations," Harriet explained. "It is pumped into that shallow reservoir and the boiler tower draws the water in as it needs to. There are twenty four of these stations around Mars. Only two or four of them are in direct sunlight at a time so they are the only ones in use at a time. But after they are shut down for the day, the ambient heat is very pleasant. You can still get plenty of sun in here." She began to disrobe. "A very pleasant side effect, wouldn't you agree?"

Nathan was about to join in when a chime sounded from his pocket. A quick glance affirmed his suspicion. He was being paged by the MIRA office.
"I am afraid that I must leave," he informed his companion. "I would like to have you show me some of the other sights of Mars though. How do I get in touch with you?"

"Well you could leave me your number, but I don't have anything to record it on. So you will just have to remember where I work. Come by again and we will see what happens. She smiled and Nathan promised himself that he would take her up on that offer.

Nathan left the power station still marveling at how the local inhabitants had taken a simple side effect of the station and turned it into what basically amounted to a miniature resort. He boarded a rapid transit shuttle and returned to the MIRA office.

Chapter 3 Part 1

2009-04-24T15:41:00.001-07:00

Chapter 3

The trip to Mars lasted almost three days. Nathan found that the repeated photon thrusts over the two days that they accelerated became a routine and by the end of the second day, he was able to sleep through the the entire thrust phase.

On the morning of the third day, the ship turned completely around and the fusion reactor was powered up to full strength. The sail was furled and the ship began to decelerate and a constant retro thrust. That went on for eighteen hours until the ship was in a matching orbit with Mars. It took another two hours on maneuvering thrusters to bring the Orion's Belt into the Martian orbit. Nathan was almost disappointed when the shuttle arrived to ferry him to Aries Metro.

Bidding his farewells, Nathan boarded the shuttle and waited out the hour long ride to the spaceport of the Market's primary defense installation. The ride itself was smooth as the thin Martian atmosphere provided very little turbulence. There was a dust storm on the surface, east of Olympus Mons, but the shuttle's altitude avoided any meteorological effects.

Eventually, the shuttle descended and rotated to landing position above the touch pad on the floor of Valles Marianis. Descending the sides of the canyon walls were rows upon rows of windows and technological superstructure as well as a gathering of massive pipes which Nathan knew were the city's water supply being pumped from the polar caps.

When they landed, Nathan, the only passenger, made his way to the transport bus. The bus, a mobile airlock, was little more than a large room with sufficient seating and storage for a cargo of passengers and their baggage.

Nathan seated himself without a word to the porter whose glare indicated that he thought very little of all the fuss being made for a single person. Once seated, though, the bus began its bumpy trek from the landing field to a hangar where Nathan disembarked into a pressurized garage. There he was met by a pair of guards who hastily passed him through the usual customs checks and admitted him into the city.

Nathan had only been to Aries Metro on two other occasions. Both times had been several years earlier and the city had changed a fair amount. The MIRA office was a fair distance from the spaceport, so he made his way to a transit tunnel.

All of the inhabited part of Mars was embedded in solid rock, and the transit tunnel was little more than an old fashioned subway. Whatever the name, it served its purpose to perfection.

Nathan used his card to purchase a token and boarded the train. He sat next to a young woman who was reading literature on giving birth. She noted his interest and explained nervously. "My husband and I are going to have a baby," she said. "We saved for six years to get a conception permit. Now we are well on our way." She patted her abdomen affectionately.

"How far along are you?" Nathan asked politely.

"Almost a month," she replied. "I wanted a son, but my husband insisted on a girl so that is what we are going to get."

"That is nice," Nathan agreed.

"I was reading in this brochure," she held the paper out to display, "that long ago, before the population controls went into law, people had no control over the sex of their babies."

Nathan nodded. "That is true."

"I still don't know how they control it now."

Nathan smiled. "Do you recall when your husband and you made your decision the physician made a prescription for you?"

"Yes," she answered. "We got that foam."

Nathan went on. "That foam was a special kind of spermicide. Since the gene that determines a baby's gender is in the sperm, that foam, which you inserted into your womb before sex, selectively destroyed all sperm carrying the male gene. There is a similar, but more complex foam for use when trying to have a boy."

"Why is it more complex?"

"Because it is easier to identify the male gene than it is to identify the female gene."

"Oh," she said at last.

The train slowed and Nathan noted that they were pulling in to his stop. "This is my stop," he said. "It was nice meeting you. Good luck with the baby."

Nathan exited the travel tunnel and turned to his left. In spite of all the years since his last visit, that particular part of the city had changed very little. The MIRA office was exactly where he remembered it. As soon as he entered, the secretary keyed her comm panel and spoke quietly into the pickup. Then she stood and greeted him quite eagerly.

"Mr. Thomas, it is such a pleasure to have you here again. I hope your flight was pleasant."

Nathan returned her smile. "It was," he remarked. "But I haven't had much in the way of good sleep for several days, so if you would be so kind as to arrange for some lodgings and let Mr Bostik know I have arrived, I would be grateful."

"That has already been done," Cain Bostik, the local director, interrupted as he emerged from a side door. "We have made every effort to see to your comfort. I hate to rush you and I know you would like to freshen up, but if possible, I would like to brief you before you depart."

Nathan sighed and dropped his traveling case on a vacant chair. "Of course," he replied. And followed Bostik to the director's office.

The office was modest and furnished only with a few pictures and a rubber plant. The desk was actually small and comprised mostly of a pivoting monitor and keyboard. Bostik turned the monitor so that Nathan could see. He touched a few keys and the screen flared to life.

"I do not know how much of the most recent activities you are up on," Bostik began, "so let me fill you in on the last week's developments." He leaned forward on his desk. "After the destruction of the lunar installation, we made and emergency survey of all Syndicate military vessels. At this point all of their war craft are accounted for and were in no position to be responsible for this action."

"We also requested and defense command sent a flight of scout craft assigned to the Whirlpool into the asteroid belt near the point where the meteor is thought to have originated. Their findings were disturbing. In cross referencing their sensor recordings with our charts and atlas, we have determined that there are no asteroids of appreciable mass missing."

"Then where did the thing come from," Nathan asked. "Is it possible that a mistake was made in backtracking its course?"

"The calculations have been done dozens of times," Bostik replied. "The course is exact. The meteor came from this area." He touched a key and the monitor displayed a section of the asteroid belt. "But, as I said, nothing is missing."

"Is it possible that a chunk of one of these asteroids was blasted out and put on a collision course with Luna?" Nathan offered.

"We are investigating that very idea. The recon probes took holos of all the asteroids in that area. Those holos are being compared to the recorded diagrams and checked for alterations."

"Are we dead certain that this was not a natural phenomenon?"

Bostik shook his head. "Not if the meteor originated from the asteroids. In order for a asteroid to break down and send a meteor spiraling into the inner system, there must be a perturbation. Nothing with significant mass has passed by in a long time."

"So we must wait and see what the holos turn up." Nathan crossed his legs and propped his chin with his hand.

Bostik ran a had across the stubble atop his nearly bald head. "The analysis of the holos will be complete before nightfall," he said at last. "I know you are tired, so if you want to go and relax, I will be sure you are paged the instant the results come in."

Nathan almost declined, but could see no reason to stay. That and his rumbling stomach convinced him to take the advice. He stood and left the office with only a glance back to see Bostik digging through a stack of papers.

Nathan left the office and strolled down the street a short distance. There were several shops and office complexes close by but they were overly common. Banks, media shops, restaurants, and several other normal businesses adorned the avenue.

A few electric vehicles passed by regularly and Nathan flagged one that identified itself as a taxi. The vehicle stopped and the door opened. Nathan entered and strapped himself in.

"Where to, sir?" the cabbie, a large woman who in his opinion, could barely fit inside the vehicle asked.

"The historical district if you please," Nathan replied. He knew from his previous visit of a saloon in that area.

The driver did not respond verbally. She simply put the car in drive and pulled out into the traffic.

Almost as if putting the vehicle in motion also put her mouth in motion, she began to prattle on about various subjects ranging from politics to the manners of the other drivers with whom she shared the road. Nathan quickly decided that he would have been better off walking, but simply stared at the passing establishments and tried to ignore his driver.
The cabbie did not seem to mind the fact that no one was conversing with her. She rolled right along asking questions and answereing them just as fast. Finally she pulled the automobile over and announced the fare. Nathan withdrew his card and scanned it across the terminal in the rear of the front seat. He then entered his authorization code and the fare was paid.

Nathan exited and was glad to be out of the car. As the taxi sped away, Nathan took in his surroundings. He was on a corner next to a historical marker indicating the spot where the first traces of underground ice had been discovered during the colonization period. Not far to his left was a museum whose prime exhibit was one of the two Viking Landers that had been retrieved two decades earlier by a planetology team.

Nathan remembered the museum and that gave him his bearings. He turned and followed the street until he arrived at his destination. The Ancient Mariner Saloon served, in Nathan's opinion, the best onion rings and grilled steak on the planet.

When he stepped inside, Nathan was pleased at how little things had changed. The saloon was made out like an old North American frontier eatery. There was a stage where a young lady was playing a synthesizer and singing an old melody while dozens of small tables littered the floor.

A hostess came forward and inquired as to Nathan's dining preference. He requested a single table and was directed near the back wall which suited him just fine.

Chapter 2 Part 3

2009-04-24T15:38:00.001-07:00

Nathan Thomas had spent six days enjoying what diversions the moon's largest city had to offer. He took in a baseball game and toured the historic Apollo landing sites.

He found that a small tourist shop near his lodgings was run by a pleasant but depressed middle aged man. Nathan dropped by daily for a cup of coffee before embarking on whatever diverting excursion he had planned for the day. The shop owner’s name was Walker, and his business was struggling.

“They tell me that it is nothing to worry about,” Mr. Walker told Nathan over a cup of Jovian Java, a flavor grown in the aquafarms of Europa. “My business is losing money and my net worth last year was negative. I am scared to death that every time my comport rings that it will be MIRA calling me in for an audit.”

“I have told you over and over, that they won’t,” Nathan assured the man. He had not revealed that he, himself was an MIRA agent. That would only have panicked the shop owner. “They do not audit people for having bad luck in business. As long as you have a viable working business, it doesn’t matter if you turn a profit or not.”

“But they are supposed to be checking us out. If we are not productive, we get eliminated.”

Nathan sighed. It was a common misconception and few people who did not have advanced educations in economical dynamics would understand, but he tried to explain anyway. “Even though your business doesn’t show a profit, it does help to drive the economy. It isn’t possible for everyone to make a profit. In order for one person to make a profit, someone has to take a loss. But because your business helps to drive the economy, you are granted synergistic credit. That usually offsets your loss. So long as your business does not completely fall apart, you will be okay.”

Mr. Walker shook his head doubtfully. “I hope you’re right.”

“Don’t worry about it. Even if you do lose your business, MIRA will give you a year to present a plan for starting a new business, enrolling in a school to further your education or otherwise gain employment. Their charter requires that for independent businesses. I don’t think you should worry yourself about it.”

The conversation was similar each morning, and Although Nathan found it entertaining at first, it became somewhat irritating in the latter days of his stay on Luna. When his flight finally left for Twilight Station, he had been eager to leave.

The trip to Mercury's Twilight station was much more diverting. The large craft that ran between planets came equipped with hibernation sleepers which kept a human in deep sleep for several weeks at a time before reawakening them. Five weeks in hibernation was the limit that the human body could endure without physiological deterioration occurring. After five weeks, the passenger would be awakened to restaurant, gymnasiums, casinos, arcades and other forms of entertainment for another week then they would return to the deep sleep. In this manner, a ship could maintain six berths of passengers each alternating wake shifts.

Nathan arrived at Twilight Station early one Tuesday morning. Since it was such a short trip from Luna to Mercury, no hibernation had been needed and the voyage had lasted only four days. So he had nothing to do but be entertained by the vessel's many diversions.

Almost all civilian and industrial interplanetary travel was done by laser propelled sail ships. The Radial Liners departed from Mercury on rendezvous courses to the outer and inner planets on regular intervals. Because of the planet's short orbital period, there was rarely more than a maximum of ninety standard days wait for any departure.

To book passage on a liner one simply had to wait until Mercury was in a launch window for a sail ship to be propelled by a ring of large solar powered lasers in orbit around the sun. When the ships launched, they would unfurl their sails and the lasers would push them outward at a constant acceleration in an orbit that would fly them past the planet. Then the sail would be furled, everyone would vacate the craft and the ship would continue on its unpowered phase of the orbit through aphelion on computer guidance.

Then when it returned to the inner solar system, it would unfurl its sail again and use the solar energy collected to operate thrusters that would alter its orbit sufficiently to pass by a planet to pick up a crew and passengers for the inbound trip.

His chartered ship, the Orion's Belt, was waiting for him and he reported immediately. The captain, Brian Delora, suggested he take a few hours to refresh himself before they departed as the ship would require a certain amount of preparation.

Nathan wandered about the spaceport for the three hours it took for the reactor fuel to be loaded on the ship. He passed the time by sitting in the observation lounge and watched the huge screen dimmed image of the sun hovering in the sky. Nathan wished that he could take some time to indulge in some of the various diversions of Twilight Station.

Because of some of the long waits between flights, Twilight Station had become something of a resort for the entertainment of passengers. There were casinos, camping trips to the dark side, tours to the bright side and various low gravity diversions as well.

Nathan was sipping on a cola while watching a game of Dred when his wrist pager buzzed indicating that his ship was boarding. He reluctantly left the game and made his way back to the ship. He would like to have watched the rest of the game as Dred was an ever changing and fantastically exciting game. It was an evolution from the conventional game of poker where a fifth suit of fifteen cards was added to the deck. Each of the cards of that suit somehow altered the play.

When Nathan reached the Orion's Belt, he was ushered aboard and the captain escorted him to the bridge of the craft. The ship was a roughly cylindrical with a sphere in the rear where the reactor and main power plant were located. The bridge was a transparent blister near the front of the cylinder.

Nathan stood next to the stairwell that lead up from the body of the ship into the bubble like bridge. Three consoles faced the nose of the craft. Three crewmen occupied the consoles while the captain, a short stocky bald man with black eyes and beard stood near the edge of the large transparent canopy.

"All pre-launch checks are complete with no deviations," a tall thin man of African ancestory announced from his console.

"Thank you, Mr. Mansita. Stand by to launch." The captain addressed a second crewman. "Contact Twilight Station and obtain clearance."

While the crew carried out their duties, the captain entertained his passenger. "Welcome aboard. Mr. Thomas."

"Thank you, captain," Nathan replied.

The captian eyed Nathan closely. "Once we get underway, I would be honored if you would dine with me."

Nathan was not fooled. For a ship to be dispatched for the sole purpose of a single passenger was rare indeed. The captain was eaten up with curiosity. The invitation was not as much to eat as to sift Nathan for information.

"Captian I would be honored to share a meal with you." There was no reason to not let the captian have his chance at him.

"Sir," the tall crewman, obviously the first officer, interrupted. "We have priority clearance and all systems are green status."

The captain resumed his command. "Clear all moorings."

After a moment another crewman responded. "All moorings retracted. We are free and at station keeping thrusters."

"Execute Twilight Station Departure Profile number four."

The first officer repeated the command and the trio began to work. There was a slight shudder in the ship's deck and Nathan instinctively grabbed the zero gee railing even though the shoes he wore were more than capable of holding him in place against the minute acceleration.

Outside the ship, the landscape of Mercury began to drop away as Orion's Belt lifted skyward.

"Shield up," the captain ordered. A crewman obeyed and the rear part of the command dome went opaque. The reason became apparent as the ship rose and the fiery disk of the sun appeared above the horizon. Had the dome been completely clear, they would have been both blinded and cooked within seconds.

"Departure complete," the first officer announced.

The captain mused at the scene of the sun on his monitor for a long moment. "Mr. Mansita, set course for Mars and deploy the sail. We should be catching a photon front in about ten minutes. Bring the reactor up to twenty five percent and standby to cut in the fusion drive. When we are ten minutes from the photon thrust point, contact me. I will be in the lounge with our guest."

The captain entertained his passenger with a quick meal. As they ate, he came quickly to the point. "There are very few independent drive ships and we are rarely used for single passengers," he started. "This had better be important. I had a chartered flight of scientists and mineral developers scheduled to rendezvous with a rogue asteroid day after tomorrow. This ship was appropriated by MIRA for you. And you can bet MIRA isn't paying what those developers were."

"You are the captain of the Orion's Belt," Nathan pointed out, "you had the right to refuse to operate."

"I casually mentioned that," Delora admitted. "The agent that contacted me casually mentioned in reply that I was due an audit by the Population Liability Command."

Nathan could not help but chuckle. "They are still using that old gag?"

"Laugh if you want to," Delora scowled, "but some of the stories I have heard of the PLC are pretty scary."

"Let me assure you..."

Nathan was cut of as the bonus's tone sounded over the intercom. "Bridge to lounge: Photon thrust in ten minutes."

The captain touched a switch on the comm panel and acknowledged the notice. "Mr. Thomas, most space craft have internal control rooms and keep the observation decks shielded. Have you ever seen a photon thrust?"

The bridge crew were all seated at their respective posts when Nathan followed Captain Delora into the domed control room. To the rear of the ship off the port stern the receding shape of Mercury could clearly bee seen as a bright crescent in the dark. The planet was beautiful even though it was little more than a lump of heavy rock and metal.

But the true splendor hovered out to the front of the ship to the port and starboard of the bow. Like giant silver butterfly wings, the solar sail, a paper thin foil erected on slight metal tubes, caught the solar wind and propelled the Orion's Belt forward at a gentle, but steady acceleration.

"The solar wind doesn't have much substance," the captain explained, but what little mass is there is moving at close to the speed of light."

"Two minutes until we commence the first photon thrust," the first officer advised.

"Notify the crew," the captain ordered and then motioned for Nathan to follow him to a set of acceleration couches. The captain seated himself and affixed a restraint. Nathan followed suit. He had not had many chances to travel out of hypersleep and this was the first time he had been invited onto the bridge of any ship.

The first officer began a one minute countdown while the captain checked a few readouts from a monitor by his reclined seat.

"Photon thrust commencing in five seconds," the first officer concluded, "polarizers on line."

Suddenly the entire ship was bathed in a deep blue light and the sails flared brilliantly outside the ship. Equally as suddenly the ship lurched forward and Nathan was shoved hard back into his couch.

For two full hours, the ship remained under the heavy acceleration. Then without warning the blue glow disappeared and the acceleration dropped to a level barely detectable.
"Now that was something," Nathan made no attempt to hide his awe. "I have always been asleep through those things."

"We are scheduled for many more," the captain informed him. "They are rough on the body, but a necessary evil."

The three hundred and sixty solar powered lasers in orbit around the sun could push a solar sail with a highly concentrated burst of light. It was much more efficient than the solar wind, but because of the orbital periods of the lasers, each one could be aligned to a spacecraft for only a short time. It would be a few hours before the next laser was aligned to push them faster.

"We will accelerate like this for some time until we get to the roll over point. Then we will furl the sail and switch on the fusion drive and decelerate. We only have sufficient fuel to decelerate for about one day and that will be constant thrust."

Nathan pursed his lips thoughtfully. "The Radial Liners drop their passengers off on fly-bys. Wouldn't it have been quicker for me to take one of those? They accelerate longer and would have gotten me to Mars faster."

"They do accelerate longer," the captain admitted, "but because they are in low energy orbits, they must launch so that they make fly-bys of their destination. The next ship destined for Mars won't be leaving until next week. We, on the other hand, can leave whenever we want because we have a reactor and do not have to keep to an orbit."

"You said that you only carried so much fuel," Nathan asked. "What happens if you miss your destination?"

The captain grinned. "We have more than enough fuel with us to put ourselves in an orbit if we miss the target." He turned a pivoting display towards Nathan and pointed to a particular readout. "We carry enough heavy hydrogen to run the reactor at full power for twenty four hours. It will only take us about eighteen hours to decelerate. The excess can be used to make course corrections and, if necessary, put us in orbit until another ship can bring us fuel."

"Can't you use the sail to carry you back into the inner system?" Nathan asked.

"Not really." The captain hit a switch and a diagram of the Orion's Belt appeared on the monitor. "The sail can be used to move laterally to an extent, but unlike ships on a sea, there is no medium to sail through so we can't tack."

Nathan remained on the Bridge for several more hours. He sat through another photon thrust and partway through the following interval before deciding to explore the rest of the ship.

Chapter 2 Part 2

2009-04-24T15:35:00.000-07:00

Nathan drifted up through the layers of subconsciousness following a steady buzz. He opened his eyes and identified the sound coming from his alarm on the nightstand. He reached out and tagged the switch turning the alarm off. To his left Dawn's body stirred and she raised her head slowly.

"Good morning," she greeted him with a smile.

"I hope so," he replied.

She traced the outline of hair on his chest seductively. "Do you have time for more?"

Nathan checked the clock. He only had an hour to get ready and get to the dock. "I am afraid not," he said as he crawled out of the bed. "I am rather rushed, but I did enjoy last night."

"So did I," Dawn yawned. "I do hope you will stop by the next time you pass through here."

"I will try to do that," Nathan assured her as he entered the bathroom. He turned on the shower, fearless of anything she might do. The only thing she might steal would be his card or computer and they were both traceable and inoperable without the proper codes.
He was not terribly suprised when he emerged and dressed only to find that his companion had departed.

Nathan gathered his belongings and made his way back to the spaceport. The ship waiting on him was much different than the one he had arrived on. The winged transport that had left the Terran atmosphere was a long sleek craft possessing both jet and rocket engines. The rocket fuel burning craft that would take him to the moon was roughly cylindrical in shape and was not constructed for atmospheric use.

Nathan boarded the ship and strapped himself in with minimal help from the crew. He had traveled in space numerous times and was quite used to the strange sensations. He wondered about the things he had learned from Gerri and speculated on where such a thing could lead.

"Attention passengers," a voice announced. "Please remain seated until we are clear of New St. Louis and the engines are shut down for cruise. We have a ten hour flight ahead of us, so try to relax. Thank you"

Nathan leaned back and closed his eyes. The best way to pass the time would be to sleep it away. Fortunately he did not get much sleep the previous night. Dawn had kept him awake quite a long time.

When Nathan awoke, the chronometer on the cabin wall showed that they had been in flight seven and a half hours. Nathan yawned and noted that most of the other passengers were milling about in the zero gravity some were talking or reading while still others were drinking from collapsible plastic bags.

Nathan's stomach rumbled and he recalled that he had not eaten in over a day. He flagged a steward and requested a bag of soup and spent the next hour and a half eating and reading. They were a little over nine hours into the flight when the announcement came for all passengers to return to their seat and prepare for the deceleration. A few moments later the ship vibrated and low rumble began as the ship's engines came to life in a decelerating thrust that made Nathan feel fairly heavy and pressed him back into his seat.

Many long minutes later the ship was jarred by the unmistakable sensation of a landing. The engines quickly went silent and the lunar gravity became a welcomed sensation.
Nathan quietly unstrapped and followed the other passengers as they gathered around the airlock. A lunar ferry specially designed as a rolling airlock tractored out and attatched itself to the ship. The passengers all moved into the vehicle and were carried back to the main complex of Lunar Alpha.

The large moon base was the size of a small Terran metropolis though most of it was underground. Alpha was a major administrative and communications center for the entire solar system. Every major industry had an office there to handle affairs.

Alpha was significantly more than just a functional location. Since it was an industrial nerve center, many executives had set up residence there as well and the rural part of the Alpha had achieved resort status among the most powerful of Market holders.

Culturally, Alpha had twice hosted the Cerebral Olympic Games and was the home of the reigning chess champion. The Lunar Alpha Theater Company was well know for its low gravity ballets. Lunar Alpha was the center of hopeful artists.

Nathan passed through customs very quickly and again made his way to the MIRA Headquarters and Operations Center. He had been there several times before, so he vaguely remembered the way. Upon reaching his destination, he notified the receptionist of his presence and that he was expected. The young lady verified the information with a security monitor and directed him to the appropriate location.

Nathan thanked her and went as he was directed to a particular room down the hall.
When the door opened, he stepped inside and sat in a desk with a palm scanner facing a blank wall. He placed his palm face down on the glass plate and announced his arrival. "I am Nathan Thomas," he declaired and followed his name with his security code.

The room lights dimmed and the scanner took a reading of his palm print. Then the wall illuminated and he sat facing a projection of another man seated at a desk. The other person sipped at a coffee mug and retrieved a file from a drawer and opened it atop his desk.

"Hello, Nathan," the image said. "It is good to see you again. How was you flight?"

"Same as usual, Mr. Deen," Nathan answered. Gary Deen was the primary operations director and oversaw all MIRA agent activities. The fact that he personally was handling Nathan's assignment meant that it was of utmost importance.

"I am not going to beat around the bush on this, Nathan," Deen began. "This is a serious matter. I am certain that you heard about the loss of Beta Six."

"Struck by an asteroid, from what I hear."

"That is quite correct. Strangely enough there are a few circumstances that warrant further consideration. First, Beta Six was a weapons research station. Though not publicly known, it was still somewhat of a secret. The Syndicate knew of it, they did not, however know what was there."

He pressed a button and a side wall illuminated showing a diagram of the inner solar system with a course plotted across it. "This asteroid was uncharted and unknown within the inner system, and the inner system has been charted extensively. It is highly unlikely that this one was simply overlooked until just now when it so coincidentally destroyed a major military outpost.

This projection shows where the asteroid originated from." A highlighted area of the asteroid belt enlarged. "But according to astronomical atlases, there are no asteroids missing from this area." Another picture flashed upon the side wall. This one was of one of the Market's large Attack Carriers. "Just the same, we have asked the Whirlpool to run a few drones by and recon the area."

"When do expect the report?"

Deen flipped a page in the folder. "We have them burning at full speed so they should be there within a few days."

"Do you want to wait for the results?" Nathan asked.

"No," Deen replied as he closed the folder. The wall display died as well. "You are booked on next week's shuttle to Twilight Station. You will get there in about two weeks and then take a chartered liner to Aries Metro. From there you will monitor the investigation and plan appropriate action."

"Appropriate action?"

Deen leaned back. "If this is a covert attack by the Syndicate, then of course there must be a retaliation."

"And if it isn't?"

"Then you will have a nice paid vacation on Mars."

"What is my arrival time?" Nathan asked.

"Just under a month."

"Only a month to travel from here to Mercury and then out to Mars?"

Deen reminded him. "You are going to take a chartered liner from Mercury out to Mars. It will be a high gee acceleration ship and will launch as soon as you get there."

Nathan thought for a moment. "I was under the impression that only the military had access to nonsynodic ships." Normally commercial and civilian craft were in established low energy orbits using only minimal amounts of fuel to synchronize their arrival and departure with their destinations. Military ships, on the other hand carried reactors and fuel and were authorized to chart their own courses as they saw fit.

"Most of the time you are right, but there are certain situations which authorize a government department to step outside of the normal rules," Deen assured him. "This is such a case."

Chapter 2 Part 1

2009-04-24T15:34:00.001-07:00

Chapter 2

Nathan Thomas flipped through the laminated pages of a holographic magazine and tried not to get too bored. He and his fellow passengers on the trans orbital shuttle were enroute to New St. Louis, the space station between the earth and its moon.

New St. Louis was a city in orbit and was hailed as the gateway to the stars. Though somewhat poetic, the title was essentially true since all travel between the earth and the extraterrestrial colonies was routed through the space station for customs, quarantine and administrative purposes.

Nathan had been enjoying a sunny Saturday morning in Omaha when his monitor signaled that an incoming message had arrived. Nathan had debated on whether of not to view the message for several long moments before his sense of responsibility kicked in. As and agent of the Market Internal Revenue Athourity, he was always on duty. The Athourity, or MIRA as it was referred to was the judicial and financial branch of the mighty Population Liability Command that had for years been the real power behind every country on the face of the planet.

It had been in the early twenty first century that the population of the earth had exceeded the planet's capabilities to support life. Thousands of people were dying of starvation each day and the planet was at the brink of war when the major powers proposed a desperate solution.

From that day until just fifteen years ago, the Population Liability Command evaluated the net worth of each individual of the human race. If a person produced more than he consumed, he was ignored by the Command. But if a person consumed more than he produced, he was targeted for population control termination.

There were of course three automatic appeals, the first was a reevaluation to detect any errors, the second was an evaluation to ensure that the person was capable of producing and to make an attempt to place the person in a work environment that would enable the person to produce. If the person was incapable of producing, he would be placed on a welfare program. The final appeal was a one year stay of execution in which the targeted individual had to work very hard to eliminate his deficit. If at the end of the year, the person had produced more than he had consumed and had reduced his deficit in the process, that person was placed on probation and termination was suspended for five years. If after five years, the person had continued to produce and had worked off his deficit, the execution would be canceled. But if during the probation period, a person failed to produce, the execution was carried out immediately.

The Population Liability Command was cruel and it was evil but it worked. The population came under control and the Population Liability Command became the most powerful organization in history.

Nathan remembered how shocked he felt when the message he had received had contained travel orders to Alpha Station, the Terran Market's main communications and administration base on the earth's moon.

The message had instructed him to prepare for a long trip and that confidentiality was of the utmost importance. He had been told that he would be briefed at New St. Louis and then again upon arrival at Luna's Alpha Station.

Nathan closed the magazine when he heard the tell-tale sounds of external moorings connecting to the transport. They had arrived at the space station. Nathan tossed the magazine on the table, the Velcro patches grabbed the counterparts on the cover of the magazine to keep it from floating away. The dock of New St. Louis was a non rotating part of the station and so there was no centrifugal effect to produce artificial gravity.

Nathan unstrapped himself from the seat realizing that he did not even know what the magazine had been about even though he had been looking at it for three hours. He and his fellow passengers exited the cabin using the Velcro slippers they had been issued before launch.

When they stepped out on the flight deck, the stewards ushered them to the long airlock tunnel connecting the dock to the ship. There was no carpeting for the special slippers to grip there so they were actually blown by means of a gentle breeze through the weightless tunnel to the main reception area.

A young woman, her hair braided and woven tightly to keep it from floating about, hovered near a console and registered each passenger into the station's roster. Most passengers were either enroute to Twilight Station, the central spaceport for the entire solar system on Mercury or New St. Louis was their final destination.

Nathan waited patiently for the other passengers to register, then finally he approached.
"My name is Nathan Thomas," he announced. "I am bound for Luna Alpha."

The receptionist smiled. "Yes Mr. Thomas, your reservations are posted. The next shuttle for Alpha will board tomorrow at ten o'clock station standard time." She passed him a console card and smiled. "Most people suffer from jet lag, but since you are from the American Central time zone, you should not have any problem."

Nathan took the card and returned the smile. "Thank you," he politely replied. He was not known for small talk.

"Are there any other arrangements I can make for you?"

Nathan grunted. "No, thank you," he finally said, and walked over to a clutch lock. The clutch lock was essentially an elevator which followed a large circular track between the docking core and the rotating part of the station. When the door opened, Nathan stepped onto the vinyl padded floor and held onto a handle to keep himself from floating about. When the door closed, he selected the only choice button and the elevator accelerated to match the speed of the rotating part of New St Louis. As the elevator moved, the artificial gravity slowly increased and Nathan easily righted himself to a standing position. A small chime sounded and the other door opened leading out into a walkway with several pedestrians passing about.

Nathan exited the elevator and checked his directions with a terminal on the near wall. Getting his bearings, he headed off to the nearest office of the MIRA.

The office was not far, and within ten minutes he had arrived. He inserted his card in the door slot. A chime sounded and the door slid open.

Nathan entered the office. A young man in a business suit, seated at a desk looked up.

"Ah, Mr. Thomas," he began. "Welcome to New St. Louis." He stood and extended his hand.

Nathan accepted the greeting and responded likewise. "Is Gerri in?" he asked.

The secretary nodded. "She will see you momentarily. Please be seated."

Nathan took a seat and the secretary excused himself and disappeared through another door. After a moment he reappeared with a small, elderly woman in trail.

"Nathan, she laughed, "how good to see you."

"Hello, Gerri," he replied standing and walking across the office. He took her outstretched hand and shook it enthusiastically. "It has been a long time."

"It has indeed," she returned. "I only wish the circumstances were better, though. Please step in my office." As Nathan passed through the door, she glanced over her shoulder. "Tim, please hold all calls and visitors until further notice."

The secretary responded and the door closed sealing the office. The cubicle was only large enough to prevent it from being called a cell. The desk was neat and tidy with small stacks of disks and a terminal view plate. The screen presently showed the MIRA logo.

"Have they told you anything yet?" Gerri asked.

"Only that a Red Sunrise alert had been called and that I was to report to the regional headquarters at Alpha as soon as possible."

"I can't tell you much more because that is about all I know as well."

"Well, a Red Sunrise means natural disaster with suspicious circumstances," Nathan reminded his friend. "I guess headquarters suspects foul play, but in what?"

"The answer to that will be released to the public very soon because it is too big to conceal, so I will go ahead and tell you," she decided. "Yesterday morning a previously uncharted small asteroid destroyed Beta Six. The official operations of that outpost was geological research, but in reality is was a weapons research and development station."

An asteroid destroys a Market military research facility?" Nathan mused. "That is awful convenient if you are a Syndicate leader."

"Hence the Red Sunrise," Gerri added.

"Anything else?" Nathan asked.

"No," she replied. "Now you know as much as I do." She pressed a key on her terminal.

"Your flight leaves tomorrow morning," she reminded him. "You have your expense card?"

Nathan flashed his card. "I haven't checked its balance yet," he admitted.

"I recommend you take in a meal and some recreation for the rest of the day, but be sure that you make your flight."

"Sounds like good advice," he agreed. "Where am I lodged?"

"You are assigned a suite in the outer promenade," she said referring to the third of the concentric shells of the station. The gravity there was near earth normal and therefore considered the luxury area. Your account appears quite healthy even if you have to go to the outer system, so why don't you live it up a little. It may be the last chance you get if they do send you to the outer colonies."

Nathan stood and pocketed his card. "It has been nice to see you again Gerri," he began.

"Come and visit us more often," she replied.

"I will," he assured her and left the office. He waved to the secretary as he passed.
When he was out of the office, he went back down the corridor the way he had come until he came across another directory. He studied the diagram for directions to the outer promenade, then slowly made his way through the space station.

When he exited an elevator onto the outer ring, he was amazed at how earth like everything was. The ceiling was painted to resemble a clear blue sky and the walls were fairly wide and littered with shops giving the illusion of a terran city street.

Nathan quickly located his suite and used his card and PLC identity number to open the security lock. The ship's central computer would deduct the appropriate funds from his account for the rental.

Nathan entered and closed the door behind him. Reaching into the inner pocket of his vest, he withdrew a pocket computer. He touched a key and the display informed him that the room contained only one covert recording device, and that of course was the pocket computer itself. The artificial intelligence of the machine was always assessing his situation and if it determined that he was in danger would initiate a distress signal to the nearest MIRA operation center.

Nathan took an hour to shower and order a new set of clothes. The paper fibre attire was waiting for him when he emerged from the shower.

Cleaned and dressed, he departed to find food and entertainment. He stopped at a sports club called the Red Birds of Summer. It was obviously a reference to the New St. Louis Red Birds, the Interplanetary League baseball team. He recalled seeing the stadium represented on the directory, but it was on the far side of the station. It was very amusing how as the human race had come together, many of the popular sports had faded away until only soccer, hockey and baseball were left.

New St. Louis' soccer team was also called the Red Birds. The once popular sports of basketball and North American football still existed, but were no where near as popular as they had once been. In actuality he was a fan of baseball. He remembered how excited he had been when the first Galactic Series had been played between the London Royals and the Lunar Astros. The great Mare Dome at Alpha was a huge underground thing as the balls tended to travel fantastic distances in the lighter gravity. A lot of bets had been made that the Astros, playing in their home stadium would sweep the series, but the Royals actually took two of the three games only to lose the series to the Astros in London.

At present the club was uncrowded and Nathan located a booth and seated himself. He casually reviewed the menu as a waitress approached. The fact that the waitress was human instead of a robot indicated the quality status of the club.

"Can I help you sir?" The waitress was about five and a half feet tall with golden hair platted into a single braid at her back. She was very shapely and wore a red heart shaped medallion which identified her as a licensed private entertainer.

"Is the food real, or synthesised?" he asked.

"Our menu is real food," she advised. "It is a little expensive, but worth the price."

"I will have the filet mignon, medium, and baked potato," he decided.

"And to drink?"

"Iced tea."

"Dessert?"

"None."

"Entertainment?" she asked with a smile.

Nathan eyed her body momentarily. It was quite firm and desirable. He considered that he may soon be gone for a long time. "What are the rates?"

"A dance for ten credits, all the way up to a night for one hundred credits; station currency of course."

Nathan considered the price as reasonable. "Your credentials?"

She produced a small wallet and opened it for him to view. Nathan noted that she was licensed for prostitution and her contraception and infection inoculations were up to date.

"Okay he agreed. Here is my address." He scribbled the suite number on a piece of paper. "No later than nine o'clock. I will take the full deal."

She smiled and left. Nathan watched as she departed. It had not been too long ago that prostitution had still been illegal. After millenia of trying to stamp out the oldest of professions, though, society decided to give up on wasting the effort to eliminate a harmless non-violent crime and instead capitalize on it.

In actuality prostitution, though still a frowned upon profession, was much safer when the government insured contraception and disease control. In fact the population control laws had implemented reversible sterility in all persons born after 2032 AD. There had been some serious legal battles involving human rights, but the Population Liability Command's highest court, the MIRA Command Council, had ruled that the survival of the human race overruled any single human right. From that day forward contraception had no longer been a choice.

Contraception were licensed so that no couples could have more than two children and no single person was allowed to impregnate or conceive. The penalty was separation from the offspring and a half life term in prison. It was cruel, but necessary since the human race was starving. Thirty years later, the population had been brought under control and conception laws had become more liberal.

The waitress returned with Nathan's meal and smiled broadly as she served him. "My name is Dawn," she said. "I will see you around eight."

"Eight," he replied and proceeded to attack his meal. It had been a long time since he had eaten.

Chapter 1

2009-04-18T20:51:00.002-07:00

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."