“Warm up those Gryphons, strike team!” said Lieutenant Reeve. “Stand by for takeoff in ten minutes or less.” His tone changed slightly after that; it lost its initial pep and volume, descending to something businesslike. “Lieutenant Bayer, how’s that perimeter?”
“Perimeter check complete,” Bayer answered through the open comms. “Let those six-fingers try to come close! They’ll be mincemeat in seconds!”
“I don’t know if you’ll have any left when we’re done out here,” Reeve chuckled back. It was apparently okay for officers to crack jokes. “Awaiting RTIFIS confirmation of inbound Eggs. Stand by for updates.”
“How’s everybody doing back there?” Perri asked from the Gryphon’s cockpit. The twin rotors of the craft rumbled to life; Nic could feel it more than he could hear it in the near-airlessness.
“Good,” Nic answered on everyone else’s behalf. He sat on the left side of the Gryphon’s cabin, Perri’s side, along with Everett and Danny of Team Brick. Jarek, Maqsud, and the other two members of Team Brick sat across from them. Kincaid had insisted on riding shotgun as the copilot—apparently she had some extensive experience behind the wheel in Wargame as well.
“So, this is really happening,” Everett whispered giddily. The Team Brick soldier nudged Nic with his elbow. “I feel like I can barely breathe! What about you, sir?”
Sir. That word took him aback. “Oh... Yeah, my heart’s pumping for sure. Don’t be nervous, though. I’ll keep an eye out for you guys.”
“I’m not nervous at all, sir. I’m excited!”
Hearing that worried Nic slightly, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t feel the same way. Leaning into it was the only way to retain his sanity. “Well, it’s good to have a positive outlook. But you don’t have to call me sir. Nic or Scarlet One is fine.”
“Sorry, sir. I mean... Sorry. It’s just, you’re kind of a minor legend! Ever since Nereus—”
“Our wait’s over, platoon!” said Lieutenant Reeve. “Pilots, move out! Scarlet Three, take point!” The Scarlet/Brick Gryphon lurched forward, taxiing down the hangar runway and out into the open. The other two Gryphons followed close behind. “Weapons hot, pilots. Engage enemy aircraft when in range. RTIFIS will assist with targeting.”
“Not that that has historically been successful,” Maqsud muttered in a private Team Scarlet comms channel. Nic prayed that it was brief enough that Reeve and the other lieutenants wouldn’t notice.
“Don’t hurt to try,” Jarek countered. “If anyone can crack those Eggs, it’s Perri. Right?”
“You got that right!” Perri said from the cockpit.
They simmered down after that exchange, and Nic was privately grateful. Reeve was nowhere near the strict chop-buster that Welch was, but he still didn’t want to test the limits of the man’s patience and leniency—especially during a live combat op. It was better to keep banter to a minimum.
By this point, the Gryphons were high in the sky and had reached their cruising altitude. The aerial vehicles crested a cluster of wispy clouds and spun them into nothingness with their passage. Otherwise, the sky of Telum was dark, the atmosphere still barely there, thin like weak coffee. The local sun dominated the rest of the stars that were still visible in the daylight.
“Flanking?” Perri repeated.
“I don’t remember this from FTX or the sims,” said Kincaid. There was uneasiness in her voice—more than a leader should have let on, Nic judged. “Are you saying this is atypical?”
Perri hesitated. “Yeah.”
“Bayer, you’re going to have visitors after all,” Lieutenant Reeve announced through the cross-planet comms.
“So RTIFIS tells me,” the other officer replied. “But two Eggs? That’s nothing. They’ll be lucky if they scratch us! Keep the comms open—Reeve, what the hell is that sound? Are you leaning on a button somewhere?”
“Say again, Bayer?”
There was a pause. “I was getting some kinda... There was some kinda feedback in the channel. I don’t know what that was. At any rate, keep the comms open and keep us posted.”
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Roger that.” Reeve switched back to the local strike team comms channel. Nic looked out the tiny window at the neighboring Gryphon, Reeve’s Gryphon, the nose of which he could just barely see poking up behind them. “Strike team, I know the mission might not be easy, but it’s simple. Pilots, engage enemy aircraft on sight. RTIFIS is primed to paint targets automatically from up to 100 kilometers away. Passengers, you’ll make the jump at fifty klicks out. Pilot and copilot, bail at twenty klicks. The birds can autopilot back to a safe distance and swing by for extraction. Once you hit the ground, it’s just SOP. Understood?”
“Sir, yes, sir!” the strike team answered all at once.
“Stick together. Remember your training. And, as always, stay frosty, platoon! God willing, you’ll all be hitting the barracks tonight with commission credits and a belly full of the good stuff, trading stories.”
Nic remembered the special feasts they enjoyed at the close of a successful mission. It was nothing gourmet, but compared to the slop they were regularly served in the mess hall, it was a treat he could look forward to in the short term. Just a few hours of this, he thought. Follow the protocol. Show the rookies how it’s done. Point and shoot. It’s not that complicated.
But as Reeve had said, the fact that it was simple didn’t make it easy.
Nic worried about his squad. He worried about himself, too, of course, but there was a greater dread of what might happen to his surviving squadmates that weighed most heavily on his soul. Despite his best efforts not to play favorites, his nightmares frequently centered on something awful happening to Perri.
It won’t happen like that. We’ve been on plenty of missions and it hasn’t happened once.
Still, the images flashed through his mind and memory. Recurring dreams.
Visions of alien monsters breaking into the dormitories. Clawing Perri from her bed. Screams. They were so vivid that he could usually still hear them ringing in his head when he awoke.
He didn’t let himself dwell on these thoughts for more than a moment in waking hours. It was too terrifying. Scarier even than death. The whole while, it felt like Shanti’s specter was judging him from the dark corner of these morbid thoughts.
A monument to his past failure.
A warning.
***
“This is it, platoon!” said Lieutenant Reeve. “Squad leaders, you now have operational command.”
“Okay, listen up!” said Nic. The other squad leader, Kincaid, had already deferred to his experienced leadership. “Get ready to bail. Perri will engage shortly. It’s a quick drop down to the surface, so make the most of it. Take out any parachuters on your way down. Keep your eyes peeled for targets and RTIFIS will tag them on your HUD. When you hit the ground, organize. Plan Niner. Ping to confirm!”
Nic received seven pings almost instantaneously. Danny lingered before pinging at the last second.
“Here we go again,” Jarek sighed.
“Let’s get another victory under our belts, shall we?” said Perri.
“Everyone, set your anterior cingulate cortexes to standby until mission conclusion,” Maqsud quipped half-under his breath.
“I think I'm gonna be sick,” Danny mumbled queasily.
“Dude,” Everett scoffed, “you better get over it. We’re about to drop.”
“Everett, please... don’t make me talk...”
“As gross as this sounds,” said Nic, “your Gen-Three armorsuit has a bi-directional waste disposal system. Your helmet will be empty and clean within a minute. But try to hold it if you can.”
Everett scolded Danny again. “Scarlet One is right. You’ll be fine. Just don’t embarrass us in front of the heroes, will you?”
“I can’t help being sick... I...” Danny sighed, sounding overwhelmed.
“Danny, I’ve been patient with you ever since we deployed for Telum. It’s getting old. Grow some balls already!”
Danny belched nauseously. “Everett, seriously, just leave me alone, okay?”
“Trust me, I can give you something to cry about! When we—”
“Enough!” Nic shouted. It was short, loud but not too loud, befitting a leader. He’d settled into an aura of confident authority over the past year. “Focus up. We’re bailing in no time.”
“Engaging Egg!” Perri called back to the cabin. With those words, Nic’s stomach dropped.
He could hear a metallic clunk, then a muted, distant hiss. Clunk, hiss. Clunk, hiss. The Gryphon let loose missile after missile at the distant but oncoming Hexadian airship. RTIFIS opened a small window in the bottom left of Nic’s HUD, along with the others’, showing a telescopic view of the Egg in the distance. There was also a window-in-window POV shot of one of the missiles from its mounted camera.
The tubular explosives detonated on impact in plumes of red-orange fire and black smoke. The fires died quickly against fireproof surfaces and with little atmospheric oxygen to let them burn. Once the last explosion had finished, Nic saw the predictable futility of this attack. The hull of the targeted Egg only wrinkled slightly in response to the explosions; moments later, the wrinkles smoothed out, not unlike pruned fingertips drying. There was no evidence of any damage at all.
“Missiles hit... percent accuracy,” Perri announced, her voice garbled. “No damage. Proceeding...”
“Say again, Scarlet Three,” said Nic. No response. “Scarlet Three, say again!” Nothing. Comms must be glitching again or something. “Let’s shake it off, teams. Get ready to drop! At fifty klicks we ha—”
His words died in a sudden explosion that rocked the Gryphon.
“Sir!” Everett gasped.
A giant Hexadian spike had penetrated the hull of the Gryphon through the nose. He couldn’t see Jarek or Max anymore, nor the two Team Brick members sitting next to them. “Scarlet and Brick, status reports!” he shouted. No one answered him. “Perri! Say something!”
“Perri!” Nic yelled. “Jarek, Max! Uh... Team—”
The Gryphon listed to the left. The cabin rotated as the craft rolled.
The pilot-side door of the cabin shot open. A combination of rotational momentum and gravity shook Nic loose from the aircraft. He fell first, followed by two others. He saw another armorsuit lodged near the edge of the open doorway. He couldn't tell if its occupant was dead or alive.
His two fellow jumpers were both screaming.
He was too shaken to do the same.