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The pursuing fighters were light, single-man craft, far faster than their bulky Terran gunship. They zipped forward and closed down on the fleeing humans. Justinius watched as the red cursors inched closer and closer on the tracking display.
This was always the part of combat Justinius hated the most. The interminable waiting in situations where he had zero control. In the heat of combat, there were things to do: maneuvers, targets, direct action. In the co-pilot’s jumpseat, Justinius chafed at his impotence.
Under the shell of his helmeted power armour, Justinius assumed his misgivings were hidden, but the pilot turned and regarded him with his kitsune-helmeted visage.
“Do you need a puke bag? Or does the suit handle that?” He joked, then settled back into his seat, “Don’t fret, just kick your feet up and leave this to me.”
Before Justinius could reply, there was a lull in thruster power, and a mechanical grinding sound of weapon pods deploying. Suddenly, with a lurching g-force, the starfield spun wildly past the cockpit windows as the pilot threw the vessel into a head-over-heels spin. Justinius felt his panic rise as they inverted, and heard the simultaneous roar of torpedo engines engaging.
The ship righted itself violently, and main thrusters re-engaged. Justinius regained his composure in time to see two red cursors blink and disappear from the tracking screen. The other red cursors slowed, and the distance between them and their pursuers grew.
The pilot turned back to Justinius, “Light fighters, designed for engagement in the short to mid range. We left in a hurry so I guess they didn’t have time to re-arm with longer-range armaments.”
Shaken, Justinius nodded. “And how many more of those torpedoes do we have?”
The kitsune mimed counting on his fingers, pausing and recounting several times with a rueful shake of his head, as though the math was too complicated for him.
“Ah, I’ve got it”, he joked, “Zero.”
“Zero?” Justinius exclaimed, “So what are we going to do when they run us down?”
“We know we have zero, but I don’t think they’re quite that well informed,” He explained, pointing down at the tracking display, “See, they’re peeling off pursuit now. No-one wants to be the first one to test the theory.”
“You really like to gamble don’t you?” Justinius sighed, “That’s an almighty dice roll”
The pilot shrugged, “Didn’t have room to bring any more, I’ve got my wardrobe in the other missile pod. Plus don’t forget you’re the one who brought the nuke.”
Looking through the cockpit window, Justinius could just make out the shape of the Fury, coming in to pick them up. A squadron of fighters emerged from the shadow of that shape, looping around their flight path and guiding them back home.
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The pilot flipped a switch on his controls, and spoke into his helmet mic.
“This is Tanigawa, Sun-Three is condition green. Requesting hangar assignment.”
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Tanigawa docked them at ventral hangar four, and casually disembarked the ship as though they hadn’t pulled off the most suicidal mission in living memory. Several other pilots, standing on a raised gantry at the hangar’s perimeter, watched as they walked down the open ramp of the vessel. Two of the pilots whooped and clapped enthusiastically, while the other two clapped slowly with shock and disbelief. As Tanigawa and Justinius passed close to the gantry, the two reserved pilots fished wads of cash out of their flight suits, and passed them to the other two grinning aviators. Tanigawa paused as they passed under the gantry, and cleared his throat loudly. The bickering pilots above them quietened, and the two celebrating pilots carefully peeled several bills out of their winnings, and tossed them down to Tanigawa, who caught the wad deftly out of the air.
Justinius was slightly wrongfooted by this macabre display of gambling. It wasn’t technically a breach of regulations, but the idea of betting on the survival of your comrades seemed so grim it bordered on unbelievability.
“Is that common practice?” Justinius queried the pilot, as they walked up into the main deckway, “It seems a pretty distasteful thing to wager on.”
Tanigawa shrugged, “If the pilot survives, he gets a cut of the winnings. It’s a nice little incentive to live. It’s opt in, of course. Pilot’s will nominate whether a mission is eligible for a market before they depart. Can’t have that old aviator superstition getting in peoples heads. ”
Justinius parted ways with the aviator, and made his way to the bridge. Halastar was standing in front of a holographic representation of the system.
Justinius approached.
“Is Gamma station and the fleet clear?” He unceremoniously queried.
Halastar turned and placed his hand warmly on Justinius’ shoulder.
“Just about, they should make it to FTL before the enemy can get too close.”
“And us?”
The shipmaster smiled weakly. “We’re at full burn, and should be able to outpace anything in the enemy fleet. We’re laying minefields in our wake to slow them down in case their frigates decide to give it a go.”
The shipmaster looked pale and drawn to Justinius. There was an anxious, fretful quality to his demeanour that he had never seen Halastar wear before.
“Something else on your mind, Shipmaster?” Justinius queried.
Instead of responding, Halastar gestured for Justinius to follow and they exited the bridge into an adjoining room that served as the shipmasters chambers while on duty.
Halastar let the door slide shut behind them, and sat down in one of the well-padded leather armchairs.
“What are we going to find when we get back home?” He asked without preamble, “Will there still be a home there?”
Justinius removed his helmet, and looked sadly at Halastar.
“They’re definitely going to try something.” The soldier began, “But we got the message back to Terra first. We’ll have time to prepare. We’re closer to home right now then the bulk of the Committee or Conclave fleets. If they decide to bury the hatchet and come together, that will take some weeks or months of negotiation.”
The mention of a potential alliance against humanity caused Halastar to raise an eyebrow.
The shipmaster, his voice quiet and weary, remarked.
“Let’s do a full debrief now. It’s two weeks to Terra, and we’ll need every second.”