When the final flash of light came, Tessa’s hands spasmed against the throttle, bit into the stick. Shrapnel ripped past her, the brilliant and burning wake of a drive detonation– and in the center of it, the impossibly dark pinhole of a collapsing microsingularity awakening to ravening life, already gorging itself for the bare instant it clung to the bosom of the stars before disappearing back into Nth-dimensional space forever. Riding out the shockwave, plowing headfirst through the burning wreckage of a blasted Coralate fighter was like coasting on the flaring wake of a sea of angry fire, and for the one terrible instant that the collapsing singularity caught her, snagged the Schrödinger panels and seized her rig with unseeable hands, she felt her stomach drop out, fall into some deeper pit of her being as if drawn there by the pull of some other hungry doorway to N-Space.
“Take that, tu piche cabron!” Cordova thumped his rig’s console, ignored the flash of red light that the Resident AI shot back in response. “How’s that for flying, LC, eh?” He laughed.
“Cordova?” Tessa’s response came slow, crackling with static and still laden with shock, the cold hesitation of a near-miss with death. The bypass, rewire, rebuild, bypass and replacement of the damaged sections of the radio in Stewart’s rig had taken hours of tedious, AI-guided work, but the connection was strong, almost as clear as it had been the first time he’d ever taken a Seindrive out into the field. “Jesus, is that you!?”
“You have no idea how good it is to hear your voice, LC.” He said, his tone suddenly softer, more serious. Yanking his rig tightly away, he primed his emitters in anticipation of the next target his Resident AI had already picked out and highlighted for him. “Thank goodness you were in the area when the ship I was tailing popped back here.”
“Yeah,” Tessa managed. “You aren’t the only one that’s greatful.” The traces of a grin broke across her face, spread. “Hell’s own timing, Lieutenant.”
“Thanks, LC.”
“Don’t get me wrong...” Izzy broke in, pausing as she bared her teeth, rig spinning right, then left, darting upward, outward, away from the clouds and tracers of blueskin weaponry before curving back to trace hot lines of plasmatic fire across flickering scales of chrome hull. “It’s great to know you’re still alive and all, but I could have done without the whole ‘hit a space mine, get rushed by two warships, almost lose Tessa’ thing that had to happen first.”
“You hit a mine?” He asked.
“We’ll fill you in later.” Tessa managed. “Link up. Your AI should have the squadron codes.”
“Roger that.” Came the clipped response. “A lot happened while I was gone, eh?”
“A lot.” Tessa breathed, yanked her own rig away, scissored the throttle. As more and more Coralate rigs fell, the knot became tighter, the survivors more coordinated, more suicidal. Already the swarm took every scrap of her concentration to maneuver through, and it was all she could do to dodge through the ever-tightening quarters and punch back out into bare space. Her thumb flicked the mike quick, tapped three spikes of static in rapid succession that stood out in the frequency as a heads up! quicker and clearer than if she’d voiced the words in any transmission. Fingers flew across the polyquid console in a quick line of memorized preset commands. Squadron: Regroup: Outside. Simple, precise– the secure communication of resident AIs. She knew what was going on, what the Coralate was doing, and she wasn’t about to let her people get caught in it, wasn’t about to risk letting the blueskins in on her plan. Her rig’s resident AI blinked a green light at her in calm, steady acknowledgment.
“What you got in mind, Tess?” Came Izzy’s quick response. At the far end of the seething mass of silver and seindrives, a rig painted in the beige tan of Minerva squadron pulled free, spun a quick flip on S-vectoring panels and directional thrust. Beyond it, another rig turned a lazy arc out into space, its sea-gray fuselage still burnt and scarred by the rising fires that had tried to claim it on its blazing ascent from an exploding planet.
“Guardian angel duty.” Tessa all but whispered. “Switch to fingers. We’ll coordinate from there.
“Roger.”
In one swift motion, Tessa’s fingers darted across the console, dialed up the new frequency. Eyes darted across readouts, called up another display.
“Where’s Lieutenant Jenkins?”
Tessa blinked at the sound of Cordova’s voice, eyes darting back to the stars, thumb already going for the mike.
“She’s in medical. Long story.” Came the clipped response. Eyes darted back for the console, followed fingers as new displays were keyed past, pressed open. Far below, the broiling mass of fighters was alive with signatures, a mix of Cygnan and Terran so close together that only the AI could isolate them with any real ease. “Simulator accident.”
“Is that where Davidson is too?”
Silence. Tessa’s eyes went out of focus for an instant, brain numb but trying to register, to understand his words. She blinked again, opened her mouth, thumb hovering over the mike. There was a moment’s hesitation, a bare scrap of a second where her mind hung in bitter indecision, unsure– and then her fingers came alive, hunted through the displays until the readouts on the linkups for Minerva squadron were shining across the polyquid console surface– two established readings and one newcomer. No Phoebe, no Davidson. Lips parted, refused to make the sounds, form the words. Izzy’s voice broke the silence.
“No, he’s out here. He’s just not on Fingers for some God-unknown reason.” Static bit into Izzy’s words, tossed them and squealed as she continued. “If he’s still on the main frequency, I swear I’m going to...”
“Izzy.” Tessa breathed, unable to tear her eyes away from the blank fighter outline pulsating back at her from the surface of her console. Another rig, another pilot. “I’m not reading him on my system. My rig’s AI isn’t picking up his IFF.” And this time...
“Maybe he just dropped out of the linkup.” Izzy spoke up suddenly. “I mean, if one of those ship-to-ship beams got too close...” She trailed off, cleared her throat. “He can’t be...”
“I’ll check the standard open frequency again.” Cordova said hurriedly. In the silence, Tessa shook her head, pulled in a broken, shallow breath and looked away, numbly watching as the fighters tore at each other just a hundred or so meters below. Part of her mind was alive and seething, urging her to descend back into the fray, to do what she was paid to do– to slaughter the other side at all costs, to turn a blind eye to the human resources as they were spent as easily as bullets, burnt up and used as readily as any other fuel poured into the massive bulk of the Commonwealth’s war machine. Davidson was one man, one among the entire crew of the Hok, among the millions of citizens of the commonwealth that depended on pilots like her to protect them from all that was ravenous or destructive in the universe.
And still she hesitated, still she hung there in the night like a dead weight, immovable. It was all happening too fast, too sudden–
“Davidson? Dammit, come in Davidson!” Izzy’s voice cut through the static of the channel, the light of a lamp lit for lost sailors. In the pause, Tessa opened her mouth, tried to find the words, the words she knew she needed to say, the words that would shake her back into action.
“Izzy...”
“All units, this is the Wu Ang Hok.” Voice and sound came roaring like a tidal wave across every frequency, blasted through the static like the breaking head of a biblical flood. “Return to base. I repeat: Return to base. We’re withdrawing.”
“You hear that, Davidson!?” Izzy yelled into the abyss of urgent chatter and star noise that choked the standard open frequency. “Get your ass back to the ship, A-SAP!”
“Izzy.” Tessa blinked, pulled in a breath that came as deep as it did shaky. Hands tightened against stick and throttle, slick on palms but struggling to be strong and ready, to be bolstered by the resolve she knew still clung somewhere in her heart. “Pulling off an orderly retreat in this mess without losing a few more pilots is going to be tricky.” She paused, breathed a tired sigh. “Let’s see what we can do, okay?” She reached up, thumbed the tears out of her eyes. “At least try to keep the Coralate busy for a little while longer.”
“Always the last ones in.” Cordova grinned. “I like it.”
“Roger.” Came Izzy’s quiet response. “You paint the targets, Tess. We’ll follow your lead.”
