COMBAT SALVAGE 2165 (19 page)

"
IFF?"
 

"They’re friendly!" Forward recon patrols from SCS
Araby’s
19th fighter squadron ripped past the Lancers.
 

"Lancer 1-1, this is Cuckoo 3-1. Is that SCS
Tipperary
with you? What the hell you people doing
out
here
?"
 

Burn answered that one. "Cuckoo, 3-1. This is Lt. Commander Burn Steinmetz," she said. "Patch me through to
Hardway
on your Q-linked comms. I’ve got an urgent message for Harry Cozen."
 

Epilogue

The tremors and the spasms started the moment she got her limbs back. Doc Ibora spent the better part of a two days checking out every thread of the Chief's nervous system for damage. He said the Chief, herself was alright, but the neural interfaces where she’d been hooked up to
Tipperary
were damaged. They were never made to do what they did, he said. Some of them had fused.
 

Her artificial limbs would still work and the palsic shakes that came on would go away once she adjusted to them, but she wouldn't have the same fine control as before, not until the damaged interfaces were replaced back at Sagan. Who knew when that would be. Until then, she was out of the action.

The redsuits she passed in the spine were happy to see their Ops Chief up and around. She was glad to see them, too, but she was more glad she held it together and didn’t get any tremors in front of them.

Horcheese stepped off the lift and on to
Hardway’s
bridge. You could see half the ship from up there and as she passed between the guards, she took in the primary bays and midships batteries nearly 200 meters below. You could see the secondary bays and the bow guns from up there, all the way to the two-meter sculpture Cozen had her weld on the bowplate like a figurehead. Ram Devi looked up once from the Ops console. Asa Bolo winked at her from behind a squadron of fighters projected over the AT controller’s station. None of them saw her hands shake because she held them together behind her back. Her legs felt alright so far.
 

Harry Cozen didn’t turn in the command chair. He stayed facing forward, facing the tactical projection of the enemy task force that had meant to ambush
Hardway
coming out a transit. The combined Privateer and UNS battlegroup had caught up with them. "We’ve got the Squidies pickled now," Cozen said. The 25 enemy ships she saw projected hiding behind a local gas giant were clearly inferior to the battlegroups closing in on them from two sides. "Since we made a detour and entered the system behind the enemy, Admiral Ming’s raiders have entered the system from the other side. Now, the Squidies can’t get away without facing one of us and they only had enough ships in that force for an ambush. They know they can’t win a straight-up fight. I thought you might like to see the Squidies’ moment of reckoning come. Since you’re not busy."
 

"
I’d like to be put back on duty, Mr. Cozen. My redsuits need their Ops Chief. Doesn’t matter if my hands are a little shaky."
 

"
It does when you’re strong enough to rip off an airlock hatch if you twitch wrong. I’m sorry, Chief. You can’t go back to work until your burned out neural interface is sorted and the specialists who can sort it are all back at Sagan." He turned now in that command chair and faced her. "Unless, of course, you know somebody who might be able to find an improvised, and entirely unauthorized workaround of some kind to get you back in action before that. Provided you trust them to do the job right, that is..."
 

*****

Once
Hardway’s
battlegroup and convoy had finally rendezvoused with Admiral Ming’s combined fleet over the debris field that had been an alien task force only hours ago, the Air Group Commander called the Lancers to Bay 23 in full flight gear. Jordo was the last to get there and when he did, Paladin, Dirty, Holdout and Gush stood in front of the window next to the airlock, shaking their heads. "The hell is going on?" Dirty said. "Where they taking our fighters?"

"
Answer me you red-ass POS!" Paladin said into his helmet. "Damn redsuits out there are portaging the last of our Bitzers out of the bay and ignoring me," he growled.
 

Out in the bay, a knuckledragger was gently moving Gusher’s F-151 right out the door, puffing out into the black with the scarred fighter in its claws. "I’m gonna fry the hell out of that red next time I land."

"
Where are they taking our fighters?"
 

"Let's f
ollow ‘em," he said. It took a good fifteen seconds to run the airlock through on emergency cycle, and once they finally got out there into the empty launch bay, they had to get to the door before they saw where the reds were taking their birds.
 

SCS
Arbitrage
hung 300 meters out, holding station alongside
Hardway
with the ships of the combined fleet massed behind her. That ship belonged to Harry Cozen. It was where they’d first learned to fly the Bitzer as a test squadron recruited from prison.
 

It had once been a salvage ship and now, it was a light carrier.
Arbitrage
and its single, gaping launch bay was just like Jordo and the rest of the Lancers remembered. Except inside the bay, where some unknown, new 12-meter craft had been lined up next to the Lancers’ confiscated 151s. The new planes weren’t QF-111 Dingoes or F-151 Bitzer variants. They didn’t look like anything Jordo had seen before.

"
Look at the stub-wings," Dirty said. "And the hull. You could fly in the atmo and maneuver with that thing."
 

"
But the maneuvering thrusters," Paladin pointed out. "twin sets on opposing sides. That was made for exo-atmo maneuvers."
 

"
And that hull coating sucks up the light," Gush said. "I can’t make it all out."
 

"
It’s a predator for sure," Jordo said. "look there... on the starboard side next to the cannon." Zoomed in on the open bay with their helmets they could see that the bulge in the smooth hull offset to the starboard side was a housing for a ship-killer of some kind, probably a warspite torpedo.
 

Shadow and fire streaked across their gawking eyes and hid
Arbitrage’s
bay from sight as Burn came straight down from above them, firing maneuvering thrusters in opposition and spinning one of the new fighters on three axises at once as she brought it to a dead stop in space in front of the launch bay. She gave the Lancers a view right down the cannon barrels. He could see her in the cockpit after he knew where to look. The cockpit was centered high on the armored hull.

She cleared her throat over local comms. "Staas Company Privateers’ 133rd Fighter Test Squadron," she said, "Lancers, allow me to introduce the Sky Jack 223." She spun slowly so they could see the engines on the back. "More thrust than a junk," she said. "Armor like a bloody destroyer and it can hack high-gee maneuvers better than a Bitzer. Designed from the ground up for a human pilot, but we kept the flight AI just like the one you have so we won’t have to spend more money training you. Welcome to the next generation, Lancers. You’ll be the first to fly them in combat and if you can tear your eyes away from this sexy hull for three seconds, then you can see the redsuits portaging
your
Sky Jacks over from SCS
Arbitrage
right now. I think they might be even more excited than you."
 

*****

Raleigh and Wambach and even Parker were heroes among the redsuits. All the rest of the reds that went too - Komora, Ellis, Hongston. But not Tig Meester. It was his improvised rig that messed up the Chief’s neural interface with her limbs and put her out of action. Nobody said it, but they all blamed him for not knowing it would happen. It all evened out in a weird sort of way. Nobody pinned a medal on him, but nobody tried to break his bones either.

The 48 hours since they’d intercepted
Hardway
and saved them from ambush had been lonely. If he wasn’t on duty and Parker wasn’t around, then Tig Meester found himself alone no matter how many people were in the compartment.
 

The redsuits blamed him. He’d done the best he knew how to do. The Chief was the one that gave him the big speech about never forgetting your best is your best and you can’t do any more. Remembering that won’t change anything, he discovered, but it helps hold you together so you can keep going.

He hoped they'd stopped blaming him once they saw her up and around, but the Chief had been in Ibora’s medical bay since coming aboard and the Doc wouldn’t let anyone in there to see her.

In the midships mess, once Parker was gone, he had to eat with the railgun loaders. There were plenty of redsuits in there, but they didn’t want Tig near them. All 30 of them shut him out. Turned their goddam backs.

When the Chief came through the hatch, they all cheered her. Must be nice, he thought, as he saw her blush from it. It was easy to see she was looking for someone even from 20 meters away on the far side of the mess. Her eyes played across the faces of the redsuits she saw there. "Where’s Meester?" Those milky eyes found him. She pointed and yelled it over all the reds along with the rest of the crewmen and pilots when she shouted to him. "AMTS Tig Meester! Get over here. I got a job for someone I trust. You’re the only one that can do it. I need those magic hands."

He didn’t plan to cut right through the middle of the 30 redsuits between him and Horcheese. It was crowded in their section of the mess. He’d have had to shove his way through the chairs and he didn’t plan to do that. He started to make for the edge of the compartment to walk along the bulkhead.

Tig never saw who shouted, "Make a hole," but it wasn’t the Chief. After that, they all stood up and made a hole for him. They stood up and got out of his way and made a corridor for him to pass. Tig walked down it wishing everyone he'd ever known had been there to see him.

If you enjoyed this story from the 2164-2165 war, then read The War of Alien Aggression.

The War of Alien Aggression
 

Hardway, Kamikaze, Lancer, Taipan, Cozen's War
. 

All five books in a single volume - the war with the Squidies from the first engagement to the final detonations.

640 pages, 192K words

Hardway
 

Intelligent life reaches out to Humanity using particle beam weapons and masers. The pilots and crew of the carrier
Hardway
are first to fight in the conflict that quickly escalates from a bloody first contact to a full-scale, interstellar war. Ram Devlin knows he and the rest of Humanity may have been tricked into engaging in a war that didn't have to happen. The verity of the history being written is in doubt, but the survival of his crew and the very future of mankind is at stake.

Kamikaze

The privateer attack carrier
Hardway
invades Procyon to destroy an alien blockade gun meant to keep the human race confined.
Hardway
and her pilots meet their match in the Squidies' massive gun and the alien aces that protect it until they discover why the aliens are beating them.
Hardway's
officers must commit to paying for victory in war's only true currency.

Lancer

Privateer Admiral Harry Cozen needs pilots for an experimental fighter squadron, so he offers the inmates of Bailey Prison a deal. Colt is serving 5-7 and he knows the deal is too good to be true, but he still takes it. He and the rest of the C-Block nuggets learn to fly the new F-151 Bitzer and prepare to sortie against alien aces on a mission far more dangerous than anyone's telling them.

Taipan

The privateer attack carrier
Hardway
is drafted into a force group commanded by Harry Cozen's bitter rival from Staas Company. She stole his fighter program and his thousand new pilots. Now, she's determined to use them as cannon fodder. Nobody can argue with her battle record, but the officers and crew of
Hardway
and the Lancers of the 133rd Fighter Test Squadron may be all that can keep her pilots alive in a knife-fight deep behind enemy lines. 

Cozen's War

The Staas Privateers and the UN fleet have brought the fight to the Squidies' home system. The massive Earth invasion fleet faces off against every ship the Squidies' can muster. Harry Cozen is in command and this is his greatest gambit, but alien propaganda threatens to reveal the war's greatest secret on the very day the broadest and bloodiest battle of the conflict unfolds. Knowing how thin the margin is between victory and defeat, Ram Devlin races to the Squidies' homeworld moon with a weapon of mass destruction that could end the war in seconds. Humanity must win, but the price of victory may be a thousand more years of war.

About the Author

A.D. Bloom types loudly on a 1998 IBM M13 mechanical keyboard (13H6705), prefers writing on vertical monitors, and claims he’ll make portable aerial radar from a $12 usb radio dongle when he’s done with his current project.