She weaved past the tumbling contrail and locked on to two more fighters as they rocketed toward the Veng’en cruiser, her finger barely brushing the trigger twice and sending two pulses of energy smashing into the rear–quarters of two more Scythes. Neither impact destroyed the fighters, but both broke off their attack with aggressive defensive manoeuvres as Evelyn plummeted toward the vulnerable shuttle.
‘You take the shuttle,’ Andaim ordered. ‘I’ll patrol.’
A salvo of gunfire raced up toward Evelyn’s Raython and she twisted the craft violently to avoid the lethal blasts as they flashed past her canopy. Evelyn hauled the fighter out of its dive and flashed by over the shuttle, which was docked at an awkward angle close behind the cruiser’s bridge and in plain sight.
‘You’re too close,’ Andaim called.
Cannon fire flashed by in a dizzying array of light as Evelyn fought to keep her Raython as hard to hit as possible.
‘Where the hell are they?’ she called.
A cloud of Scythe fighters swooped in toward the shuttle, Andaim’s Raython wheeling in behind them and opening fire as Eveln pulled up and aimed to come in on their flank, catching them in a lethal crossfire. She squeezed the trigger even as she saw Andaim’s shots destroy one of the Scythes in a flickering cloud of burning gases.
The formation broke up around the blast and Evelyn fired again into the Scythes and saw them scatter before the onslaught.
‘Stay close to them!’ Evelyn shouted as she realised that the cruiser’s smaller guns were not engaging them directly any more. ‘They won’t shoot at us for fear of hitting their own!’
‘How very
gentlemanly
of them.’
Evelyn locked onto a Scythe but a radio transmission from Atlantia broke her concentration.
‘Atlantia, Reaper One and Two. Clear for effective fire!’
Evelyn heard Lael’s call and she knew that she could not wait any longer.
‘Get clear, Eve!’ Andaim yelled.
Evelyn saw the Scythe fighters suddenly wheel away toward the cruiser’s stern and she realised that they were making a break for it before the cruiser was destroyed.
‘There’s nothing more we can do for them!’ Andaim called.
Evelyn yanked her control column over and her fighter swept away from the cruiser’s hull, followed by a sudden stream of gunfire that rocketed by as she jinked and weaved. An alarm warbled in her cockpit as one of her engines began to overheat and she drew back on her throttle for a moment and looked up at the Atlantia.
She saw the ripple of tiny blue lights flicker like lightning across her hull, and then the gigantic plasma shots flashed past her and she craned her neck back to see the shots smash into the Veng’en cruiser and the asteroids surrounding it. A brilliant flare of light as bright as a hundred suns burned into her retina and she squinted and jerked her head away, the fearsome afterglow spoiling her vision.
The shower of plasma vanished as Evelyn’s Raython levelled out and she glimpsed Andaim’s fighter swoop down and move in alongside her.
‘Atlantia, status?’ the commander called.
There was a moment’s pause and then Lael’s reply came back.
‘They’re gone,’
she said.
Evelyn felt a plunging sensation deep in her belly, a realisation that the people she had come to respect and admire had suddenly and completely been ripped from her life. Even Qayin, the unpredictable and seemingly indestructible gangster, could not have survived the sheer force of the Atlantia’s broadside against such a damaged hull.
‘Reaper Flight, acknowledged,’ Andaim replied, ‘returning to base. We did what we could.’
Lael’s reply came back immediately.
‘You did great!’
Evelyn’s eyes widened. ‘What do you mean?’
‘The shuttle’s right behind you,’ Lael replied. ‘It’s the Veng’en cruiser that’s gone.’
Evelyn peered over her right shoulder.
Behind, the vast asteroid field was aglow with the light from the star buried deep within, beaming in immense rays out into the bitter cold of space. A cloud of shattered rock and dust occupied the spot where the Veng’en cruiser had been, but she could see barely any of the debris that should have been there: the vast torn chunks of hull plating, the burning cores of her giant engines and the clouds of venting gases.
Against the vast field, a tiny glowing speck glinted in the sunlight as it tracked toward them.
‘Ranger One, Atlantia,’
Bra’hiv’s voice crackled over the radio.
‘Returning to base.’
‘Did you get them?’ she asked.
‘The hosatges are aboard and Qayin’s fine,’
came the response.
‘Although if I have anything to do with it he’ll be spending a week in the brig.’
*
‘Reaper Two, you’re number one to land.’
Evelyn guided her Raython down into the landing bay, aware of the smoke puffing from her starboard engine as she touched down. The Raython’s magnetic undercarriage gripped the deck at her landing spot and she began shutting the fighter down as other Raythons landed around her. The shuttle came in last, its hull scarred with scorch marks and dents from its rough ride to and from the Veng’en cruiser.
The Atlantia’s huge landing bay doors rumbled closed and the atmosphere was re–introduced as the whine of dozens of ion engines began to subside. Evelyn shut down her engines as ground crews swarmed onto the deck, and she opened her canopy.
Pilots clambered from their fighters, many of the craft scorched by near misses from Veng’en plasma shots. Some of the pilots looked exhausted, their hair matted against their heads and their shoulders slumped, but she could see smiles and nods of congratulations as they began gathering near the bay exits.
Evelyn climbed down from her fighter and searched for Andaim among the throng. The commander appeared from behind his Raython where he had been examining some damage with the fighter’s crew chief. He spotted her but to her dismay did not smile or acknowledge her in any way as he strode across to the other pilots.
‘Evelyn!’
She turned and saw Teera rush across and almost collide with her, the younger girl’s arm wrapped tightly about Evelyn’s waist.
‘I saw you out there!’ Teera almost shouted. ‘Holy crap, you were on fire!’
‘Literally,’ Evelyn managed a smile as they walked toward the exits. ‘I guess I had a good day.’
In truth, the effects of the drug were beginning to wear off and she felt suddenly swamped with exhaustion, the lights of the landing bay dull, the smell of ion fuel and scorched metal alien and cold.
‘A good day?’ Teera echoed. ‘You shot down seven Scythes and took on a Veng’en cruiser, head–on, and you call that just a good day?’
‘Well, I’ve had worse.’
Andaim was debriefing the pilots as they stood in a tight knot by the exits, the Reapers and Renegades mingling and chatting and smiling.
‘… so it looks like the training’s paying off,’ Andaim said. ‘We knew that the Veng’en pilots were less capable than us, but even so, I don’t think that we lost a single pilot in this engagement. Lieutenants Veyer and Morgan both ejected safely when their Raythons were hit.’
A ragged cheer went up as Evelyn and Teera reached the edge of the group.
‘Ensign! Attention!’
Evelyn flinched in surprise as Andaim pointed at her, his jaw set and his eyes hard and cold. She stiffened as the crowd of pilots parted and Andaim made his way through them to stand before her.
‘During the engagement you made several key errors. Would you like to explain them to me?’
Evelyn, her brain beginning to feel fuzzy and disorganised, tried to speak.
‘I just did what came naturally,’ she mumbled. ‘I saw opportunities for shots and I took them and…’
‘You disobeyed orders on several occasions,’ Andaim growled. The crowd of pilots fell silent as they listened. ‘You broke tactical protocol by engaging a superior vessel’s plasma cannons head–on without countermeasures or Corsair bomber support. You abandoned your wingman,
me
, twice, and in doing so endangered both your life and my own!’
Evelyn’s jaw tried to work but she could barely get her words out.
‘I…, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.’
‘You’re damned right it won’t happen again,’ Andaim snapped. ‘As far as I’m concerned, you will never, ever be my wingman again and you will never fly that Raython again either!’
Evelyn stared at Andaim and for the first time in as long as she could remember she fought back tears that welled in her eyes as a terrible sense of shame swept over her.
Andaim stared back at her for a moment longer and then smiled.
‘Because as a fully qualified pilot, you won’t be anybody’s wingman. You’ll be flight lead.’ Evelyn blinked as her exhausted mind tried to grasp what Andaim had said. ‘And you won’t fly that Raython again, as next time you see it Lieutenant G’Velle’s name won’t be there on the canopy frame. It will have your name upon it,
lieutenant
.’
A ripple of chuckles flooded the crowd of pilots.
Evelyn finally smiled as Andaim held out his free hand. She could see the other pilots watching as she looked down and saw a pair of gold metal wings in Andaim’s palm.
Evelyn reached out and plucked the surprisingly heavy wings from the commander. She reached up and pinned them to her flight suit as the clatter of dozens of boots attracted the attention of the pilots. Evelyn turned to see Bra’hiv and his Marines moving to join them.
Several of the Sylph’s crew members were being led away by medics along with soldiers on stretchers, their injuries patched with medical dressings as they were rushed to the sick bay. Among them she saw Qayin striding with one hand holding an ice pack to his face and two medics escorting him.
Andaim saw the big man and the general. Bra’hiv called out to him. ‘I’m sorry to report that our mission was a success: Qayin survived.’
Andaim nodded, his expression sombre. ‘A regrettable outcome. Better luck next time, general.’
Qayin’s smile curled from his lips as he held the ice pack in place. ‘So nice to be back.’
‘You’re welcome. What happened to the Veng’en cruiser?’ Andaim demanded of Bra’hiv.
‘Made a random jump,’ Bra’hiv reported. ‘We’d barely detached when it just vanished. The pilots managed to get us behind a decent sized asteroid when the Atlantia let rip, fortunately.’
‘The captain’s going to want to know everything,’ Andaim said. ‘All pilots, report to the ready room for debrief.’
The pilots shuffled away down the exit corridor and Teera jabbed Evelyn in the side as they followed.
‘Told you everything would be fine,’ she said.
Evelyn managed a faint smile in response, and wondered how much of her success was down to skill and how much was down to the drugs Meyanna had supplied.
***
Evelyn awoke in her bunk and for a moment she feared that she was back inside the tiny capsule from which she had emerged from years of stasis, floating alone in deep space. Then she felt the warmth about her and she reached up to her face. There was no metal mask.
Evelyn sighed in relief in the darkness and looked at her HandStat. The luminous display beneath the skin of her left hand glowed in the darkness, and she was mildly surprised to discover that she had been asleep for almost twelve hours.
Captain Idris Sansin had stood the Atlantia’s crew down for twenty four hours after the Veng’en cruiser had fled the scene of the battle. Exhausted, injured and facing days’ of repair duties, there had been no celebrations or award ceremonies. The entire crew had grabbed quick showers, an even quicker meal, and then collapsed into their bunks.
Evelyn tapped a touchscreen beside her head and the side wall of her bunk hissed open to reveal the tiny twin room she shared with Teera. Barely larger than the prison cells she had once been incarcerated in, it provided a modicum of privacy in the otherwise crowded frigate.
She climbed out of her bunk, noting that Teera’s was already empty, and hit another button on the wall. The two bunks collapsed automatically and folded up against the wall, providing a little more space in the tiny room. Evelyn washed, and then from one of two narrow lockers she lifted out her dark blue officer’s uniform and dressed.
A screen on the wall beeped quietly, and she tapped it to reveal a message from Meyanna Sansin.
The message had been sent four hours previously.
Evelyn sighed, adjusted her uniform until she was happy with its fit, and then opened the door of the room and walked out.
The pilot’s crew room was mostly empty, many of the men making the most of the downtime by visiting the sanctuary. Two pilots who were on Quick Reaction Alert, the twenty–four hour scramble standy–by duty, cast her quick glances before returning to their reading. She passed the two pilots by and headed into the ship proper, travelling via the elevator banks to the sick bay.
Meyanna Sansin was working as ever on the ward, tending to the many injured soldiers and pilots in the aftermath of the battle. Evelyn eased her way past nurses and doctors until she caught the eye of the captain’s wife. Meyanna’s smile was quick and Evelyn saw her take in the wings pinned to her chest and the smart uniform.
‘About time,’ Meyanna said as she stood up from applying a gel to a burn on a Marine’s forearm. ‘And the uniform suits you.’
‘It’s just my colour,’ Evelyn replied. ‘You called for me?’
Meyanna removed her surgical gloves and motioned for Evelyn to follow her toward the laboratory.
‘Have you been debriefed?’ she asked.
‘Only at squadron level,’ Evelyn replied. ‘The captain hasn’t spoken to me yet.’
‘He will,’ Meyanna said as she held the laboratory door open for Evelyn and then sealed it shut behind her. ‘You’ll be glad to know that I have engineered a vaccine from your blood that will protect us all against the Infectors, for now at least.’
‘No more tests?’ Evelyn asked.
‘No more tests,’ Meyanna smiled. ‘At least, not on you anyway.’
‘How does it work?’ Evelyn asked.
Meyanna sighed as she glanced at a handful of blood samples remaining to be checked.