Battleship Furiosa (15 page)

Her eyes moved to Nate, and for a
change she smiled, immediately making Nate a little nervous.

"Ensign Nathaniel Lewis,
second-in-
command of Knighthawk Squadron,
and credited with nine verified kills."

Valdis
turned and spoke something quietly to her three friends.
One made a cackling sound that Nate was sure was a laugh. She then
looked back.

"That is impressive, Ensign.
Lilija is our highest scoring pilot, with fifteen kills to her
name."

Nate smiled as he listened.

"Nice. I'd hoped for more, but we've
only been flying since our escape aboard Relentless."

"That's true,
" said Lieutenant Commander Holder, "Until then, none of
you had even been inside a fighter, had you?"

Flying Officer Valdis' eyes lit
up as she heard this.

"Tell me truthfully, is
this...fact?"

Nate nodded, now wondering if
he'd misread the situation. Instead, the Byotai pilot stepped close
and placed her arms around him. He wasn't sure if it was a kind of
greeting or an embrace. He lifted his hands to her back, and as he
touched her body, she shuddered.

Great, something
tells me you shouldn't have done
that.

They separated, but Valdis appeared as
eager to speak as before.

"We have a few minutes before we check
our birds. Now tell me all about how you went from rookie pilots to
veterans."

Billy heard the last few words and
shook his head.

"Oh, we aren't pilots. We are
civilians. We were at the starbase for the Star Crusader simulation
contest."

Valdis
looked stunned.

"Incredible.
Truly...i
ncredible."

Lieutenant
Comman
der Holder stepped between them and
gave Nate an expression that suggested he needed to move back for a
moment. He did so, though not quite sure why.

"We will have time to discuss
this later. In the meantime, we need to finish introductions and
then sort out callings and procedures before we enter the Rift.
Until we break through, we will have no idea what's on the other
side."

Valdis lowered her head once more.

"My apologies.
P
lease continue. It is important we are
ready...and I am intrigued to see what fighters you have brought
with you."

She looked off into the distance where
the line of Lightning fighters waited, but her eyes lingered on
Nate for much longer.

Byotai Imperial Battleship
'Furiosa'

Approaching Serpentis System Rift,
Deadlands

24 December 2472

It was only a fifteen-minute break, but
it was very welcome. So far the group had run simulations from
inside the fighters, rehearsed take-off and landing procedures, as
well as established a the chain of command and wingmen pairs. So
much had been crammed into such a short amount of time, yet for all
that, Nate was thoroughly enjoying himself.

Thirty minutes to go and we'll be
through.

In his mind, they were heading
into a glorious battle, one where Furiosa would play the
significant role. He
and his friends
would be there to witness the great event, and perhaps even do
something themselves. He smiled, and as he opened his eyes, the
bright lights and pungent aroma of the scents worn by the four
female pilots welcomed him. He leaned forward, took a sip of cool
water, and then looked across to his comrades. For a second, he
might have thought he was back aboard Relentless, but as his eyes
focussed, he was clearly somewhere very different. He was inside an
alien ship and surrounded by surprisingly grateful
people.

He reclined back in the large,
ove
rly comfortable chair and looked
across to two of the Byotai pilots. The material moved with him,
yet did not emit even the softest of sounds. Byotai technology and
engineering already carried quite a reputation, and now he could
see why. Nothing proved more interesting than his new friends, each
of which seemed intrigued by the young human pilots near the one
wall.

Weird, very weird.

He shook his head and
looked around the room. All nine of them were
present, with just the Lieutenant Commander away and speaking with
the senior officers. The average age of the group was eighteen or
nineteen; yet in their mixture of Byotai flight suits and Alliance
Naval issue PDS armour they looked like veteran combat pilots. A
smile formed on his face as he realised that the scene was highly
reminiscent of the simulated environment used on the Byotai Space
Station during the Star Crusader simulation. Back then the pilots'
avatars had met in briefing rooms much like this one to plan
coordinated missions.

You idiot,
he thought suddenly,
why do you think you're here, after all?

The space allocated for the
pilots was actually a comfortable and spacious lounge area, but
what really surprised
Nate, was that it
was attached to the side of the lower hangar deck. One wall was
equipped with a long line of short windows, each granting a view of
the massive open space. The Byotai had a unique architectural
style, with slab style walls and columns everywhere. He'd read
somewhere that they shared much with the old style on Earth, known
as the Doric style. Much of this was hidden by the gold
embellishments that covered everything. Angled bullheads reduced
the width of the ceiling and joined the fall at the bottom of the
walls, creating an odd shape that gave strength, as well as
dedicated bays for each fighter, protected on three sides by tough
metal.

She's a fine ship, a real monster.

Sitting
inside such a behemoth left him with a strong feeling of
safety, yet in his short time aboard Navy ships he'd learnt one
hard truth. There was no single ship in existence that could not be
overwhelmed, boarded, or destroyed. At least one of this very class
had already been taken, and there was a good chance a second had
also been taken.

I wonder who
would come out on top in a
ship-to-ship fight?

Nate imagined ANS
Wa
rlord, with her bodged design and
primitive weapons compared to the advancements of the Byotai. For
all the improvised changes and decisions made by the Alliance Naval
engineers, they'd still managed to construct a ship that had proven
herself time after time. He watched Billy and almost laughed as he
tried to sound impressive in front of their new allies. Billy
looked out of the nearest window and then repeated himself before
noticing Nate watching him.

"Hey, Nate. How much longer? I'm
itching for some action."

Nate looked to his friend who was
clearly trying to big himself up in front of Lilija, the unit’s
top-scoring pilot.

"Don't rush it, Billy. When it comes,
you'll want it to slow down."

Like all of them, she was fully
armoured up as a pilot now, yet her womanly shape was still
obvious, even under layers of material and armour. While the
Alli
ance PDS gear was close fitting and
only lightly armoured, the Byotai gear looked much more basic. The
soft material that covered the skin was augmented with hard plate
sections of a thin, translucent colour that betrayed it as
Nanocrystal paste. Nate had never heard of it being used for
clothing, and could only assume it was due to their status in a
Royal unit.

"Really?" Billy asked, his tone
obviously sarcastic.

He
looked back to Lilija. A familiar voice caught his ear. He
turned around and found Valdis moving to the large seat in front of
him.

"In my experience, that is exactly what
happens. Nathaniel."

The voice was smooth and exotic.
She lowered herself carefully before sinking into the soft
material.
Like the other three, she wore
the ivory coloured armour, embellished in yellow and gold. Her hair
hung down over her shoulders, and Nate noticed the plates shift and
bend as she settled down. To his surprise he still found that he
was rather taken by her. She was clearly intelligent, perhaps very
intelligent. And though of the Byotai race, the differences between
them seemed far less substantial than he might have
expected.

Nobody told me the Byotai women were
like this.

The images he'd seen over the
months of being in the Academy had shown creatures that had very
little in common with humans. He recalled seeing them as being
large, trollish creatures, with large heads, large bony
exoskeletons
, and a fearsome attitude.
Now he was seeing charm, sophistication, and even beauty in their
own particular way.

"
Valdis, only my parents called me Nathaniel, and they are
both dead. My friends all call me Nate."

He tried to sound
assertive
and strong, something he'd read
that the Byotai respected. But as he said the words, he felt little
more than a petulant child. In a matter of weeks he'd be eighteen,
and still he felt as he did when he'd been back at
school.

"Very well.
Does that mean I am your friend?"

Nate nodded.

"Of course, we are all friends, are we
not?"

Valdis made a clicking sound and
then indicated towards Cassandra. She was sitting quietly on her
own, scrolling through pages of data on her Secpad bracelet while
humming quietly to herself. Nate watched for a moment, but he was
much more interested in what this exotic Byotai had to say.
Cassandra had scorned him on so many occasions that he was now
starting to enjoy life, without having to try and catch her eye,
and always failing.

"I've heard humans say that
tim
e speeds up when you're having fun. Is
this true?"

Nate looked intently into her
yellow eyes as he answered.
As he moved
his attention from Cassandra, she glanced over to him and shook her
head a little. She was only too aware that she had been watched by
the pair, but had kept her eyes low to avoid having to engage
either of them in conversation. Svana walked alongside her comrade
and ran her hand along Valdis' arm. She turned and spoke several
quick words in her own tongue. The words were short, but friendly,
and then Svana was gone. Nate watched her briefly as she settled in
alongside Cassandra, who acknowledged her presence
politely.

They look
so familiar, and so friendly, yet so
very different to us.

"Yes, it
is very true. Time is relative. That is what we have always
been taught."

"Relative? Oh...I
see."

She looked away for a
minute
and then spoke again, but much
more quietly.

"So, you find the things that excite
you move on too quickly? But the things you dislike will never
end."

Nate smiled. It was a simple
enough statement, and one he was sure he and his friends could all
agree with.

"Exactly."

"Ah," said Valdis,
"I understand. The waiting for the next battle
feels longer than it actually is. Yet when you are enjoying
yourself, perhaps with good company, the time is gone too fast.
This is the same...I think."

Nate cocked his head a little as
he listened. It was hard, due to her accent and mannerism to work
out if she was playing with him or not. All of the young Byotai
spoke English, and Nate still found it surprising they could speak
it so well. Nonetheless, the language used by Valdis would have
been considered flirting back on Relentless. Out here, and in this
situation, he had simply no idea what was happening, only that he
felt surprisingly comfortable around the alien pilots. Only then
did Nate realise she was still waiting for an answer.

"Uh...I...Yes, the same."

Valdis chuckled once more, and
Nate could feel his face reddening.
She
took a moment as she considered everything he'd said so far, but
then took an interest in the way Nate's skin colour had shifted. He
instantly felt self-conscious and looked for a way, any way to
steer things away from him. He took it as an opportunity to ask
something that had bothered him for some time now.

"Valdis, how is it that you all
speak our language so quickly, and so easily? A few decades
ag
o you'd never even heard of us. Now you
shame people like me. I must look and sound like a barbarian in
your eyes."

Their eyes met and locked
together for a few seconds, until finally
Nate relented and moved to his from hers. She was
intoxicating in a way that not even the strong and wilful Private
Valentine was.

"Language is not difficult for
us
, Nate. As children, the well educated
are expected to learn the tongues of all our neighbours. This is
part of our study, and the neural trainers that we all practice
with provide much assistance. I learnt your language three years
ago, and I am glad you find it pleasing."

Nate pulled his head back in
surprise.

"Wait a second. You speak other
languages? Like Khreenk?"

Valdis chuckled in that odd,
throaty way. So intrigued was Nate, that he seemed to be missing
all of her attempt at subtlety. She moved closer before
answering.