Fall of Icarus (5 page)

She turned and followed the others on board.
 
As she entered the crew compartment, most of the Infantry were already seated, their large weapons stored beside them and their bags locked into place above.
 
Already frustrated, Keryn shoved her way past the couple soldiers still standing in the middle of the compartment.
 
She expected a muttered insult or two, but heard nothing in response.
 
If the only thing they would respond to is violence, then Keryn was pretty sure she would give them more than they could handle.

           
Slipping into the forward cockpit, Keryn found Yen already seated in the copilot’s chair.
 
Without sparing him a word, Keryn sat in her own seat and strapped the throat microphone around her neck.
 
Flipping a series of switched above
her,
she started the initial sequence to ignite the plasma engines.

           
“Forget about them,” Yen said as he checked the gauges and computer display.
 
“You want to impress them, show them what you can do at the controls of a ship.
 
Get them where they need to be and they’ll be yours forever.”

           
Managing little more than a grunt in recognition, Keryn pressed a button and the exterior doors to the ship slid shut.
 
The radio crackled as the Squadron Commander activated the internal ship channel.

           
“
Revolution
Squadron, this is Squadron Commander Garrix,” the gravelly voice called to the ships as they all began preflight warm ups.
 
“Have all ships in position in three mikes.
 
We will decompress the hangar at that time and begin the combat scenario.”

           
Piloting one of the
Cair
ships, Keryn knew that she had a while before she would be required to pull her ship out of its alcove and get on line.
 
Through the thick window of the cockpit, Keryn could barely make out the dozens of
Duun
fighters as they rolled into their start positions.

           
“We have a couple minutes before you have to move,” Yen said, “so let’s go over everything one more time.”

           
Keryn nodded and began reciting the training Yen had been drilling into her since her arrival onboard.
 
“Hang back.
 
Let the
Duun
’s engage.
 
Look for an opening.
 
Stop for nothing.”
 
She knew that
Cair Ilmun
wasn’t made for head-to-head combat.
 
Like she had learned in the Academy, her role in combat was to keep her crew alive long enough to board an enemy ship.
 
Once the
Duun
fighters had the enemy ships sufficiently engaged in combat, she would fly through any gaps in the sea of machine gun and missile fire until finally docking with the enemy vessel.
 
Tapping her nails impatiently on the console in front of her, Keryn ran through the multitude of things that could go wrong in those four simple steps.

           
“You forgot the most important one,” Yen added.
 
“Relax!
 
You’re making me nervous.”

           
Keryn smiled weakly.
 
“I just want to make sure I do this right.
 
I’m the most junior pilot in the Squadron.
 
I’ve got a lot to prove.”

           
“Then go out there and do what you do best.”
 
Looking down, Yen watched the blinking red light turn a solid green.
 
“It’s time to get into position.”

           
Rolling the
Cair Ilmun
forward, she took her place at the back of one of five lines of ships.
 
The sheer volume of fighters and transport ships filling the hangar was staggering. The thought of all those ships, and an equal number from the
Defiant,
all weaving through one another in open space seemed overwhelming.
 
The Academy had put her through a litany of simulations and shown her video of space combats during the Great War between the Alliance and Empire, but it was nerve-wracking to know that she would soon be fully engaged in a similar combat.

           
The lights in the hangar dimmed, replaced by a harsh red illumination.
 
A dull roar filled the room as the breathable oxygen was vented from the hangar bay.
 
As the massive door on the far end of the bay cracked open, the sea of stars and distant galaxies glowed against the inky curtain of empty space.

           
“We are a go!” Garrix called over the radio.
 
“Launch in sequence!”

           
As the ships fired their plasma engines, they launched from the hangar bay, exiting into the void beyond.
 
In Keryn’s eyes, having never seen an assault on such a grand scale, it reminded her of angry insects swarming from a disturbed hive.
 
The ships flew from the
Revolution
, spreading as they exited and filling the space beyond.

           
Turning her ship and taking her place near the top right of the
Revolution
’s hull, Keryn was able to see the distant
Defiant
moving into position.
 
As the hangar doors on their rival ship opened, distant specks poured from the ship’s underbelly, filling the area in front of the large Cruiser.
 
For a moment, though Keryn knew it to be false, there was an illusion that time had stopped.
 
The two forces seemed to hang in empty space, staring at one another in eager anticipation for the other side to make a move.
 
But Keryn knew that more was happening than she could perceive.
 
Though there was no sound and no true sense of motion, Keryn’s gauges said otherwise.
 
The two forces were hurtling forward at incredible speeds, covering the distance between the Cruisers, eventually crashing violently into one another.

           
The
Duun
fighters from both ships disappeared into a sea of exchanged laser fire and faux rocket launches.
 
Many of the ships’ hulls were instantaneously illuminated by red lights on their hulls, a signal that they had been incapacitated or destroyed.
 
Shutting down the engines, the pilots drifted as no more than obstacles around which the other
Duun
fighters danced in their brutal ballet.

           
To Keryn’s left and right, a few of the other
Cair
ships launched forward.
 
She had to assume that they saw openings that she did not.
 
In honesty, though, Keryn found it difficult to believe there would ever be a sufficient gap through which she could fly the
Cair Ilmun
.
 
The
Duun
fighters created a wall of armored hulls and exchanged gunfire that seemed nearly impenetrable.

           
Yen noticed her hand twitching near the controls.
 
“Not yet,” he said calmly.
 
“Wait for an opening.”

           
More and more of the
Cair
ships moved, though she already saw a number of them disabled in the cloud of dodging ships.
 
Keryn remembered Yen’s words about winning over the Infantry by keeping them alive.
 
She couldn’t imagine the irritation the other insertion groups must be feeling, drifting in a lifeless ship, knowing that they had been killed without ever being able to lift a weapon in their own defense.

           
“All
Cair
ships, move forward,”
Garrix
ordered over the radio.

           
“Not yet, Keryn,” Yen said sternly.

           
She looked left and right, realizing that she was the only ship not moving forward.
 
Her hands itched, jumping at the opportunity to fire the plasma engines and finally engage in combat.
 
What did all the other pilots see that she did not?
 
They were all moving confidently, as though they stood a chance of making it through the hail of gunfire between the two Cruisers.
 
Maybe the Squadron Commander was right.

           
“
Cair Ilmun
,” Garrix called.
 
“Why have you not moved forward?
 
Move out now.”

           
“Don’t do it,” Yen warned.

           
Listen to him
, the Voice agreed.
 
It’s not time, not yet
.

           
“
Cair Ilmun
, you will engage.”

           
Keryn saw over half of the other
Cair
ships floating, already destroyed during their mock combat.
 
Fear rose in her throat as she realized the technique they had adopted.
 
It was a war of attrition.
 
No matter how many
Cair
ships were destroyed, always enough slipped through to invade the opponent’s vessel.
 
More than anything, Keryn didn’t want to wind up like all the others that hadn’t made it through.
 
Fighting a war of attrition just didn’t make sense to her.

           
“What is the problem, Magistrate Riddell?” the Squadron Commander barked over the radio, his gravelly voice full of irritation.

“Hold your position,” Yen said over the aggravated Commander.
 
“Don’t listen to him.”

           
Keryn’s hand moved to the console, but her fingers remained hovering above the keys to engage the engine.
 
She didn’t know who was right and who to trust.
 
She believed Yen and knew that he had her best interest at heart, but he had been serving in the covert operations during all his combat experience.
 
He didn’t have any combat experience as a pilot.
 
On the other hand, Keryn seriously doubted Garrix had any experience either.

           
“Magistrate Riddell, I am ordering you to move out!”

           
He’s wrong
, the Voice replied.
 
He’s going to get you killed
.

           
Conflicted, Keryn let her hand drop and activated the engine.
 
The
Cair Ilmun
shot forward and dove toward the weaving
Duun
fighters.
 
Scanning side to side, Keryn searched eagerly for any opening in the sea of ships, some miraculously obvious pathway through the throng of fighters that would lead her to the
Defiant
.
 
Though she searched, nothing became apparent.

           
“Watch on your left!” Yen called out.

           
Keryn saw the
Duun
fighter breaking contact and diving toward her ship.
 
She saw the fire leap from the spinning machine guns as she dipped her own wings, sending the
Cair Ilmun
into a roll.
 
Though she saw numerous flashes of near missed shots, she moved out of range without being shot down.
 
She smiled slightly and sighed, but her relief was quickly washed away as two more
Duun
fighters moved toward her ship.
 
The
Duun
fighters, aside from eliminating one another, were tasked with the sole responsibility of destroying missiles or boarding ships that threatened their Cruiser.
 
Even a single boarding party had the capability to completely destroy a Cruiser with a well-placed series of explosives.
 
The
Duun
fighters would do all they could to destroy Keryn long before she could reach the
Defiant
.

           
Dodging left and right, Keryn saw the streak of a mock missile nearly miss their right wing.
 
Tilting the ship upward, Keryn opened fire.
 
With great satisfaction, she saw red lights flare on the leftmost
Duun
as she eliminated it from combat.
 
In her celebration, however, she failed to notice the other
Duun
drop from behind the first, using its destroyed hull as cover.
 
The flashes of machine gun fire glared through the thick cockpit window.
 
Red lights lit up across the console, warning of multiple strikes to their hull.
 
A warning claxon sounded loudly throughout the ship moments before her engines began to shut down.