The 28th Gate Volume 8

Episode 7-3

Hunter’s snarl softened and he turned away. “I have good hardware,” he replied, tapping a synthetic finger against the side of his head. “So, if you have any hope of passing your final qualification run, you’d better get that fighter of yours in shape.”

“Penjani, keep your wing steady!”

I pulled on the controls, trying to compensate for the venting engine coolant that was acting like a thruster and threatening to throw me into a spiral if I let it. Instead, my S52 continued to wobble a bit, though at least I managed to decrease the magnitude of each oscillation.

“You heard our orders, Squadron Three!” Barret called over the channel. “Take them by flights!” She continued issuing orders for each of the flights in Squadron Three, splitting us apart to drive in toward the oncoming fighters. Within moments we were back into the fray, tumbling and twirling in a frenetic flow of action. I struggled to keep up with Helmi as he pulled elaborate loops and then picked off one of the two Fayatt fighters that had fallen in behind me.

“You’ve got to watch your back!” he snapped.

“I know, I know,” I replied, feeling my aggravation mount because so much of my attention was being spent on just flying straight due to the leaking coolant.

But at least I was still flying. And that was something.

When another pair of Fayatt fighters came in for targeting locks, I pushed hard to the port, then jerked away, letting the leaking exhaust spiral me into an intricate tumble like the ones I’d seen Hunter do in the Dagger.

Of course, the intense inertial forces from the move made me regret it immediately, but only a michron later, a pair of unidirectional missiles sailed past my prior position. And then I was scrambling at the controls to reorient myself, pulling a targeting lock on the closest of the two oncoming fighters. As soon as I heard my locking tone, I launched a pair of missiles myself, and was rewarded an instant later with a brilliant detonation as one of my missiles struck. The resulting explosion not only destroyed the fighter I’d hit, but threw the other off course, spiraling out of the fight from a mangled thruster.

Imagine that. Two fighters down and it was just the first time I’d fired my missiles.

Granted, my exultation was short-lived.

“You’d better save those missiles!” Helmi snapped. “And you’re better off launching one at a time—we have a long fight ahead of us.”

Rather than snap back the first response that came to mind, I just nodded, knowing he couldn’t see the gesture. He was right, of course. We did have a long fight, and if it dragged out too long, I might well wish I still had a spare missile. But that wasn’t really the point. I was frustrated because he wasn’t giving me any congratulations at all.

The truth is, I was just happy to have made it so far without having lost my fighter. Again. So, if it meant I used unnecessary force to confirm a kill in the simulation, I wasn’t upset by that.

At least, until the simulated fight really did run long.

Around the two chron mark, we were still holding our own, clearing the small waves of fighters that the simulated enemy fleet kept throwing at us without too many losses. But at three chrons into the fight, things took a turn for the worse.

“Squadron Three, new orders,” Barret called. “We have to protect the torpedo ships in Wing One! Break out by flight!” As Barret continued reeling through the flights in Squadron Three, I pulled my attention away for a moment to take in the overall positioning of our fleet. Wing Two had slowly advanced ahead of the Celestial and Wing One, and I now realized how much of a pounding Wing One’s torpedo ships had taken. There weren’t many of them left, nor were there many of the heavy fighters that Wing One had been using to protect the torpedo ships.

I swept my Marrog around, falling into a position off Helmi’s wing, and the flight raced back to our new positions, ready to shift to an interception role. But we still weren’t in position when we finally had our surprise of the simulation.

“Whoa! Where’d those torpedoes come from!” Helmi cried.

There were dozens, maybe even hundreds of them, and they’d all appeared just ahead of the enemy fleet, from torpedo ships we couldn’t even see. Worse still, every last torpedo was on a direct course for the Celestial.

“All flights intercept!” Barret cried, scrambling to flag torpedoes for each flight, even as other squadron leaders did the same for their own flights. “Launch every missile you have left!”

Helmi didn’t say a word as I launched the single missile I still had, but I noticed that he launched three.

The remaining heavy fighters in Wing One opened fire as well, and they carried more missiles than did most of the fighters in Wing Two. But even as the front wave of torpedoes began to detonate from the counter missiles, it became clear it wouldn’t be enough.

There were too many torpedoes.

Wing One launched another volley, destroying another forward tip of the torpedo wave, but then another full wave of torpedoes appeared behind them.

“Where are they coming from?” Domas cried.

“All fighters, engage with direct fire!” Barret ordered. “We can’t let those torpedoes reach the Celestial!”

I spun my fighter around, angling for a direct run on the closest torpedoes Barret had flagged for my flight. They were moving quickly, so it wouldn’t take long to reach them.

And by the same logic, it would be hard to catch them once they passed us.

I began firing my twin Ianthes as soon as they showed full power. I didn’t even bother waiting for the targeting lock because the cannons would need another moment, what with the various incompatibilities I’d had to work through to get them mounted at all. Sure enough, it was a solid three michron delay before my fighter began to shudder from the twins sustained fire, and then ahead of me an explosion marked my hits.

One torpedo down.

Two more joined it a moment later, thanks to the others in my flight. And stretching to either side of the battlefield more detonations marked the same from the other flights in Wing Two, all scrambling in a desperate rush to stop the oncoming torpedoes.

And then I spun my fighter around, hitting the thrusters and main engine hard to decelerate before the remaining torpedoes went rushing past. But it was too late. I didn’t have the power to decelerate fast enough. They were going to sweep right past.

And then the leaking engine coolant finally blew its valve assembly.

My little Marrog fighter hurtled off course before I could catch it, just in time to collide with the first of the torpedoes rushing past us.

The lights in my cockpit flashed, powering down to marked me as destroyed. But I didn’t have long to curse my ship. Within another few subchrons the remaining torpedoes swept into the simulated Celestial, colliding with its already weakened hull. The ship was lost with all hands.

We had failed again.

I suppose my only consolation was that I received credit for stopping three torpedoes in the simulation, while everyone else in my flight only had two.

The next simulation wasn’t much better.

“Come on!” Helmi cried. “We almost have them this time!”

We were facing a small fleet of Fayatt ships positioned between us and the Selma IV Gate. And there had only been one wave of fighters this time. At least, that’s what we’d thought.

“Squadron Three, watch out! There are more ships arriving behind us!”

I craned my head around after Barret’s warning and spotted a pair of battlecarriers, each carrying as many fighters as the Celestial or more. But they weren’t Fayatt ships.

They were Maunhouser.

“Maybe they’ve come to back us up,” Helmi suggested.

But I knew better. “We have to stop those ships before they launch their fighters!”

“What? Why?” Domas answered.

“Because they’re Maunhouser! Do you really think Hunter would give us Maunhouser allies in a training like this?”

Almost as though to mark my words, the closest of the battlecarriers opened fire on the rear of the Celestial.

“Squadron Three, we’re the closest fighters. We need to buy time for Wing One to reposition.”

“We’re on it!” Helmi answered, relaying orders to the rest of the flight.

Of course, as soon as we wheeled, the carriers launched fighters. A lot of them. I began targeting as many as I could with my twin Ianthes while pulsing the short-range laser. We kept on against overwhelming odds, and my fight became more difficult when the short-range laser stopped working on me. But I wasn’t the first one out.

And that kept me going.

At least until my primary battery power stabilizer failed, and the secondary system didn’t handover correctly. Within instants my entire fighter was flying dead. And within moments I was out.

The next training simulation, we finally managed to cripple the Fayatt fleet, giving the Celestial enough time to reach the Selma IV Gate. And as soon as it was within broadcasting range, the gate opened for an Oversight battleship, one of their ancient flagships. The fight didn’t last long after that. And when the primary relay for my maneuvering thrusters came loose, I didn’t last long either.

After that we had what looked like it should be an easy training, facing off against a single carrier in orbit of Selma IV without any lunar cannons or orbital batteries. We crippled the fighters, checked for hidden weapons, ensured the gate wasn’t spewing new warships, and then finally thought we might actually beat the simulation.

That was when gigantic creatures attacked us from the moon. A whole swarm of the things came flying into space on massive wings, chasing after fighters and assault craft alike with wicked teeth and outstretched talons. They tore through us as though we had no armor—which, in the case of my Marrog’s rear quarter, was exactly what I had after my maneuvering knocked it loose. One of the beasts caught my S52 in its mouth, tearing at the ship with its claws before swallowing my cockpit whole.

Even worse than the debilitating defeats was the snickering in the debriefings afterward as some of the other pilots began speculating about the next “insane surprise.” Helmi even went as far as to suggest Hunter was trying to get us all killed intentionally because he couldn’t handle the pressure of commanding a wing. And while during the first few debriefings, squadron leader Barret had severely scolded anyone making suggestions even half as terrible as Helmi’s, now she remained silent, her face impassive.

And in her silence was implicit agreement.

Looking back on it later, I realized part of the problem was how the pilots had been divided between the two wings. Most of the inexperienced pilots had been drafted into Greene’s Wing One. I’m sure Quatra thought this would help Hunter by stocking his Wing Two with pilots who already had more experience and training. But what it really meant was that Greene’s wing was filled with pilots who had joined the Independent Militia after they’d heard about Hunter from Quatra in CUMA, while Wing Two had more of Quatra’s original escort fighters—former freelancers and mercenaries who were just there for the money and might not have even believed the stories Hunter brought back about Civilization.

But at the time I just knew that I often felt I had to defend Hunter against the rest of the squadron who wanted to mock him. And when I tried to protest, to argue that they just didn’t understand what Hunter was trying to do, some of them turned on me, accusing me of having no idea what I was talking about because I was too inexperienced and had never seen “real” combat.