Sons of the Starfarers: Omnibus I-III Page 21

  Noah spoke again, but Aaron couldn’t understand him. He had a splitting headache, and his eyes had blurred so badly that he had to rub them every few moments just to be able to see. He glanced down at the ETA counter, but couldn’t make any sense of it. All he could see were shapes, lines, and squiggles.

  Sweat dripped down the back of his neck as he frantically rubbed his eyes again. If he couldn’t read the ETA counter, he had no way of knowing when to start decelerating. That was the least of his worries, though. The alarms blared as another wave of projectile fire moved to intersect his trajectory. He swerved hard to the left and down as the autolasers blasted at full speed.

  The scanners showed the rest of Paladin wing breaking up. People were shouting chaotically on the intercom, but he couldn’t understand a word of it. Paladin-7 broke formation and spun away from the target battle cruiser altogether—an abort. He watched in livid terror to see if the others would follow suit, but thankfully, they didn’t. The attack was still on.

  Another alarm sounded, this one much louder than the others. From the tone, Aaron recognized it as a missile alert—the enemy targeting systems were trying to paint him. He dropped a countermeasure flare and swerved up just as it went off. The alarm stopped for a second or two, only to start right up again.

  “I’m gonna be sick!” someone in the cabin screamed. The comment went over Aaron’s head at first, until he realized that his mind was clearing. He glanced down and realized that he could read all the instruments again. His headache was dying down, and his vision wasn’t quite so blurry, either.

  His ETA was approaching twenty seconds—time to decelerate. Another alarm sounded, this one signifying an enemy missile launch. Aaron spun the ship around, choking down the urge to vomit as his stomach flipped, and deployed the countermeasure flare just as he fired up the engines. With the alarm still blaring, he swerved hard, gagging as he did so. At that moment, all the instruments and controls blinked out as a tremendous flash filled the narrow window.

  We’re hit!

  He gasped for breath and opened his eyes just as the instruments started to blink back on. There was no explosion, no massive decompression—they were okay. The missile had been close, but they’d gotten through it. Just to make sure that didn’t happen again, he deployed another countermeasure flare, and another.

  The other drop-ships were slowing down now, too, but they were slowing much faster. He frowned and checked the layout of the battle cruiser. It was designed a lot like the Star Fury II, except that the bridge was about a hundred meters farther up. At the rate they were decelerating, they’d land somewhere near the engines.

  He throttled it up to seven gees and tried to keep a steady hand on the flight stick, but they were still so much farther ahead from the rest of Paladin wing that they stuck out as the obvious target. There was no way to come in without some fancy maneuvering, and that just wasn’t safe at the g-forces he was pulling—not for the troops, anyway. The stench of vomit was already starting to fill the air, and several of them were moaning inconsolably. Aaron didn’t see any other choice but to overshoot the battlecruiser and fly back around as quick as he could.

  “Paladin-4, do you copy? Aaron?”

  “I’m here,” said Aaron. “Too far, come around back. Sorry.”

  Commander Noah said something about dropping in on the engine rooms with Paladin-6 through -8, but it was too late for that, as well. Aaron eased back on the throttle just as the bow of the battle cruiser shot by. The autolasers did an efficient job targeting the short-range projectile fire coming from the enemy point defenses, but the sound of small explosions against the hull told him that he didn’t have much time. He angled the Paladin-4 along the longest stretch of enemy hull and burned the engines at a full ten gees for the next couple of seconds, bringing them to a halt at the very stern of the enemy ship.

  As the docking clamps locked into place and the hull-piercing drill began its ear-splitting grind, Aaron leaned back against his seat in the fractional gravity and let out a long breath. His jumpsuit was soaked with sweat, and his stomach felt so sick, all he wanted to do was lie down. He felt sorry for the troops, who no doubt felt the same way but had to drop into and fight for control of the battle cruiser. At least they were all alive. That was the important part.

  The grinding died down, and the soldiers readied their guns, but for Aaron the battle was over—thank the stars. The autolasers whirred and explosions silently flashed outside the forward window, but he barely noticed any of it. For him, it was over.

  * * * * *

  Aaron avoided the eyes of the other pilots as they filed into the debriefing room. For their part, they seemed content to ignore him as well. On his right, Mara raised an eyebrow but said nothing. That wasn’t too surprising, though—Fourth Platoon hadn’t paid as dearly as the other ones.

  Silently, the others took their seats around the circular debriefing chamber. Like in the larger one at New Hope Station, the seats were on a raised platform surrounding a holographic projector that hung above the center. This room had only one podium, though, and it was behind the projection from where Aaron sat, not in front of it. Commander Noah was already standing at it, ready to start the debriefing. A Betan by birth, he was tall and thin with long blond hair that he wore tied back beneath his uniform. Commander Ajax and the other senior officers were seated behind him. Their faces were unreadable.

  “Welcome,” said Noah in his characteristic Orianan accent. “Please be seated. We will begin as soon as you are ready.”

  “He’s telling the others to sit down so we can start,” Mara translated.

  Aaron rolled his eyes. “I understand what the commander is saying,” he told her. “I don’t need you to translate everything.”

  For the briefest of moments, he thought he saw a wounded look on her face. As quickly as it appeared, though, the coldness and dispassion returned, covering her expression as effectively as durasteel hull plating.

  “Very good, very good,” said Commander Noah. He keyed a console at the podium, and the holographic projector came to life. It blinked a couple of times, then showed a three dimensional map of the Iayus system. He zoomed in past the orbits of the outer planets, represented by circles around the system sun, and centered on the fourth world—the one around which the battle had been fought. At the L3 point between Iaya IV and her principle moon, the Gaian Imperial battle cruiser Starshaft was parked near the system’s largest station. He zoomed in until the planet and moon dropped out of the projection, and the Starshaft’s support ships came clearly into view as red points, much as they had appeared on Aaron’s scanners during the battle.

  “This is the disposition of the enemy forces before battle,” Noah explained. “One battle cruiser, two frigates, and six gunboats at Iaya IV, with two cruisers and another frigate patrolling the outer edges of the system. A concentrated force, to be sure, but not overwhelmingly so.”

  “Do you need me to translate any of this?” Mara asked.

  Aaron shook his head. “No.”

  Commander Noah keyed the panel on his podium, and the hologram changed to show almost two dozen green dots scattered haphazardly around the red ones. They started to move, but he paused soon after their appearance.

  “This is the layout at the start of the battle. As you can see, our forces arrived right on top of the enemy.” Noah then said something about the enemy breaking up and becoming disorganized, and the Resistance forces outflanking them.

  He let the recording play for a while, pointing out the Aegis as it began to engage the Starshaft. The smaller Flotilla ships flew in circles around the big, lumbering Imperial ones, harrying them and drawing them away. The gunboats were the first to fall, and as the frigates moved in to assist them, the Aegis closed for the capture approach. Noah stopped the recording.

  “This is where Paladin wing deploys,” he said. “Any questions up to this point?”

  One of the other pilots raised his hand. Noah gestured to him and nodded.
The pilot’s accent was hard to understand. Aaron barely caught anything of what he said.

  “What was the question?” he asked Mara.

  “Whether the Aegis could have drawn the Starshaft any further from the support ships. And the answer is no.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because Commander Noah isn’t going to say anything to make Commander Ajax look bad, especially with him here. It’s a stupid question.”

  “Stupid? What makes you say that?”

  “Because all it leads to is petty squabbling. That’s why we’re a flotilla instead of a fleet. If we really want to defeat the Imperials, we’ll have to give up this pettiness and learn to fight like they do.”

  By now, Commander Noah had diffused the question and given a response that, while perhaps not satisfying the questioner, had probably helped him save face. Noah was like that, always trying to mediate for those under his command. It was one of the reasons all his men loved him.

  There were no other questions, so Noah continued with the debriefing. He zoomed into the space between the Aegis and the Starshaft and plotted the flight path for Paladin wing. Eight green dots with numbered labels separated from the Aegis, and the one with number four shot ahead.

  “Here we have our first deviation from the plan. Aaron, can you explain what happened?”

  Mara turned to him as if to translate, but said nothing instead. The look on her face was almost as cold as everyone else in the room.

  “Sorry, mistake,” he explained in broken Gaian. “Started for Starshaft before seeing where was rest of Paladin wing.”

  “Is that all?”

  He struggled to put it into words, but his vision started blurring and he found it hard to speak. He turned to Mara.

  “Tell them … tell them I thought we were going in hot and had to cross the gap as fast as we could. I didn’t realize the others were behind me until it was too late.”

  Mara translated while Aaron rubbed his head. Commander Noah looked at him and nodded.

  “Thank you, Ensign, but it is imperative that we keep formation, especially in a hostile environment. Was that unclear from your training?”

  “He’s asking if your training was unclear,” Mara translated.

  “I know, I know,” he said to her. Then, to the commander, “No, sir.”

  “Very well.”

  Commander Noah let the hologram play a little more. As the Starshaft and the Aegis continued to exchange heavy fire, the tiny dot of Paladin-4 advanced far ahead of the rest of the wing. They tried to keep formation as they hurried to catch up with him, but when they came under fire from the Starshaft’s countermeasures, the increased acceleration made it harder for them to maneuver. The formation soon fell, and the wing was thrown into disarray. Paladin-7 broke off the attack altogether.

  “Ensign Zackariyah, why did you abort?”

  Relieved that the pressure was no longer on him, Aaron leaned back in his chair and allowed himself to relax. The respite was short-lived, though. After explaining that his ablative armor had taken heavy damage and that he had no choice but to abort his approach, Zackariyah sat down and Commander Noah continued to play the hologram.

  “Ensign Deltana, you failed to begin your deceleration in time despite your orders to drop your platoon at the enemy bridge. Were those orders unclear?”

  “Wait—I not receive any orders.”

  Noah rewound the hologram about ten seconds and played it forward again, this time with audio from Paladin wing’s comm channel. His words came through clear over the chatter, ordering Paladin-2 through -4 to take the bridge and the rest to take the engines.

  “Sorry,” said Aaron. “Did not catch that.”

  Noah spoke again, asking him why he decelerated so late that he almost overshot the entire ship. Perhaps there was a mechanical or computer failure? When Aaron failed to answer right away, Mara turned to him.

  “The commander’s asking—”

  “I know, I know,” he said. “It’s just—I was stressed, and didn’t know how to handle myself. There really is no excuse. I’m sorry.”

  “But Aaron, how could you miss the flight commander’s orders?”

  “I don’t know, okay? I-I don’t know.”

  She stared at him for an excruciatingly long moment before translating. It was clear from the expressions on the rest of the wing’s faces that none of them were satisfied with his answer.

  “Commander Noah is asking if you’re still fit for duty,” Mara translated as Aaron rubbed his head.

  “Fit? Yes, of course. I’m perfectly fit. This was just an unfortunate screw-up—it won’t happen again. I mean, hell, it was only my second battle.”

  “People died because of your screw-up, Aaron. First, Second, and Third Platoons all lost a lot of men because we weren’t there to reinforce them.”

  “I’m sorry, all right? It won’t happen again.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Have you been overusing that neural stimulator program that Jason—”

  “Look, just translate, okay? I made a couple of rookie mistakes, and I’ll be careful not to do it next time. I can still pilot my ship—better than anyone else they can get as a replacement, at least. I can still fly.”

  Mara sighed and shook her head, but did as he asked and translated for him. The other pilots seemed to disagree, but Commander Noah nodded.

  “Thank you, Ensign. Your mistakes were unfortunate but understandable.” He then said something about how everyone made errors of judgment at some point in their careers, and that they all needed to train hard to keep them from happening too frequently.

  Mara started to translate, but Aaron waved her away. He sunk into his seat and said nothing else for the duration of the debriefing. Inwardly, he couldn’t help but feel horrible. He still remembered the blood and carnage from the Star Fury II, and though his own platoon had come out of this fight rather unscathed, that wasn’t true of the platoons they were supposed to support.

  It won’t happen again, he inwardly promised himself. But that still didn’t make it any better.

  * * * * *

  Aaron didn’t know what to expect in the mess hall. The largest room on the Aegis, it was shared by all eight of the platoons, and after the chewing out he’d received in the briefing, he half-expected that the other soldiers would try to eat him alive. He was wrong—someone else was on the receiving end of their contempt.

  He knew something was wrong the moment he and Mara walked in. A large crowd had gathered around the three tables nearest to the wall, leaving the others almost completely empty. The soldiers who had gathered were shouting at the ones seated, who tried to ignore them but couldn’t help but lash out. The air in the room was tense, as if a fight—or perhaps even a riot—would break out soon. The platoon lieutenants were trying frantically to get the soldiers to disburse, but their efforts were in vain.

  “What the hell?” Mara muttered. She walked over, and Aaron followed her.

  “Cowards!” shouted a soldier from one of the other platoons. “You’re all just a bunch of cowards!” The others jeered in agreement.

  “Who are you calling ‘coward’?” said Tzaf, one of the soldiers seated at a table. He rose violently to his feet. “You want to draw swords and back up your words with steel?”

  “Tzaf, let him go,” said Lino, pulling him back down. Phoebe sat next to him, and pleaded in their native Iayan language until Tzaf reluctantly returned to his seat. That only made the crowd jeer all the louder.

  Aaron realized that the soldiers seated at the table were all Iayans. Over their uniforms, they wore red and gold sashes, probably a traditional garb of some kind. It was hard to hear them talk over all the shouting from the crowd, but from what he could gather, they seemed to be conferring with each other in their native language. From the looks on their faces, they seemed hesitant or unsure.

  Three sharp pistol shots split the air. Even in the comparatively wider space of the mess hall, they sounded as loud as if th
ey’d been fired right in Aaron’s ear. The crowd instantly grew still, and in that silence, Mara’s shrill voice rang out.

  “All right, what the fuck is going on here?”

  No one answered, though a few members of the crowd cheered her on. She silenced them with a glare that was icier than the depths of space.

  “Lino, tell me what this is about.”

  Lino took a deep breath and explained to her. Aaron didn’t catch it all, but from what he could gather, it sounded like the Iayans were thinking about withdrawing from the platoons. Several of the Iayan pilots had already chosen to withdraw from the Flotilla, now that their homeworld had been liberated, and many of the soldiers wanted to join them.

  Mara listened dispassionately, her face utterly unreadable. When Lino finished, she eyed the room with cold, unforgiving eyes.

  “So you think the war is over?” she asked, her voice so soft that Aaron had to strain just to hear it. “You think the Imperials have been defeated, and now you’re going to pack up and go home?”

  Someone in the crowd shouted in reply, and the jeers began again in earnest. Mara responded by emptying her entire clip into the ceiling. The shots rang out like alarm bells, and several of them ricocheted, making most of the soldiers duck for cover. She didn’t even flinch.

  “I should have known better than to join this pathetic outfit,” she said, glaring at both the Iayans and everyone else in the room as well. “Look at you! You think the Imperials are on the run now because we’ve won a battle or two? Bullshit! The Imperials are going to eat you alive, and there’s not a starforsaken thing any of you can do to stop it!”

  The room was deathly silent now. All eyes, even those on the far side of the mess hall, were on her now.