Aquaria Falling by Finn Gray

Author:Finn Gray
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction, military scifi, space opera, space marines, starship troopers, battlestar galactica
Publisher: GrayFinn
Published: 2017-09-19T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

Battlecruiser Dragonfly

In orbit around Thetis

Sabre moved the thruster control stick and sent her Cobra into a roll, her stomach doing loops as she avoided the simulated weapons fire from Recess’s bird. She pulled up hard and sought to loop around behind him. Abeam at her nine o’clock, far in the distance, Dragonfly’s massive, gray bulk turned dizzyingly in her peripheral vision. She reached the apex of her climb and dove hard.

“Not fast enough, Lieutenant.” Recess’s voice rang in her headset. The fledgling was getting cockier by the day.

Sabre grinned as she watched her target flit away. She adjusted her course and stayed on his tail. Her hand gripped the control stick firmly, the feel of it against her skin as familiar as anything in her life. Her mind instinctively processed everything on her heads-up display. She was in a decent position, but not the most advantageous.

Despite her reservations about him, Recess was turning out to be a fine pilot. He recognized and adjusted to situations quickly and he had good instincts in the cockpit. So far he was the best of the bunch, if you could call a class of three a bunch.

“You’d better watch that attitude, Recess,” she said. “It’s a bad quality in a Cobra pilot.”

“I am going to pretend you did not just say that.” Hunter was monitoring the training session from the bridge. It was his voice now filling Sabre’s ears.

“I earned the right to act a little cocky,” Sabre said, accelerating her craft and closing in on the fleeing Recess.

“Sure you did,” Hunter said.

Sabre’s grin turned into a grimace as she closed in on her prey. Recess tried every evasive maneuver in the book. Problem was, Sabre had read every book he had, plus many more. It was only a matter of time before she closed the deal.

The dogfight continued longer than Sabre had expected it would. Recess was staying alive and had even gotten off a few shots in her direction. For her part, she had held her fire waiting for the perfect moment. Besides, this was good practice for the trainee. Someday he might be fleeing for his life and would need to know the feeling of running from almost certain death.

“How am I doing, Sabre?” Recess asked.

“You were doing fine,” Sabre said. “But I’m bored now. Goodbye.” She locked in and squeezed the trigger. But instead of the high-pitched beeping that accompanied simulated gunfire, her ears suddenly filled with the report of actual weapons fire.

Shock rendered her a touch slower than she might normally have been and she held the trigger a split-second longer than she had intended. “What the shit?” she cried. Why in the gods’ names was her bird armed and why hadn’t the training system overridden it?

“What are you doing?” Recess yelled.

“Are you firing hot rounds?” Hunter’s voice rang in her ear.

“I don’t know.” But Sabre knew. It had to be the saboteur. Heart racing she scanned the darkness for Recess’s fighter. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw it nearly intact.

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