Comrades in Hope by Joe Vasicek

Author:Joe Vasicek [Vasicek, Joe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: adventure, galactic empire, space opera, non-romantic, military, space marine, novella, far future, cryofreeze, frontier, faster than light, space pilot, science fiction, Currently Published
Publisher: Joe Vasicek
Published: 2019-08-02T06:00:00+00:00

Fractures Emerge

“Paladin wing, launch! Repeat: Paladin wing, launch!”

Aaron threw the throttle forward and gripped his flight stick eagerly as Paladin-4 hurled itself from its mother-ship into the starry void. The battle was in high pitch. Explosions flashed in all directions, and the scanners showed swarms of green allies weaving in and out of the larger, less maneuverable Gaian Imperial warships. The channels were all full of chatter, but for the moment, the Imperials hadn’t noticed the eight smaller drop-ships that had just undocked from the Aegis. It would spell their doom.

Aaron’s nav-computer selected the target as the flight commander explained it over the intercom. Gaian Imperial battle cruiser, name unknown, distance twenty-one-point-four klicks. Commander Noah was talking fast, making it hard to catch each word. He said something about holding formation, but Aaron didn’t wait. With tracers and projectile fire arcing all around him, he pointed the Paladin-4 at the target ship and made a full engine burn.

The force of the sudden acceleration threw him back against his seat with multiple gee forces. He clenched his thighs tightly and breathed in quick sips as the time on the ETA counter fell from hours to minutes to one minute and several seconds. He pushed it until it read fifty-one seconds and cut the burn, returning them to a state of controlled freefall.

Only then did he notice that he was three or four klicks ahead of the rest of the wing. They were accelerating, but not fast enough to catch up before the midway point. In the meantime, the battle cruiser was already starting to launch countermeasures.

Oh, shit.

“Paladin-4! What are you doing?”

“Sorry, commander. Made too fast engine burn, not catch understand…”

Aaron’s words turned to gibberish as the fuzziness around his vision began to grow. He switched on the autolasers and gripped the flight stick with both hands. The rest of Paladin wing began to accelerate to catch up with him, but it would still take some fancy flying to get through in one piece.

The autolasers flashed into action, and he banked hard to the right to avoid the first wave of enemy fire. Tracers arced all around him, as if he were in some sort of a psychedelic dream. The only sounds were the whir of the lasers and the rush of the maneuvering jets, along with the occasional patter of projectile fragments that the lasers had shot down.

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.

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