The Honour of the Knights, Stephen J. Sweeney [reading women .txt] 📗

flight officer asked.

“Yep.”

No, thought Dodds.

“Okay, we'll see you back here at twenty hundred hours,” the flight officer replied, before heading off.

Only if I don't die of boredom in the cockpit first.

“Right, Kelly, I want you out there first,” Estelle said. “Takeoff and then hold position outside the orbital until we are all assembled. Got it?”

“Yes, Lieutenant,” Kelly said, shuffling off towards her waiting TAF.

“Best to make sure that she's actually with us and not bumbling about some place else,” Estelle muttered to the three men stood on the deck next to her. The four watched as Kelly's TAF accelerated down the catapult.

“Who's acting wing commander for this patrol?” Dodds said, as Estelle began to make for her allocated TAF.

“I am, Dodds,” Estelle answered with a flat, tired voice.

What a surprise, Dodds thought gloomily. On a patrol it was hardly a significant duty, but one that might help to lift his spirits a little. He thought of the irony of the name of the planet he was based. Two hundred and thirty five minutes to go. Two hundred and thirty if I'm really lucky.

An attendant signalled to Dodds that his TAF was ready and the young pilot traipsed his way over to the starfighter. One day of proper action was all that he wished for as he stepped up into the TAF's seat.

He secured his helmet, buckled himself in and then gave a thumbs-up to Enrique and Chaz, standing down on the flight deck, watching him. The two men were waiting for the all-clear to board the Ray they had been assigned for the patrol. Enrique gave Dodds a thumbs-up in return. Chaz gave him an almost invisible nod, Dodds only catching it because of knowing what to expect of the man.

With his TAF taxied up to the catapult Dodds waited to be granted clearance to launch. Staring down the illuminated tunnel, to the dark space outside, Dodds tried to gear himself for the next few thrilling hours ahead. He now understood why Temper was often referred to as “Action Central”.

“Lieutenant Dodds, this is Tower: you're clear for takeoff,” a woman's voice came over his cockpit's intercom.

“Yeah thanks, Tower,” Dodds replied. “I'll be sure to let you know if anything interesting happens; like we come across Dragon, hidden under a load of black tarpaulin.”

Please, just remind me I'm alive, he begged, as his TAF hurtled down the catapult and out the station. At least for just one day.

* * *

“He's coming back around!” Dodds cried, as the fighter he had been tailing barrelled and then circled around over his head. Dodds dipped his TAF out of the way before rolling around to continue his pursuit.

“I'm on him,” Kelly called, bringing the craft into her sights. She adjusted her speed to hold it there for as long as possible, so as to give her on-board computer time to lock a missile. Her opponent's movements were all over the place, swerving this way and that, Kelly herself doing her best to counter its erratic nature. She had only to keep the craft within her HUD for a few moments longer and then the missile would be ready to fire... The fighter accelerated away suddenly, shaking her off and diving straight down towards Enrique and Chaz who were already tailing another of the group's opponents.

The White Knights had been halfway through their patrol when they were alerted to a set of unidentified vessels travelling through their assigned route. Speeding into the vicinity they had sighted their quarry, the three craft bunched up close together and appearing to be in a hurry. Their trajectory put them on course with a jumpgate that would take them deeper into Confederation-controlled space, and the speed and formation of the craft suggested that they were trying to pass through undetected.

Estelle's requests for identification, destination and business purpose had been ignored, the three fighters maintaining their tight formation, but increasing their speed. Estelle had challenged them twice more before the craft had turned hostile. Based on their vessel of choice – a Dart, a cheap single seat, general purpose craft with innumerable available variants - she had concluded that they must be wanted criminals. She had gone on to order them to surrender several times before Dodds reminded her that it did not seem like they were the talkative type.

Kelly's eyes narrowed. Though the Dart that was once again in her sights benefited from upgraded offensive and defensive capabilities, she maintained that the only real advantage the long-bodied craft held over her TAF was its speed. Her on-board computer jingled and she loosed the missile even before the lock verification had time to flash across her HUD. It sped away from her, trailing blue and white particles as it twisted and curled to keep up with its target's frantic attempts to evade it.

That makes up for being tardy, I suppose, Kelly thought to herself as the Dart exploded before her in a shower of debris.

“Target down,” she reported.

“Good work, Kelly,” Estelle came back. “One down, two to go.”

“Got one right behind me,” Dodds said, feeling his TAF vibrate as particle bolts slammed into the rear, the shielding absorbing the hits.

Estelle made a quick assessment of the situation and standings. The death of their comrade had had a detrimental effect on the performance of the two remaining Dart flyers, whose flight had become far more sloppy, their confidence shaken.

“Enrique, Chaz, stay on your target; Kelly you assist them. Dodds, help me with the other one.”

“Got it,” Dodds confirmed.

The four Confederation fighters divided as Estelle had ordered and set after their targets. The Darts weaved and dived as the Knights tailed them, frequently coming close to collisions with their pursuers as they made snap changes to their headings. Plasma and particle rounds flew in every direction as the two sides attempted to bring one another down, none quite managing to hit home.

“Damn this crap HUD!” Dodds said as the Dart evaded another burst of his guns. After three weeks of benefiting from the ATAF's predictive targeting capabilities he now felt crippled without it, as though he was handcuffed to his seat. It was clear that the advantages the starfighter offered had spoilt him and he was finding it difficult to readjust. It dawned on him that this was the first time he had been in a combat situation - simulated or otherwise - since the evaluation program back on Xalan. The Dart skimmed through his sights. He fired and missed again.

“Why the bloody hell haven't they loaded the ATAF's combat software onto this damn crate?” he said.

“Careful there, Dodds,” Enrique said. “You're beginning to sound like Estelle.” He took his eyes off his systems for a moment, trying to guess which of the three TAFs he could snatch a glimpse of through the Ray's canopy might be Dodds.

“Shut it, mate, this is really starting to annoy me!” Dodds retorted.

The frustration in the voice made Enrique start to chuckle. He looked over at Chaz, sat next to him, whose face split into what Enrique recognised as a rare smile. It vanished almost as soon as it had appeared, the big man diverting the Ray's heading as the missile-lock warning sounded. His attempt at evasion came too late and the Ray rocked as the missile slammed into the topside of the fighter, both men feeling the heavy vibration coarse through their bodies.

“Sorry,” Enrique said for allowing himself to become distracted, before refocusing on the battle. Chaz called up a damage report. It indicated that both the top and frontal shield quadrants had collapsed, but were recovering slowly. As the missile had detonated the force of the explosion had driven its way through the shield and to the Ray's armour beneath. The damage incurred by the armour had not been insignificant, but not as critical as it had felt.

“Are you two all right?” Estelle asked.

“We've sustained moderate damage. Shielding is running at sixty percent efficiency,” Chaz reported back. “Nothing we can't handle.”

Estelle glanced at her radar, seeing a red triangle sitting right in the middle; almost right on top of her. A moment later the four pale grey rear fins and bright cyan glow of the Dart's single engine swept across her cockpit view. She immediately gave chase.

As she closed in on the fighter she saw something detach itself from one of the fins, the object arcing up around it. She swore as too late she realised what was happening, her on-board computer sounding the warning for only a couple of seconds.

Such was the range from its target that the missile completed its manoeuvre within a matter of seconds and slammed headlong into her TAF, creating a blinding white flash as the explosion blended in with the bright blue splinters from her collapsed shielding. The starfighter rattled with the impact, jostling Estelle in her seat and making the young woman lunge for the ejection handle. The expected prompt to bail out never came, however, the rattling ceasing a short time later.

“Estelle!” Dodds' voice sounded in her comms.

“I'm okay, I'm okay,” Estelle replied, thankful that her voice had not betrayed the terror she had felt upon seeing what she believed was her own death hurtling straight towards her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw an explosion.

“Target down,” Kelly once again reported. The Dart that had attacked Enrique and Chaz had pulled out of its dive and flown right in front of her, bringing itself dead on to her heading. It had aligned within her cross hairs and Kelly had only to pull the trigger. Her TAF's cannons had fired four times, the first pair of bolts slamming into the rear of the ship, followed by the second. The third pair completed the task whilst the fourth had disappeared into the explosion, striking remnants of the destroyed fighter.

“Hey, leave some for the rest of us,” Dodds said.

“This isn't a game, Dodds!” Estelle barked back. “Concentrate on taking down that last fighter.”

With his companions dead, and now even more out-numbered and out-gunned than ever, the final Dart pilot swung around, put full power to their engines and began to flee from the naval pilots as fast as they could, resuming their attempt to reach the far-off jumpgate.

The four fighters gave chase, each attempting to bring down the final fleeing craft. The Dart was fast, faster than the Knights, and it would soon be out of range of their guns; but not their missiles.

Estelle's targeting computer jingled. She declared her lock. The others acknowledged her. The missile armed and fired.

At the same instant her comms crackled into life. “I won't go back there! Please don't make me go back! I beg you!”

It was not a voice that she at first recognised and as the small red triangle on her radar screen started to blink, Estelle realised that it was coming from the fighter she had just fired at. “They can't be stopped! They'll kill me! They'll kill you! They'll kill all of us!! Please, just let me go! I just want to get away from them! PLEASE!” the voice continued as the missile devoured the distance between itself and the target it sought.

Something inside Estelle made her regret firing. There was terror in the man's voice; a terror that, for some unexplained reason, caused her a great deal of discomfort. It was the kind of terror that sounded as though it had been ingrained into the man's very soul. She looked down at the TAF's controls, seeking a way, any way, to put a stop to the missile that was seconds away from destroying its target. She found none and looked back to the final floundering manoeuvres of the Dart as the missile closed.

* * *

The craft exploded, killing its helpless occupant and leaving Estelle with questions that might now never be answered. She slowed her TAF and stared ahead at the tumbling clutter of alloys. The others joined her, Dodds and Kelly coming along either side, though not close enough to identify the faces within the helmets.

“Nice shooting, Estelle,” Dodds said, although his enthusiasm came across as somewhat subdued and muted, the rush of the battle dampened.

“What the hell was that all about?” Kelly asked.

“I... I have no idea,” Estelle replied. It sounded too real to have been a bluff. The man's final words had been almost hysterical and they were still going around in her head,

“I won't go back there...”

Go back where?

“They'll kill me! They'll kill you! They'll kill us all!”

Who was going to kill him? Who were the people in the Darts? Why were those they were fleeing so intent on attacking the Confederation and her allies?

She was regretting her actions and now wanted nothing more than to have brought the man back to Spirit for questioning. She looked to her radar and