The Battle for the Ringed Planet (38 page)

“I barely slept … Oh Torian, you look some handsome in your flight uniform!”

“I swear, when I’m done I’m going to burn it,” he leaned his forehead against the transteel and she did the same. “They put me on a Hawkeye, I have a mission.”

“Please be careful, I miss you so bad.”

“Watch me when I launch, I’ll do something special.”

She almost giggled, “Don’t get in trouble.”

Glancing back at the agent who was ignoring them flicking more screens on the small black device, Torian then gazed into Siiri’s azurite eyes, “Listen …” he hesitated, and peered down at his feet, then back up into her eyes, “I love you.”

Her mouth opened to speak, but she closed it and pressed closer against the transsteel, tears welling up in her eyes.

“You don’t have to say anything …”

“…I love you too, you know I do,” she whispered, choking on her words.

Then suddenly Torian turned back to agent, “She can stay in my quarters until I get back.”

The man with dark eyes grinned, “You can love her all you want, but she’s all mine.”

“You don’t have the right to hold her, she’s committed no crime, and in fact if it wasn’t for her, the shields in Kaarina would still be intact.”

“I don’t care about that, a waste of my time, and I have every right to hold her. She, on the other hand, has no rights. She not a citizen, she’s not a prisoner of war; only a detained person, so I can hold her indefinitely, and do to her whatever I want.”

“Why? What has she done to you?”

The agent jumped to his feet and walked casually up to Torian, “Nothing, and everything. Now your minute is up.”

“Let her go.”

“Time to leave.”

Sighing, Torian glanced back at Siiri, still pressed against the window, and then he turned to leave as the agent peered back down at his Con, but anger burned inside, “You SIS people are really something. You put me through 2 weeks of Hell after I was freed from prison, constant interrogation. You are not going to do that to her!”

“I will do to her whatever needs to be done …”

Suddenly Torian raised his fist and took a swing at the agent, but in one swift calculated movement, Tass grabbed the young man’s hand and twisted it around forcing him to the floor. The agent was on top of the brown haired officer forcing his head into the steel while Torian grunted. Both soldiers raised their rifles aiming at the form shoved to the floor.

Hissing in his ear, Tass roughly slammed his head down again, “I could kill you before you blink!”

Siiri cried out, “Please Agent Tass, don’t hurt him …”

“You need an attitude adjustment,” the agent pushed Torian again.

“I’ve told you everything and cooperated …,” she pleaded.

Grinning, the black haired man stepped back and released Torian, “I’ll consider it a successful test of my reflexes.”

Torian stood up and brushed off his flight suit, but Tass wasn’t finished, and landed a fist on the young man’s cheek, causing him to stagger back, “Next time, I won’t let you live.”

“Please!” Siiri begged.

“Escort him out,” the agent motioned to the guards who hefted Torian up by the arms and dragged him through the door.

Chapter 27: Inside a Gas Giant

Rushing down the cramped metal corridors, he made it to the briefing room with minutes to spare, a small ‘U’ shaped auditorium the could accommodate fifty or so with a holo display in the center and flat screen taking up the wall behind the podium. There were three Hawkeye crews and two flights of Starhawk pilots all with blue coffee mugs with the Europa logo. Monica had brought him one with steaming brown liquid and he nodded his thanks.

“What happened to you?” she frowned with lovely green eyes of concern over the swelling on his cheek.

“I bumped into a cross beam,” he lied and sipped his coffee. 

Most of the people in the room were officers with silver wings over their right breast pocket, though a few were LRRS enlisted men. Torian recognized some of the faces, having met with them in the fleet before, especially a grey haired man with six gold chevrons and a star in the middle on his lower flight suit sleeve, a sergeant with an impressive array of ribbons. The tired veteran, Sergeant Blocker, nodded to Torian and he remembered they had served together in the 3
^rd
fleet when he was with Tristan before ending up in this one.

A couple of the men and women in the briefing room sported blue and white diagonally stripped decorations on their ribbons, the Distinguished Flying Cross. If a Starhawk pilot shot down five enemy fighters, in space and not sitting on the ground or in a hanger, they became an ace, awarded the medal. Hawkeye crew only earned the medal if they completed thirty missions. Enlisted medals were a slightly different design, mostly earned by LRRS techs and Sergeant Matthew Blocker had one. Torian completed twenty-five missions, and probably would have finished all thirty, but got captured instead. Tristan used to joke that they could earn a DFC faster by shooting down enemy fighters.     

Voices at the door to the briefing room drew his attention away from the pilots and LRRS techs. A senior officer, the CAG, or Commander Air-Space Group, entered with another man that Torian recognized immediately, sporting an unkept frock of blonde hair was Lieutenant-Commander Declan ‘Dekker’ Stronn, the pilot who had flown the blue vertically striped Starhawk showing off his dog fighting skills planet side. Torian could not remember exactly, but Dekker had somewhere around fifty kills, which made him the ace of the fleet, though there were pilots with higher counts in other theaters of the war. The CAG, older and more experienced than any other pilot on board the cruiser, despite his round coffee colored baby face and cropped black and silver curly hair, eyed everyone suspiciously, striding in front of the room.  

“Attention!” Commander Marshall Skylin barked behind the podium and launched a holo of the star system while Dekker sat down near the front. “Good morning and welcome to Lieutenant McCallum, from the Callisto, I hope you enjoyed your tour as a grunt, and we’re sorry for the loss of your pilot and the Callisto crew.”

Torian nodded at a few eyes glancing his way and as the CAG paused checking his screens and orders, a tall sandy haired pilot beside him offered his hand, “Nathan Johnston, glad to have you aboard.”

Then the CAG began, “Bravo Flight will join the hunt for the unaccounted enemy battle cruiser. Two escaped our last encounter, and we believe one of them has sustained severe damage to their engines, so their tunnel drive is out. As for the other, we picked up the creation of a wormhole large enough for an Imperium Sword class cruiser. Hawkeye 211, you are assigned to Bravo and you will be replacing your tunnel pods with extra shield generators for more protection. Be careful Bravo pilots, we believe the damaged cruiser is rigged to blow, so if you spot it, keep clear and let Hawkeye 211 do their job and scan it before getting close. We would like to board it if possible, though I doubt the Imperium will abandon that cruiser without some sort of trickery.” He paused while the mission details downloaded to their Cons.

“Delta flight, planet side to replace Alpha. Hawkeye 228, you will load electronic warfare and intercept pods. There is heavy fighting in the streets in the city down there, let’s give them air support. Check your sectors.”

Then he glanced over to Monica, “221, Survey Mission, Krallas system, check for that missing cruiser and any other suspicious activity, 72 hours, so stock up. That is all, check your orders, mission details, and be safe. Dismissed!”

The tall lean black pilot from Hawkeye 228 grinned at Monica, “Did that system two months ago, all gas giants.”

She smirked, “Then I guess we’ll find what you missed!”

The he stuck out his hand for Torian, “Lieutenant Mark Senzo, I haven’t seen any LRRS officers on missions before; usually they’re on the bridge.”

“I don’t like brass.”

Mark chuckled, “I hear you,” he grinned again at Monica.

She watched him leave and muttered, “I hope he gets his ass shot off.”

“No love lost?”

“He thinks he’s the hottest Hawkeye pilot in the 4
^th
fleet.”

“Yeah, knew one like that.”

Then the red haired pilot with her hair in a bun glanced at Torian, “This must be old news for you, what 25 missions?”

“I downloaded all the hockey games I missed last season.”

“Good, I’m from Minnesota, I played right wing, we’ll have lots to talk about.”

Torian rolled his eyes.

After a quick breakfast of bacon and eggs in the tiny officer’s mess, the pilots and crew headed to the hanger bay for preflight checks while technicians charged the fighters and scout ships and loaded supplies. When all was complete, the Starhawks revved up their thrusters and floated along the colored lines to the launch square as the giant bay doors slid open. A 30-degree ramp angled down facing the stern of the battle cruiser and each fighter launched downward clearing the bay opening into space.

Even though Torian had been through the process numerous times, in his combat utility suit strapped in the rear seat of the cockpit, it was always fascinating to watch, and after launch, he never got used to the feeling of his stomach jiggling around when they entered weightlessness.

One battle cruiser acted as the control tower for the assembling flights and squadrons. There were about 24 Starhawks, flights from different squadrons maneuvering in formation to preparing for their assignments. He listened to the orders from the C.S.S. Prometheus coordinating the fighters and Hawkeyes and then glanced back at the Europa to the area along the smooth hull side lined with dots of light from the port holes and wondered which one Siiri was watching from.

--

Inside the sick bay, she stood up on her tippy toes and peered out the round thick transteel window and watched the small space vessels forming in angled lines of four, and recognized seven larger Hawkeyes behind in a line. Siiri had followed the three Hawkeyes launching from under the Europa and hoped Torian was in one of them. She missed the young LRRS officer and longed for him to hurry back to see her again.

The blonde girl had been wroth with the agent for hitting Torian and refused to answer any more of his questions, and he in turn had ignored her request for something to eat or to use the bathroom. Turning back to the porthole, fascinated by the small starships flying off in small formations to their assigned destinations, she noticed three lone scout vessels remaining after the others had left. They seemed to be waiting for the others to clear and one of them began to fly ahead of the other two Hawkeyes. Then it halted firing thrusters to a complete stop, hanging in space for a moment, and then Siiri’s eyes grew wide in wonder as she watched.  

Enveloped in a ring of light flashing in multiple colors, the Hawkeye disappeared. It happened in less than a second.

“Did you see that!” she exclaimed to Agent Tass.

“What?”

“That Hawkeye, it just vanished!”

“It’s called a wormhole,” sighing, he added, “blondes …”

--

Torian spoke on the intercom, “Come on, do a roll.”

“Why?”

“Humor me.”

“The CAG will chew me out.”

“Live a little … let me do it then, I’m used to getting chewed out.”

“No, you’re not a pilot.”

“I’ll give you my silver star.”

“You can’t do that … how did you earn it anyway?”

“For kissing a girl and she’s watching, so come on!”

“What? That must have been some kiss. All right, but you owe me big!”

--

The second Hawkeye created a wormhole and disappeared, and Siiri knew she would never get tired of watching the phenomenon. The last one waited for the command from the Prometheus, but before it initiated the wormhole, suddenly it did a roll. Grinning, she knew it was Torian. Then the small vessel disappeared in a ring of light, and she was sad, he would be so far away.

Turning back to the sterile room, she sighed as her stomach growled and she felt pressure on her bladder, “I’m hungry and I have to pee.”

“Answer my question first. How did the cyborg blow up the rifle in McCallum’s hands?”

“I told you, I don’t know.”

“Then piss on the floor.”

“Why are you so cruel?”

“You get nothing to eat or drink until you answer all my questions.”

Siiri then climbed up on the gurney, “I’m not saying another word.”

“We’ll see about that.” from a small white case in his pocket, he pulled out a hypo syringe, “Nurse!” he called.  

--

Torian always got a thrill coming out from the wormhole, and all the holos and his HUD were running text continuously for a moment before the systems kicked in again. Then there came the noise rush, kind of a delayed reaction, and he shook his head. After a while, you got used to it.

A moment later the holos started coming back online and in front of his control consul was a beautiful three-dimensional image of a star system with eight colorful gas giants.

“Wow, out of all the star systems I’ve seen, this one is the prettiest.” Monica exclaimed.

“Largest is a brown dwarf, and the smallest only two Jupiters in diameter, and a million moons,” he replied.

“Ok all systems online, testing thrusters.”

The familiar hum of the ion engines was welcoming to his ears and they maneuvered towards a huge reddish pink ball a few hundred thousand kilometers away.

“Launch probes,” she ordered.

“No, not yet.”

“Why?”

“We might scare someone off, all we’ll see is a tunnel signature, let’s get in closer first.”

“That’s not what we learned in class … and what about our own signature anyway?”

“Depends what they’re doing, but probes will definitely alert them. There is probably nothing here anyway, so if you want to …”

“No. we’ll do it your way. Any sign of that battle cruiser?”

“Nothing.”

--

The bridge of the C.S.S. Europa, located half way up the reversed triangular super structure, identified by a row of long rectangular windows facing forward, was a busy room full of holos and flat screens tended by technicians and officers. A round table in the middle displayed Selunia and all the other cruisers in their positions.  Admiral Martin Bennion, like his father before, was seasoned starship captain who had just won a decisive victory, one of several, glancing over at the wiry bald black officer with a small goatee and hard eyes.