* * *
Glaring red warning lights erupted on the control panel, along with shrill, intermittent buzzing. “Abort! Abort! Abort!” A voice shouted over the intercom.
“Damn!” Sirion snorted as she yanked back on the throttle in order to engage the boosters and stop her descent to the landing deck. The engines ignited in a boastful whirr, followed by loud, explosive popping, only to fade into nothing.
“I’ve got dead stick! I’ve got dead stick!” Sirion shouted into the headset. “I’m spinning in!”
After a brief silence on the other end, a response came. “Screen is up, Captain. Fire your forward rockets when ready.”
“Rockets! I read you clear!” Sirion called out. “Copy... Copy... Rockets! Clear! On that!”
Suddenly, Sirion’s spiraling fighter slammed into the activated force field protecting the carrier from being rammed. Like some clumsy, drunken dancer, the fighter went bouncing along the edge of the barrier. Every time it crashed into the invisible wall, a multi-colored shower of molten sparks erupted at the point of contact. The force created would push the gyrating machine away, only to have it fall back into the field a few seconds later.
“Rockets armed!” Sirion called. She waited until the nose of her spinning fighter was drifting toward perpendicular to the carrier. “Awa…” Two massive explosions less than two rods’ distance shoved the ship away from the force field and slammed her forward against the harness. With a crunch, Sirion’s jaw snapped closed on her lower lip, driving a tooth through it.
Sirion didn’t feel the pain or notice blood trickling down her face. She looked up and smiled. Her timing was nearly perfect, the spinning almost stopped, and the ship was distancing itself from the carrier.
“Good job, Patch! Good job!” the con called out. “No damage here. Report your condition.”
The girl scanned the controls and gages. “Life support systems good. No fuel leaks. No fires…” She double-checked the gages, then added, “Bring baby home.”
In little over an hour, a sky tug had muscled the crippled fighter onto the isolation deck and through the induction chamber doors. A half hour later, a voice over the cockpit intercom gave Sirion the ‘all clear’.
With a ‘crack!’ followed by the sound of pressurized gasses, the ship’s canopy snapped up and slid back over the fuselage. A small, diminutive woman in a silver flight suit crawled out of the pilot’s seat and stepped onto a mobile ladder platform. After reaching the deck, she turned to examine the damaged vessel, finally stopping at the failed port thruster. For a moment, Sirion remained motionless. Suddenly she slammed her fist against the ship’s side and angrily cussed, “Piece of shit! Worthless piece of rotten shit!”
This had been her third malfunction this week, and was by far the most dangerous. Had her speed been much faster when the thruster died, she would have likely careened across the crowded flight deck, killing or injuring herself and possibly many others. Fortunately, she had considered problems and had prepared accordingly. Coming in slow offered the necessary time for the carrier to put up its emergency force shield to close off the flight deck. It also gave her the ability to fire two rockets pointblank into the side of the carrier’s shield, the explosion driving her away from other possibly fatal encounters.
Leaning against the cold exhaust manifold, the captain let out a sigh of helplessness and shook her head. The DTB series fighter-bomber was long obsolete. It had been removed from frontline service centuries before the Great War and had seen little use for over one hundred-fifty years. When the cry went out for fighting ships – anything - several dozens of these derelicts were hauled from scrap yards and cobbled together to be used where possible. The difficulties of coupling together modern navigation and weapons systems with a piece of ‘ancient junk’, as they were often called, made them nightmares to keep operational.
Other DTBs assigned to the fleet suffered regular mishaps, but the shortage of serviceable craft kept the machines on active duty. Tonight a repair crew would work late to fix the problems, and tomorrow Sirion would take this thing out to support a patrol guarding a tanker convoy headed for the First Fleet’s Ninth Battle Group, somewhere in the eastern ranges of the Southern Ring. If she was lucky, Sirion thought she might survive to eventually return to the Sofia in a week or so… if she was lucky. She muttered just under her breath, “The Merimna will be there to fix this tub up for the return trip, if I make it that far. At the least, it can retrieve my carcass if this tub breaks down again.”
“Captain!” The booming voice of Sirion’s squadron commander echoed across the room. Sirion spun around and acknowledged him while stepping out from under the belly of her fighter. “I’m sorry, Sir. A malfunction in the relays or computer caused my engines to fail.”
The squadron commander grinned. He had just returned from a patrol and was informed of Sirion’s near fatal accident only moments before. “You look little worse for wear, Patch, but I must warn you, stunts like yours need to be saved for larger audiences. Wasting scarce ammunition without a crowd near is a shame! Please allow us some advanced warning next time, so more of us can see the performance.”
Sirion sighed wearily. The commander was only trying to ease the tension of the moment, but his jovial comments, though well intended, only added to the girl’s distress. She attempted to cover it up by replying in like form. “I was going to send you a letter announcing the show, but I stuck my finger in the inkwell by mistake. By the time I figured out what I did, it was time to leave. Sorry...”
The commander laughed. He had totally overlooked Sirion’s dismay and frustration. Yet somehow his warm humor did manage to lift the girl’s spirits. ‘Funny.’ She thought. ‘I should’ve been angry at his response to my near tragedy. Instead, I somehow feel a little better.’
Walking up to his charge and lifting a hand toward her face, he mused, “I think you spilled some of the ink.” Sirion lifted a finger to her split lip. She hadn’t noticed it until now. Already it had swelled, and just touching it sent hot pains through her face. “You might want to clean up a bit, too.” The commander added, “That ink’s dripped all over your uniform.”
The shock of having been injured showed in her expression, she chastising herself for such clumsiness. Sirion might have cried had it not been for what the squadron leader said next. “Group commander wants to see you at eighteen hundred hours. That’s less than an hour. I suggest you not be late.” He would say nothing more about the matter.
Sirion didn’t have time to think about her unhappy experience with the fighter that day. She hurried off to get medical attention and change her uniform, fearing the entire time how this third mishap in a week must have displeased her superiors. Eighteen hundred hours found a cleaned up and bandaged very nervous Sirion knocking on the group commander’s door.