Ugly 1 Part 1

book 1

ugly darkling

Chapter 1

Ugly want....

If there is no good or bad officer, does that makes us good or bad soldier’s to follow one.

Jimmy Loong, Geek philosopher.

(2011)

1

If there was a way to describe the war, it was to say we been to my mother in law’s place and came home one happy family. That was what I told my wingman, Big Mama. And she loved the statement as she just got married last week, and now she flying patrol with me in this vast space light years from her home. I was told her beau is stationed on some remote station in the Alpha quadrant. What a break for them, to be so far separated. I looked at the dark spaces out of my cockpit with the twinkle of stars scattered all over the place.

‘Big Mama, how did you pull duty so early? I thought you will be in Solar Five for your 48hrs of luving and cuddling’, picking up some chat on my comms, but my eyes are on my sensors. I hope the darn tech fixed it well, as its not piking anything at all except empty space.

‘Ugly Darkling, I got pulled in on active by Red Drag. She needed combat pilots more than she needed sleep now. How is your sensor? Mine is registering nothing at all. Sure Tech got the wires rights.’ I can see her on my stern on my rear viewer.

‘Big Mama, you better steer more to your starboard, I am seeing up your skirt.’ I felt she is too close behind me and I want her to move off to the right so we do go down together in one burst. It happened once to a duo I was flying with. The enemy concentrated blast took both of them down as they were lined up closely in a line.

‘Ugly Darkling, you are one sad man. I thinketh you need is a ..... ‘ Big Mama did not complete her tranmission. I looked back and saw a burst of fire where her craft was. She is gone and I saw the bastard whizzing past my stern. Its a SP-700 or better known to us as Lions. And they normally hunt in packs; so where are the others. I got my answer with a blast on my starboard wing, clipping it but I am able to steer away to the port and then dipped my nose downwards. The G force is taking its toll on my suit but I loved the feeling. This is the moment of true flying.

I got the clearance I need and now its time for payback. I did my turn and went looking for them but the pack is missing. Gone as in missing from my view and sensors. I punched the console board and all I got a flickering of lights and then it was back to its usual operational status; and  it’s not showing anything at all. Nothing or my sensors to picked up in the range. There is something wrong.

They could not had made it without my sensors picking them up. Nor could they do a jump that fast. I was only away for a few seconds and now I am facing empty space. Plus some debris of what was my wingman. No, it can’t be. I turned my craft in a circular motion with my eyes as my sensors. I looked at my rear and front, sides and above. Nothing can be seen. Then the comms erupted in the commanding sound of a familair voice.

‘Ugly Darkling, tell me your status?’

‘Red Drag, Big Mama gone. She got hit on the stern, and the pack went missing. Am still searching for them.’

‘Pack missing? Repeat, pack missing? I cannot confirmed your findings.’ I disliked Red Drag; she disputed every line we write on our report everytime. She just want to read the lines she wants her commander to read.

‘Lions came, took her and left with no trace. Repeat, no trace. Sensors showed dull space. I am trying visual and will report if contact made.’ There was a pause on the comms and then she came back on. I know her repertoire of replies well.

‘Negative, negative. Return to base and that is an order, Ugly Darkling.’

‘No can do, Red Drag. Thruster hit in the raid, and now flying on secondary engine. Will need to crawl for home.’ She knows I am bluffing and she will send those backups to bring me back. I got now about 60 seconds before the pilots scramble and reach me. I have to find those bastards for Big Mama.

I shit off my comms and decided to do the blind man’s test. I flew in random pattern and press my gun trigger on short bursts. I know they are here but somehow they got their steatlh on. And it has improved as we are not picking them up.

Bingo! I hit one of them, and there she is coming into my view. I must had clipped the stealth device because now she is seen by me, all full bodied and snarling. But darkned snarling won’t get you anywhere, my pouncing with the claws out will ripped you apart. I pushed my leg down and held my trigger on; all my four cannons on the nose concentrated on her. I nosed up just as I reached her thus missing the destruction blast of her ship by mere seconds. I looked back at my rear and see the rest of the pack coming to visual. They dropped their stealth; I should had known, they can’t fire in stealth mode.

There are three more of them, and they are firing at me.

I swung to the starboard and did a nose up to get some distance. I looked back and saw one of the Lions on my tail. You cannot out run a Lion, but you can out turn one. We are not called Strikers for our shooting skills, but our maneuverability in tight turns. My loop on the reverse turn calls for my cannons to blast the Lion in the mane. The blast ripped off the nose from the wings of the Lion, causing it to blast.  I then held the stick to swerve to starboard and ripped across the aft of the third Lion. My fingers never let off the trigger continue its run of blowing  the thrusters off causing it to spin into the void of space.

Now I am racing back again to get my last Lion. She is on my starboard and I can see the jump waves building up. She is going to try to do the jump coordinates before I hit her, but my backup arrived in time to send her remains through. Those sixteen cannons on four crafts is one mean cleaver on the metal surface of the Lion. She is shaved to her nuts before she hit the jump.

‘Thanks, guys. You saved my my girl there.’

‘Bullshit! Ugly Darkling. You broke comms and your arse is on the belt lines.’

‘Hi Red Drag. I never knew you like to come in for late suppers.’

‘Drag in, Ugly Darkling. You are going home with escorts. All the way to the brig.’ I loved woman in command. They show their emotions better than men.

Life in the Brig is not that bad. You get three square meals and one good eight hour of sleep. But the Command Centre see things differently. They need good combat pilots and I am one of those. We are losing more pilots than we can trained in a day. And this ongoing war is not going to end that soon. Its just started.

‘Wolf Den, this is Ugly Darkling. I have arrived at the quadrant. Looks quiet and sensors picked up nothing. Am proceeding to primary target for sweeps. Over.’

I disliked one way comms as we do not know if there is anyone listening or we are talking to the machine. My mission is to sweep the planet below me; Q101M1 for any enemy or their base. Its a small moon; about 10,916 kilometre across and its rated habitable by our living means. Its actually spinning around the main planet nearby which is four times its size. So why are we checking on a moon when we can do so on the planet near it; Q101. I don’t know and its not my decision anyway.

Its IntelGroup call and they said Moon Q101M1. So here I am.

I am flying my baby, Cecilia; a Scimitar back swept wings design with four cannon blaster on her nose, and two modified cannons blaster below on her wings instead of craft missiles. I got the Techs to mods it and the ammo box sits by the main body below the cockpit. The forward cannons fired fifty rounds per node per cannon on each pull of the trigger. If the trigger is held down, it will fire continously until the ammo runs out on its twin linkless full capacity load of ten thousand each. Then the ammo box will eject a and the next load takes over. Each craft carried three loads; that is thirty thousand rounds per craft. The idea of the blast is concentrated four barrel shots on the surface of the enemy craft. If it does, it will rip off its metal surface and exposing the inner components to the vacuum in space. And ultimately the next burst of rounds will blow the inner component causing an explosion or disabled the craft. That is why the pilots are taught to shoot at the targets vulnerable spots; thruster and nose. You get those areas, the enemy is your for the taking at your pace. But my nose cannons comes with a modified range; it can be leveled for a difrect trajectory or moved out to a maximum of 2 degree swing outwards for a wider arc cover. Its manual or automatic rotated by a level next to the gun trigger. Consider this, at 50 metres, my cannons will cover an approximate 1 metre square area, but when I activated the swing, the area covered is about 4 or 5 metres depending on the distance from 100 to 150 metres.

The normal ‘Striker’ also carried four missiles for heavy damages. They are named as Ripper for they carry a warhead to blast a frigate sized on contact or damaged a cruiser on its operations. But not my Cecilia; she had her womb modified with a single gun cannon like the nose but this one is for my speciality; ride the bronco shots. When I fly over the enemy craft on my pass, them babies of mine will ripped the cockpit and the wings. Instead of spreading out like in an arc, these gund are leveled vertically up to 5 degree for the starffing kill. I took more than a dozen kill that way, and one frigate when I hit her ammo store. I liked them close kills to a long range missile attack. I veered off more missiles than enemy crafts for they are predictable in their sensor; heat seekers love heated moments.

That was how my call name came in; I am the loner in the squad and I fly ahead to blitz them defences with my cannons. Or I draw their fires from the rest. My tech said I got more luck than the ripped scars in my Cecilia hull. Command disliked my design but I am the best pilot they got, plus I have not lost my Cecilia yet. We are still engaging enemies after over 100 sorties now.

‘Coming into atmosphere. Looks good and nothing new to report. Coming out in 5,4,3,2,1 and I am above the surface.’ I saw from my view clouds like what you will see in some of the planets I been on. And clouds means rain and that means water. I looked at the temporary sattion attached to my onboard console. Its supposed to record and analyse the moon and its surrounding. In other words, I am to fly and keep quiet, whch is what the Tech guy said.

‘Starting from marked coordinate to move in linear flight. AM10 recording as normal.’ Funny how some machines get names to them. Like this one. AM10 stands for Artificial Memory Version 10; the most advanced recorder in the series. Thats very mechanical to a name. I named my craft after my lover, Cecilia, as she protects me. Cecilia was my lover until she took my attacking craft in a head on crash to save me. Technically, she crashed hers to save me and her, as her craft was named Ugly. She was my wingman and we shared more than flying in pair’s.

‘Sensor picked up something. Its coming from aft and coming in fast.’ I swerved to port and pressed the pedal. I pulled her nose down to do a dive and then a pull to level her. But the damn missile is still on me, and I need to think fast. I hit the pedal flying in a swing formation to throw the missiles gyro off balance, but she is closing fast. Then I pulled the stick back and swung her up. The missile changed course trajectory and followed course but she was too fast in pulling up. I expected that given her size and she is ahead of me; at my womb sight. I let the cannons do the introduction.

Wham! I hit the bastard. And then the alarm went off in my console. I am losing my controls; craft is spinning and she is not responding to my call.

‘Cmon, Cecilia. I love you and don;t do this to me.’ But she is still spining and its going in a 20 degree upwards. At this rate she will blow and I am dead. I reached for the eejct button and was to pressed it, when suddenly she stopped the ascent. I grabbed the stick and tried to level her. Main thrusters ahs shut down and the secondary is starting up now, but I am falling back like a rock. I kicked the damn pedals and punched the console, and the engines came to life. I pulled the level with all my might and prayed hard for a quick death.

She is starting to level and I can see the terrain coming up, but she is leveling up. And she done it; we done it but it was just in time to skimmed the top of the treelines. She surfed on the surfaced and then went down in the blasted trees, taking a row of them with her landing. But she is down and bruised, and I am one lucky person to be alive. Or so I thought.

Darkness hits me and I was out for a while.