2
If there was a reason for me to join the flying school, it was the fear of death by dying for too long before it happened. I saw my parents died in their time; lingering hours of pain and anxiety. She was first, a victim of disease and then the disease took her life but not before she endured months of pain and more pain. He died from long hours of waiting and sitting in the walled cell. He was to be sentenced to death for the assisted murder of my mother, but he could not bear the pain she was having. She told him so, so he shot her in the bed. For that, he was send to prison for his merciful act. Yes he also shot the enforcement officer, but that man was trying to take away his life with the pointed weapon. He shot first and they took him down for murder. The debated for over sometime, and kept him longer than needed before they took the man to his death. But it killed him the waiting for the moment to die, he told me so.
And that was how I enrolled in the flying school on call for military pilots. I am one of the best in those days when I used to run those smugglers trades. I been doing it since I was aged twelve from basic runs to complicated ones on anything that can fly. My favourite is the old freighter of mine called Cicely and she runs like a fox although she looks like a old whore. I did not change her machines; I just tuned them up and cranked up some nuts and bolts. And of course a new booster pump on the thruster. She will outfly those newer machines with her think fumes of after thrust releases. Now I feel like her; an old shell in the mind of a young man.
I never liked to crash and this was my first as combat pilot although I crashed before but those were my old rigs. I tried to move all my limbs and they are responding although they are painful to move. I stretched my main body frame and felt the nerves sending flaks to my mind but its not broken any places. I reached for the cockpit emergency released button, and it should pop open the cover of the cockpit. I could not see out much as the cockpit is all covered in a silver coating for space flying.
Pop!
The released catch is sprung and the cover slowly raised itself to open. It slowly opened my view to the outside environment, and all I could see now was green leaves and broken branches. Then the cover stopped opening as it hit a barrier to allowed it to open. But the space was big enough for me to crawl through. I took hold of my safety hinges and unlocked them to allowed me to move. Then I slowly raised my left leg to the open space on the cockpit. It was then I remembered my survival training and losing a leg was not in the training. I pulled my leg back in again and tried to raise my upper body. Its like pulling yourself from the jaw of the predator after it has taken a bite off you. But I did it and held myself up on the ledge of the cockpit. I peek out and see more of my surrounding.
It was then the whole place seemed to collapsed down. I felt the fall as I landed back on my haunches in the seat. Somehow the craft fell some height and now landed on someplace more solid. This time there was no barrier to the cockpit cover and it opened fully. I could see from my seated position that I am in a thick tree growth environment with some undergrowth around the tree trunks. I remembered my training on Troy IV, where this was quite similar. I remembered those creepy tree clinging reptiles whose favorite speech is a hiss to your face. I reached for my sidegun below my left shoulder. Its a standard PK-235; a handgun with eight rounds of ammo. They are designed to snuggly fit under the armpit and has a firepower to stop a raging woman on you, if you hit her on the forehead. But it will do for now.
I made it out of the cockpit with all my limbs in places. I am standing now next to Cecilia and watching her bruised body marks. She won’t fly for sometime unless she gets Tech’s help. She landed me on the trees and then when I moved, she landed me on the solid ground about a drop of 10 points. She clipped her left wing and her right one still looks okay. Her nose is dented and so are her fire power. I looked around the place and see only green foliage and trees. I looked back at the trail where Cecilia came in to land and saw almost a kilometre long of damages.
I reached for the compartment behind the cockpit on the outside of Cecilia. I pressed the codes and the unit dispensed off a long elongated metal box. It fell off onto the ground with a heavy load. I punched in the required codes on the panel on the top of the box to open the cover. Inside the box is my survival kit; a PK 450 Rifle, a backpack with emergency rations and medical aids for a stay of one moon cycle, some camping gears and misc items. If you put those items on your body, you will look like a Marine trooper on their routine marching patrol. But I am not fit to carry even the backpack now. I reached for the medical aids and retrieved an Administer pack. Its like a wrist wrap but this one has a wide metal ring on it. Once you clasp it on your left or right wrist, it will administer you the needed dosage you need to feel like a man again and it helps you to heal your pains.
I feel fine now, and the body limbs are starting to feel like normal again. I slowly stretched my body to all the needed directions to loosen any stiff muscles. It was then I heard the flying sound above me. On instinct I crouched down and reached for the PK 450. It has an ammo of thirty rounds, and they can blast anything that comes near it. Its designed as a Marine rifle, but the Marines finds it lacks the range they needed, and the extra ammo power. So the flying boys adopted it; cut off the barrel to shorten it and threw away the fixed stock for a foldable one, and add in a night vision for the rifle. I grabbed the backpack and stored back the Medic aids, strung up the sleeping gear and the machete, grabbed the SW radio and backup battery. The rest I stored back in the survival case, and replaced it back in the craft.
I then proceeded to the left of me by instinct and started running to get a reasonable distance from the craft. I should had self destruct it, but I loved Cecilia to blow her up. I ran for some distance, skipping over branches and roots and clearing the undergrowth for a better path. I must had run for about one kilometre before I stopped to rest. Whatever it was pumping in my wrist is not compensating for my run, as I felt really tired. I strained my ears to listen for any sounds of pursuit but there was none. I looked around me and felt this was a good spot to rest. So I lowered my equipment and raised myself to the nearest top branch. I climbed up and soon find a comfortable place for my rest in between the main branch and trunk. I climbed down and slowly moved my equipment up to the nesting I created. Then after I have completed my tasks, I laid down to rest.
‘Squad Leader Lieutenant Commander Stone, am I getting your attention in my briefing?’
I looked from across the room to faced the Flight Commander, Major Rebecca Long aka ‘Red Drag’. I nodded my confirmation and focus my eyes on the electronic board at the back of the Flight Commander. I was looking at the beautiful lady in the row ahead of me, second from the right of my current position. Her name is Cecilia Thames, Senior Pilot, latest recruit to the Team Striker 5. She was to replace my wingman of over twenty sorties who got hit in the last, and he was the only one who can stay long enough with me. And now she is trying to fill the void. I read her report and it said she graduated to combat flying only recently and before this she was with Carrier Recon Group; the ‘I bring your mails’ flyers. But since her graduation,she has notched in ten kills and one unconfirmed. As a Recon pilot, that is extraordinary good. Her call sign is ‘Red Head’ and she is red in her hair. Guess they think they are fierce in the fights.
But I disliked any ‘red’ callsign. They are a bane in my side when its comes to comms. Everybody wants to have their call sign; ‘red’ like ‘Red Baron’, ‘Red Ace’, or ‘Red Eye’. Or their team be called ‘Red Hot’, ‘Red-dy Now’ or even stupid ones like ‘Red Me’. Me, I am called ‘Ugly Darkling’ and once you know my call-sign, you remembered it well.
We were flying with the squad at some sector I cannot recalled. There she was on my stern and holding formation. There were eight of us, and ‘Red Drag’ was on point with her wingman, ‘ Jonah Jinx’. He is good pilot but too good when its comes to supersitition. He calls himself Jonah since his name is bad luck then the reversed of it is good luck. He survived many sorties and is the mascot of the squad. More to it, he has a good commander who take care of him. And he of her.
We spotted the enemies crafts; all ten of them returning from a nearby raid on the settlement. We gave chase and a space fight took place. We won the skirmish with no losses compared to eight enemies craft destroyed.
That evening, we had our celebrations and I got to know Cecilia better.
It was the sound of the broken twig which woke me up. I reached for the rifle strung across my body in the body strap and slowly wiped away the moisture on my face. I lowered the gun sight to see the ground below. It was dark and I could not see well into the darkness. I slowly raised the rifle telescopic to my eyes and peeked through it. I could see two of them down there, all dressed in their uniform and armed. They are all wearing googles for night viewing and must had been desperate to find me to work so late. One of them reached for his comms and spoke into it. I could make out the foreign words in every three words he spoke of. They are ‘searched’, ‘find’ and ‘moving’. Guess they did not find me. And are moving on. So they left the spot below and walked on. As for me, I remained on the branch and held my vigilance till day break.
As I sat on the branch, I thought back of my mission. It was a simple one; recon and return. ‘Q’ Qudrant is assumed to be free of any enemies and in fact it holds no military strategic importance. There are five planets in this quadrant with one big sun to give it life, if there was any. But the earlier survey said it hold no intelligence lifes. So the quadrant was locked for future explorations or colonies. But only the middle ring of planets are habitable for distance of the sun from them. And there is only one planet Q101 and one moon Q101M1. I know we are losing some settlements in some planets or moon due to the war but his place is way out of any trade routes and also popular quadrants. Now more so why are the enemies doing here when we are just exploring it.
I removed my wrist Administrator and pocket it back in the Medic Aids. Now I can explore my area and hopefully get out of this place. I left my backpack and gears on the tree,and climbed down. I have my weapons and I needed to see Cecilia, so I back track my trail. She is still there, but there is a difference. There are some guards wathcing over her, and they are only two of them.
One is searching inside the cockpit and the other is at the survival box trying to open it. Somehow he realised he can’t do it, so he took out his handgun to shoot at the panel. If he does that, the box will explode as its designed to do so in situations like this. I cannot allow it, so I took my rifle and took the shot at the man with the handgun. Then I raised my rifle to take the other who was trying to get outside his gun on the ground. My rifle fires silent shots which is one of the modification in the rifle we liked.
I stepped out of the treeline to approach Cecilia. I checked the enemy on the ground next to the survival case. He is dead, and so was the one in the cockpit. I lined up the dead enemies in a row, and removed their rations. I found the night googles and a set of long range viewfinder, plus a location indicator; its like an electronic map of the area. I then looked at Cecilia, and told her no one will ravaged her anymore. I will not permit it anymore. I set the self destruct and ran away.
I heard the loud explosion just before I reached the camp tree.
‘Ugly, would you marry me one day?’ Cecilia has to asked me this question when we are on patrol. And this was the fifth time she done it. I means this is the comms and I don’t who else is listening. Maybe even ‘Red Drag’ and I hate her to catch onto me with that remark.
‘Red Head, can we discuss this off the comms? I think we got our company coming in.’ Cecilia knows my answer and it was always the same. I promised to marry her after the war, and not now or before it was over. I am not being selfish; its just I do not want her to be tagged a widow. But she does this to me every now and then. I know she is taunting me to keep our love alive. But right now, I am just keen to see this mission through.
‘Freighter Maryone, this is Striker team Five from the Military One Carrier. You are to follow us to these coordinates being send to you. Any attempt to leave the course set will result in the act of treason and we will do the needed to arrest your crew and the ship. Do you apprehend our instruction?’
She is a registered 50,000 ton cargo ship, but from Intel reports she is carrying weapons for the enemies. A freighter that size, she can carry more than eight of my craft in her; unassembled of course. Or loads of warheads. Their reply was a release of cannons fires at us. They are normally armed with two sets of twin cannons in the side, but this four sets on the sides and two more twin cannons on the front. That confirmed our suspicions of Maryone and confirmed the Intel findings. But Intel also did not tell she has flight bays builtin her sides. Now they are spewing mini crafts that are actually drones with cannons and mini warheads. There are four drones and they are controlled by the tracking system on the freighter.
‘Take out the freighter and the drones are dead.’ I stepped on my pedal and flew into strafe the freighter.
‘Answer me, Ugly, or I will die today.’ I hate woman with death wishes. But she took her death wishes too serious, because she flew in to the line of fire from the freighter and weave her craft in, and lay those cannons on the gunports. She is good as two of the drones got caught in the crossfire and was down.
‘Yes, woman.’
God, I hate this, but I am coming up from the top of the freighter with the remaining drones on my aft. They are shooting at my craft, but the missing shots are hitting the Freighter, which is something the tracking system does not compensate for. ‘Pulled out, woman. She is going to blow.’
And so she did as I do.
And we all had a good flight back for a long passionate night.
Two planet nights of evading the patrols and eating my given ration, I finally made headway into my escape plan. I found their base of operation. Its was not far where I landed but carefully concealed inside the mountain side. Its a cave on the mountain side, with a large entrance for a craft to pulled in. From my view, I can see crafts inside. So its a hangar for the craft; all sixteen of them lined for ease. And they looked like mine. Sorry, they are Scimitars in design, but they carry different squad markings. I see the markings of Apollo, Zeus, Thor and the other I know not of. I remember these belong to Military Five Fleet which were ambushed in Gema Quadrant. Half the fleet was destroyed and they lost almost all their crafts including the Scimitars’ squadron. The Scimitar was the ones covering the retreat and none came back to the new base. Maybe they are captured when they ran out of ammo or partially destroyed and recovered for repairs here.
But I saw no pilots, only guards and technical personnels. Too many guards to be exact.
So what can I do now?
Heck, its what I do best; taking reckless risks. For Cecilia.
No comments:
Post a Comment