two young men running down the corridor. They stopped cold when they saw the golden star on Hiro’s collar, the scarlet “S” designator at the top point. Each snapped off a crisp salute, which the commander took a moment to reflect on before returning. The ranking officer walked around the two pilots, glaring as only a superior can. His perfectly polished shoes clacked on the tile with a satisfying echo.
“What unit are you with?” Hiro asked.
The taller of the two turned to speak. His flight uniform was clean and pressed, with creases along the sleeves. Silver pilot wings crested his lapels with a large “A” in the background. “Sector Patrol, Wolf Squadron, sir.” His friend, a head shorter with dark and unruly hair, grinned in agreement. “We’re responding to the alert.”
“Names?”
“Lieutenants Davis and Locklear.”
Hiro stared at the growing number of winking Blue portals in the distance. “You had better get moving, boys.” He saluted, signaling for them to run off. The shorter one immediately began speed walking away, but the other remained a moment.
“Is that your ship, Commodore?” The young man pointed out the nearby window. From almost any area inside the post, the supercarrier could be seen. It blocked most of the view, not that there was all that much to miss. Just a sea of gray stretching to the horizon.
Hiro smiled. “Midway has been my home for seven years now, but I can never claim her as my own. She belongs to the crew and the pilots, to the engineers who brought her to life. Though she does do what I ask. Most of the time.” He took a moment to take in the younger officer. The dirty blonde hair was a bit long for regulation, but he couldn’t deny the man possessed a powerful bearing. Hiro liked him right away. “What is your name again, pilot?”
“Davis, sir. Cameron Davis.” He scratched his head. “We sort of met before, sir, at my commissioning ceremony. You talked about the battle at Phobos, said it made you wish you’d been a pilot again.”
“Did we speak then?”
“No. I was laid up in a chair in the back. My Dodo bricked out fifty yards from the deck. I was lucky; only sprained my neck. They had me on so many meds, I slept through my pinning.”
“But you remembered my speech?” Hiro asked.
“Some things stick with you.”
Hiro looked at Cameron’s shoulders, noticing the silver bar on either side. He almost called him a Junior Grade, but he recalled that SP worked off the Army ranking system. “May I ask you a question, Lieutenant?”
“Of course, sir.”
Hiro stared out the window, fingers brushing against the cold glass. His breath fogged the view when he pressed his face closer. “Why SP? Why not Fleet?”
“I failed the health test.”
“Really? You look perfectly fine.”
Cameron tapped his chest. “Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Fancy way of saying I have a genetic disposition towards a bad heart. Fleet wouldn’t accept my packet without a letter from a doctor saying I would live forever.”
Hiro nodded. He’d seen so many good soldiers turned away from service because of geneticism. “What does the disease do?”
“For now? Nothing. But, if the wrong things happen, my heart gets thicker and I can’t pump blood as well. Makes it hard to be a pilot.” He waved off the look the commodore was wearing. “It doesn’t bother me, sir. Sector took me, and they let me fly whatever I want. Besides, I’d never fit in with the active side. Too rigid.”
Hiro turned his eyes on him. “Is that right?”
“Sorry, sir. No offense meant.”
The commodore let the moment dilate. Then he smiled. Cameron felt like he’d just received a stay of execution.
“Well, Lieutenant Davis, I’ll see you in the air. Good hunting.”
Cameron grinned. “Thank you, sir.” He became serious, extending his hand to his superior. “It’s an honor to meet you, Commodore.”
The commodore took his hand. “It was very nice to meet you, Lieutenant Davis.”
The pilot saluted and ran off toward his friend.
Hiro watched him go, then continued on to the operations center.
[no image in epub file]
The long stretch of connected pods stank of stale air and rust. SP had been relegated to the older section of post, in the units left over from some of the first attempts at a lunar colony.
Cameron normally enjoyed a leisurely stroll through ancient history, but now they raced past it all until they arrived at the shuttle to the hangars on the opposite end of the base. When the door opened, they boarded the automated craft and waited for it to launch.
“What the hell is this, Cam?”
The taller pilot looked out the window, admiring a series of sparkling dots clustered in the distance. It was impossible to make out shapes this far away, but the patterns of their movement were mesmerizing. “Looks like an invasion.” He and George stared in awe at the spectacle. “Are those rebels?”
“Mars ships are always red,” George said. “It’s like they have to color coordinate with the dirt. Lonz used to say it was a branding thing. You remember Lonz?” The shuttle bobbed and weaved past different hangars. They watched a wing of Sparrows—small fighters with thin, fixed wings—launch from magnetic rails and race to join the SP battle group growing in the sky. “It’s all hands on deck. They’re even deploying Junos Squadron.”
Cameron followed George’s finger to where six Griffin bombers were lifting up from their pads. The long-necked craft handled like barges, but their heavy-duty ordnance could turn the tide of a battle. Their wings were in the VTOL position, bent midway so the rockets could fire straight down; they were much too heavy for MagRails. Even in the lower gravity, it took a minute for the immense craft to push off the dirt. Clouds of moon dust billowed and swirled around, coating every surface.
“Approaching hangar W, stand by for landing.” The automated voice was followed by a chime, and Cameron and George braced for the usual rough stop. Another relic, the shuttle was older than either of its occupants. It hit the landing surface with a screech, lurching to a sudden halt. The doors hissed as they pressurized to the airlock before opening.
[no image in epub file]
Inside the hangar was a frenzy of activity as ground crews raced to launch their fighters. Wolfpack comprised only FS 115 Phoenix II superiority fighters, a single-winged craft that dominated the sky—at least until the Phoenix III had launched 15 years back and rendered “the Deuce” obsolete. Now the craft was a hand-me-down from big brother Fleet. The cool gray metal glistened in the harsh lighting, and the fighters on the rails shimmered as they grew near the purple barrier that separated the building from the elements outside. Cameron and George quickly spotted Captain Newman, the SP commander for Yorktown Air. Standing a head taller than anyone around him, Newman barked orders into radios and urged crews to work faster. An aide stood nearby, shouting into a phone. Even with the roaring engines of launching fighters, it was the loudest
