“It's you!” he burst in return.
All the fury and frustration faded from Ayan. Her face felt hot, her eyes started to well up and she fought the instant urge to cry.
“Wait, I didn't mean-”
“You said it. I'll be a faithful officer, whatever you need. I'll even do it for free,” she rushed past him and through the door before it was completely open. Ayan stopped in the hall once she heard the door close, grateful for the narrow private passage. Her vision blurred as she looked back, hoping he had come after her. The low lit hall was empty.
Compartmentalization. It was something she'd learned well during her time in the military. Regardless of how she felt, how she just wanted to find a dark, out of the way bunk and let it all out, she knew that Laura, Oz, Jason, and the rest of the crew were counting on her to be on the bridge, ready to take a position in command at a moment's notice. She took a few deep breaths, wiped away a few errant tears and shut all her emotions away before striding the rest of the way down the hall.
Chapter 5
“Are we launching or memorizing the punter system from the inside?” Minh asked Oz as he came online. His squadron had completed a second briefing and been ready for over eighteen minutes according to his command and control unit. Sure he liked the chatter, most of the pilots with him got along fine, but they were all there to do one thing; fly. The exploration mission they were about to undertake was one of the most exciting things to happen on Triton excluding active combat.
It was also the first Triton based mission Minh was leading outside of a simulation. He had to admit to fighting some tension at the prospect of running into raiders. Infantry training helped him shrug it off, but three of his pilots had only seen active combat in simulations. They were hyper-realistic, but it still wasn't the real thing.
“We had a delay on the bridge. Everyone shows green on the flight deck, punting in thirty,” Oz replied.
“Was there drama? Don't tell me I missed drama.”
“There was drama. I'm sure it'll linger long enough for you to catch the tail end when you get back.”
“Why am I always as far away from the action I can get? I try to be exciting, but the ripples don't seem to radiate from this pebble, somehow I'm always at the far edge of the pool.”
“If I didn't know you so well you'd be impossible to understand sometimes,” Oz replied. “Punting in fifteen.”
“Shouldn't we focus on what we're doing?” asked Nathan, his Sensor Intercept Officer and copilot sitting behind him in the two seated Uriel starfighter. He had earned the call sign 'Slick' because he flattened his hair on his first flight from the Triton so his helmet wouldn't ruin his hairdo. No one had told him that they didn't wear a helmet with the vacsuits they used, which did cover their heads but generally didn't leave one's hair a mess.
“I'm multitasking. Besides, we've done the checklist three times.” The launch system catapulted them into the open space beneath Triton. Minh took direct control of his Uriel Fighter with his hands and feet, turning the ship into a skid, facing the asteroid field. His six squadron members followed his lead. “Good morning everyone, it's time to go see why this asteroid field is so damned quiet. There should be a whole bunch of eager traders here but for some reason we're not picking up so much as an active satellite. Oh, and we'll be passing through a magnetically contained obscuring field just to see what's on the other side. There should be raiders, according to some late intelligence.” Minh double checked the intelligence update by glancing at the appropriate icon in his head's up display and was surprised to discover Oz and Jason had just added more information. "So, if I can't make nice with 'em, we're going to be on pest removal duty."
"Make nice? With raiders?" Slick asked.
"Those are the orders, check it," Minh replied, sending the update to his copilot's main display.
"You're right. Well, I guess a trade is a trade when you're out here on your own."
"I think, and this isn't to say that we're supposed to do much interpreting on our own, but I think they mean we're supposed to make nice if it's too late to save anyone. That's what I'm going with, anyway."
"Good thinking."
Minh-Chu, or Ronin, as every pilot and Flight Command officer called him, fired the six engines sending it towards the nearby asteroid field. The other fighters followed, fanning out in a predetermined forward pointed V formation so they could coordinate and get a more complete scan.
The asteroid field was massive, hundreds of thousands of kilometres across and even though it had settled in a rapidly rotating plane it was still several thousand kilometres deep. They approached the edge of the field quickly, drifting out on course to pass across the seemingly flat top of the asteroid field.
“I was wondering, why doesn't the Triton do this? I mean, doesn't she have a better sensor suite?” Asked Jaime, coined 'Joyboy' because of his great big toothy grin, though he liked to tell people that the name was inspired by a few very memorable dates.
“Sure they do, but they're also a great big juicy target for anything that could be hiding in this mess. For all we know there's an EMP or nuke trap hiding in this mess.”
“So they send seven fighters. And here I was thinking we were too important to be expendable.”
“If it makes you feel any better there are another fourteen fighters and a gunship ready to launch on my say so. Hey Tempest, you're drifting too far to port. Get back in position,” Ronin ordered.
“Aye, sorry sir.”
“All right, we're moving on to formation two. Forty two hundred kilometres apart in a lateral V. SIO's coordinate so we're getting complete readings. Our top priority is finding signs of defence platforms, transmitters, outposts and anything else that could cause a problem or be worth communicating with,” Minh ordered as he looked at the grey, white and blue expanse of asteroids ahead. There were no operable monitoring posts or other pieces of technology above the field. A few long shipping containers and the wreckage of several old ships had been picked up by the Triton, but they were nowhere nearby.
“What about composition analysis or scouting for dense material for Triton’s manufacturing systems?” asked Sprocket, so named because Mia had qualified as a pilot after being on the maintenance team ever since Triton was taken.
“Our uplink to Triton is feeding all that information to people there who can analyse the data better than any of us,” Slick answered from behind Minh-Chu. “Now keep your eyes on what's important. There should be some kind of defence perimeter ahead.” Minh's SIO sighed and spoke exclusively to him. “I can't wait until they finish rebuilding the analysis and status software without the AI components. I have to admit, I wouldn't mind being out of a job and taking the stick.”
“If you're trying to distance yourself from me it won't work. You're already slotted as my wingman,” Minh flipped the Uriel fighter upside down, continuing in a straight path towards the centre of the asteroid field. "Maybe even as a Squad Leader if you can get your scores up a little."
“With your cover and kill record I don't much mind. All I ask is that you try being a little more predictable.”
“Ha! Fat chance!” Minh burst as he looked across the churning, level field of asteroids. The group of fighters were starting to drift to the right, slowly matching the spin of the expanse of ice and stone. He watched for anything that didn't seem to belong, for something to lock his focus on that might tell him what happened before the Triton arrived. “There should be a ton of traffic if the information Alice included is even half right. She's the only one aboard who knew anything about this spot.”