"Sir. Just wanted to thank you for pulling me as your wingman," the lieutenant jg said.
"Just do your job and everything will be good." Jack repeated the words his first wingman told him so many years ago. "Fish. Just keep your eyes open."
"Yes, sir. You can count on me." It was obvious to Jack that the young junior officer was nervous as hell.
"You sure you up for this duty, Fish?"
"Yes, sir. Damn, sir, don't go getting all touchy-feely cat on me." Fish puffed out her chest and raised an eyebrow, to show her bravado.
"Good, you watch my back out there, all right?"
"You got it, sir. Let's go get 'em!"
General quarters. General quarters! All hands, all hands, man your battle stations immediately! Expect multiple space targets. Prepare for evasive! Emerging from hyperspace in nine, eight, seven . . . Uncle Timmy counted down over the 1MC intercom and again directly to all AIC implants.
The CO gripped his chair a little tighter.
"Good hunting, DeathRay!" The chief snapped a salute.
"Roger that!" Jack saluted back. The chief backed down the ladder, pulling several hardwire connectors and hoses from the fuselage of the plane.
Jack squirmed into the front seat, pulled the hardwire connection from the universal docking port of his Ares fighter, and plugged it into the thin little rugged composite box on the left side of his helmet that made a direct electrical connection to his AIC implant via skin contact sensors in his helmet. Jack's training and years of experience assured him that the odds of needing the direct connection were slim. Every now and then, though, the damned Seppy tech bastards got lucky with some electronic warfare algorithms or gadgets and could shut out the AIC-to-fighter wireless, but that was rare. The wireless connection was spread spectrum encrypted and almost unspoofable. Almost. The hardwire, on the other hand, required a physical intervention so it made a perfect backup. Jack had never needed it in the twelve years he'd been a Navy aviator.
"Hardwire UDP is connected and operational. Lieutenant Candis Three Zero Seven Two Four Niner Niner Niner Six ready for duty," the AIC announced over the open com channel. Then directly to Jack, Let's go get 'em, DeathRay!
Roger that, Candis!
Jack saluted the flight deck officer and brought the canopy down. The harness holding the fighter lowered and dropped it the last twenty centimeters to the deck with a slight squishing feel from the landing gear suspension. The drop always left him with a lump in his throat and butterflies in his stomach because it always meant that he was about to go screaming out the ass end of the supercarrier into a storm of raining and streaking hell flying from all directions. Jack swallowed the lump, calmed the butterflies, and followed the flight deck sequence. He moved his fighter first in line for takeoff.
"This is double zero, DeathRay," Jack called over the tac-net. "This is gonna get hairy, folks and I want everyone covering their wings and following the plan. Good hunting and good luck."
"Fighter zero zero call sign DeathRay, you are cleared for egress. Good hunting Lieutenant Commander Boland!" the control tower officer radioed. "Handing off to cat control."
"Roger that, tower." Jack went through his ritual. "Y'all just keep the beer cold and DeathRay will be back soon enough." Jack taxied to the "at bat" slot and braced himself.
"Fighter double zero, you are at bat and go for cat! Good hunting, DeathRay!" the catapult field AI announced. Jack throttled forward and switched to hover as the landing gear cycled and extracted. He bit down hard on his temporomandibular joint mouthpiece and eased the throttle just a little more forward so that the fighter slipped into the catapult field. He strained against his TMJ mouthpiece bite block and breathed shallow breaths through his gritting teeth.
"Roger that. Double zero has the cat! WHOOO! HOOO!" Jack screamed through the mouthpiece as the support tube for the bite block started pumping oxygen in his face and mouth. The catapult field flung him out of the rear lower launch deck and Jack was thrust hard into his seat at over nine Earth gravities accelerating the little snub nosed fighter to over three hundred kilometers per hour.
Without the inertial dampening controls of the fighter, DeathRay would have been crushed and his brain sloshed around inside his head to the point of fatal trauma. From zero to three hundred kilometers per hour in one tenth of a second is about eighty-five Earth gravities. The inertial dampening controls of the Ares fighter craft reduced the effect by generating a dampening field around the aircraft. This field served two purposes: 1) to add structural integrity to the fighter plane and 2) to reduce the effect of the g-forces to something that human pilots could withstand.
"Hot damn what a rush!" Jack breathed rapidly like a woman giving birth and spat out obscenities almost as proficiently. He grunted as the overwhelming g-forces from the catapult acceleration subsided.
Jack slowed his breathing a bit and scanned the sky, turning his head left and right slightly, and looked at the viewscreens displaying under and behind him. At the same time his AIC DTMed a full-scale three dimensional and immersive spherical view of the space around him. He could look in any direction and see space outside rather than the interior of the fighter. The view was partially transparent so that he could still monitor other instruments and controls inside the cockpit that were not virtual.
The sky was littered with explosions and flashes of light above and behind him; beneath him was the red planet. In his virtual mindview Jack could see the other planes from his squadron being flung from the Sienna Madira supercarrier. His young wingman pulled in beside the squadron leader on his right. Jack could see the inexperienced pilot scanning around her cockpit virtual view for bogies.
He could also see the main gun batteries of the Madira firing in rapid succession. Missile contrails spilled away from the mammoth warship through the thin upper Martian atmosphere. Some of them impacted the Seppy ship's shield plating and boiled off large chunks of the armor in brilliant orange and white flashes of debris clouds.
The DTM view showed that both the Demon Dawgs and the Utopian Saviors were dishing out a good bit of hell to the mix of Separatist Gnats and Stingers that were buzzing the fleet. The flagship, the U.S.S. George Washington, the U.S.S. Margaret Thatcher, the U.S.S. Boris Yeltsin, and the U.S.S. Nelson Mandela were pouring missiles and directed energy beams into the Separatist fleet. The Seppies were maneuvering slowly but returning fire. They were attempting to use the crossfire as cover and trying to mix into the Martian contingent of the American fleet to force the fleet ships to cease fire with their main guns for fear of friendly fire casualties.
The tactic was working fairly well for the Seppies. The strategy, on the other hand, at the moment seemed all on the side of the Americans because the original five ships that came out of hyperspace first were bait. The ten or so Seppy ships, which included the six carriers, had not counted on the eight supercarriers from Earth, three from Luna, and two from the outer planets as well as ten smaller yet still powerful support vehicles ready to drop out of hyperspace nearby. The Martian contingent of U.S. ships had taken the first beating but were now making a run for it to get out of the way of the fleet vehicles waiting to mop up.