"Roger that, Chief. Me, too. I could use a new rug for my quarters." Jack saluted back, and the chief quickly climbed down and was joined by a purple shirt and a fireman in orange coveralls with blue kneepads. They unhooked the power and com umbilicals then moved clear of the launching pad.
Jack locked his helmet and then settled into the cockpit—the one place he felt most at home. He felt the familiar hiss of the cool, dry air rushing into his suit as he plugged the hardwire connection from the universal docking port (UDP) of his fighter into the thin little rugged composite box on the left side of his helmet, which made a direct electrical connection to his AIC implant via skin-contact sensors in his helmet.
"Hardwire UDP is connected and operational. Lieutenant Commander Candis Three Zero Seven Two Four Niner Niner Niner Six ready for duty," Jack's AIC announced over the open com channel and in the cockpit speakers. Then directly to Jack's mind, Let's go get 'em, Captain!
Roger that, Candis!
Jack saluted the yellow-shirt flight-deck officer and started the take-off process. The canopy cycled down and the harness holding the fighter dropped it the last twenty centimeters to the deck. Jack both loved and hated the squishing feel from the landing-gear suspension, because it always reminded him of what he was about to do. He hated the lump in his throat and butterflies in his stomach that had become his natural reflex to the landing-gear squish. Too many times in the past it had meant hurtling out the ass end of the supercarrier into a storm of raining and streaking hell flying from all directions. But there was nowhere else he'd rather be.
Jack swallowed the lump, ignored the butterflies, and followed the launch sequence, as he had hundreds of times before. The green arrows on the deck lit up and pointed the taxiway directions for him to follow to the cat line. He moved his fighter in line for takeoff. He was presently the only one taking off before the QMT teleport of the supercarrier, but he was pressed for time. The jump was expected in just a couple of minutes. Jack caught a glimpse of his wingman, Fish, to his left. She saluted him, and he returned it. He hated leaving her alone. She was talking to Ensign Zeke "Dragon" Franklin. He was new to the Gods of War, and it looked like Fish was going to take him on her wing.
"This is double zero," Jack called over the tac-net to all the pilots in the hangar getting ready to go as well. "This is probably gonna be a mess of a furball, folks, and I want everyone covering their wings and following the plan as usual. Y'all listen to Deuce. Good hunting and good luck." He thought his faceplate down and pulled his mouthpiece closer with his teeth. His DTM mindview kicked in, but he ignored it for now.
"Fighter zero-zero call sign DeathRay, you are cleared for egress. Good hunting, Commander Boland!" the control-tower officer radioed. "Handing off to cat control."
"Roger that, tower." Jack went through his ritual as he had since the first actual combat mission that he'd come back from. "Y'all just keep the beer cold, and good ol' DeathRay will be back soon enough." Jack taxied to the "at bat" slot and braced himself for the "ball," chewing at the bite block and soaking in the fresh oxygen and stimulants.
"Fighter double zero, you are at bat and go for cat! Call the ball."
"Roger cat, double zero has the ball," Boland responded. The little gold catapult field alignment sphere blinked on in his DTM view, overlaying the projected launch window circle in the cat field before his fighter. He sighed a deep breath and focused on relaxing his body from head to toe. He closed his eyes for a split second as he prepared himself.
"Good hunting, DeathRay!" the catapult-field AI announced. Jack throttled the Ares-T forward and switched to hover as the landing gear cycled and extracted. It was always the same when he knew it was a real fight. He was nervous. He bit down hard on the temporomandibular-joint mouthpiece and eased the throttle just a little more forward so that the fighter slipped into the catapult field.
"Roger that. Double zero has the cat! WHOOO! HOOO!" Jack let out his ritual battle yell, and as usual it was muffled through the mouthpiece. The support tube for the bite block started pumping oxygen and stimulants in his face and mouth more rapidly to account for the g-load of the cat field. At over twelve Earth gravities of acceleration, for a brief instant the cats always gave Jack the exhilaration of being on one hell of a ride.
The stars filled his field of view, and the Oort facility was behind him. He pulled his fighter over and looped back along the same vector as the Madira but above it relative to the QMT pad. He pulled into a matching hover orbit about two kilometers above the bridge of the supercarrier. The plan was to QMT in at about a thousand kilometers from the Arcadian QMT facility, and then the supercarrier would accelerate across it dropping troops, tubes, and mecha. Jack would be scanning with his sensors and with his AIC's wireless QM transceiver for Dee. Hopefully, he would find her.
"CO Madira, DeathRay," he called over the net.
"Go DeathRay," RADM Jefferson's voice responded.
"I'm in position, Admiral. Whenever you're ready, sir."
"Roger that, DeathRay. And Jack?"
"Sir?"
"Good luck."
"Thank you. You, too, sir. DeathRay out."
Chapter 15
July 1, 2394 AD
Ross 128, Arcadia Orbital QMT Facility
Friday, 2:41 PM, Earth Eastern Standard Time
Ensign Bella Penrose, a.k.a. Nancy Penzington or Kira Shavi or a hundred other classified cover aliases, decided the best place to pick up gossip on the U.S.R. flagship was either in the galley or down in the hangar bay. She had been in the galley earlier, and it was dead in there, so she tried the hangar bay. She could always use the excuse that she was checking on her mecha. Hell, she was an officer of the flight wing, so she really wouldn't have to offer any excuses to the enlisted crew in the hangar.
Bella casually sauntered out of the main shaft elevator that led from top to bottom of the supercarrier as it opened onto the large open corridor leading to the hangar about ten meters across from it. There were crews in multiple colors of uniforms, shirts, or coveralls running to and fro. The hangar bay wasn't unlike any other she had ever been in. She followed the taped off pathway toward her almost brand-new second-generation Gnat. She had only been out in it maybe twenty times. According to the flight records, she was the first pilot assigned to it. She came to a stop at the nose of the fighter. The little fighter was a knockoff of the U.S. Ares-T mecha. The Seppy engineers must have gone to great lengths to reverse engineer a downed Ares-T, or they had stolen plans or perhaps a little of both. The result was a new generation of transfigurable and very fast fighting mecha. One thing that Bella was interested in was the fact that nobody during her training process had so much as mentioned, much less trained her on, the U.S. Navy pilot maneuver where the vehicle would spin about in every direction madly killing everything in sight. Perhaps the targeting system for that capability hadn't been reproduced by the Seppy engineers. Perhaps they just hadn't thought about it because few Seppy pilots ever returned from such attacks.