[EXCERPT] "I Am Primary" from The Achilles Battle Fleet: Book One: Mei-Ling Lee
The following is an excerpt from the novel The Achilles Battle Fleet: Book One: Mei-Ling Lee by Brendan Wilson, now available via the Literate Ape Press Bookshelf.
I AM PRIMARY
Lieutenant Commander Stephen Bowman woke instantly to the sound of a repeated three-note siren, followed by an announcement on the ship’s intercom: “Three-nineteenth squadron, all pilots and crew to launch hangar immediately! Three- nineteenth squadron, all pilots and crew to launch hangar immediately! This is not a drill! Repeat: this is not a drill!”
Bowman threw his legs over the edge of the bunk as the intercom called the off-duty pilots to the ready room and was moving toward his locker when the impact alarm sounded, accompanied by flashing red lights and followed immediately by a dull thud—a sound that should never be heard on a starship. He felt the slight shudder, stumbled a bit, and quickly threw on his flight suit. Grabbing his helmet, he ran out into the passageway. He’d clap on the helmet if he felt a sudden air-pressure change, indicating a breach.
He spared a quick thought about how his life had changed in a few short months. Six months ago, he’d been pulling reserve duty on the fighter transport Boa Vista out of Achilles Nine, a forward.
outpost near what used to be called the Separation Zone during the centuries-long, uneasy peace between the Human Alliance and the Others. Bowman had taken the reserve officer course while in college in order to fund his doctoral research, as had almost all of the other professors he worked with. Unlike them, however, he enjoyed his reserve duty. He loved the oily smell of starships and the order and discipline of the Navy. But most of all, he loved being a pilot. In the twelve years since he’d started his service, he had flown in space some three thousand hours, rising in proficiency and rank, and last year, he had been promoted to lieutenant commander and assigned as the executive officer of the 319th Reconnaissance Squadron.
All reserve officers had to pull a month of duty every year. But Bowman was a single college professor and had the whole summer off, so he often spent up to three months with the Navy, which was the reason he had so many flying hours and had risen so fast in the first place. But his job as XO had been a difficult one. Pilots and college professors had no responsibility beyond their own work, and so he wasn’t used to being the person responsible for maintenance, training, personnel, logistics, and anything else the squadron commander wanted him to handle or was too busy to attend to.
He also found that he had to be the bad guy in the chain of command, the one who had to take a tough line toward his former peers when they wanted to report late, miss training, or deviate from military protocol some other way. But he treated this like any other challenge and quickly became more comfortable with the leadership role. He knew that his squadron commander, and every other senior naval officer, had to go through the same painful growing process.
Bowman entered the launch bay at a run, taking in the flurry of activity among the ground crews as they loaded munitions and fuel into the sleek recon versions of the FA-300, a state-of-the-art, multirole fighter that could handle a planet’s atmosphere and the vacuum of space equally well. He glanced down the length of the launch tube—a three-hundred-meter-long runway with an arching roof—and saw with dismay that the stars were careening by the exit port, which was protected by a transparent force-shield, indicating the carrier either was undergoing emergency maneuvers or was out of control. Inside the vessel, the internal inertial dampers were still working, thank God, or the crew would be squashed to jelly by now. “Chief, how many are up?” he shouted to CPO John Raymond, his ground crew supervisor.
“Six, sir,” Raymond responded hurriedly, not bothering to salute. That BS was reserved for parade grounds and ceremonies. “I’ve got five pilots going through emergency preflight; you’ll make six. I’ve lost coms with flight ops, so lacking guidance, I configured up for battle, not recon.”
Raymond had done exactly right, just as Bowman knew he would. Bowman had trained all the squadron to make independent decisions whenever they needed to and would never criticize a sailor for making a call when the situation required it. Had Raymond waited to be told how to configure the aircraft, they would have lost desperately needed minutes. The lack of response from flight ops confirmed that something very serious was happening.
Like all modern military aerospace craft, the FA-300 could be configured for various missions. The 319th was normally configured for reconnaissance but could pull fighter duty if required. They would have less fuel but more ammo, and the sensors would be adapted for target acquisition rather than long-range imagery. Refueling and rearming would have to happen on the fly.
Again, foresight had paid off. Bowman had insisted that the fighter role should be trained, both for individual pilots as well as squadron tactics. The pilots all complained loudly until the 319th had beaten a full-time fighter squadron in force-on-force war-games last summer, a feat that had them standing tall and had earned them the grudging respect of the fighter jocks from other squadrons.
With a skip of his heart, Bowman realized that he was the commanding officer. His boss, Commander Johann Schultz, had been seriously injured three days ago, after a mechanical failure caused a botched landing; he was confined to the sick bay on the Nicky P. This made Bowman the acting commander. Oh well, he thought, now’s as good a time as any.
After putting on his flight helmet, he looked up in time to catch a glimpse of a searing white flash from the end of the launch tunnel: the unmistakable sign of a nuclear detonation in space, either from a missile or from the explosion of a ship’s fusion reactor. Either way, the situation was dire.
Luckily, the polarizers in the visor had cut in with the first pulse of radiation, and he hadn’t gotten a direct view anyway, so his vision was fine. He leaped into the FA-300’s cockpit, gratified at the green lights and friendly chirping of the various systems reporting readiness. As the canopy sealed, he felt the gentle rumble of the fighter’s engines. A calm settled over his being, and he realized, with some surprise, that he was happy. Strange feeling, but there it was.
He opened the com channel and broadcast, “All stations, all stations, this is Alpha Six 319, requesting omega one report.” Omega one was a rarely used request, indicating the broadcasting station was entering an unknown combat situation. His call sign, Alpha Six 319, identified him as the commander of the 319th squadron, while the call “omega one” meant that the senior person in the field would either direct his actions, if that person were senior to him, or report to him the situation and request instructions if that person were a subordinate.
Before any response could be given, his afterburners blasted to life, and he shot down the launch tunnel and out into the swirling stars.
As soon as he cleared the launching bay, his fighter stabilized and he jinked hard to port, an evasive maneuver in case the enemy was targeting the bay’s opening. His heads-up display (HUD) snapped up information overlays: first navigation, then enemy threats, then friendly units. At the same time, the lower part of the heads-up display flashed his own status: relative speed, fuel, ammo, shield status, and coms. For someone not trained as a pilot, it would be an indecipherable jumble, but pilots, and fighter pilots especially, had been trained to be able to make sense of the displays. He saw that the Boa Vista, which he had just left, was tumbling wildly and spewing debris from the port side, its stabilizers blazing as it struggled to regain control.
Finally, his coms came to life. “Alpha Six 319, this is Bravo Three 514,” a calm voice stated over his headset. The call sign identified the operations officer from the 514th fighter squadron. His response meant two things: First, that the 514th commanding officer wasn’t in battle, either still on board one of the vessels in the fleet, or dead. It also meant that Bowman was senior in the field, and it would be up to him to make the difficult decisions in the next few moments.
Bowman stifled the desire to shout, “What the hell is going on?” He knew that the ops officer for 514th, a Lieutenant Baker, was a solid type who would give him what he needed.
“Sir,” Baker continued in his Louisiana accent, “you have thirteen fighters in the sky, including your six. The rest are remnants of the two flights of the 514th that were already on patrol when the action started. The lead scout vessel hit a mine, taking out the entire recon element. We’ve had enemy O-raiders coming at us in multiple waves since then. Three vessels are damaged. We’ve lost flight ops, sir, as you can see.”
Bowman looked across the flotilla and saw the command ship Iroquois, which also housed flight operations, listing and spewing flames and debris, the bridge a blazing inferno. Bowman felt his fury rise as he realized the recon squadron on duty had screwed up big time. No way should they have been in a formation tight enough for all to get taken out by a single mine.
They’d paid for their stupidity in the most terminal way possible, and they may have doomed the rest of the flotilla in the process.
He glanced at the situational display and realized Baker had done a fine job of positioning his remaining forces. He noted the two frigates moving up into a supporting position. His sensors picked up the wrecks of dozens of O-raiders, meaning Baker and his team had been harvesting them like wheat. But there were far too many left.
“Recommendations?” Bowman asked.
“We’re low on ammo and fuel, sir,” Baker said calmly. “I need to rotate the 514’s fighters back to rearm and refuel. Looks like the HC Centurion has the only stable landing bay, and they’re ready for us. With your permission, I’ll send ’em back in twos. I recommend we fall back in a defensive perimeter; your team can take point for a while. The fleet can’t jump to light speed with this many vessels damaged. The enemy must have been in stasis for months because there’s no base or larger vessel in the area.”
Bowman knew what that meant: The O-fighters weren’t going home. They’d been sent out here as part of an ambush that got triggered by the presence of the fleet. Similar ambushes had happened before, but never on this scale. No one in the Alliance had even imagined it possible, given what they knew about the Others.
Something, some inconsistency he couldn’t finger, nibbled at the back of his mind. He didn’t have time to study it closely. For now, what this information meant was that the Others had no way out and would fight until they ran out of fuel and ammo—and then self- detonate in thermonuclear fury.
By this time, the rest of Alpha 319 were on his wing. Counting himself, he had six in all. It would have to be enough for now.
“Attention all stations,” Bowman said into his coms. “This is Alpha Six 319. I am primary.” This was a formal assumption of battle command. As far as Bowman knew, until today, it was a phrase that hadn’t been uttered in over a century. “Bravo Three 514 is secondary, executing rearm and refuel under his authority.”
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