“Cair Ilmun,” Garrix called. “Why have you not moved forward? Move out now.”
“Don’t do it,” Yen warned.
Listen to him, the Voice agreed. It’s not time, not yet.
“Cair Ilmun, you will engage.”
Keryn saw over half of the other Cair ships floating, already destroyed during their mock combat. Fear rose in her throat as she realized the technique they had adopted. It was a war of attrition. No matter how many Cair ships were destroyed, always enough slipped through to invade the opponent’s vessel. More than anything, Keryn didn’t want to wind up like all the others that hadn’t made it through. Fighting a war of attrition just didn’t make sense to her.
“What is the problem, Magistrate Riddell?” the Squadron Commander barked over the radio, his gravelly voice full of irritation.
“Hold your position,” Yen said over the aggravated Commander. “Don’t listen to him.”
Keryn’s hand moved to the console, but her fingers remained hovering above the keys to engage the engine. She didn’t know who was right and who to trust. She believed Yen and knew that he had her best interest at heart, but he had been serving in the covert operations during all his combat experience. He didn’t have any combat experience as a pilot. On the other hand, Keryn seriously doubted Garrix had any experience either.
“Magistrate Riddell, I am ordering you to move out!”
He’s wrong, the Voice replied. He’s going to get you killed.
Conflicted, Keryn let her hand drop and activated the engine. The Cair Ilmun shot forward and dove toward the weaving Duun fighters. Scanning side to side, Keryn searched eagerly for any opening in the sea of ships, some miraculously obvious pathway through the throng of fighters that would lead her to the Defiant. Though she searched, nothing became apparent.
“Watch on your left!” Yen called out.
Keryn saw the Duun fighter breaking contact and diving toward her ship. She saw the fire leap from the spinning machine guns as she dipped her own wings, sending the Cair Ilmun into a roll. Though she saw numerous flashes of near missed shots, she moved out of range without being shot down. She smiled slightly and sighed, but her relief was quickly washed away as two more Duun fighters moved toward her ship. The Duun fighters, aside from eliminating one another, were tasked with the sole responsibility of destroying missiles or boarding ships that threatened their Cruiser. Even a single boarding party had the capability to completely destroy a Cruiser with a well-placed series of explosives. The Duun fighters would do all they could to destroy Keryn long before she could reach the Defiant.
Dodging left and right, Keryn saw the streak of a mock missile nearly miss their right wing. Tilting the ship upward, Keryn opened fire. With great satisfaction, she saw red lights flare on the leftmost Duun as she eliminated it from combat. In her celebration, however, she failed to notice the other Duun drop from behind the first, using its destroyed hull as cover. The flashes of machine gun fire glared through the thick cockpit window. Red lights lit up across the console, warning of multiple strikes to their hull. A warning claxon sounded loudly throughout the ship moments before her engines began to shut down.
Across the console before her, a single word replaced the gauges and screens: Destroyed.
Dead in the water, the Cair Ilmun drifted in space as the battle raged on. The only sounds Keryn could hear were the disappointed cursing of the Infantry now trapped in the back of her ship, dead without ever being able to lift a weapon in their own defense.
Walking down the hall, back toward her living quarters, Keryn bit back tears of frustration at her loss during the battle. After landing, none of the Infantry had bothered to spare her a second glance as they disembarked and walked back toward the debriefing room. Only Yen and Adam had stayed behind, though conversation was minimal and terse.
She didn’t turn as she heard a hurried set of running footfalls behind her. A hand closed over her arm and spun her around. Yen stared at her, the jovial smile gone from his face. She matched his intensity with an angry look of her own.
“You here to tell me how much I screwed up?” Keryn growled. “Believe me, I can take care of reliving my failure all on my own.” Jerking, she broke free from his grip.
“That’s not why I’m here,” Yen replied sternly. “Yes, you screwed up, but you screwed up because you didn’t listen. If you do something like that when we finally face the Terrans, there won’t be another chance to beat yourself up. We’ll all be dead.”
“Don’t you think I already know that?” Keryn yelled at him. “And I did listen. I was ordered by the Squadron Commander to engage, and I engaged. I follow orders, Yen.”
“You’re right, you do. But that’s the one thing that you did wrong. The one thing you need to remember above all else is that when you’re in the cockpit, flying the Cair Ilmun, there is no one else that has a better view of the combat than you. Not Garrix, not the Revolution, not even me. When we’re in combat, you are the Captain of the ship. You answer to no one else. If it looks wrong, you disobey orders because, deep down, you know that it will save lives. You listened to someone who thought they knew better than you. But up there, no one knows better than you.”
Keryn sighed heavily. “And what do you propose I do next time?” she asked flatly.
“You want to find out? Then I propose you go out to dinner with me tomorrow,” Yen said. Keryn arched an eyebrow in confusion. “I have some ideas that I think will help us out next time we fly. If you’re interested, come to dinner with me tomorrow night and we can talk tactics.”
Feeling some of her animosity flood from her body, Keryn allowed herself a little smile. “When you asked me out to dinner, this isn’t exactly what I expected.”
“Business first, fun later,” Yen explained with a broad smile.
“Fine,” Keryn conceded. “Tomorrow night. It’s a date.”
She turned before Yen could figure out a quick witted retort and stepped onto one of the lifts. As the doors closed, she gave him a playful wave. Yen shook his head in wonderment as he took the next lift down to his own room, still not sure if Keryn was the single most brilliant pilot he had ever encountered or the single craziest. In the end, he realized he really didn’t care one way or the other.
CHAPTER THREE
The twelve Alliance Cruisers orbited the bloated gas giant, each in their own elliptical path, pacing the empty space like caged animals hungry for their next meal. Captain Hodge, sitting in the Captain’s chair onboard the Revolution, looked nearly as agitated and feral. Her feathery white wings shook in irritation as she frowned, unhappy with the current situation.
“Anything yet?” she asked Magistrate Young, the Uligart Communications Officer.
Young looked nervous as he replied. “Sorry, ma’am. Nothing yet.”
Captain Hodge sighed as she sunk deeper into her chair. For weeks, the Revolution and her sister ships had been on high alert, knowing that they could be called to duty at any time; called to hunt down and eliminate the Terran Destroyers. Yet, for all their bluster and repetitive training, no assignment had been forthcoming. She could nearly sense the tension seeping through the ship. Small fights had broken out, mainly between Infantry and Fleet soldiers. In garrison, such rivalries were ignored, often times welcomed, since the competitive nature drove both sides to excel. In a time of war, especially the first major public confrontation between the Alliance and the Empire in nearly one hundred and fifty years, Captain Hodge had neither the latitude nor the patience to deal with any disagreement that left a member of her crew in the infirmary.