Even though the internal gravity wells aboard the Klin ship fought continually to compensate for the inertia tied to his wild maneuvers, the computers always seemed to be a moment or so behind him. The maneuvers had very little effect on Lee, since he already knew where he was going. But for his crew, it was a different story.
He chanced a glance back at Tim Carlson, the young Savior assigned to his ship, and saw him turning green. Carlson was the man who had trained Lee in the piloting of the KFV — although ‘trained’ was not quite the right word for it. When the time had come, Tim had more-or-less just showed Lee the controls, and the cocky, young fighter-pilot had taken it from there. The controls of the starship ended up being wickedly simply for the veteran pilot, and in no time, Lee — along with the hundreds of other pilots recruited for the Klin ships — was running circles around his instructor.
At first, Lee had found this to be a dichotomy: that the trainees could so quickly surpass the trainers. But later, when his uncle, Admiral Allen, explained more of the situation to him, it all suddenly made sense.
Looking at Tim Carlson now, Lee could see the pale hue to his skin and the concerned look in his eyes. Lee pulled the ship out of the spin and leveled out. He would return to the line and let his crew recover. After all, it wouldn’t help morale aboard the ship for his crew to have to clean up vomit from the decks — again!
“Captain to crew,” Lee announced through the 1-MC. “Secure from battle stations. Drill complete. We’re returning to the line.”
Lee heard Carlson babble something under his breath and he turned to face the younger man. “The Klin sure know how to build a spaceship; I’ll given them that.” he said with a smile. Carlson still wasn’t in any condition to speak.
Lee felt sorry for his friend, watching him struggle mightily not to vomit in the direction of his captain. However, Lee just smiled a little wider, thinking about just how close he had come, only few months ago, to ripping the young man apart, limb by limb, with his bare hands….
Tim Carlson was what was commonly referred to as a Savior, a Human who had supposedly been taken from the Earth and taught to help Humanity recover from a potentially devastating attack by the Juireans. He had returned to the planet just after the attack and immediately set about doing what he had been trained to do. While most of the returning Saviors assisted with the reconstruction and recovery efforts from the destruction wrought by the Juireans, Carlson was to train the pilots and crew for the Klin starships, a force that would lead the revenge assault against the evil Juireans. As such, Carlson knew all the systems aboard the Klin ships like the back of hand, as well as attack and defense strategies that he would pass on to his fellow Humans.
The life of a Savior on Earth at this time was one to be envied. After all, here were a group of adventurous and selfless young men who had volunteered to leave their homes and families and live among the aliens, all the while learning to help Humanity recover from an unimaginable tragedy. Everywhere they went, the Saviors were adored and honored.
And the fact that all the Saviors appeared to be healthy and genetically perfect young studs did not go unnoticed by the female segment of the planet’s population, either. Women waited in line to meet — and to date — a Savior. After all, these were men who had been in space and who associated with aliens, for Christ’s sake. Now they were welcomed back as heroes.
Yes, life was good for the Saviors. At least initially.
Tim was 23, an American, born and raised in Queens, New York. The neighborhood he grew up in, along with the schools he’d attended, had all been wiped clean by the Juirean energy bombs and the resulting conflagration. All his family and friends had died in the attack as well; now all Tim Carlson had left was duty to his race.
Lee Schwartz first began to notice that Carlson was a little strange right after he was assigned to his training squad. In just normal banter around the hangers and in the barracks, Tim appeared to be very defensive about his background, often mentioning that reminders of his past were just too painful to speak of. That was understandable, but Lee soon found other inconsistencies as well.
It seemed Tim couldn’t carry on a conversation about any past T.V. shows or movies, or any memorable moments in sports, for example. And even though he had left Earth at the age of 18, he could not — or would not — talk about any past girlfriends he had in school or neighborhood friends when growing up. It was as if his entire past was one deep, dark void; as if his memory had been wiped clean.
Lee’s suspicions grew even stronger once flight training began. Carlson was supposed to be the expert, better than all the others at instructing the military pilots on the intricate operations of the Klin flying saucers. Yet Tim Carlson could barely execute a loop maneuver, let alone anything more complicated. Sure, he could tear the ship apart and rebuild it while blindfolded, but he was no pilot.
Lee began to reason that the young Savior must have been trained by the Klin to operate the KFV’s as the Klin did. If this were the case, then the aliens weren’t using their craft for even a tenth of their potential, and as such, Carlson was not to blame for his obvious lack of skills.
But still, there was something very odd about the young man.
It was about this time that Lee’s uncle had called him into the Admiral’s office at the Joint Military Command base in Fallon, Nevada — and revealed to him a set of facts that would change his perspective forever.
Fallon had been the U.S. Navy’s Top Gun training base before the attack, located in the mostly-arid desert southeast of Reno. Because of its remote location, the base had been completely missed by the Juireans when they hit all the major population centers around the world. Since then, the base had been greatly enlarged and its mission enhanced. It was now the main base for the Klin Fleet, growing large enough to accommodate the over 1,000 Klin saucers, along with all the support and training staff that went with them. The population at the base soon swelled to nearly 85,000 men and women, making it the largest military base on the planet at the time.
The original Klin Fleet had been manned by Saviors, with men like Carlson serving as the pilots and the Recovery Saviors as crew. However, once the reconstruction efforts began, the fleet had lost its crewmembers, which now had to be replaced quickly with freshly-trained men and women, pulled mainly from the four major armed services, and mostly by Americans. Also, the Savior-pilots were not to be assigned as line officers — as the actual pilots of the ships — but rather as counselors to the newly-trained pilots and crews. Skilled pilots, such as Lee Schwartz, were in great demand by the combined Human/Klin forces.
And this was just the beginning. Already, there were massive shipbuilding efforts taking place at facilities like the newly-rebuilt Newport News Shipbuilding yards in Virginia and the Boeing plants in Washington and South Carolina. The existing Klin Fleet was only the first. Soon a whole new fleet of Earth-built starships would be taking flight and heading off to join the fight against the Juireans.
Chapter 4
“So what do you know about this Savior, this Tim Carlson guy?” his uncle had asked after calling him into the inner sanctum of the Human High Command at Fallon. Lee could tell the Admiral hated to call these men Saviors; it was a sentiment shared by most people these days. But still, Lee was taken aback by his uncle’s odd question.
“He’s pretty strange, but not any more than the others I’ve met, sir.” Lee didn’t know the purpose of the summons; he and his uncle had always tried to maintain a certain level of professionalism and distance regarding their familial relationship.