Thrust Vector - Prologue
"Do you ever wonder what it's like, to feel solid ground beneath your feet? To hold unmoving dirt and breathe the air we were meant to breathe? Tell me, is that something truly worth dying for?"
//Europia Continent, Subsector 321B
//1807 Hours, 11/12/2563
//Consortium Ship Cairo
//Altitude: 7,381 Meters
//Current Objective: Escort of Consortium Materials Convoy to Decimator Construction Site at Ledenoft
//Current Status: ...attempting to establish contact...
//Caution: Captain Killian Bates confirmed KIA
//Emergency Combat Command Protocol Enacted
//Current acting Captain: Lieutenant Nathaniel Ano
A stricken vector glances off the topside deck armor, a fireball desintingerating on impact as its unidentified pilot loses control over his dead craft.
The thing barrels through the forward superstructure of the Cairo's upper deck, metal debris crushing the fragile flesh and bone of anti-air gunners and warping alloy construction. The flaming corpse crashes through and is stopped by the outer catch fence. After a few seconds burning, the thing detonates in an ammunition explosion, flinging flaming debris across the Cairo.
Warnings sound around the bridge, and radio chatter from the topside crew only consists of panicked cries for help or instinctual screaming.
A dozen voices yell out at the same time. A mixture of damage reports from the replacement bridge staff and self contained orders towards lower crew barrage Lieutenant Ano, whose perilous position as acting captain is only continuously apprehended by his inexperience. He pauses, then spews his orders on his personal basis, rather than the unbearable reports coming through his ear piece. “Damage control teams, priority, munitions fire on upper deck.”
A handful of intact anti air guns come back to life, their gunners rising to their stations against the swarming Syndicate vectors. However, the guns that were operational were the ancient fixed quad-barreled flak cannons. Sights of iron, manual munition loaders, and hydraulic rotational systems.
If anything, they were in place merely to add to the firepower of the more advanced earth-tech modified automated rotary cannons. Of which, Ano could count two out of the seven remaining. Both of which weren’t functioning despite their relatively pristine look.
“Get a repair team on those earth-tech guns!” Ano yells. “NOW!”
“Aye sir!” The tactical officer yells back.
“Comms, Get me Overlord priority one!”
It takes a few seconds for the audio call to establish. The communications array still damaged from the initial ambush thirty minutes prior. Ano breaths. “Cairo Actual to Overlord, we are dead in the air! We’re not gonna last another five minutes up here!”
From satellite to Cairo’s damaged audio system, Command’s voice could barely be heard through static. “Overlord to Cairo Actual, friendly vector assets are thirty seconds out, Advised; call signs are Sicario, Case, and Illya. Battlecruiser Akula also five minutes inbound.”
The handful of Syndicate Vectors still assaulting the Cairo suddenly peel away, their engines flaring as they turn back west to attack the defenseless materials convoy.
The Operation’s Officer sighs of relief. “Hostile Vectors retreating sir!”
“They’re not retreating.” Ano realizes a second later. “They’re clearing out.”
Above the frigate, a shadow crosses over. The Syndicate assault carrier that spearheaded this ambush carefully moves into position off the starboard hull of the Cairo, eclipsing the sun as its massive body overshadows the deck.
“Oh shit!” Someone voices on the bridge.
The boarding klaxon sounds, it’s roar echoing across the battle tired decks. “All hands, prepare to repel boarders, repeat prepare to repel boarders.”
The Cairo wasn’t ready. Against an assault carrier with a hundred fresh and highly trained Syndicate marines aboard, the wounded crew of the escort frigate didn’t stand a chance.
Harpoons the size of telephone polls fire from the assault carrier, piercing and latching into hull armor. The Cairo lists as her wounded side is pulled towards the syndicate monster.
“Give me maximum acceleration forward!” Ano orders as someone hands him a weapon.
A warning trips on the bridge, the canned voice of some long dead woman rings through. “Caution: thruster overheat. Critical propulsion reactor meltdown…”
The aft engines sputter out powerless jet wash, and the cables trapping her pull taught. On board the carrier, Syndicate Marines rain fire down onto the deck crew. The gunners that so due fully manned the four barreled cannons are torn to shreds, with damage control teams scrambling for cover on the exposed topside.
Tactical Air Control suddenly comes through the comms, his cold voice angelic in the news he brings. “Sicario Team, Case Team is attacking the assault carrier. Cover them.”
Topside, the high pitched roar of vector engines cuts through the chaos of battle. Black blurs, boxy and barely aerodynamic, scream into the airspace.
Tracer rounds scatter as they impact the carrier’s port deck. Blood red viscera and gore fly as thousands of rounds cut into the exposed syndicate marines. The restrung kevlar body armor matched with ceramic plating nothing compared to the force of a thousand 20mm gatling rounds.
The noise comes after the barrage of superheated lead, a pitched growl of electronics and multi barrel weapons fire echos in the sky.
An incredibly heavy and bulky vector pulls a hard turn as it rises above the assault carrier’s deck. The sheer power of a vector reeled in as it hovers above stunned syndicate crew.
“This is Case.” The mechanical voice within speaks. “Engaging.”
A stream of armor piercing auto cannon shells tear into the carrier’s hull. The stunned and gore covered crew return fire, but the vector’s colossal armor shrugs off the impacting flack.Case adjusts their fire as their squadron arrives, munitions now directed now towards the central structure of the fragile deck armor. Auto-cannon rounds slam into the internals of the carrier, spalling metal lacerating crew and tech, embedding themselves into steel.
A paired squadron of Syndicate vectors peel off the distant Consortium convoy, answering the wailing distress call of their venerable mothership.
“Sicario Team, hostile vectors, incoming 81 degrees west.” Tactical Command advises.
Seven slick shapes, led by one, pass over the assault carrier, banking towards the incoming craft.
“This is Sicario Lead, Sicario Team, take em down.”
They close their range in seconds. Both sides pulling away before entering into a suicidal head on pass.
Sicario Lead throws his vector in a hard looped starboard turn, a syndicate vector quickly coming into his targeting reticule. In his helmet display, the targeting servos ignite green.
A pair of unguided rockets spiral forth from their launch tubes as he pulls the trigger. The hostile vector detonates as the two explosive warheads reach their target half a second later. The bits and pieces slowly lose their inertia and fall in smoking ruin towards the ground seven kilometers below.
“Sicario Three!” Someone yells over coms. “Missile on you!”
Sicario Three’s vector dives down in a desperate attempt to lose altitude.
The missile, however, is faster, smarter, and lighter than the bulky standard issue vector. Every turn, every fast directional change the vector executes, the missle matches with machine precision.
Sicaro Lead watches as one of his subordinates is ripped apart by the kinetic impact of the homing warhead.
The perpetrator falls into Sicario Lead’s rear, and the tone of an infrared missile lock shrieks in the sealed cockpit.
A singular missile flares; like a starved beast it guns for the heat signature of Sicario Lead’s Vector. Modified, specialized; the Lead Vector pulls impossible maneuvers, the missile that easily destroyed a normal warcraft suddenly found itself hopelessly outmatched. Before the countermeasures, before the armor could come into play, Sicario Leader shakes the missile off with ease.
The shrill of another lock comes, the same pilot trying his luck again at this lethal gambling ring.
“This is Sicario Lead, someone take out that vector.”
In the distance something arrived. The visual range of the human eye is distorted by some invisible deity, a screaming banshee cry of a modified vector engine echoes into the battle sky. A squadron of Vectors in deep blue coloring split as they arrive in combat space, an apparent leader missing from the entendre.
Sicario Team’s comm system suddenly comes to life with an accented voice. “Илья эскадрильи, это моя.”
In one instant, the hostile vector bearing down Sicario Leader’s rear is whole. The next, a perfectly cut three meter sized hole of molten plasma appears. Half the vector is turned into nothing more than energy, a dissipating ball of base material. The rest, falls and collapses into a heap of scrap.
“Zis is Illya Leader.” Her voice is heavily accented with both foreign language and contained excitement. “Sicario Leader, you owe me big one.”
Her Vector’s cloak shimmers from the residual plasma charge, then disappears again into the blue sky.
“This is Galaxy.” Tactical Command’s Voice informs. “All forward Vector Units have arrived in combat airspace. Priority objective: repel Syndicate forces and protect Consortium assets.”
Behind Galaxy’s control panel, all three vector squadrons’ confirmation lights glow green. “Earth Speed all. Good hunting.”
An engineering crew rushes topside, the frighteningly close thunder of Case Squadron’s relentless attack a soundtrack to their work. Plasma torches begin cutting through steel cabling, a desperate escape attempt as the assault carrier begins to drag the Cairo through its evasive maneuver starboard.
“I need acceleration in two minutes!” Ano yells at his engineering officer.
“We’ll need two days sir!” He informs gently. “It’s…”
“I don’t care. If that carrier decides to pull port and we’re still attached, she’s going to crush us.”
The Officer looks at him. “Then I’d better get to the reactor room sir.”
“Go!” Ano nods at him as he sprints off the bridge.
He looks back to his operations officer. “Tell the engineering teams to cut halfway through each cable, I don’t want to stick around a second more than we have to.”
The operations officer picks up the microphone to the internal communication system, relaying the orders to the crews topside.
A vector belonging to Illya Team screams past the Cairo’s Bridge as it hounds down a damaged syndicate vector. A dozen swarm missiles fire from Illya Four’s launcher, their blue hues converging on programmed prey. The first five impact into the syndicate vector’s starboard engine, taking half the vector in a explosion of brilliant sky blue. The rest detonate along the uncontrolled main body of the craft, careening it into the lower hull of the Cairo.
This time, however, the damage taken from a crashing vector is nothing more than a shaken crew and scarred paint.
“I think I’ve seen enough action heros today.” Ano darkly comments to the unreceptive bridge crew.
A few chuckle.
The communications officer turns from her station. “Sir, I have Akula Actual on comms.”
“Put her through.” Ano orders.
“Cairo Actual.” The Akula’s Commanding Officer begins. “We’re entering weapons range of the Assault Carrier. We need you to divert.”
Ano tries to produce his most commanding voice to meet the legendary reputation of the Captain of the Akula. “Akula Actual, we are harpooned in. Give us time to cut ourselves free.”
There’s a pause, not a long one. “Understood, make it quick.”
The engineering team on the deck move to a new set of harpoon cabling, their progress close to about a third of the cables attaching the Cairo to the Carrier.
There wasn’t enough time to get either the acceleration online or the cables cut, Ano realizes.
“Engineering.” Ano pulls the mobile caller to his ear and waits for the engineering officer to pick up.
“Sir!” The background noise of the pulsing central reactor flows through the audio channel.
“If we turn off the artificial gravity system, can we restart it?!”
“Sir?!” The engineering officer’s surprise isn’t hidden.
Ano rewords his question. “Can we keep ourselves afloat if we turn off the graviton generator and turn it back on?!”
The engineering officer breathes as he tries to think. “I don’t know sir, it might, it might not. Depends on the initial velocity, the power needed, air th…”
“Would you advise it?!” Ano interrupts.
The engineering officer promptly responds. “No.”
“Two minutes. If we don't have acceleration by then, we’re turning it off.” Ano hangs up.
A stream of cannon shells fly towards Case Leader’s heavy vector, the burst smashing into the armored port engine and momentarily spinning the craft. “Taking heavy fire.” Their mechanical voice speaks.
“Case Squadron, keep up the pressure. Akula is entering firing position.”
“Acknowledged.”
A squadron member pulls closer to the carrier’s topside, the jet wash of the machine’s quad jet engines blasting loose debris into the air. Buckshot berings the size of fists scatter from the vector’s shotgun barrels, running carrier deck crew and unarmored emplacements utterly pulverized as hundreds of projectiles bounce at lethal speeds across the superstructure.
The Assault Carrier suddenly pulls to port, the massive hull slowly approaching the Cairo. No doubt detecting the battlecruiser Akula approaching her.
“This is Akula Actual, Cairo, advised: carrier is attempting port directional maneuver…”
Ano swears as he grabs the general announcement system microphone. “All hands, prepare for free-fall. Repeat, prepare for free-fall.”
The topside crew scramble away from the harpoons, grabbing securing hooks from their flight belts and attaching them to the nearest hard-contact points. Across the decks of the Cairo, sailors follow suit, and on the bridge; the staff secure their harnesses to their chairs.
“Operations.” Ano’s eyes darken thirty seconds after the warning. “Cut gravity.”
If the Cairo couldn’t accelerate by herself, she would need assistance. Below them, the outright mass of Holy Ground itself provided that. 9.8 meters per second squared of pure energy was ready to be harvested at any given time, given some mass in sacrifice.
And the Cairo wasn’t short of that exchange, in fact, two thousand metric tons of flying warship was about to become the ultimate offering.
For one minute, the metal beneath their feet was solid. Inner ears told the truth, that below them was the ground humanity had left behind centuries ago. The next, everything went wrong. The Cairo enters absolute free fall for ten seconds as the tendrils of gravity grasp onto them, the crew feels their insides grip and bodies float as the solid alloy beneath their feet turns into nothing more than another ceiling.
Suddenly, the cables that attached Syndicate Carrier to Consortium Frigate snap straight, their maximum lengths reached. Above, the Assault Carrier lists as the Escort Frigate drags her port side down towards the earth below.
The first cable snaps, like some lethal whip it impacts the super structure with enough force to deform metal. A chain reaction follows, each cable snapping like blades of grass subject to the pull of a playful child.
Above, the tilt of the carrier falls past its critical angle; crew, corpses, and debris rain down onto the deck of the Cairo. As the final cut cable whips, the last three uncut cables bend and screech as the weight of an entire warship stresses on them.
Within, the crew are pushed to their seats as the bow rises above the aft, the ground suddenly shifting to their backs.
One cable snaps, then the other. But the final cable holds on as if the entire Syndicate’s survival depended on it.
“This is the Akula to all units, we have green shot on hostile assault carrier, clear out immediately.”
Forty kilometers away, the broadside silhouette of a Decizion Class Battlecruiser is ignited by the sun. Its blackened shape, lethal and angular, marked by the long barrels of mismatched large bore guns running along its flat deck only broken by the towering bridge superstructure. An ancient salvaged hull of a warship, modified to suit the needs of the Consortium.
The Captain stands. “FIRE!”
Sixteen guns discharge in unison, shells the size of housing units sunder the sky. The flash of light from the Akula’s main battery reaches the jointed pair of vessels, a brilliant flare that told of incoming doom.
Case Squadron moves off from their attack positions, scrambling away from an incoming apocalypse.
The seemingly ear splitting noise of vector engines at full throttle and the screams of alloy cable were no longer loud. As if a window was opened at sunrise, the light bulb never compares to the great sun.
Five out of the sixteen shells crash into the Assault Carrier’s angled deck. The ear shattering thunder of the shell’s point blank impact blasts the Cairo, a shockwave of heat and pure energy plows over the deck threatening to break the wounded vessel in half.
The final cable snaps.
The Cairo plummets from the sky like a rock. The aerodynamic stress screams through the bending hull as weight builds on the twisting and turning frigate as it falls.
“Graviton generator back online!!!” The operations officer screams.
The fall was slowing, but an artificial gravity system attempting to catch a warship unassisted was almost unheard of.
Emergency Airbrake Flaps extend across the vessel, control conards deploy, and the Cairo somehow straightens herself nose down.
“Altitude?!!” Ano asks.
“Five thousand seven hundred meters!!!”
“Pull her out of it!!!”
The roar of air crashing through holed alloy construction echoes through the bridge, and the screams of breaking steel cry as the navigational officer tries to pull out of the nose dive.
She gripped the control stick with white knuckles, trying to raise the bow of the ship, adding aerodynamics to the plunging vessel without tearing her in half.
Beneath them, the invisible W-Layer draws closer. The radiation and remnant bio weaponry from the Earth War forming the invisible and lethal four kilometer high shield from the surface suddenly seemed closer than ever.
“Sixty degrees…” the Navigational Officer announces the angle of the bow relative to the horizon. “fifty….”
“We’re not gonna make it!!!” The Tactical Officer screams.
“Hang the fuck on!!!”
Somehow she pulls out. The Cairo lifts her nose up in a gut wrenching half G turn, her free fall turning into a graviton assisted glide. The sky shifts back into view from dead earth, and the screeching sound of tearing metal flies away into the silent sky.
Above the Cairo, the assault carrier swings back from the brink of capsizing. No longer held back by the weight of a dead warship she crash burns her thrusters. Under fire from the Akula’s main batteries the heavily wounded Syndicate Vessel turns eastward at flank speed. Her vectors move off with her, peeling away from the convoy of material transports.
“Overlord, this is Akula Actual.” The Captain speaks over the noise of main battery fire. “Assault carrier is moving off. Shall we pursue?”
His response takes a pause. “This is Overlord, negative Akula. Primary objective is the safe delivery of Consortium Assets.”
“Copy that Overlord.” The Captain watches as the Cairo falls deeper into the atmosphere. “Cairo, this is Akula Actual, do you need assistance?”
The relieved response from Lieutenant Ano comes a few seconds later. “Akula, we need assistance. Our propulsion systems are heavily damaged and we have casualties.”
“Copy that.” The Captain points at her own Operations Officer. “Get the tugs down there. And Tactical, have Vector teams keep an eye on that Carrier her way out. I don’t want her coming around for another go at the convoy.”
The bridge goes to work.
Tactical Air Command’s calm voice echoes across cockpits. “Vector teams we have a clean slate, picket screen twenty kilometers from convoy between the syndicate carrier. Good work out there people.”
The consortium pilots take a minute to celebrate, the universal noise of relaxed soldiers creating a chaotic song of triumph across the open channels.
“Sicario Team copies.”
“Case Team Copies.”
“Illya Team Copies.”
Vectors teams slot together, pulling in formations as they prepare the picket run between convoy and carrier.
Victory.
Something comes over the horizon. From the Far East four heat signatures rip through the atmosphere. The Akula’s radar picks up thick jet wash, the displaced air showing up as a guragatian incoming mass.
“Four unknowns incoming at 32 degrees east.” The Tactical Officer reads coldly. “Mach five.”
Tactical Control speaks across all channels, his once calm voice turned back to combat operations. “Vector teams be advised; four unknowns, incoming 32 degrees west at Mach five.”
“Mach five?!” Sicario Two asks.
“Keep your eyes peeled people.” Sicario Lead scans the horizon, immediately spotting the massive aerial distortion.
Silence in the sky. Within the sealed atmospheric pods the universe is separated, radio silence leaving even the team’s personal communications quiet. The only comfort the lifeless steel rattling against air.
The voice speaks, breaking the radio blackout. “Sky Team, deployment in ten seconds.”
Expressions covered with dark inactive flight helmets. Environments pitched by red lighting. Minds and nerves cold in execution.
The pods crash open with explosive force, the shell casings from disposable hypersonic sleds falling to the ground below.
Sunlight floods into cockpits and within, dark combat helmets come to life.
Four vectors glide in open sky, deep grey albatrosses soaring over a distant earth. The movement of air across engineered surface quiet, a knife’s edge tearing through the paper thin forms of invisible medium.
“Sky Team, deployment complete. Engage.”
It started slow, but the whine of vector engines builds.
Four arrows suddenly shoot towards the Convoy, angular grey shapes split from formation, highlighted into the blue sky.
“I’ve lost them on radar!” The Akula’s Tactical Officer yells.
“All Vectors caution! Unidentified craft presumed hostile!”
A shape sweeps past Illya Three, the roar of a high powered rocket engine following after the warhead of a syndicate built rocket. The Consortium Vector bursts into flames as the explosive jet of material plows into fuel tanks, spinning out of control before breaking apart into smoking scrap.
Utter chaos erupts on the coms channel as vectors scramble against an unknown force. Sicario Team almost crashes into Case Squadron as both carine away from an incoming visual blur.
Contrails hew the sky as friendly and hostile vector trails cross.
“Incoming Sicario!” Someone screams the warning.
From the barrels of a hostile vector, dozens of tiny homing rockets swarm out like flies.
Sicario Two eats six of them, his vector completely disintegrating under the force of impact. The rest hone in on his wingman.
Sicario Lead pulls out, rockets tailing him in impossible meanuvers. Precious countermeasures fly from Sicario Lead, burning strips of metalloids dispersing across the area in a compressed air explosion. The swarm rockets fail as thousands of vectors suddenly appear in their homing systems, crashing and detonating into false infrared signatures.
Vector engines scream as Sicario Lead pushes his machine to its limits, falling behind one of the hostiles. Targeting survos glow red as the thing banks starboard, and Sicario Lead rips the control stick as he tries to keep the thing in his gun sights.
The shape tears into a member of Case Squadron, who’s separated engine almost crashes into Sicario Lead’s vector. Sicario Lead swears, firing a rocket in the most probable path of the hostile craft, missing it by several meters.
The thing pulls its nose up, the pilot within cuts the throttle just enough for his vector to slide right behind Sicario Lead before pulling it back down. The heavy machine gun shrieks as four thousand rounds per minute of firepower are sent flying, the tracer trail of red-green lead almost meeting Sicario Lead’s center mass as he banks hard.
The craft sticks on him, the stream of fire managing to catch his vector’s trailing wing, gracelessly ripping it off. Out powered, Sicario falls back onto compromised aerodynamics. He splits to starboard, then hard to port. Behind him the trailing vector guns its engines, gaining altitude as the pilot falls into his trap.
“Need assistance.” Case requests over the comm system.
Over Sicario’s cockpit, Case’s heavy vector bisects the sky. Behind them a hostile was slamming armor piercing rounds into Case’s clumsy craft, trying to grab the perfect angle to penetrate their colossal armor.
Sicario takes his ally over the kill, banking towards the under fire vector.
Behind Case, the hostile craft’s superior maneuverability and engine power keeps them sticked. Within their iron coffin, Case reaches across the cockpit and pulls the lever. Hundreds of macro-mines drop from the vector, tiny palm sized high explosive bits covered in detonator cord soar into the sky.
The hostile vector veers off course as they drop, the cloud of explosives missing the insistent pilot within.
Sicario’s rocket, meant for the hostile craft, detonates the mass a millisecond later, the shockwave from the chain reaction enough to throw both Case and their tailerl away from each other.
Illya Four takes the chance and rushes the hostile craft. Swarm missiles launch, blue hues converging together on disabled prey.
A bolt of plasma crashes into the Consortium Vector out of nowhere, detonating its half depelated load of munitions in blue light. The seemingly disabled hostile vector suddenly thunders away with engines on full blast, completely out powering the limited thrust poentionals of the swarm missiles.
A cloaked vector howls past the debris of her subordinate, hunting down an unseeable blur in close quarters combat. Plasma erupts in the shattered sky as two impossibly skilled pilots struggle for supremacy. The shapes of vectors blend into splotches of grey for the human eye, and utterly unreadable radar signatures for the sensors.
Bursts of plasma shoot out from the two person brawl, each shot mere meters off their intended targets. Black rage and cold nerves combine, the battle of witches undisturbable for either side. Vector modes blend together, with neither relying on hovering for control or jetting for speed.
Illya Leader throws her light craft around as she slices into air, trying to catch the hostile in just a single mismeanuver. Either just needed to get lucky once, the energy weapons they both relied on could easily atomize each other, armor be damned.
The hostile suddenly carenes to port as it moves for a disengagement.
An unforgivable mistake.
Illya Lead smiles with blind fury as she spins her vector towards the now solidly visual craft, arrogantly sacrificing built speed and momentum for actionable maneuvering.
She takes the shot. Plasma cuts through jet washed air. The hostile craft abruptly fires its thrusters, dodging the blast of superheated material by meters. It spins around, another burst of thruster power throwing its weapon sights directly onto her.
A single bolt of plasma discharges, slamming into Illya Lead’s starboard stabilizer wing. Her vector tumbles from the sky as she tries to compensate for damaged aerodynamics.
The sky itself charges as the hostile craft lines up their kill shot.
A dumbfire rocket from Sicario Lead rips through the air, crashing into the hostile craft’s cockpit structure. It wasn’t enough force to penetrate the alloy armor, but it was enough to throw the vector off course.
Both witches move off from one another, their engines screaming into open air.
Sicario Lead turns around, watching as another member of his squadron is blown out of the sky. “Galaxy, we’re getting slaughtered out here! We need reinforcements!”
“This is Galaxy. Akula Flight Control is scrambling secondary vector teams and reinforcements from Ledenoft are two hours out.”
Aboard the Akula’s lower decks, flight crew scramble. Red caution lights in the high ceiling mix with the bursts of sunlight from the opening launch bays, the blaring alarms of combat stations, the whine of idling vector engines, all came together as a blackish noise and visual crash that pushed the crew into hyper efficiency.
It wasn’t fast enough.
Dozens of kilometers away the Syndicate Vectors were utterly massacring their Consortium counterparts.
Sky Leader slots in behind Sicario Lead, within the combat helmet the automated targeting sensors track him down.
They light green.
The Syndicate Command com-line opens up. “Sky Team, Assault Carrier Moskov is out of the combat zone. Fall back to the rendezvous point. Repeat, fall back.”
Sky Leader stops, their finger mere centimeters from the trigger, from the kill.
End.
The four syndicate vectors break off their assault, afterburners rocketing them away at breakneck speeds. Four contrails angled towards the smoking assault carrier in the east break up as the wind takes the white clouds of exhaust.
The battle scarred sky grows quiet as the battle ceases. Within the cockpits of the Consortium Vectors, utter chaos as squadrons attempt to reorganize.
A massacre.
Once whole and organized vector teams left as tattered thoughts, a miracle that their leaders all managed to survive. Perhaps a testament to raw skill, or luck.
“All remaining vector units…” Tactical Command stunnly speaks as the four invisible signatures fall away into the horizon. “Reform… picket.”
The picket line that reforms around the convoy was broken, defeated. The remaining vectors spread thin from battle.
They watch as the sun slowly falls from the sky, the cycle of the day carefully coming to a close. Light dances from the boxy shapes of consortium material haulers, bellies full of raw material and decks stacked high with shipping containers. A few had scorch marks, missing containers, holes from weapons fire.
They were lucky.
Vectors were the gods of the sky, wherever they fought the air yielded power, destruction, order. It was just a matter on who could better control it, and most importantly, who had the better machines to wield it.
After the next hour passes, Tactical Command speaks, his voice tired. “All deployed forward vector units, return to the Akula. Secondary teams arriving on site.”
They were all numb. The past few hours stuck within cramped cockpits contemplating the dead was all too familiar to the Team Leads, their careers punctuated with the loss of subordinates and friends.
However, the creeping vines of other thoughts flowed through their minds. The shifts of power, Consortium and Syndicate, now ever so visible in the setting sun.
They couldn’t voice it, but now the Syndicate had power. Four vectors taking on three squadrons of the consortium’s best armed vectors and trained pilots without even sustaining a single loss was unthinkable a day before.
But now, a sick reality.
As the remaining vectors slot into the docking clamps of the Akula’s vector recovery bay, something was different. The power that flowed through the veins of these pilots no longer held anything. The control, the superiority, their positions as gods, now invalid.
Something had to change, to tip the scales again.
And somehow, they all had a feeling that it was all coming. Somehow, this grand blue sky would be theirs once more.
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tactical dot here, I will return to finish reading. great job.
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