Wings of Honor Page 10

  “Sir?”

  “Do you know what the SAS Benjamin Franklin is, Coda?”

  Coda’s blood went cold. “The Benjamin Franklin, sir? Yes. I… It’s…”

  “The ship your father was stationed on when he turned on his wingmen.” Commander Colemen took a sip, his eyes narrowing as they watched Coda over the rim of the glass. “When people speak of your father, they often talk about how many pilots died by his hand. What they usually leave out is how many people aboard the Benjamin Franklin perished as well.”

  “Sir.” It was all Coda could do to get the word out of his throat. “What does this have to do with me and Moscow?”

  Commander Coleman placed his glass on the table. “I did a little digging, Coda. And it appears that Lieutenant Kyrlov’s mother was aboard the Benjamin Franklin during the attack.”

  “And she…” It was somewhere between a question and a statement.

  Commander Coleman nodded. “She did. It's all right there if you want to read it.” The commander nodded to his tablet that rested on the table between them.

  Coda followed the gesture, seeing a woman with a pale complexion and dark hair, before looking away. Even at a glance, he could tell she was Moscow’s mother. He could see the pride burning in her eyes, the same pride that pushed Moscow to his limits and never allowed him to accept defeat. The same pride that Coda had thought was at the heart of their issues.

  “I… I had no idea, sir. He never said anything about it. About her.” Coda fought back the roiling mix of emotions raging inside him. Everything seemed so complicated all of a sudden. So confusing. “I just thought we were rivals.”

  Commander Coleman grunted. Like Coda, he seemed to be lacking the words and instead swirled his drink. “Then you see I have a serious issue.”

  “Yes, sir.” Coda swallowed a lump in his throat. “Are you… are you sending me home, sir?”

  Commander Coleman took another sip then winced from the bite. “No. But if I’d known the severity of the situation, I never would have taken both of you. Unfortunately, the urgency of our predicament didn't allow me enough time to properly vet the background of every candidate, so I focused on other attributes. But here you are, and I can't send either of you packing without a legitimate excuse. That would only divide the squadron even further. Nor do I want to send either of you home, to be honest. Despite your issues, you're both developing into a pair of fine young pilots.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Coda said, breathing a little easier.

  “But we need to find a way to fix this.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “So here's what we’re going to do. We’re going to solve this the old-fashioned way—with a competition.”

  “Sir?”

  “You heard me,” Commander Coleman said. “I've heard him grumble about you ever since your squadron beat his back at the academy. So, we’re going to give him his wish. You two are going to go toe to toe in the simulator.”

  “No offense, sir,” Coda said skeptically, “but do you really think that'll work? That it'll fix our issues?”

  Commander Coleman barked a laugh. “Of course not. But I hope it can be a start. And of course, if things don't get better, your one-on-one performance might give me grounds to get rid of one of you.” He added the last bit as if it was an afterthought, but Coda knew better. There was likely more truth to that statement than he was letting on.

  “Sir, if I may? Why tell me this?”

  “A man deserves to know why someone hates him, Coda. More than that… well, I'll let you figure that out for yourself.”

  Walking back to his bunk, Coda replayed the conversation in his mind. If the commander’s goal was to help him understand the true cause of his issues with Moscow, then he had done that, but Coda felt like he was missing something. The commander wanted him to understand something. Something important. But try as he might, Coda couldn’t figure out what it was.

  18

  Simulator, SAS Jamestown

  Alpha Centauri System, Proxima B, High Orbit

  Coda expected his competition with Moscow to come the next day, but when they entered the Simulation Room, Commander Coleman made no mention of it and instead walked them through their normal routine. The showdown didn’t come during their late-morning session after breakfast, the following day, or the day after, either, and by the end of the week, Coda had begun to wonder if he’d just imagined his entire conversation with Commander Coleman.

  Knowing he was working on the commander’s timeline, he allowed himself to fall into his new routine: gym in the morning, simulator, evaluations, breakfast, more simulator and evaluations, class, lunch, more class, afternoon workouts, dinner, debriefing with Commander Coleman and the entire squadron, all followed by his private after-hours practice with Uno.

  By the end of the second week in the simulator, their fourth overall in the twenty-six-week program, Coda, Noodle, and Squawks were above the failure line. Despite being below the cutoff, Uno had made marked progress, and Coda believed he would make it above the line in time. That morning, Commander Coleman addressed the pilots as he always did, but his tone held something new.

  “Congratulations on completing your first two weeks with the simulator. Every single one of you has put in a considerable amount of work, and you’re all the better for it. If we look at the updated standings”—Commander Coleman punched something into his terminal, and the standings appeared on the Simulation Room’s wall display—“you’ll see that more than half of the pilots in the squadron are above the failure line. That’s outstanding. That also means we’re ready to move on to our second phase with the simulator: Combat Phase.”

  A ripple of excitement washed over the gathered pilots. Combat phase. The reason they were all here: not to study Baranyk biology or learn to rebuild a Shaw Drive with spit and gumption, but to feel the rush of flying on their edge of their seats, blasting down Baranyk fighters. As exciting as basic flight was, nothing got a young pilot hard faster than weapons training.

  “Over the next two weeks,” Commander Coleman continued, “you will face every other pilot in this squadron in a one-on-one competition. The objective is simple: shoot them down before they do you. Any questions?”

  There weren’t any.

  “Good,” Commander Coleman said. “Before we begin, there’s one last thing I want to bring to your attention. With this new phase, we also enter a new evaluation period. Please see the board with the updated standings.”

  The red failure line that separated the safe pilots from the rest moved up. With one click of a button, Commander Coleman had just changed the fates of more than a dozen pilots.

  “I don’t understand, sir,” one of the pilots in the front row said. “I thought you said anyone with an overall score of seventy would advance.”

  “You’re absolutely correct, Fireball,” Commander Coleman said. “There’s been enough progress throughout this group that Command and I felt it was time to raise the bar. As I mentioned before, we don’t need good pilots. We need the best of the best. That’s why of the eighty-seven remaining pilots, only the top fifty will be moving on. Your battles will mean something, so make them count. Coda, Moscow, you’re up first. The rest of you get with Lieutenant Commander Chavez and get your assignments. Let’s get started.”

  Coda separated himself from the throng, making for the simulator. Moscow appeared at his shoulder, smirking.

  “You ready to be embarrassed, O’Neil?” he asked quietly.

  Coda had to chew on the inside of his cheeks to keep from snapping something back. He lost his mother because of your father. Keep that in mind. Always keep that in mind. “Good luck,” he said instead.

  Moscow looked at Coda skeptically and muttered something under his breath before they diverted and climbed up the ladders into their separate simulators.

  Settling into the cockpit, Coda strapped in and adjusted the straps so that he was snug against the seat. When he was satisfied he wouldn’t be throw
n out of the simulator once it started rotating, he pulled on his VR helmet.

  The simulation was already running, and Coda found himself looking down the barrel of the launch tube. A track nearly one hundred meters in length ran down its center and was attached to a pulley system that would hurl the starfighters out of the side of the battle cruiser like an arrow shot from a bow.

  Coda went through his preflight routine, activating the various guidance, tactical, and weapons systems. When all glowed green, he settled into the gel seat and waited for instruction—except it never came. One moment, he was waiting patiently, visualizing his victory, and the next, he was hurtling down the launch tube, his Simulator attempting to replicate the force generated by accelerating to over three hundred kilometers per hour.

  The small black dot at the end of the launch tube quickly grew larger until he was hurled into the black of space. The simulated environment nearly took his breath away. He was surrounded by the aftermath of what looked like a full-scale battle. Derelict ships and debris floated in high orbit around a blue-and-green planet, forming something of a ring around it. Streaks crossed the upper atmosphere where pieces of debris burned up, pulled down by the planet’s gravity.

  Coda punched his fighter to a more suitable combat speed.

  “Speed is life,” Commander Coleman had taught them, and the old posters and quotes spread throughout their ready room had only reiterated the motto.

  He oriented his battle map so that the planet was down. In this simulation, his orientation was a simple exercise, but in the black of space without reference points like the glowing ball below, it was much more difficult to maintain orientation and thus understand where one was located in the greater context of battle.

  To solve that challenge, the early brass had devised a strategy allowing pilots to orient their fleet based on an artificial plane extending from their capital ship to the enemy’s capital ship. Everything above the plane on the z-axis, called “positive-Z,” became up, and everything below, or “negative-Z,” was down.

  The simple exercise allowed battle commanders to keep the battle organized and execute complex strategies that made sense to every ship and fighter, regardless of their personal orientation. Of course, Coda was a fighter pilot, and his orientation might change twelve times in a three-second time span, so the exercise was necessity rather than preference. In the heat of battle, starfighters didn’t have time to worry about minor details like up and down.

  He set a course that kept him on the upper outskirts of the wreckage. His navigational thrusters spat out puffs of compressed air, allowing him to weave his fighter through the drifting debris as his targeting computer scanned the battlespace for Moscow’s signature. In most instances, the computer was quick, easily distinguishing friend from foe, but having to catalog each piece of battle wreckage was slowing it down.

  Keeping his eyes alert, Coda spotted the enemy capital ship cresting the curve of the planet at the same moment his targeting system beeped. A red box appeared around the vessel on his screen, marking it as an incoming enemy. Turning sharply and increasing thrust, Coda quickly left the debris field behind, settling into an approach vector. By the time Coda was halfway there, Moscow appeared, his location distinguished only by a red box bracketing his fighter.

  Moscow must have seen him too, because in a heartbeat, the two fighters were racing toward each other on an intercept course. These one-on-one scenarios hadn’t changed much since the early days of flight, and they almost always began with both fighters racing toward each other, opening fire. Then if both missed, they streaked past one another to loop back around for another pass. That was when things got interesting and when superior flying skills came into play.

  As his and Moscow’s fighters entered weapons range, Coda opened fire. His seat rumbled as his cannon hurled digital projectiles. Moscow did the same.

  Tracer rounds cut through the black of space like shooting stars as Moscow and Coda used their navigational thrusters to juke and jank, avoiding the incoming fire. Then in less than a blink of an eye, they streaked past each other.

  Coda watched on his battle map as Moscow flipped and burned, pulling a dangerous high-g maneuver to get on Coda’s six. Coda had several options but decided to boost thrust, increasing the distance between them.

  He made for Moscow’s capital ship. Its dark exterior was accented with the yellow of the Sol Fleet and quickly grew larger. Identical to Coda’s own capital ship, it was heavily armed with hundreds of port and starboard cannons, missile turrets, and secondary batteries but didn’t open fire as he approached. This was a dogfight, not a race to destroy each other’s capital ships.

  Coda sped past the top of the vessel then turned in a downward arc that brought him around its underbelly, speeding toward Moscow’s incoming ship. Coda opened fire, but Moscow immediately veered to port, bringing his fighter parallel to the capital ship.

  Coda fired his forward thrusters, shedding speed, and spun to follow. But just as Moscow came back into view, he immediately disappeared, darting under the larger ship. Coda tried to follow, but he’d shed too much speed. By the time he made it under the ship, Moscow’s fighter was nowhere to be seen. Corkscrewing his fighter back around the top of the capital ship, Coda searched for the missing fighter.

  Tracer fire streaked past his cockpit. Where did that come from?

  Wrenching his neck to see behind him, Coda searched for Moscow, but the multipoint harness restricted his movement, making it difficult to get a visual. More tracer fire flashed, and this time Coda’s fighter shook violently as Moscow’s shot found home.

  “Shit!”

  Coda was hosed. He maximized thrust and took evasive maneuvers, speeding toward the battle debris.

  His fighter shook again. An alarm claxon blared. He wasn’t going to make it.

  I’m not a coward, and I won’t run like one.

  With Moscow closing on his six, Coda pulled the stick back, ascending above the battle plane, then flipped nose to tail so that he was flying backward, his guns facing his rival’s expected trajectory. Tracer fire lit the black as he pulled the trigger, and the slugs ripped through Moscow’s rearmost wing in a shower of sparks.

  Coda hooted, expecting Moscow’s fighter to explode, but excitement quickly turned to disappointment when he realized the damage was only superficial. Like the larger main wings, the offset rear wings were designed for atmospheric flight and weren’t required for spaceflight.

  Wounded but not yet destroyed, Moscow juked the remaining incoming fire before bringing his fighter into an attack vector. More alarm claxons sounded. They were different, more urgent.

  He’s locking on, Coda realized. He’s going to fire his missiles.

  A bright-yellow target appeared on Coda’s HUD. It streaked toward Coda’s fighter, closing the distance between them faster than he would have imagined possible. Coda opened fire, targeting the incoming missile, only to have a second one appear.

  You’re hosed. You’re hosed. You’re hosed.

  There was a brilliant flash, then all went black. By the time Coda blinked his vision back, he found himself spinning, a dozen emergency lights flashing. All of his maneuvering thrusters were offline.

  It took him a moment to realize what had happened. He’d shot the missile, but it had been too close. Its shrapnel must have peppered his fighter. But that was the least of his worries. The second missile was almost upon him.

  I lost. I lost to Moscow. Thank god it was only a simulation.

  The second, blinding flash was accompanied by a terrible pain that burned through Coda’s entire body. He cried out, his body paralyzed. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Could barely think.

  By the time the pain dissipated, Coda found himself in complete darkness, his body cold with sweat. With a shaky hand, he pulled his off his VR helmet and found himself back in the simulator.

  Moscow was already standing, pumping his fist into the air and screaming his victory. Coda’s friends looke
d on in disappointment, though Coda barely saw them. Deep down, he knew he was in shock, his body struggling to quantify the pain he’d experienced. Wearily removing his restraints, Coda climbed onto the nearby ladder and climbed down to the deck.

  “Tremendous flying,” Commander Coleman said, stepping forward. “Congratulations on your victory, Lieutenant Krylov.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Sir,” Coda said. “There at the end, when the simulation ended, there was… I… It hurt.”

  Moscow sneered, obviously not understanding what had happened in the opposite cockpit. Commander Coleman’s reaction surprised Coda the most, though. He laughed.

  “Of course it hurt,” Commander Coleman said. “You were shot down.”

  “But, sir… It’s only a simulation.”

  “It’s a training exercise, Lieutenant. What you felt is a mild deterrent—one meant to prevent my pilots from getting comfortable with being shot down.”

  “I don’t know about ‘mild,’” Coda said sarcastically. He hadn’t meant to say it aloud, but there was nothing he could do about that now, except mutter a quick “sir” and brace against the commander’s wrath.

  “The little jolt you felt is nothing compared to the pain of being shot down,” Commander Coleman said. “That, I can guarantee you.”

  “Yes, sir. Of course.”

  “Good flying, both of you,” the commander said. “Now take a seat at the debriefing monitor and wait for me to return.”

  “Yes, sir,” they said in unison and started for the private alcove at the back of the room.

  “I told you,” Moscow said quietly. “You’re nothing. You never were. And now everyone knows it.”

  Coda took a deep breath, trying like hell to ignore the insult. Commander Coleman had said the squadron was divided. That it needed to be unified. And that the battle was the first step in accomplishing that goal. As much as he wanted to punch Moscow’s teeth in or challenge him to a rematch, Coda knew it would only counter whatever the commander was working on. So instead, he forced his best smile and said, “It was a good battle, Moscow. Congratulations.”