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Tia

A More Comfortable Enemy

Sarok

 

I seem to be a veteran now. It also seems humanoid foes are not so different from impersonal event horizons, or even starving giant space amoeba.

 

While I’m technically both operations and science, for the most part I have been on the science side. I run scans, make calculations, give evaluations. Today, the Ops Chief was on away team duty, the CAG officer decided to lead her own flight, and the helm officer maxed out his chair time. It was the first time I was really allowed near the operational consoles, and even then it wasn’t that I was allowed. No one else in the department was there to say nay or yea. So there I was, Ops, Flight Ops and Helm.

 

No sweat. We had a plan. Launch fighters. Watch fighters make attack run. Recover fighters. I thought I’d still get through it without touching the Ops / Helm console.

 

There is an ancient, cynical and wise saying about plans. It proved wrong. Things went down the drain even before first contact with the enemy.

 

Emotionally, was very much like RS 433. Back when I was flying the event horizon science missions, I wanted to be safe back in the station. When I was safe back in the station, I wanted to be flying the probe. Flying the probe, at least one only has to deal with one’s own fears. In the tower ‘watching’, I had to deal with everyone else’s fears as well. Discipline. One has to do the logical thing. I still find this difficult when being washed by various flavors of determination and fear. Fortunately, at least on Excalibur, the determination was dominant. This made it possible.

 

Four raiders coming out of the dust straight at us looked like bad guys, especially given that they chose to come out just as our own fighters committed to attack runs. Displaying them in the brightest red on the color pallet was an easy call. So was making two quick one word comments. “Bogies!” “Shields?” A bit harder was deciding if the fighters should be told about them. I decided no. New and essentially not actionable information just as they were entering their core missions seemed inappropriate. I know I wouldn’t have been appreciative being told about station technical difficulties when skimming the horizon. Thus, I thought about evasive patterns. At any moment, I expected an order for evasives.

 

That was the first hard part. Flying the event horizon, at least the early phases, you have an ever so choreographed flight plan. Everyone knew what was to be done, in what order, at what time, until things flew off the wall and one hit the appropriate recovery plan. Well, the well choreographed flight plan in this case called for us to sit stationary in a fixed position with shields down, I hadn’t heard of an appropriate recovery plan, and wasn’t sure I had the authority to initiate one.

 

So, I waited on orders for shields and evasives. Except, shields wasn’t my job. That was the CO and TAC. They were two big mean scary hairy veterans of the Scorpiad wars. In the textbook they make one expect a certain ritual. See enemy. Orders to raise shields. Shields raised. Enemy fire splatters uselessly away. That’s how it is supposed to be, right? Instead, see enemy. Enemy fire hits home. Shields raised. Orders come to raise shields...

 

I just couldn’t keep my fingers off the master mode switch. The captain’s order for red alert was drowned out by the klaxon going off. I’d like to think that I ‘heard’ his intention before he had time to verbalize it. If so, it was subconscious, lost in a wash of others desperately wanting something to be done.

 

Once we got going, the fight was straight forward enough. We were outnumbered by more maneuverable opponents. We had better straight line speed, acceleration, and far better shields and weapons arrays. The captain designated targets more than micromanaged maneuvers. I leaned towards a boom and zoom approach. Turn to face the designated target. Approach at the fastest speed which gave TAC time to destroy the designated target. Blow by the other targets to give the enemy a minimum time to fire back. Use pure speed to not let them stay on our rear shields for long. Turn to face the next designated target. Repeat. Three head on passes. Three targets gone. Once we got going, TAC was not being subtle.

 

You don’t defeat RS 433’s event horizon. You just survive it. Sentient enemies can be defeated. Far away, I could not feel their minds. This is just as well. The wash of emotion from fellow crew members was bad enough without having to deal with the enemy.

 

I may have then spoken out of turn. The surviving raider fled. In returning towards his base, he was also heading roughly towards our returning strike fighters. I thought it appropriate, as our people’s attack runs were over, to warn the fighters. The CAG asked for intercept vectors, but the captain forbade another attack. He thought the attack was a probe, to learn our strength. He did not want to show any more of our capabilities.

 

Meanwhile, to my knowledge, neither faction in this fight seems to be attempting to communicate with the other. In Gamma Quad, they apparently win the war first, and find out what they are fighting about after.

 

A black hole is a much more comfortable enemy.

Edited by Tia

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