Ep.#1 - Aurora: EV-01 , page 4
“Josh! Are you insane! You are supposed to maintain a safe distance from the asteroid’s surface!”
“This is safe!” Josh insisted. He looked up, noticing that the asteroid was only about a meter away. “Sort of!”
Ahead of him, Josh saw rising peaks of sharp, black rock. “Oh, shit.” His head swung left and right, looking for a way out. He had yet to pass the other two Gunyoki, and neither of them was going to veer away to give him room. So Josh did the only thing he could. He began snaking left and right, up and down, as his inverted fighter skimmed over miles of deep craters and jutting columns of rock. “This might have been a bad idea, Ito.” If his Gunyoki fighter had tail fins, they would have been long gone by now.
“Ridge line! Dead ahead! Five kilometers and closing fast!”
Josh glanced at his sensor screen. He had passed the fifth-place Gunyoki and was now neck and neck with the ship in the number four position.
“Four kilometers!”
The constant weaving was not helping matters. Josh eased his nose down slightly, shifting his ship further from the asteroid but closer to the Gunyoki in fourth place. He was hoping to cause his opponent to also veer away and give him a little more breathing room.
“Three kilometers!”
His nose was now a few meters ahead of his opponent. He was gaining on him, even while yawing left and right to avoid the bumpy surface streaking past his head.
“Two kilometers!” Ito warned. “You’ve got to back off!”
“Never!” Josh announced. He pushed his reactors to one hundred and twenty percent, immediately setting off overheat alarms on his engineering panel. With determination, he held a steady course as he continued to ease his nose down and squeeze his ship away from the asteroid and toward his unyielding opponent.
“One kilometer!”
Josh glanced at his sensor panel just as his tail was about to clear the nose of his opponent’s ship. He glanced forward, spotting the rapidly approaching ridgeline. It wasn’t very tall, but if he didn’t pull up hard in the next few seconds, he would smash right into it.
“Get the fuck outta my way, Nori!” Josh yelled over comms at the other pilot.
“Back off, Hayes!” came the reply. “I’m not letting you by!”
Josh tore his eyes from the approaching mountains and back to his sensor screen. The tail of his ship was now past the nose of his opponent, but just barely. “Wanna bet?” he called over comms as he pushed his flight control stick all the way forward.
Josh’s Gunyoki suddenly cut across the number four ship’s flight path, causing its pilot to lose his nerve and cut his throttles to avoid a collision.
Josh’s head went back as he watched rocks glide over his head, less than a meter away. “Holy shit! Did you see that?”
“Are you trying to give me a heart attack, Josh?” Ito asked.
“Suck on that, Nori!” Josh exclaimed triumphantly.
“Calm down!” Ito scolded. “You’ve got to hold the number four position to the finish line to get to the next round, and your reactors are going to go critical if you don’t dial them back!”
“Screw fourth!” Josh barked as he finished his turn around the asteroid. “I want first!” He rolled out of his turn, spotting the other three ships just ahead of him making their final run to the finish line. He began punching commands into his reactor control panel.
“What are you doing, Josh?” Ito asked.
“I’m bypassing the safeties on the reactors so they won’t shut down!” Josh explained. “I’m gonna blow right past them!”
“You’ll blow all right!” Ito warned. “But up, not past!”
Instead of replying, Josh dialed his reactors up to one hundred and fifty percent.
“Apparently, you do not care about living,” Ito surmised.
“I am living!” Josh yelled as more warning alarms began to flash.
Within seconds, Josh had overtaken the third-place Gunyoki and was even with the ship in the number two position. But the leader was a good four fighter lengths ahead, and the finish line was closing fast. Josh bumped his reactors up to one seventy five.
“Nice knowing you, kid,” Ito said, resigning himself to his young protege’s demise.
Josh’s eyes kept darting about between three things: his position relative to the leader, the distance to the finish line, and the core temps of his reactors. Math had never been his strong suit, but even Josh could see that he wasn’t going to make it.
He pushed his reactors to one ninety, and his ship immediately pulled past the lead Gunyoki. Now half a ship’s length ahead, Josh went to dial back his reactors down to one seventy-five, but it was too late. They were too hot, and the chain reaction had already begun. One ninety-three and climbing.
Josh glanced out his forward window. They had already entered the home stretch. On either side were the observation platforms, packed with spectators who had been watching the entire race via images fed back to them by chase cams. Now, they would witness the dramatic finish in person, and probably the explosion of Josh’s Gunyoki fighter. As the holographic finish line approached, Josh thought about backing his throttles down and unloading the strain on his reactors, but then he would lose his lead.
That’s when it hit him.
In one of the countless boring discussions about the engineering systems of the Gunyoki fighter that Ito had forced him to endure, his chief engineer had told him about the gungine buffers. Each held an amount of energy that would run the engines for five seconds, even if the reactors were completely offline. The designer’s intent was to ensure a constant power state despite the Gunyoki reactors’ tendency to fluctuate.
He had five seconds to the finish line, and three seconds until his reactors went critical.
Without thinking, Josh flipped open the safety covers on the ejection systems for both of his ship’s reactors and armed them. As he hit the eject buttons, both reactor cores plunged from the bottom of his ship. Within a split second, they detonated, turning his sensor screen completely white. Josh tore through the finish line only a moment before all of his systems went dark. He was now coasting through space faster than any Gunyoki racer had ever flown before.
“Uh, mayday-mayday-mayday,” Josh called over comms. “Gunyoki one five seven is dead stick.” After a brief pause, he added, “BUT I FUCKING WON!”
* * *
Nathan stood in the corridor outside of Rescue Bay Six on the Gunyoki race platform. It had been a long time since he had walked these decks. It had been one of the most challenging and frightening adventures of his life, yet the halls held fond memories for him. His Gunyoki master had taught him far more than just how to pilot a fighter. A true Gunyoki flew the same way he lived.
Nathan was amazed at how much the Gunyoki races had grown in popularity. They were being broadcast on nearly every world in the Systems Alliance, and thousands of fans were traveling to Rakuen for the finals each year. There was even talk of someday building a race platform that could jump from system to system, bringing live races to every world.
The races had also created an entirely new industry for Rakuen. Tourism. Their capital city had already added two platforms just to accommodate new hotels, restaurants, and entertainment venues. Rakuen was a popular destination, and her people were reaping the rewards of all those extra credits flooding their economy.
The demographic of the spectators was an obvious reflection of the changes happening on Rakuen. Until joining the Systems Alliance, the Rakuens had never heard of red meat. Being a water world, most of their protein came from the aquatic creatures of their world. But now, Nathan could even spot a dollag stand on the main concourse. The import of dollag from the Pentaurus sector had been a huge success among the Rakuen people, just as the export of some of their unique seafood had been a big hit across the alliance.
All in all, cultural and culinary integration was taking place all over the Systems Alliance. New vendors were popping up everywhere. Even smaller worlds were surprised to find that some of their unique natural resources were actually profitable in major markets.
The door Nathan had been watching for the last hour finally opened, and Josh stepped out into the concourse, looking a bit lost and uncertain. Nathan waited for Josh to look his way, giving him a slight wave when he was finally spotted.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Josh asked as he approached. “I thought you were vacationing on Earth.”
“I thought you were going to become a flight instructor,” Nathan countered.
“Like that was ever going to work.”
“Yeah, it didn’t seem like a good fit,” Nathan agreed. “How did you end up here?”
“I heard Ito’s team was short a pilot, so I jumped at the chance. I always did want to fly one of those things. In fact, I just won my first heat.”
“Yeah, I saw. Still the crazy hot dog, aren’t you?” Nathan commented.
“Hotdog Hayes, they call me,” Josh boasted.
“Fitting.”
“So why are you here?” Josh wondered.
“I’ve got a mission,” Nathan answered.
“On what ship?” Josh wondered. “The Voss?”
“No.” Nathan smiled.
“Are you saying…”
“She’s ahead of schedule.”
“How much ahead?”
“Launch is in two weeks.”
Josh looked about. “I don’t know, Cap’n. The racing season just started.”
“I heard they pulled your racing license,” Nathan warned him.
“You heard that, huh?” Josh fidgeted a moment. “Master Ito thinks I can win it back on appeal.”
“No he doesn’t.”
“You know, this whole Gunyoki thing has gone to shit. All these safety rules and shit. Totally ruining the sport.”
“They took your shuttle, didn’t they?” Nathan surmised.
“Compensation for the cores I ejected,” Josh explained. “Did you know those things cost about a million credits each? They even charge you for rescue services. Total rip-off.”
“Don’t worry,” Nathan told him. “I’ve got an empty jump seat.”
“Jump seat?” Josh asked as they headed down the concourse. “What did you fly in on?”
“You’ll see.”
* * *
The VIP shuttle bay at the race platform was huge and, as usual, full. Rich Rakuens loved the mobile VIP lounges that jumped from sector to sector, giving the lucky occupants live views of every stage of the race. This seemed wholly unnecessary to Nathan, since there were hundreds of stationary vid-cams and dozens of drones to follow the racers and provide hundreds of viewing angles. A person at home with a full vid-subscription to the races could see far more than anyone in even the very best VIP lounge.
“They let you park in here?” Josh wondered.
“I actually still have my license,” Nathan teased.
“Probably helps that your sister is the President of Earth.”
“Probably.”
Nathan found himself mildly amused. There was a time when he did everything possible to avoid any advantages given to him by his family name. He still didn’t feel comfortable about being given the VIP treatment on most Alliance worlds, but at least now he felt he had earned it through his actions instead of his heritage.
“Some pretty nice ships in here,” Josh commented, looking over the myriad of luxury shuttles lined up on either side of the massive bay. “Think any of them are looking for a new pilot? Probably pays pretty good, huh?”
“The wealthy rarely like to fly inverted,” Nathan advised.
“Yeah, probably not.” Josh noticed they were nearing the end of the hangar and only saw one shuttle remaining on their side. An ugly one. “Oh, please tell me you didn’t come in that.”
“Nope,” Nathan replied as he continued past the shuttle in question. “I came in that,” he announced as he came to a stop, pointing to a Dragon fighter at the end of the row that had been obscured by the larger shuttle.
The look on Josh’s face was exactly what Nathan had expected. Flying was the only thing Josh liked. That and old Earth movies. He’d rather fly an old barge than not fly at all. But the chance to fly a Dragon fighter was a dream come true for the young man whom Nathan considered to be the best pilot he had ever known.
“Holy crap!” Josh looked at Nathan, his mouth agape and his eyes wide. “Is this it?”
“It is,” Nathan confirmed. “The new Alliance multi-role fighter. They call it a Dragon.”
“She looks like a Falcon, only smaller,” Josh exclaimed as he walked toward the sleek, black spacecraft. “She looks fast. Is she fast?”
“She’s very fast,” Nathan assured him. “Her top speed isn’t quite as fast as the Falcon’s, but her acceleration would leave a Falcon in the dust. She’s got unlimited multi-jump range and a pretty respectable single-jump max range. Armed to the teeth and breathing fire out of her twin plasma cannons. She’s a hybrid of a Falcon, a Corinari fighter, a Super Eagle, and a Nighthawk.
“Oh, please don’t tell me she’s got an AI,” Josh begged. “That’ll spoil it.”
“Sorry. But I read in the manual that the AI has advanced pilot-protection algorithms. She’ll punch you out at the last second so you don’t die doing something crazy…like skimming the surface of an asteroid…inverted.”
Josh smiled. “That was a pretty crazy move, wasn’t it?”
“One that only you would come up with,” Nathan replied. “Even better, your entire cockpit is your lifeboat. If you eject, the carrier vessel can send along another fighter body to rendezvous with you, putting you back in the fight in minutes.”
An unusual look passed over Josh’s face, as if he were considering all the possibilities that such a system could open up.
“That doesn’t give you carte blanche to destroy space-frames just to satisfy your need to try crazy stunts. These things aren’t cheap.”
“So if I come back to work for you, am I going to fly one of these, or am I going to fly the Aurora?”
“We have a new system,” Nathan told him. “Pilots fly whatever needs to be flown. The ship, the fighters, the shuttles, even the battle drones.”
“We have battle drones?”
“We do.”
“Count me in.”
“I already was,” Nathan assured him, moving toward the fighter.
“Hey, can I fly her back?”
“After you read the manual,” Nathan told him.
“Aw, man. Did you read it?”
“I did,” Nathan assured him. “On the way here.”
“That’s not fair,” Josh complained as they approached the Dragon fighter.
“I’m the captain, remember?”
“Yeah, I keep forgetting that.”
* * *
“Damn, she’s smaller than I thought she’d be,” Josh said as he strained to peer out the canopy at the new Aurora as they passed over her on their way to her aft fighter flight deck. “Looks sweet, though. Like a hot rod.”
“A hot rod?” Nathan wondered, surprised by his use of the very old Earth slang.
“I’m back to about the nineteen seventies,” Josh explained. “Earth was a weird place fifteen hundred years ago.”
The Dragon fighter’s AI guided them over the aft end of the Aurora as she sat inside the final assembly hangar. The ship yawed one hundred and eighty degrees as it descended, finally leveling off just above the Aurora’s aft flight deck. The ship then slid forward into the bay, its landing gear deploying and locking into place only seconds before the wheels gently touched the deck.
The landing was so smooth that, inside the cockpit, nothing was felt.
“Either this thing has way too much inertial dampening going on, or that was the smoothest fucking landing I’ve ever seen you do,” Josh complimented. “Not bad for only your second landing.”
“Actually, that was all Dottie,” Nathan said, holding up his hands as proof.
“Cheater.”
“One thing you need to learn, Josh, is to let your AI take care of the mundane tasks and save yourself for the things the AI can’t do.”
“What can’t it do?” Josh retorted.
“Be creative.”
“Like flying inverted a meter off the surface of an asteroid, balls out?” Josh boasted. “You know, I’ve got cockpit vid from that. Uploaded it to the Alliance-Net before we left. It’s probably gone viral by now. By next season, they’ll be begging me to come back and compete.”
“You think so, huh?”
“It’s all about sales, baby,” Josh insisted. “Hell, the only reason I got a chance to fly the Gunyoki is because of all the crazy stunts I’ve pulled over the years.”
“Like flying through waterfalls?”
“Definitely at the top of the list,” Josh bragged as their fighter rolled into the receiving bay. Josh glanced up as they came to a stop, noticing a large mechanism descending toward them from above. “What the hell is that?”
Nathan also looked up. “Uh…I don’t know.”
“I thought you read the manual?”
“Most of it,” Nathan replied.
“Captain Taylor left instructions to process you into the Aurora using the standard cockpit module conveyance system,” their AI explained.
“The what?” Josh asked.
“There is nothing for you to do,” Dottie continued. “The system is entirely automated.”
Nathan watched through the canopy as the trolley mechanism came down and deployed four arms, two per side, and attached itself to their cockpit module. He looked downward as the system raised their module up out of the fighter, and the fighter rolled sideways into the next bay.
“This is weird,” Josh stated as they began moving forward and to the left.
Nathan looked forward as the system moved their cockpit module into an opening on the left and then, once in position, began moving forward into a tunnel. The system suddenly accelerated, sending them forward down a long, dimly lit tunnel at a quickening pace.
