Chapter 216: (Foxtrot Niner Two)

The massive ship shuddered again, throwing Mukstet against Vankal, both of them nearly falling in the hallway as the lights in the corridor flickered and the artificial gravity stuttered. They both threw themselves forward, boot shod feet pounding against the floor plates as they hurried. The lift was out so they both headed down the stairs, joining the Terrans, Treana'ad, Mantid, Rigellians, and even a few A'antellians heading for their deployment.

Vankal was almost knocked over the railing and a Rigellian grabbed him, her great strength letting her pick him up and carry him for two long steps even as she pulled him back over the railing. "I got you, Marine," she rumbled, her voice deep and sure.

BAY NINE came into view and both Mukstet and Vankal both peeled off from the crowd. The bay was full of techs running from ship to ship, undogging hoses and pulling ammo carts away from the assault hovercraft. The massive bay door to space was open, the permeable force field designed to keep atmosphere inside while allowing vessels through holding back the vacuum of space. A craft flashed by, lasers seeking it from the massive ship.

"Betty Boop's getting hammered," Vankal panted as they ran across the bay, nimbly dodging mechanics, ordnance loaders, and fuel technicians.

"We dropped into the middle of a Precursor formation," Mukstet said, pointing outside.

The Precursor vessels were so close the pair of Telkans could make out details on their hulls. See the patchwork armor, the glowing engines, the weapon mounts vomiting up death at the CSFN Betty Boop at extreme close range. Even the point defense weapon systems of the combating ships could be brought into play to fire directly at the enemy vessels.

"There it is," Mukstet yelled, angling toward the assault hovercraft.

"Donning armor," Vankal called out, angling toward the back row. Half of the armored Marine Light Scout armor was gone, but Vankal could see his suit.

Mukstet climbed onboard, one of the armored Marines grabbing his hand and pulling him in. He hurried through the short 'hallway' to the cockpit. He followed his training, ignoring the thick fear that rose up in him, attaching his atmospheric hoses first, then synching up his systems to the hovercraft. Data started streaming by his vision as the vehicle ran through the startup checks.

"Control, this is Foxtrot-Nine-Two, co-pilot onboard, seventy percent of scout crew onboard," he intoned.

"Fox-Nine-Two, this is Betty Boop Combat Control Auxiliary, you're clear for takeoff as soon as your loaded or if that bay gets too hot," an unfamiliar voice said.

Auxiliary? Boop must be getting hammered, Mukstet thought to himself even as he answered. "Uh, negative, Control, we're exo-atmosphere, this is a intra-atmosphere multi-role hovercraft."

There was silence and a new voice came on. "You're Telkan? First deployment?"

"Yes, sir," Mukstet said. He didn't need to know the rank to know someone with that much authority was probably an officer.

"OK, here's what you do. Make sure all your armor troops are sealed, your flight crew sealed and on internal atmosphere. You launch, use the Boop for repellant mass. You get clear, let the planet's gravitational pull yank you down. You might have to pull a few orbits, but you can't stay up here," the voice said.

"What about our drop cradle?" Mukstet asked. He breathed a sigh of relief as Vankal and Arlek's icons went from red to green, meaning both the Telkan had gotten loaded. He was only missing Chief Warrant Officer Two Nessark and he'd be fully crewed.

"The Boop's in bad shape. You might not get one. Listen, and listen close, kid. I've done a few of these. We're going to roll the Boop in a couple of minutes. Just hover off the deck, when you see the planet, slam the power to max," the voice said.

A missile detonated on the permeable forcefield and a gout of explosive belched into the far side of the bay. Mukstet looked over in time to see the entire back wall on the far side explode inward then belch out fire.

"I don't have my Chief Pilot," Mukstet said.

"All Bay Nine: Prepare to Launch with current loads" flashed in his vision.

Reflexed kicked in and Mukstet slammed down the troop-bay hatches, ignoring the protests over the internal com-system.

The ship rolled and Mukstet panicked for a second. He had no idea where Chief Nessark was. He'd only done solo-flight in training and in simulators, never in something like...

His hands and reflexes kept moving even as his mind panicked. Check the telltales to make sure he wasn't hooked up to any umbilicals or had any open hatches. Fire the reactors, activate the graviton drives, activate the anti-gravity systems, activate the strike hovercraft's systems except for the weapons and ECM.

The strike craft shivered as it lifted a foot off the deck.

Mukstet could feel the Boop roll, pointing at damage to the artificial gravity systems. A counter appeared in the middle of his vision, mostly transparent, rapidly counting down.

"Mukstet, you there, kid?" It was Chief Nessark.

"Chief, thank the Gods, where are you, we have to launch in less than 10 seconds!" Mukstet yelled even as his hands and feet got ready.

"I ain't gonna make it, kid. It's up to you," the lanky Terran said. He coughed. "Boop's done for, out of the fight at least. Get our boys off her, just like you were taught."

"But," Mukstet started.

LAUNCH appeared in his visit.

"Good luck, kid, and may the Omnimessiah watch over you," the Chief's voice dwindled away as Mukstet threw full power into forward momentum, engaging the atmospheric afterburners that was normally used to 'squirt' forward to escape air defense systems. A missile went by, close enough that Mukstet could swear he could see the markings on it, and then...

Space.

All his systems went haywire. The magnetic nagivation system was completely confused, the mass reaction system detected three masses in the millions of tons, atmospheric warnings went off, radiation warnings spiked as the strike hovercraft was exposed to the unshielded rays of the nearby yellow star, and both afterburners suddenly went out. Both cold and heat warnings started wailing. The warbois and the VI, which had started to wake up, immediately locked back down into their shielded Farraday cages.

Mukstet used the mass repellant anti-grav/graviton system to push himself away from the three ships, which were still locked in combat at less than four miles from one another.

One of the Precursor ones took a full broadside of dropship missiles and broke in half as the dropship hangars passed it. It didn't die alone, its return fire causing fire, shrapnel that had been dropships, and a few intact dropships to spew from the destroyed bays.

Mukstet could see the wreckage of at least five other Precursors surrounding the Betty Boop, the larger chunks still shooting.

Mukstet ignored the babbling of fear and concern and confusion over the intra-ship com-link, slapping it off and concentrating.

"Kanpuk, try to raise up the rest of the strike wing," Mukstet ordered. "See who made it out. Tell them to try to orient on me, we're going to try an unpowered reentry until we hit enough mass and atmosphere to get our systems online."

"Roger," Technical Private Kanpuk replied, glad for something to do beyond gape in horror as one of the Boop's engines exploded even as she kept firing at her foes.

It was difficult. The mass from the planet was tenuous according to his instruments and his systems, but he found if he feathered the controls carefully he could use the mass of the planet as reaction mass (not the fuel type) for his drives. He slowly rolled, aligned, and reconfigured his instruments.

--ok?-- came the question from 793, the leader of the six man green mantid engineer team. The mantid was excited, null-gee launch into medium orbit space above a planet while under attack was exactly the kind of story the egg tenders sang to an entire lineage of engineer grubs.

"I'm all right, how's the ship?" Mukstet asked.

--reconfiguring battlescreens and particle screens for space-- the green mantid said. --201 rewriting software right now on fly--

"But how's the ship?" Mukstet repeated.

--no damage good ship tough ship-- 793 answered, flashing icons of satisfaction and pride. --not a spaceship but engineer team is working we will endure-- The green mantid felt a surge of pride in his team as 837 informed him that he was able to increase the mass detection and mass reaction systems to allow the attack ship to use the planet and the orbiting moon as reaction mass. 793 ordered 605 to pass the data onto the other engineer teams.

The situation was dire there was engineering glory for every green mantid present.

Glory to the first bladearm to wind a wire

Mukstet was completely unaware of the engineering team's efforts or conversations, concentrating on lightly feathering the controls to slowly bring the strike craft into alignment. Belly down, nose slightly lifted. The rest of Foxtrot-Nine all lined up on him, with his craft being the point of the wedge. He did a quick count and saw only three of the twenty-four striker craft were missing. It was supposed to be four wings of six strikers each.

"Kanpuk, see who had their human get here," Mukstet said.

There was silence for a moment.

"Nobody. Cantet said he heard the Terran pilot barracks bay took a direct hit from a near-C velocity cannon," Kanpuk said. "No matter what happened, none of the Terrans made it."

Mukstet thought for a long time. "Find out who's highest ranking."

There was a long moment. "Sergeant Kuplo, one our dismount team. He's a veteran of the Second Telkan War. You're highest ranking of the co-pilots, not including your experience as a wall-gunner during Second Telkan."

Mukstet closed his eyes and made himself relax, push back the panic trying to overwhelm him.

"All right, inform everyone I'm taking Squadron Command. Find out the rankings of the others, go rank, date of rank, time in service, birthday," he said.

--have idea-- 793 said, flashing icons of excitement.

"Go ahead, 793," Mukstet said.

--ok sounds scary but is doable-- the mantid said. In the small engineering space was quivering with excitement. --reconfigure systems. take propellant from missiles, reroute fusion reactor reaction mass tank to afterburners. reconfigure afterburners. use atmosphere. make fuel. use afterburners as thrusters to adjust orbit. reconfigure battlescreens to pull power from reentry heat. simple simple. like plasma, reroute heat to energy to nano-forges and systems. take... oh... 3 hours maybe six--

Mukstet checked his instruments. Speed 18,420 miles per hour, about twenty times recommended max speed. Orbit time: eighty-nine minutes. Number of orbits till reentry: 14.

"We got nothing but time. You're the engineers. How do we handle atmosphere though? We gotta breathe," Mukstet said.

--run symbiosis with scouts. they power armor, not armored vac-suit like crew. send 551 and 377 to hook everyone up. should work-- 793 said.

"All right. Do it," Mukstet said. If he was wrong, Space Force Marine Corps and the Telkan Marine Corps could recover his corpse and court martial it. He opened a channel to the back. "Sergeant Kuplo, it's Mukstet."

"I read you, sir," Kuplo said. He knew Mukstet was only a Private First Class, but he was the pilot, which, as far as Kuplo was concerned, made Mukstet 'sir'.

"Need one man up here, one man at each crew station. The greenies are going to umbilical us so we can breathe off of your atmospheric systems. I want you in the back with the rest of the fire team. We're going to be up here a while, most of a day, unless the greenies figure something out," Mukstet said.

"Oorah, sir," the other Telkan said and cut the link.

In the engineering spaces the six mantids got close enough they could talk rapidly, their bladearms out so they could all touch, heads leaned forward close enough to hear one another. The computations sped by, suggestions integrated or rejected without ego, all of them excited to be part of it. Only in dangerous professions did wrench-ful glory arrive to the faithful engineer and all of them were excited to have their own numbers and formulae names attached to the emergency rigging they were doing. While the Telkans sat and waited the little green engineers planned until the job assignments started to be handed out. They'd break into three teams of two. Team One would start working on the afterburners. Team Two would run software creation and alteration. Team Three would first hook the Telkan up to life support and then start making the adjustments to screens then the tanks. They all recited the formula dealing with the splitting of a hydrogen atom and them broke, scurrying toward their jobs, all of them humming their favorite songs.

Mukstet was glad it was only about twenty minutes before two of the mantids came up and connected him to Private Jekib. He still had two hours of atmosphere to go, but he had started becoming obsessed with staring at his O2 level.

--breathe deep breathe steady we turn wrenches we save day-- 551 said, flashing emojis of a gasping face that suddenly smiled.

"Thanks," Mukstet said.

"You OK? I run my O2 a little rich since I'm heavy weapons," Pvt Jekib said through the commo link.

"Better now. I had a few hours left on my bottle but I was starting to get the gasps," Mukstet answered.

"Think we're gonna make it?" Jekib asked.

"Either way, we'll be recorded in the Corps database," Mukstet answered, chuckling. "Either as the ballseyest hover-striker launch and deployment or as 'those poor sad bastards who died in orbit' that'll be taught in striker pilot classes."

Jekib chuckled and they both sat silently. A few times the instruments came on, changed, rebooted, shut down, then came back. The forward viewport, smart-armaglass, kept updating and rebooting. Once the text was upside down and backwards and it reboot almost immediately.

"Man, those little guys know their stuff," Jekib commented.

"Heard they can actually read molycircs just by touching them and can communicate with VI's at their own speed if they're touching a hardware port," Mukstet answered.

"Mukstet? Kanput here. The other guys are starting to get worried," came the commo-tech's voice. "The flashing instruments are freaking them out."

"Open me up a channel to the rest of the squadron," Mukstet said, wracking his brain quickly to think of what to say.

"Channels open," Kanput said.

"All right, Foxtrot-Nine. We're in a sticky situation, I'm not going to lie, but we're not taking fire, the big boys are interested in each other not us, and we've didn't encounter ground fire. We're too small to really read from the ground unless they're looking for us, and we're stealth strikers anyway," he said.

"All together, we've got one hundred and twenty-six green mantid engineers. That's over five hundred combined years of engineering experience, all working to get us ground-side. Just take this as a relaxation period. We follow our training, we stick to doctrine, and we'll be fine," Mukstet said, feeling more confident.

"I doubt anyone's made an unpowered insertion from orbit," Pv2 Lutmin snorted.

--not true. human made near-orbit jump with O2 bottle and parachute-- 042 broke in.

"Yeah, but he was SUDS'd and probably had a grav chute," Pv2 Ilknup scoffed.

--no. pre-SUDS pre-graviton. jumped with cloth chute and metal bottle with O2. fell from near orbit to set record. fun fun-- 042 answered.

"You know, sometimes I think the humans just ain't all there," Pvt Hekak laughed.

That got laughter across the channel.

"Did they invent SUDS just so that they didn't go extinct from doing suicidal things just to do them?" Pvt Bempet laughed.

--yes-- 406 added with laughing icons.

773 sent an image of a human and a fur covered feline with huge fangs and claws, the feline roaring angrily and the human looking at the feline thoughtfully and thinking "On one hand I could die" and then "On the other hand, cool story, bro" with "And that's how I ended up with my thumb in a tiger's ass!" at the bottom.

That made all the pilots laugh.

"Well, either way, we're going to be the first Telkans to orbit this planet in a striker," Pvt Hekak said.

"All Fire Team Leaders, ensure morale is high and non-mission chatter is permitted," Mukstet said on the separate channel.

For several hours the group sat in their seats, strapped in, while the mantids rewrote computer cable, ran leads and pipes, and made modifications. Once they had to stop while the nano-forges cooled off. At one time Mukstet asked 793 to use the sensor systems to map the planet below as best they could without attracting missiles or ground fire.

Three times they had to sit and do nothing but watch as they orbited past ground-fire and return fire. Once they threaded, luckily, through a launch of drop-pods directly into ground-fire. Another time they went underneath where a dozen Precursor ships were being broken apart by the fire from Confederate Space Force Naval vessels. All they could do was watch, hold onto the controls, and pray for the best.

Each time Mukstet breathed a sigh of relief to hear that none of his tiny craft had been damaged by the clash between titans.

Finally 793 broke into the conversation about who was better: The Red Cosmic Knight or Korgod the Bold, the Demi-God Rigellian Female.

--we're taking local control. test together so not separated-- 793 said. --drop team already secured--

"Roger that. All pilots, HANDS UP!" Mukstet snapped, raising his own hands up and grabbing the 'oh shit' handle above his head.

All of the squadron's striker craft suddenly rolled counter-clockwise then clockwise, then tumbled 'forward' then 'backwards' before leveling off. The afterburners suddenly fired, all of the ships lunged forward, speeding up. The afterburners cut out.

--fire tests done. computer systems ready-- 793 said. --going to add some ablative heat coating and some air brakes. two more hours--

"All right, boys. 793 Just told me we have three hours. Let's start running reentry angles. Everyone combine our topography data and meteorological data. Give us an idea of what we're going to be hitting," Mukstet said.

"We're going to make it, aren't we?" Jekib said suddenly.

"To planetside? More than likely. Through whatever hell is down there against the Precursors? I don't know," Mukstet answered. "But we're going to get these crates into atmosphere."

The Marine Armored Scout just nodded.

Finally Mukstet leaned back and opened the channel. "OK, in two more hours we'll be between the planet and the moon. We use the moon as a repellent reaction mass and the planet as an attraction reaction mass. We'll orient, fire the afterburners, and follow the reentry flight plan. The greenies will have two men on you to help with the flight profiles and pass on any failures to the other four, who will be in position near the equipment most likely to fail. We'll run out of fuel at roughly 450k meters, but our angle will be changed enough we'll enter atmosphere less than an hour afterwards.

"I'm not going to lie, that's going to be the roughest part. If you tumble, try to correct. Remember, if worse comes to worse, try to get ass forward, the armor's thick enough back there and they've redone the battle-screens to handle the thermal overload. If the absolute worst happens and you break up, have the strike team jump, you punch out. Hard light chute opening at 2,000 feet, activate your beacons, we'll come looking for you," Mukstet said.

Saying it out loud sounds like podlings making up stories, Mukstet thought.

"Any questions?" he asked.

"Yeah, who invented liquid soap and why?" someone, who wasn't broadcasting their ID, asked.

"At ease that shit," came Sergeant Kuplo stern voice. "All strike team Marines, prepare for high altitude drop chute deployment."

"Here... we... go..." Mukstet said.

The moon, which had broken metal debris around it and crashed on the surface, slowly got larger and larger. Mukstet watched his mass readings slowly rise. He frowned, looked again, and ordered a tighter graviton scan.

There was an eddy in the gravity interaction between the planet and the moon. A small one, probably compensated for automatically by space going vessels, but the gravity increased by almost 0.25G and pushed down and forward.

We can use that like a chute, he thought to himself. It was small, tiny, almost unnoticable.

On a stellar scale.

The eddy was 'small' at two hundred miles wide, the opening sixteen miles wide and the exit nearly three miles wide. A tiny little gravitational flux.

"973, do you see this?" Mukstet asked, highlighting it with a blink and a tap of a muscle he'd only recently trained to use.

--see it. computing-- 973 answered. A half second went by. --use it. sorry for delay. triple check and updates--

"No problem. Good work," Mukstet said. He opened the channel back up to the pilots. "All right, Foxtrot Nine-Two taking the lead. We'll go in in a wedge. Data is uploading," he said. "Good luck, men."

"May the Digital Omnimessiah protect us," Pv2 Dintin said softly.

Mukstet watched the HUD, orienting when it said to, bringing up the systems in order. While an autopilot could do it he needed to bring the systems up. Part of him was tempted to let the autopilot do it, but something could come up outside the autopilot's abilities and this was way outside of normal operation.

"All pilots, mark countdown," he ordered. He breathed deep, pretending it was a close air support under fire run. "Perform afterburner check. If green, signal. We do this all together or come back on another orbit," he said. The ship-icons all went green. He reset them. "Perform graviton and anti-grav checks. Signal green on good." Again, all the icons went green and he reset them. "Battle and particle screen check. Signal green on good." The icons went green. "Squadron is green. Entering final countdown."

When it hit zero he hit the afterburners, feeling the ship, not designed for this kind of abuse, start to vibrate. Hitting the eddy almost spun his striker craft but he got it under control. He only had a five second lead but it was time enough for 973 to warn the other engineers and let them compensate for it. Within seconds the whole world was vibrating and Mukstet was vaguely aware he'd probably filled his catheter bag. He gritted his teeth and ignored the way the vibrations made his arms go numb and his shoulders ache, how the way he had to adjust the thrust with the pedals and the vibration combined to make his knees and ankles ache even as his feet and pelvis went numb.

It was like trying to skate an iron skillet across a wave of molasses while wearing oven mitts. Speed was dropping even as the angle increased to more than they would have been able to achieve under the afterburners.

The afterburners cut off, out of fuel, just the howling of the graviton and anti-grav systems being operated beyond their tolerances. The ship was still vibrating, just at a different harmonic. Mukstet's vision kept blurring and it was slightly painful to look at different sections of the HUD.

All of the squadron read green.

Finally they were through, the graviton and anti-grav systems cut out, and they were drifting.

Falling.

The planet below them, the pilots waited. Mukstet tabbed up a piece of gum to chew as the HUD reset with new reentry vectors and a new timer.

"Open the channel," he ordered. When it was open he cleared his throat. "All right, twenty-two minutes to the top of the atmosphere. Have your engineers run checks and go green for good. Nine-Two out."

Then it was waiting. The port-side secondary graviton generator was damaged but the engineers got it repaired in time. Two Marines had vomited from the vibration but were fine, their armor's systems cleaning the interior of the armor.

One by one the icons, including his own, went green.

Mukstet closed his eyes for a moment. He couldn't believe they were all still alive. His brain replayed the terrifying launch from the bay of the Betty Boop and the way flames exploded out with them as missiles got through the screen.

Mukstet wondered if the big beautiful ship had survived.

"Thirty seconds. Go green if ready," Mukstet said. One by one the other strikers came back green.

His hands hurt, he was gripping the controls so hard. He felt like he was going to vomit or start laughing or both as the ship started to vibrate slightly. He punched up the graviton systems and the vibration got worse. The port-side secondary wailed, but kept up output within necessary levels.

The battlescreens and particle screens shifted frequency and began to sparkle and snarl as the atmosphere went from stray particles to gasses. He kept the belly up, watching the speed first raise, then start to lower. The engineers had considered hard-light drag-chutes but had ran the computations and found out the airframe couldn't take the stress, that the strikers would have broken up.

It was air-braking or nothing.

The screens were snarling, absorbing the heat. Power levels were rising as the shields drained the energy into the system for re-use. The vibration got even worse, making Mukstet feel like his bones were going to vibrate out of skin. The timer was counting down, the estimates by the engineers for when the atmosphere would be thick enough and the speed low enough for the strikers to make a shallow dive curve.

He was fifteen seconds away when the port-side graviton generators both went out in an explosion that scattered striker armor out in a scythe of shrapnel. The ship whipped around, going into a flat spin, and only training kept Mukstet from puking. He felt like he was going to black out as his flight-suit squeezed him, forcing the blood out of his legs and arms and back up into his brain.

--we're in a flat spin. engines out. trying to wet-start-- 973 reported.

"Don't!" Mukstet barked, cutting the power to the starboard graviton generators and the central line primary graviton thrusters then killing the anti-grav systems.

--all you brother--

PARE PARE PARE he thought to himself desperately.

Mukstet kept breathing, despite the crushing weight on his chest. Jekib was limp in the seat, passed out from the high-G spin. Once the striker was 'idling' he hit the mechanicals and felt the 'squishy' feeling hit his controls. He took the ailerons to neutral, fighting the port-side ones. He counted to two, then brought the opposite rudder to max and held it. He fought with the elevator for a moment, then got his nose down.

The striker slowed then bobbled, before coming in level. He dropped the rudder and leveled out, hitting the power to the center-line graviton systems and the craft roared to life.

The three striker Marines that had gone amber went back green suddenly and the two amber mantid icons went green.

--port graviton is gone need to refab-- 973 reported.

Mukstet could tell by the way the striker wanted to pull to port that he had a big gaping slash down his side.

The rest of the squadron was still green and according to his HUD were only three miles ahead.

The lights went green as the craft finally had enough of the planet's gravity well for the systems to work normally.

"All craft, go to manual and hard reset your controls," Mukstet ordered.

"Thought we lost you, sir," Pv2 Dintin said.

"Good training," Mukstet said. "On the clock," he ordered, and punched up a five second timer. "Now!"

The green mantids reset the computer system, wiping out the RAM and reverting to the package loaded before launch to reset. The stick went dead, mushy in his hand, then suddenly everything came back to life.

He had HUD warnings his portside graviton flight systems were out and thumbed off the alert.

The rest of the squadron slowed and let him take the lead.

He breathed a sigh of relief.

"All right, Kuplo, get our commo together, let's see who needs Foxtrot-Nine," Mukstet said.

"Roger, scanning the net now," Kuplo said. "Heavy jamming, but I'll suss it out."

"I'M AWAKE!" Jekib yelled, jerking in his seat.

Mukstet almost choked on his gum trying not to laugh.