A Common Virtue
Over the Atlantis Ocean
2175 miles from the continent of Great Britain, Terranova
9/15/2101, 1725.68 American Time
Jemal Bryant curses, as he just barely manages to jink the borrowed AV-424 Rickenbacker hopper away from a quartet of five-terajoule laser pulses from another pair of Terranovan Republican Marine hoppers.
"How much longer," the Commie Legionnaire he got himself mixed up with asks.
"Another three hours," Bryant answers, a laser pulse striking the failing grav shielding squarely.
"Assuming," he adds,"we don't get our asses shot down 'tween now and then."
The third person squeezed tight into the one-person VTOL craft isn't saying anything; she hasn't said too much in the three hours since they'd blasted their way out of Port 33 and away from the continent of Basseterre.
Probably trying to get a handle on things, he thinks to himself, lidar picking up two dozen Predator warpfighters moving towards them from the west coast of Great Britain. She's had one hell of a day, all in all.
And, it ain't quite over yet, he adds mentally, as the holo of one of the warpfighter pilots appears directly in front of him.
"Unidentified aircraft," the pilot warns him,"you are entering restricted airspace! You will turn back now, or you will be shot down!"
Laser pulses sizzle past the hopper from the direction of the approaching warpfighters.
"Sometimes," Commonwealth comments wryly,"words just aren't enough."
"Why," the woman asks,"is this restricted airspace. No one's lived on Great Britain since the First World War, when the surviving Britons were transported to the penal colony on Croatoan."
"Or Earth, as we like to call it," Commonwealth, sounding like he'd just swallowed a bug or something, replies.
"That's," the woman comments,"what Wikipedia says."
Commonwealth makes a rude noise when she mentions Wiki.
"Commonwealth," Bryant remarks,"if Wiki say two and two make six, then that's we both had to put down for that question on the math portion of the SATs, otherwise...."
"Is the law of gravity still on the books here," Commonwealth quips,"or does Wikipedia say we're all held on the surface of Terranova with glue?"
"Elmer's Glue," Bryant jokes in reply, at the same time he jinks the hopper in every direction at once, ignoring the repeated warning he was entering restricted airspace,"got to get that advertising in there some kinda way."
Over the Atlantis Ocean
3500 kilometers from the continent of Great Britain, Terranova
9/15/2101, 2229.08 Zulu
Captain Eamon Fitzpatrick laughs at the type of joke cracked by soldiers for millenia when facing almost certain death.
Just before he feels his liver, spleen and stomach all drop down into his feet, as the Haziri male at the controls of this flying sardine can drops the bloody thing almost all the way into the ocean.
"A little warning," he remarks,"would've been nice."
"Never damn satisfied," Bryant comments, the stolen Yanker Marine hopper sluicing the waters of the Atlantis at well over 1,500 klicks per hour.
The veteran Commonwealth Forces Legionnaire checks on their passenger, huddled up against the entry hatch, knees to her chin, dirty and tattered like the clothes on her back, eyes wide in shock behind her glasses, Fitzpatrick himself holding on to the edge of the pilot's seat, trying to make himself as small as possible as he stands wedged between the seat, the starboard bulkhead and the low ceiling.
He hears a hissing sound, like boiling water spattering on a hot stove.
Which is only appropriate, as a loud clunk! immediately follows the hissing, Fitizpatrick cursing as his gut meets the back of the seat.
"Tell me that was the expected operation of the craft," he comments.
"If you asking was that supposed to happen," Bryant, visibly fighting the hopper, amidst a hellish cacaphony of buzzing alarms, manages to reply,"the answer's no."
"We've lost one of the engines," he then adds,"and the other one ain't doing so good...even if the other engine was in good shape, hoppers ain't like other aerodynes, they depend on the jets theyselfs, rather than jets and vectrals, for lift and hover, and they can't do either one too well with only one working jet."
"Hope y'all can swim," he is quick to tell them both.
"...c'mon, baby," Mama, gently shaking her, whispers,"get dressed, hurry, before he wakes up."
"Get dressed?" Jami, still half-asleep, asks. "What for?"
"We're getting the hell offworld," Mama tells her."I talked to a man 'bout it today, and-"
"No," Jami objects. "No. Mama, if Daddy finds out , he'll-"
"Baby," Mama whispers, taking the thirteen-year old girl lightly by her shoulders, looking her in the eye,"I know what they'll do to us if they find out...but, I-i also know what they'll do to you, your sister...and, to Sunni...if I don't at least try to get you all away from them."
"Now, hurry up," she adds, Jami getting out of bed, finding her clothes by touch on the floor, putting them on as quietly as she could in the....
...gloom, men screaming for more, for Michelle to show Sunni what zeds like them are all about, as her sister-in-law grabs hold of her friend's hair-like someone grabbing hold of the reins of a Bergeron-slapping Sunni's ass so hard it echoes off the walls, just before-
Aboard the Commonwealth Forces Ship Unbroken
Landing Pad 819, Commonwealth Forces Base New Seattle, Big Sky
9/16/2101, 0026.41 Zulu
...Commander Jamilinne Sipe sits bolt upright in Stevie's bed, screaming Sunni's name at the top of her lungs.
Instantly cursing herself, as she realizes she's here, that Stevie's right here, holding her tight in her arms, rocking her like a baby, whispering over and over that everything's okay now.
"Why are you apologizing?" her wife softly asks her, even as Jami thinks the words I'm sorry, baby.
"'Cause, I'm with you now," Jami whispers, through tears running hot down her cheeks, Stevie gently stroking her hair, whispering,"I know you love me. It's not about that, 'kay?"
"I should've at least taken her with," Jami says, a regret ten years and more in the making,"when I was there for Aunt Mel's funeral."
"She was offworld at the time, if I recall," Stevie reminds her. "Nasty Hank."
"Yeah," Jami says, sighing. "Still-"
The workstation terminal bleeps for their attention.
"I'll take it," the captain of the Commonwealth Forces Ship Unbroken says, reluctantly disentangling herself from Stevie's arms, getting out of bed and stroking a key on the terminal's holodisplay.
"Commander," the holo of her flight engineer, Chief Warrant Officer Ariel Dixon, says,"I have an Alfa-priority comm direct from Fort Gibson-"
"Son of a bitch," Jami whispers...it's never good news to get an Alfa-priority comm, much less one straight from the capital of the Commonwealth itself.
"-codemarked commander's eyes only," Ariel continues,"using Presidential E3 protocol."
"Pipe it through to the First Lieutenant's terminal, Chief," Jami says.
" Mastercomp," she then adds, placing her right palm on the palmprint now appearing on the holospace,"decrypt, decipher and decode incoming Alfa-priority communication; authorization is Sipe, Jamilinne Marie, Commander, Commonwealth Forces, commanding CC214 Commonwealth Forces Ship Unbroken, authorization passphrase Sinless and pure, the Dark Lady comes."
"Identity verified," Unbroken's mastercomp tells her,"authorization validated, initiating decrypt, decipher and decode."
The holo of the Commonwealth's President-Stevie's aunt-Angelique Gault, appears over the terminal's holospace.
"Jami, sorry to disturb you," she says, frustration and fatigue marking her face in equal measure,"but-"
"What's wrong, Angelique?" the captain of the Unbroken asks.
"A great deal," Angelique replies with heavy sigh,"but, this, in particular, concerns my missing children."
Jami tenses up...missing children is the codephrase for the Commonwealth Forces personnel attached to the former embassy to the Rude Union....
"...not a bloody conversation, Commander," Captain Fitzpatrick's holo snaps, as Jami's bridge falls down around her ears, and Unbroken's main lasers tear through an enemy battle cruiser at point-blank range.
"Your Legionnaires are on their way up with the Ambassador, the civilian staff," Fitzpatrick adds, as Smashmouths vaporize a goodly portion of the Yankers' Home Fleet,"and our families; they should be aboard Unbroken in about a minute thirty."
"Once you get them aboard," he says,"no heroics, just get them home."
"That's...."
...an order.
An order she regrets following to this day.
"My oldest boy," Angelique explains,"has gotten himself into trouble, the sort of trouble what's got the neighbors setting their dogs on him, his friend and the girl they got in trouble with."
"Nothing unusual," Jami remarks.
"You wouldn't think so," Angelique replies,"except that in running away from the neighbors' dogs, he's gotten himself even more lost in the wilderness, somewhere between the lowlands and the white cliffs, but not before he called for a special delivery."
Jami nods her head, even though the privacy circuits prevent Angelique from seeing her.
"How soon?" she asks out loud.
"As soon as I discomm," the President of the Commonwealth replies,"which is-"
"General quarters," Jami shouts into the 1-MC, at the same time she scrambles to get into her clothes," general quarters, all hands man your battle stations, set condition one throughout the ship! "
"C'mon, Stevie," she snaps out, as she finishes getting dressed amidst the clanging of alarm klaxons,"we've got work to do."
In the Atlantis Ocean
199 miles from the continent of Great Britain, Terranova
9/15/2101, 1934.62 AMT
They seem to be going nowhere, no matter how hard Michelle Thorn Sipe paddles her side of the smallish Kevlar/Spectra life raft.
She keeps at it anyway, as it keeps her from thinking.
The Haziri is in the air thirty feet above them, gunmetal grey clouds almost rubbing up against him, as he glides through the increasingly turbulent air.
"Hurricane," the Commie on the opposite side of her says, as he keeps rowing on his side of the raft,"looks like a Cat 7, maybe even an eight."
"We're right in the eye of it," he adds, not even gasping for breath like Michelle is now.
The gunmetal-grey clouds are all around them, forks of lightning striking the water everywhere except their raft, the thunder coming in staccato rumbles moments later.
And the water she's trying to paddle through is still calm, with the suns high in the bluish-violet sky overhead.
"Not too many hurricanes on Diablo," she remarks.
"None on Mars either," the Commie says,"not even after the terraforming took hold. Earth, on the other hand, has its share of hurricane weather, mainly during this time of year, though not nearly as bad as it was before Petro terraformed the planet."
"It's the Gulf Stream what feeds 'em," he adds, after a few moments of rowing and silence. "The interface between warm and cold water brews those storms up one after the other during hurricane season; there used to be some real monsters, back when global warming pushed the Gulf Stream closer to America and further away from Europe, Category 6 and up, what would blot out half the Atlantic or all of the Gulf of Mexico, before they hit, causing devastation for thousands of miles inland that you only saw standing at ground zero of an antimatter detonation."
"Jesus," Michelle whispers.
"From what I read in school," he adds,"the very worst storm was a Category 10, Hurricane Kimberly, back in '36-just before the fall of Cosmograd-drowned the former East Coast, wiping out everything along there from Miami to Boston, made the ones what almost destroyed New Orleans look like a light breeze."
"You sound like one of those guys who does the YouTube weather 'casts," Michelle says. "You know, the ones who are right in the middle of the hurricanes blasting the South Co-"
She stops, realizing he probably doesn't watch YouTube.
"Yes," the Commie says, after interval of silent rowing,"I watch BoobTube sometimes. I even watched it before I left for this boghole planet almost twenty years ago."
"You mean YouTube's-" she starts to ask.
"Yes," the Commie replies with a chuckle,"even in Commonwealth space, you can watch bloody YouTube, especially if you're in the mood for low comedy or being depressed beyond words."
Michelle's turn to laugh.
"What kind of programs do you have back home?" she asks.
"Whatever people feel like uploading onto the IW," the Commie tells her. "Everything from blogs to animé to full-blown Shakespeare, if you're into that sort of thing."
"I don't even know who Shakespeare is," Michelle replies.
"You and most people," the Commie replies between grunts."His plays and sonnets were amongst the things torched by WARCOM during the twenty-teens, 'tweens and early thirties...the First Colonists preserved what they could of his works, but, as with everything else of our past, that took a back seat to fighting RJ Williams and his lot for their lives."
"Oh," he adds, chuckling again,"I forgot, Wikipedia teaches that RJ Williams was the promised Messiah who delivered Terranova from the zeds and their WARCOM three hundred year-"
"Oh, bugger," he then says, a high-pitched whine tearing through the sky.
In the Atlantis Ocean
320 kilometers from the continent of Great Britain, Terranova
9/16/2101, 0040.27 Zulu
"Bugger," Fitzpatrick repeats, Bryant, flying up top, shouting out, "goddamnit, we got warpfighters coming through the effin' eyewall!"
"What I was afraid of," he adds, shouldering his borrowed M33 500-gigajoule laser rifle, tracking the sky, wishing he had his autolaser, the Haziri above him circling to face a quartet of F18D Predator warpfighters clearing the eyewall to the east, two of the four machines swooping down on the hopper's emergency life raft, five-hundred gigajoule laser pulses already sizzling the water all round it, the remaining two vectoring laser pulses at Bryant, even as the monkey dances round them, riding the winds at the same time he's aiming his own weapon at the nearer of his two antagonists.
Fitzpatrick waiting until the crosshairs floating over his weapon's holospace turn green and the lock tone shrills in his ears, before squeezing off a pulse of coherent light which catches one of the Preads dead center, splitting the unshielded warpfighter in half, the ensuing roar of light momentarily blinding him in spite of the auto-polarization of his Land Warrior armor's faceplate.
The remaining Pread levels off, trying to stay aloft with only one wing, the ragged stump of the other bleeding antimatter, the sky raining parts and pieces of the two ships who had gone for Bryant.
"I'll clean up for you," Bryant says over Fitzpatrick's CyberLink, a second before the crippled enemy warpfighter joins the other three in pieces at the bottom of the Atlantis.
"Not bad," the veteran Commonwealth soldier comments.
"Not bad, hell," Bryant replies, as he resumes his glide towards the eyewall. "That was some dam' good-"
"Oh hail," he comments, Fitzpatrick hearing the low whine of plasma jets in the direction the warpfighters had come.
"A dropship or a VTOL plane," he remarks. "A WIG craft wouldn't have a chance in hell of making it through the eyewall."
"It's an SC-130," Bryant replies."Believe me, I been in the Marines long enough to know that sound."
"Crap," Fitzpatrick remarks...dropships, unlike warpfighters, are shielded, making it difficult, if not impossible, for the Haziri and the Human to hurt it with their laser rifles.
Definitely wish I had my autolaser, Fitzpatrick thinks to himself, taking aim anyway, as the Yanker dropship clears the eyewall.
Over the Atlantis Ocean
199 miles from the continent of Great Britain, Terranova
9/15/2101, 1945.01 AMT
"Yeah!" Captain Ansen Jacoby cries out, pumping his fists, as he watches the sexual predator Michelle Sipe garrote her little blonde piece of poot at the same time she's riding her like the frickin' beasts of burden they both are.
Every emeffing one of the peeps watching this online is egging her on, as the holo of the SC-130's pilot appears in front of Jacoby's right eye, letting him know he had a "minute thirty to drop, Captain."
"Thank you, Chief," Jacoby replies curtly, meticulously checking his M33, before a hand goes to caress the pommel of his chainblade and the handle of the electrowhip he's been issued for just this assignment...this is the reason he wanted to be a Marine in the first place, so he could put the boots to the enemies of his Union, not waste his time standing guard over the ass end of frickin' nowhere with nothing to do but watch YouTube and hunt jocritter.
'Cause-despite what Wiki's got to say on the subject-the only thing on Great Britain and its barrier islands is woods and more woods, and nothing lives there 'cept jocritters and a few other creatures no one's ever even heard of.
And, of course, the Marines and the Spacefleet pukes who are doomed never to leave the bases on the continent's west coast, cut off from the rest of Terranovan society, not even allowed to visit families and friends on the outside.
Even though....
Jacoby feels it, as the dropship shakes from a couple of hits, the Marine captain gripping his weapon tighter...there's always the rumors of others living deep in the woods of Great Britain, malcontents, hermits, mentals, Commie soldiers who deny 9YW's over and they'd lost, but he's never seen anyone else what wasn't wearing a Union uniform in the eighteen months he's been frickin' exiled here.
He'd almost forgotten there were other people, 'til his company got the call a couple hours ago to capture a zed and two others who'd intruded into the restricted zone...he can do what he wants with the others, but his superiors want the zed taken alive, though not necessarily-
The bell rings throughout the troop bay, Jacoby getting up, bawling out,"all right, bitches, let's saddle up!" as he climbs into one of the Scorpio jet boats suspended by a net of steel cabling over the now-opened troop bay doors.
Jacoby waits for all the j-boats assigned to his SpecOpsRed company to be fully manned, before barking out"drop!" over his Link, the netting dropping to one side, as the Scorpios fall thirty feet towards the water below, their plasma jets firing to arrest their descent.
Two of the sixteen boats exploding before they touch water, as five-hundred gigajoule laser pulses touch them, the remaining fourteen hosing the ocean below them with missiles and laser pulses, Jacoby himself hollering for the Marines manning the Scorpio's twin dual autolasers to open fire, at the same time the rest of his company line the decks to add the firerpower of their laser rifles, autolasers and missile launchers to the mix.
Three more Scorpios go up, as a brace of antimatter grenades detonate in the middle of them, Jacoby shouting over his Link,"Chief, where the hell's my fire support?!"
"Funny you should ask that, Cap'n," an unfamiliar Haziri voice replies, before a flash of white-hot light makes that the last thing Jacoby hears.
Over the Atlantis Ocean
199 miles from the continent of Great Britain, Terranova
9/15/2101, 1945.01 AMT
"Let's try this again," Bryant, now alone on the dropship's bridge, says, triggering another pair of pulses from the two five-terajoule lasers in the chin turret, raining Cobra missiles down on the remaining Scorpios continuing their 30-30 descent towards the life raft of the hopper they'd borrowed to escape from Basseterre.
He'd be damned, if Commonwealth wasn't still alive down there, throwing laser pulses and antimatter grenades back up at the descending Scorpios, taking out the couple Bryant didn't get, the retired Marine chief warrant officer then positioning the SC-130 over the raft, lowering the dropship until it completely swallows up the boat.
"That is you, I hope?" Commonwealth asks over Bryant's Link.
"If it ain't, then we both in trouble, aren't we?" Bryant replies."Get y'all's asses on board this bird, so we can get the Hell up outta here."
Commonwealth Forces Base Goose Green, West Cumberland Island
160 kilometers from the coast of Great Britain, Terranova
9/15/2101, 0054.11 Zulu
"Hurricane's heading straight for us, ma'am," Lidarman 3C Marilou Fenster reports over Commander Fiachna Fitzpatrick's Link. "Strength remains at Category 7, leading winds in excess of 257 kilometers per hour; estimated time of arrival now forty-five minutes."
"Radioman," the head of the former embassy's Commonwealth Intelligence mission orders,"alert the homesteaders and the hajjies at Stanley to get to higher ground, if they haven't already done so. Then, tell our people to finish securing everything and head for the shelters."
"Not a whole lot," she adds, sighing, thinking about her long-overdue twin brother,"they can do now."
Commander Danielle Tarpley, commanding the former embassy's Legionnaires, enters the CP.
"Any word?" she asks, as she stands beside her wife.
"None since he called Fort Gibson, asking for a special delivery," Fiachna replies, shaking her head.
"They're right in the middle of the bloody storm," she adds, her fists balling up at her sides.
"So are the Yankers sent out from the coastal bases to try and capture them," Dani reminds her.
"I know," Fiachna says, swallowing...she's lived with the possibility of this day for the last nineteen years, and, still....
"He'll be all right, Fi," Danielle says, taking a hand in one of the gauntlets of her Legionnaire armor. "He's been through worse...hell, we all have...a few trogs-"
"And one of the worst blows in the history of this boghole planet," Fiachna interjects.
She sighs, giving Dani's hand a gentle squeeze.
"I know you're trying to help, and I love you dearly for it, but...." she says, trailing off.
"I know, baby," Dani whispers.
"Commander," Chief Radioman Roannon Clan Orokoz reports,"Stanley reports everyone evacuated to the emergency shelters atop Mount Thatcher; Lieutenant Commander O'Meara reports all personnel save the dropship crew and the command post staff have been evacuated to the shelters. All buildings have been either boarded up or taken down."
"Leftenant Commander," Fiachna says over her Link,"why are the dropship crew not in the shelters?"
"I assumed you wanted them-" the holo of the Legionnaires' First Lieutenant replies.
"Tell them to get to the shelters," Fiachna, fighting the urge to launch the dropship for only the umpteenth time in the past couple of hours,"now, and that's final."
"You too, Brian," she adds, her tone brooking no nonsense.
"Ma'am," the short, plug-ugly Human male replies reluctantly.
"And," Fiachna says, after another swallow,"secure the dropship. Command out."
She discomms before Brian can offer an objection, turning to the Intelligence personnel manning the command post, telling them to "secure your stations, and head for the shelters; close down the power generators before you go, the last thing we need is for the bloody trogs to home in on our electromagnetic emissions while we're cowering in the bleedin' shelters."
Her people acknowledge her orders, the CP instantly going dark and dead, as Fiachna detaches herself from Dani's hand and begins the task of dismantling stations and removing the computers comprising the base's intranet...whatever happened, the hurricane howling its way towards the Cumberland Islands could not be allowed to undo the work they'd set out to do when they'd volunteered to stay behind almost two decades ago.
Especially not now, when the Yankers were getting ready to pick things up where they'd left them at bloody Tau Ceti...if her Commonwealth were going to end up in another fight with them, they needed all the help they could get.
Besides, her twin brother's voice whispers in her head, if we'd stayed behind and finished the bloody mission fifty years ago, this situation wouldn't even exist, and we'd both be enjoying a long, healthy retirement back in New London.
Fiachna smiles, as one of the former embassy's maintenance bots joins her in carting off the computers, Dani helping another bot carry away the workstations.
Long, healthy retirements are bloody overrated anyway, she thinks to herself, as she finishes disconnecting the last of the computers, puts it on top of another comp and carries them both out of the base's command post.
Please, God, she thinks, let that bull-headed brother of mine be all right.
Over the Atlantis Ocean
139 miles from the continent of Great Britain, Terranova
9/15/2101, 2000.00 AMT
"Woooo-hooo Jesus!" the chimp whoops, as a bright fork of lightning as wide as Michelle slashes across the black sky directly in front of the dropship's nose.
"That," the Commie, face as pale as Michelle's, remarks, as he sits at the navigator's station next to the Haziri,"is one way of putting it."
"What another way is, Commonwealth?" the monkeyboy asks, as something goes ping!ping!ping!ping! on the outside of the ship. "'Hoo-pee, we all gonna die?!'"
"I prefer not dying just yet, Chief," the Commie replies, as he studies the holo directly in front of him, as Michelle, seated in one of the other two seats at the back of the tiny bridge, can only watch, as the borrowed dropship punches its way through the hurricane.
"Assumin' that even an option at this point," the Haziri tells him point-blank." No matter where we land, assumin', again, that the Yankers don't capture us, we only gonna delay the inevitable meeting with Mother Nature at her worst."
"We just have to get above the storm," the Commie replies,"and fly 'til we're about fifteen hundred klicks inland, then wait out the storm."
"And," the chimp asks,"where your peeps at, Commonwealth?"
"On one of the Cumberland Islands," the Commie answers.
"Oh, really?" the chimp remarks. "Well, my people's set up camp on the other one of the Cumberlands, from what I heard."
"Either way," he adds,"they gonna be a long way off, seein' how we gonna have to walk the rest of the way inland."
"Walk?" the Commie asks.
"This bird's only got enough hydro to get us to the coast," the chimp tells him,"and maybe ten or fifteen miles further, and that's draining the tanks completely dry, and flying through the storm; landin' won't be too soft, when we do set down, neither."
"On the other hand," he adds,"we have just enough fuel to get above this storm, and reach the Cumberlands before the hurricane does, with a little left over to land."
"Your call," he says.
"You're flying," the Commie says, after further study of the holo in front of him. "Do what you have to."
Michelle feels the dropship rising like an elevator through the clouds, as the Haziri gradually pulls back on the stick in his left hand, Michelle finding herself thinking about that day, 22 years ago.
The very last time she'd ever wanted to fly....
"...I am sorry, Captain Sipe, but the mathematical models simply do not lie," Mister Hobbes, says to the five-year old girl and her parents. "Based on her entry-level Scholastic Aptitude Test, your daughter has been classified as being at-risk, someone who will grow up to be a drain on our society and a disruptive influence to our democratic, God-fearing way of life. She will require massive amounts of government aid to even survive, since she is...."
"...incapble of even the most basic intellectual pursuit!" Master Sergeant Ermey, her performance instructor, screams in her face, before tossing the astronomy reader into the incinerator," Mathematical models compiled by our Union's best social engineers simply do not lie, y'useless goddamn maggot, children like you simply cannot, should not, are not...."
"...one goddamn frickin' thing but stinkin'-ass poot!" Miss Helga screams, as She continues dunking her head in the toilet with one hand, Her other hand shoving the plunger as far up in her as She can, voices screaming over the speakers for Miss Helga to....
Aboard the Commonwealth Forces Ship Unbroken
New Seattle Aerospace Corridor, 108,045 kilometers from Big Sky
9/16/2101, 0100.82 Zulu
...Jami desperately tries to keep her breathing under control, staring dead at the piloting and nav stations, as the 1,262-ton Dauntless-class cruiser rockets through the New Seattle corridor, the two other machines assigned to her triang on either wing, all 36 Mark IIB Raptor warpfighters assigned to Warp Fighter Squadrons 214, 464 and 959 forming a V in front of them, Stevie and the ship's navigator, Sub-Lieutenant Genera Muncie, working with the triang's other pilots and navigators to plot the warpdrive course to Terranova, through its System-Wide Mine Field, and right inside the planet's atmosphere itself.
"Commander," Radioman First Class Alannah Munro reports,"latest update from Intel has a Category 7 hurricane headed straight for the continent of Great Britain and its barrier islands; it'll-"
"Show me, Radioman," Jami snaps, a lidar picture instantly appearing on her right-hand command holodisplay, the captain of the Unbroken reflexively whispering Jesus' name when she saw just how frickin' huge the storm was, the son of a bitch a whirling dervish of reds and blacks, with a rapidly-shrinking area of light blue in the center, a number in the upper-right corner rolling rapidly upward, while two numbers exactly below it were rolling just as rapidly in the opposite direction.
If the Yankers don't get them.... she starts to think, not letting herself complete the thought.
"Radioman," she barks out,"tell New Seattle Control we need to go, now; warn the others. Nav, initiate emergency warpdrive entry."
"New Seattle's given us immediate clearance for warpdrive-" Alannah starts to say, just as the warp engine's drivefield generator whines and howls, and Unbroken enters warpdrive.
"Normspace emergence,"Genera reports, once the stars and planets start stretching like red- and blue-shifted taffy,"in thirty hours."
Nearly twenty seconds subjective, the captain of the Unbroken thinks to herself, as she automatically does the math.
-endit-
