HSS Chasetail: Ready Room
The door slid shut behind Huxley as he entered the privacy of his ready room. He moved to his desk and picked up his tablet.
He scrolled through a familiar list of items needing review.
- Navigation updates
- Mission logs
- Squadron watch schedules
- Sector patrol assignments
- Departmental reports
- Disciplinary reports
- Inventory requests
- Sensor sweep summaries
- Maintenance and diagnostics logs
- Medical status reports
- Communications traffic records
- Procedural deviation notices
He placed the tablet back on his desk. He looked at it for a moment and then picked it up again.
This time he tapped on a different folder.
Images.
- White arctic landscapes
- The TA-3 camp, tents covered in snow
- Rebecca with mugs of steaming hot chocolate
- Lucas with a sample canister, bright eyed and excited
- Eugene at his communications station, wearing his ever-present headset
- James, in the isolation tent, respirator on logging samples
- The drill site ruined, a geyser firing ancient bio-mass remnants into the air
- Jake and his team of huskies
Huxley tapped on another folder. More images.
- Twelve human boys on the Chasetail
- Lewis with his oversized glasses and Dogger
- Boys growing into young men
- Raven with a beaded necklace
- School graduation
- Seb, Lewis and Raven in cadet school
- Passing out parade
- Receiving their officer epaulettes
He tapped the screen again, and an image of a golden paw appeared.
Hundeerde Space: Sector 1-Quadrant Delta-2
(S1-QD2)
Routine Patrol
A routine patrol. Very routine. Hour after hour had passed with nothing more interesting than routine fuel and lattice calls. Even Toby’s digestive system seemed to have settled into maintaining routine parameters.
It seemed that the Marauders had either run out of probes or they had lost interest in sending them. Greenwatch had not had any probe intercepts on any of the last several days of patrols. Even Blackwatch and Greywatch had not reported any encounters. It was almost as if they knew that the strategy had changed.
Klaus: Greenwatch—maintain sweep formation, we’ll take another pass right up to the sub-quadrant 3 boundary.
By my lead, Bearing—0-0-3, Mark—1-5.
Activate solar visors.
A round of acknowledgements came over the comms loop.
As they were flying almost directly into the sun, they had to rely virtually exclusively on their sensors as glare obscured almost all forward vision.
The squadron banked around to the right, keeping formation.
Back in the control room Lewis took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. It had been a long and boring shift, watching endless waves of scrolling data dance across the displays like a hypnotic waterfall.
He suddenly sat up straight as if he had received an electric shock through his chair.
A bleep sounded on his console. A contact had been detected from a relay node.
Lewis fired his glasses back on, narrowly avoiding poking himself in the eye. His fingers flew across his keyboard.
Lewis: Greenwatch—this is Control. Be advised, new contact. Possible probe.
Bearing—0-0-2, Mark—Negative—1-3, Distance—1-3-5-0.
Standby for positive identification.
Klaus: Control—Keel-One, acknowledged.
Advise we see the same.
Greenwatch—tighten formation.
Adjust bearing—0-0-2, Mark—Negative—1-3, Distance—1-2-4-8—and closing.
Lewis: Greenwatch—Control, contact posi-dent, probe type—spiked.
Klaus: Control—Keel-One, acknowledged.
Greenwatch—maintain tight-form and visors.
The distance between Greenwatch and the probe rapidly decreased by the second.
Raven: Greenwatch—Rook, contact is breaking right.
Bearing—0-2-7, Mark—0-2, Distance—7-5-2.
Hans: Rook—Drift, I see it—disengaging solar visor.
Greenwatch—I have visual off my starboard, distance—3-3-9.
Keel-One—advise on how to proceed.
Klaus: Greenwatch—come around to Bearing—0-4-1, Mark—0-0.
Double-delta-V formation, my point, Rook rear point, and hold.
Greenwatch levelled off in two delta formations. Klaus took the point, with Timo and Toby to his left and right. Tucked just in behind were Seb and Hans, with Raven taking the rear point position, completing the second inverted delta.
They held the formation.
The probe also stopped moving and held its position. It stopped so close to the nose of Klaus’ fighter that it gave off a faint red reflection from its central red light.
Greenwatch held their position and the probe held its. It was barely two metres in front of Klaus’ nose.
The sound of rapid, shallow breathing and a little whine came through the comms loop.
Klaus: Greenwatch—hold position.
Timo: Copy—holding.
Fifteen seconds passed…
Timo: …holding.
Ten more seconds…
Timo: …still holding.
Five seconds…
Timo: Keel-One—I just want to say for the record that this is the worst day of my entire life and I would like it noted in the official log.
Klaus: Fang—noted. Hold.
Timo: …holding.
Three seconds…
Timo: It’s just sitting there.
Timo’s butt was firmly wiggled back in his seat, his tail perfectly still, and his nose and whiskers were trembling.
Klaus: Fang.
Timo: I know, I know, I know—
Timo’s ears twitched.
Klaus: Fang.
Lewis, back on the Chasetail, listening to the chatter and with his eyes on the plot, watching Timo’s fighter on the display doing that microscopic forward drift that isn’t quite breaking formation but is absolutely thinking about it—
Lewis: He’s gonna go…
Anika didn’t look up.
Anika: He won’t.
Lewis: He’s drifting.
Anika: He won’t.
Timo: Keel-One—
Klaus: Fang—don’t even think about it.
Lewis: He’s thinking about it.
Timo did not hold.
Screw Pile Developments 