Buck Rogers
by AJ Marks
Part 17
Buck sat as the group continued to theorize over what happened during his test flight.
“A very interesting theory,” Jeelax stated. “I don’t think anyone has ever heard of such a thing, if it turns out to be correct we’ll have to re-evaluate our theories on the Thu’lue drive.”
“It’s a tremendous discovery, but something which will be extremely difficult to test,” the other Rizonian said.
“I fear we’ll never know for sure what the real cause was of your survival,” Jeelax said. “I will state that it appears what happened was because of a series of unexplained and unparalleled decisions and designs upon which were carried out at exactly the right time which ensured your survival. Any deviation of these events would have resulted in your destruction.”
“So, everything was luck,” Buck stated.
“Sounds like it,” Wilma said. “Your instincts probably served you well.”
“Sometimes it’s better to lucky than good,” Buck stated, feeling as if that meant more than ever before.
“I’m sure our scientist would love to see this information as well,” Theopolis said to them.
“I think we can send our finding to them, not like there is anything here which can really be used for anything else, but it might explain more about why the drives fail so much. I also think the galactic scientific coalition would be interested in what we’ve found out here,” Jeelax replied back to them. “I also think we can conclude that everything you said was the truth.”
Buck rolled his eyes at that, of course it was all the truth, what else would he have been doing.
“I’m glad we come to such an agreement,” Theopolis said. “Earth has no reason to do such a thing against the Rizonian Empire, we value our friendship too much.”
“Yes, I’ll be sure to inform my government of our results, they’ve been expecting our results for a few days now,” Jeelax said.
“Thank you for your information,” Theopolis said to him.
“It was a pleasure to work with you,” Jeelax said, standing and leaving the room.
“Well, that was interesting,” Buck finally said.
“Yes, it was, and explains so much about how you managed to get here,” Theopolis said. “Come along, it’s time to leave.”
“That’s it?” Buck asked.
“Yes, this is how things are done with the Rizonian Empire,” Theopolis replied, as Wilma stood followed by Buck.
They retreated back to the hanger and with permission took off and headed back to Earth. Buck thought it was all very interesting, and the entire trip took less time than expected. The trip back to Earth would take an hour or so with the very efficient drives. Once back he would be able to relax again, perhaps grab a bit to eat and return back to training tomorrow.
*****
Buck exited out of warp into a jumbled mess around Earth.
“Colonel Deering to Earth command, what’s going on?” he heard Wilma asked over the communicator.
“Ma’am, invasion force, unknown,” the reply came back.
“Situation?” she asked.
“Two attack waves, each targeting the NAA, all fighter squadrons have been scrambled,” the reply came back.
Buck turned along with Wilma and Twiki towards the planet.
“All right, Buck, we’ll escort Twiki down to the surface then return back up, I assume you’re fuel is still good,” Wilma asked.
“Seventy percent,” Buck replied, “although weapons were only half filled.”
“It’ll do,” Wilma replied and Buck realized she had the same weapon mounting.
Buck took a moment to study how they were attacking, noticing that while they appeared to be fighting, they were not pushing much. He wondered what their objective might really be, they were not clearing a path for anyone to head down to Earth in any form. It intrigued him as to what they might be doing.
Racing though he thought it was strange that none even attempted to block their path
“Wilma, are they acting strange to you?” Buck asked as Twiki broke away for the landing pad.
“What do you mean?” Wilma asked.
“They don’t appear to have any objective,” Buck said.
“Maybe you’re not seeing it,” Wilma replied.
“That’s why I’m asking for a second opinion,” Buck said. “Find out their objective and you can block them easier.”
Buck followed Wilma back up through the clouds and into outer space again to join the combat going on. He would be her wingmate for this battle as there was no time to re-establish normal wingmates in the middle of battle. Now he lined up an enemy fighter, which looked like someone took a flying saucer and stuck a rocket on one edge.
He quickly lined one up and opened fire, destroying it quickly. All over he noticed similar engagements, the Earth defense force was easily winning which also bothered him. The only thing the defenders had were numbers, but those were being whittled down rather quickly.
Following Wilma he took a moment to study the battlefield again, this time noticing something very unique. Off to one side was a fighter which seemed to be operating rather erratically compared to the other fighters.
“Wilma,” Buck said, gaining her attention in the middle of battle.
“Yeah.”
“See the fighter off in quadrant 36-C?”
“What about it?”
“It’s been operating rather strangely, I’d like to confront it,” Buck stated followed by several seconds of silence.
“Sure you don’t want an easy kill?”
“No, I want to figure out why it’s flying so erratically,” Buck replied, and despite Wilma’s apparent reluctance they turned heading towards the enemy fighter.
It didn’t take long before it appeared the pilot of the enemy fighter appeared to notice them approaching. It turned tail and headed off away from Earth.
“Now, that’s interesting,” Buck said to himself as they closed in.
“Getting a high burst transmission,” control said. “Be careful.”
Before Buck and Wilma could close the distance the enemy fighter suddenly jumped into warp leaving the battlefield. Before he could even fathom what happened the rest of the attack group had turned despite still under attack and fled as well leaving the battlefield suddenly empty except for the Earth defenders.
“All fighters return to base,” the controller said. “Except for squadron six, remain on patrol for now.”
Buck turned and headed towards the surface of the planet and back home. Not exactly how he expected his return to happen, and the odds of them returning in the middle of a battle, he wasn’t sure what the odds were there. He wondered if that ever happened to Wilma before.
His fighter landed, and rolled into the hanger where ground crews were already racing around helping out other fighters, some appeared to be damage, others were perfectly fine, and a few were missing.
“Welcome back Buck,” the ground crew said to him as he stepped out handing his helmet to the man before reaching the ground. “They are having a debriefing in room six.”
“Thanks,” Buck said, making his way over to where Wilma stood before they both continued on to the meeting room.
“You survived your first combat mission in space,” she said to him.
“Very different, yet almost the same as being a fighter pilot back in my time,” Buck said. “The biggest difference, don’t have to worry about crashing down into the ground.”
“Never thought about it that way,” Wilma replied.
“It was odd,” Buck managed to say as they walked down the hallway along with a few others. “How that one fighter retreated and suddenly the rest retreated as well.”
“Probably the commander,” Wilma said.
“If so, where was his escort,” Buck replied. No, something didn’t make sense in his mind and hoped they would gain some information useful about who attacked and why.
*****
Sitting in the briefing room he saw a lot of familiar faces, a few were missing and he had a feeling they had been killed in the battle, though some might have been injured as Wilma and another man walked to the front of the room. Everyone quieted down waiting to hear what they had to say as Buck recognized the man as Eric, the head of intelligence.
“Everyone performed very well,” Wilma said. “Losses were light, and we have a few who were injured, we’ll be getting reports on them in the next couple of hours from medical staff. If anyone else is injured be sure to have medical personal check you out, no matter how small of a scratch. Now, Eric, what can you tell us?”
“Unfortunately intelligence has no knowledge of who attacked us, of even why. We’ll be going over the wreckage very carefully to determine who might have attacked us, and contacting our allies if they have any information on who they are,” Eric said. “For now the Chancellor is stating there is a state of war between us and whoever they are. The ships have been put into our computers, if you see any ship that matches it you are cleared to engaged. Copies of that order have been sent out to our allies, and enemies in case they are also behind it.”
Buck sat back knowing that such a declaration was serious. Whoever had attacked did so without any warning ether it seemed. Why did the future seem to be so complex?
“Are there any questions?” Eric asked.
Buck raised his hand right away. “Any idea as to what their goal was?” Buck asked.
“We’ve analyzed their attack pattern and nothing has come up,” Eric said mirroring Buck’s observation as well. “It very well could have been a test of our strength.”
“In which case, they know exactly what we’re capable of,” Buck stated, uneasy with that.
“Not entirely, the fleet is still stationed at the moon and did not engage,” Wilma said.
Buck felt a bit better knowing not everything had been shown, but still uneasy that someone was testing the defensive abilities of Earth.
“Why did they suddenly leave?” another one asked.
“That, we don’t know,” Eric said.
“They seemed to leave real quick when Wilma and I went after one particular fighter which was flying rather erratically,” Buck replied back recalling the fighter and he had a feeling it was important.
We’re going over all the data now, though your observation appears to be correct. We can only assume it was some sort of commander fighter watching and giving orders,” Eric said.
“Once he saw we were coming towards him he turned and ran, and before he jumped there was that message sent out,” Buck said.
“It is something we will focus on, it could be important in the next battle, if they come back,” Eric replied turning to Wilma. “We’ll have all the data as quickly as possible.”
“I know you will,” Wilma replied, as they watched him walk off.
Buck had the feeling the man was going to be very busy for a while because of everything which happened. He really didn’t envy the man’s job to look for something which may, or may not, be there then give a report to your superiors on it.
“All right, everyone dismissed,” Wilma said.
Buck sat back in the chair even as the others walked out. A few walked over asking if he wanted to join them, he politely declined wanting some time to think over what all happened. He went over everything which happened in the battle, going over it trying to find something about the battle which would make any sense. But nothing did and he finally made his way out of the room, deciding it was a long day and headed to his apartment for some rest. Travelling to the Rizonian Empire, learning how close he came to dying then flying back into a battle, it wasn’t on his list of things to do when he woke up this morning.
End part 17