Buck Rogers
by AJ Marks
Part 20
Buck was jolted from his napping in the lounge by an alarm. He paused trying to think what it might mean, it was the normal alert alarm he was used to hearing when they were to scramble. He got to his feet seeing no one else in the room and headed outside seeing a few people who were making their way down the hallway.
“What’s going on?” Buck asked.
“Ready alert,” the man replied back to him.
“Right,” Buck said, recalling the different stages and ready alert was similar to yellow alert in that everyone was to be ready and several defenses were to be manned. As a pilot he was to be ready to go which usually meant heading to the briefing room so he headed off down the hallway.
Inside all the pilots of the first squadron were assembled looking around at each other. To Buck he realized that no one knew what was going on and everyone hoped someone else knew. He fended off a few questions with questions of his own as Wilma came into the room.
“Settle down everyone,” she said to them. “One of the patrols has discovered several large warships in orbit around Jupiter. When are not sure they discovered the patrol, but we are to head out to provide backup in case the fleet needs assistance, we’ll be in orbit ready to jump.”
Buck had the information now about why the alert was called and they were going to be back up.
“All other squadrons are on alert, as is the UEA and their defenses in case someone else tried to attack us during this short time period. All fighters are to scramble and meet up in sector C-3,” she said to them. “Dismissed.”
Buck stood and walked over to her.
“So, they really found a fleet of ships,” he asked her.
“Yeah.”
“This is getting complicated,” Buck said even as he hoped they would talk to them instead of shooting. However he had a gut feeling they were not going to talk by the way they acted at first. “You think they’ll talk?”
“Honestly, I hope so,” Wilma replied. “Oh yeah, Eric informed me that they are keeping an eye on the man, Tim Jorston just in case he makes a move during all of this.”
“Yeah, that’s a good idea,” Buck said, yet he couldn’t help thinking if everything was all related somehow. “I better get going.”
Buck left the room and headed to his fighter pondering what this mission might hold.
*****
Buck waited in his fighter, having put the coordinates into the computer for the jump and now they were in a holding pattern to see if they were even needed. The fleet had taken off not long ago, and they were waiting for contact with the fleet.
“First squadron, move out, they’ve started shooting, you are clear to engage,” Wilma’s voice said.
Buck reached over to engaged his jump drive even as the nervousness and excitement of combat rushed through his body. The jump would take only a few minutes, if that, to reach Jupiter and once there he would be able to see what was going on. Even before his jump engines engaged he saw two fighters in front of him accelerate and move out.
His fighter suddenly accelerated and the moon rushed back in a blur even as he watched he could see nothing out the cockpit of the fighter, unlike all the video games and movies, warp was really boring.
Even as he thought it the fighter returned to normal space and he saw the massive shape of Jupiter and looked down at his scanners to see where the battle was going on. Even as he watched several fighters popped onto his scanner as they dropped out of warp close by and he spared a thought that none of them would crash into him.
Turning his fighter towards the battle he accelerated along with several others and listened in on the communications channel. The battle seemed to be full engaged between the two ships.
“This is the first squadron, where do you need us?” Wilma’s voice said over the communicator.
“First squadron, help out the cruiser Heracles,” the reply came back. “They are under intense fighter attack.”
“One it,” Wilma said. “First squad, you heard her, let’s go.”
Buck saw an area light up on his scanner and HUD indicating the target area and pushed for maximum thrust to get into combat. As he got closer he spotted several light flashes and what he thought were explosions as they closed in.
“Heads up, we’ve got incoming fighters,” Aaron’s voice said.
“Break and attack.”
Buck turned and headed into battle, watching his scanner as the targets appeared before opening fire. His lasers flew straight and true destroying an enemy fighter rather quickly. He felt more at ease this time than last, especially considering he figured they were remote controlled fighters again.
The two groups engaged with the first squadron destroying several of the enemy fighters rather quickly for very light losses. He swung his fighter around lining up another enemy fighter and quickly destroying it. The remote ships operated with the same single-mindedness he experienced the first time and quickly adjusted his flying to match them. They were weak with fast erratic maneuvers.
“Buck, what are you doing?” Wilma asked.
“Flying erratically, it throws off their aiming systems,” Buck replied as there was silence for several seconds.
“Got it,” Wilma replied back. Within seconds he noticed almost every other Thunderfighter doing the same thing. It might throw their aiming off a bit but they were able to adjust quicker.
He eliminated his third fighter and took a second to look around, this time seeing no control fighter which made him wonder about it. Was it hiding somewhere until he realized the main control came from the ships, not some fighter.
“Wilma, do we have a way to destroy the communications arrays on those enemy ships?” Buck asked.
“Perhaps, why?” Wilma asked.
“It might throw these fighters in confusion,” Buck replied.
“I’ll inform the fleet, they might be able to target those systems better than we can,” Wilma replied.
“Good,” Buck replied avoiding fire from another fighter which another pilot took care of for him. They had thinned the enemy fighters down quite a bit, including the fighters from the fleet which were similar to the Thunderfighter but without the warp engines.
He looked over to see another pilot in trouble and quickly turned to take out the enemy fighter with a quick, efficient shot and heard a quick thanks as everyone went back to work. The jerking of the fighter meant that the enemy fighters missed most of their shots. There were a few who were destroyed and others were damaged. Those who were damaged were order to one of the fleet ships for repairs instead of trying to jump back home with a damaged ship.
Suddenly the enemy ships turned confusing Buck as they stopped firing. Several others stopped as well but Buck had a sudden thought, kamikazes and continued to fire, destroying two more.
“Buck, what are you doing?” Wilma asked.
“Is there any communication they have surrendered?” Buck asked, linking up another fighter.
“No, but we need to give them the opportunity,” Wilma said.
“And if they are kamikazes?” Buck replied listening as there was silence.
“What are those?”
“Suicide bombers, they use the fighters to crash into our ships,” Buck said. “And if they are remote controlled they won’t stop.”
“Two enemy ships destroyed, the remaining ones are about to jump,” he heard another voice say.
“They’re leaving the fighters behind to cover for their jump and hopefully inflict major damage to our fleet,” Buck said to her.
“Fleet, any indication of a surrender?” Wilma asked.
“None.”
Buck destroyed another fighter even as Wilma gave the order to continue. Buck’s gut feeling was proved correct when the fighters started accelerating towards the fleet ships.
“Fleet, the fighters have turned into suicide bombers,” Wilma announced.
“Understood.”
Buck continued to fire eliminating as many as possible, but even then several got though impacting on several warships. A large explosion indicated at least one ship was destroyed even as the all clear sounded and no more enemy ships appeared on the scanners.
“First squadron, any ships undamaged are to jump back to Earth, if you are damaged report to the fleet for landing instructions,” Wilma said.
Buck headed out even as several asked for landing instructions. His fighter was undamaged, and all systems reported green. Reaching the jump area he activated his engines and accelerated back to Earth and the debriefing that awaited him there.
*****
Buck waited in the briefing room along with several others. From a squadron of thirty-six, he learned six had been killed in battle, two pilots had been recovered and a further eight had been damaged reducing the number in the room to twenty-two more somber individuals.
Still, he considered himself lucky so many survived the battle, especially after one like this. He though the battle would have destroyed and killed more in the squadron considering the remaining squadrons had stayed in Earth’s orbit. He looked up as Wilma walked into the room.
“You all did very well,” she said to them. “I want to commend you all for your hard work.”
“It was Buck’s idea which really helped,” another one said.
“Where’d you learn that?”
“It reminded me of playing against bots in computer games online in my time,” Buck replied back to them.
“Bots?”
“Computer controlled enemies in online games,” Buck said, “they could be very difficult, but also very easy depending on how you played.”
“So you’re advice came from playing a computer game?” another asked sounding a bit disbelieving of such tactics.
“Yep,” Buck replied back to him.
“Well, whatever, it worked,” Wilma said. “We’ll keep it in mind if we have to fight them again.”
“Did we gain any information about who they were?” another asked.
“Unfortunately no, they were not talkative,” Wilma answered. “They attacked almost right away from the moment the fleet dropped out of warp.”
“So another unanswered mystery.”
“We have intelligence teams already racing to the site to gain information about who, and hopefully where, they came from,” Wilma said to the group indicating the wreckage from the battle.
“If we ever learn who they are?” another said, and Buck had to admit the realization that they would ever know was slim at best.
“You’re all on break for the next twenty-four hours,” Wilma said. “Get some rest, the fourth squadron will be taking over our patrols.”
The group relaxed a bit, but knew an alert could happen at any moment but not being on patrol, or alert meant they had time to mobilize if anything did happen. Everyone stood and walked out to relax and Buck made his way over to where Wilma stood.
“Want to grab a bit to eat?” he asked her.
“Can’t, work is calling,” Wilma replied apologetically.
“I figured, you being the head of the defense squadrons, a lot of paper work I suppose,” Buck said.
“How about later?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’ll look forward to it,” Buck answered.
“Good, I’ll give you a call when I’m done,” Wilma said.
Buck made his way out of the room and headed towards the transports to head back to his apartment. Entering the transport he quickly changed his mind and headed towards one of the shopping and entertainment areas hoping to unwind a bit after everything which happened.
End part 20