Chapter 1

Brad Mufflen was a hardworking senior; he had to be, as his family was struggling and he had to work after school to help make ends meet. He wanted to go to a fleet Academy academy and become a Space Force officer, but his grades were B’s not A’s. The more well to do boys always teased him about where in the space force he would end up, but he knew any comments back would just feed the issue. By the middle of his senior year he had gotten the “Thank you but keep trying letter”. The four well to do boys all got selected. To rub it in, Eleanor Hamilton was also selected for an academy position. He had a huge crush on Eleanor, but her father was the president of the Mining mining operation that created the growing settlement here in the Good Fortune system. He had asked her out with his saved funds and she always smiled and apologized but couldn’t go. She knew he was crazy about her, but kept him at arms length. She did not allow her father’s body guards to threaten Brad, but she just made it clear he had no chance. So Brad just worked at various menial tasks and looked for ways to get ahead.

When the class graduated, he just took his diploma and went back to work. The others went off to the academies but Brad found a job at the little Space spacePport that supported Superior, the de facto capital that ran the Good Fortune system. The town of Superior was now 52,000 people and the Good Fortune system had a population of one and a half million and growing. The job at Superior Space Port was basically a custodian with a few little twists due to air locks, luggage and customs and various government agencies related to space transport and passenger service. While no ships were based here, the Space Port did have two shuttles for local transport and whatever else they could be used for.

While it wasn’t his job, he always swept out and emptied the trash whenever one of the shuttles was used. Captain Hara always smiled and took Brad along when he needed a second person aboard and no one else was available, which was often. The flights were all local and boring. But for Brad, it was a fervent interest being answered in a small way. After two years of working there and making a solid reputation for timeliness and good work, the back up pilot just quit for a better job flying a company shuttle for the big mining company, York, McAllister and Hamilton mines. Hara pushed for Brad to be a pilot trainee, but everyone laughed at him. A job offer was put out and renewed multiple times, but few asked about it and no one wanted it for the low pay and boring work conditions. Brad was constantly being pulled to fly with Captain Hara, and after nine months, they just let him have the job as a pilot trainee. It was about the bottom of the pail for a beginning pilot, but it paid better than being a custodian and had some potential for moving up. Captain Hara was a fair task master, but he pushed Brad and taught him a lot of things well beyond what he needed for this job. Brad excelled because he was interested and wanted to get ahead. when the Aliens aliens began attacking, Captain Hara taught him everything he knew about space combat and combat flying. Captain Hara had been in a small scout ship for years and had some pretty hairy stories about mixing it up with the bigger alien ships. When away from the view of the powers in charge, Hara had him doing all sorts of wild maneuvers he had used in combat years before.

Eighteen months later he passed the exam and became a licensed shuttle pilot. He wanted to take the Space Pilot exam too, but the job was not about to pay for that and Brad had nowhere near the funds to go it on his own.

He had seen none of his old school mates, but they would have another nine months of academy to finish. then one Tuesday, Captain Hara was not in when the FSS Shiloh sounded the alarm for an alien attack. Shiloh was the only warship in system or near by for that matter, and she was only a Frigate designed for escort work and recently modified to have one large blue laser along with six smaller yellow lasers to engage incoming missiles or fighters. The Blue blue laser required all the ships power for thirty some seconds to recharge it and required the ship be aimed at the target to engage with it. The yellow lasers worked off a series of capacitors, so could fire six rapid shots before needing to be recharged. the yellow lasers were much less power hungry and all six could be charged while the ships still had 27% of it’s power for movement.

Brad was in the Space space port when the alarm was given and promptly jumped in the ready shuttle and launched to a verbal tirade from the control room and the shuttle coordination office. Brad didn’t understand,; sitting there, they were dead meat as were the shuttles and everything else. He had no clue what he could do with his two yellow lasers that had only one back up capacitor each, but he’d try. His first visual as he cleared the asteroid orbiting Superior was a large missile headed for Superior. He tracked it and fired, hitting the middle of the missile which spewed flame and thrust out the hole and went off course. he could see the various thrusters firing to get it back on course to no avail, as the rocket fuel was eating an ever bigger hole in the side of it. But then there were ships, huge ships with big racks of missiles on the sides. He pointed at the one almost in front of him, third in from his side of the enemy ships and fired the lasers toward the missile rack. Only one laser hit a missile but it started burning in the launcher and the ship obviously tried to jettison it, but it wasn’t ejecting. He turned to his left and up, looping over toward the second ship from the side where he had entered. He noted what looked like windows and fired, only two laser shots as they hadn’t recharged fully. The lasers hit, but he saw no effect from the hits. Rubber necking as Captain Hara had taught himhim, he noted that the ship he had shot the missiles on at was now turning to track him! Only God knew what it was going to shoot his way, but it couldn’t be good. He flew over the number two ship and rolled down between the two huge ships on the side closest to where he had entered. He swooped under the outside most ship and ran, keeping that ship between him and the big one coming his way. The asteroid was rapidly closing so he ducked right and went under it and the then pulled up to keep it between his shuttle and the enemy. there was a huge flash behind him and the asteroid was suddenly closing fast, so he turned to let it go by and looked back. There was a huge expanding mass of junk with flames licking around in it and the big ship was turning his way again. He reversed his turn and dove a little, hoping the mass of junk would block whatever they were shooting his way. But nothing came and the big alien ships seemed to be heading back out toward space. He headed back for the ass chewing he was going to get, but Superior was still there! the aliens hadn’t managed to blow it up.