Chapter 5

"I spy with my little eye, something devoid of all light, sound, and life."

Jackson's joke wasn't all that funny, but Julia and her squaddies all chuckled nervously. As if the vast expanse of space in front of them could be ignored, when in only a few minutes they would all be careening out into it on the most dangerous flight of their lives.

Julia was shaking her leg up and down, venting nervous energy while her fingers drummed across the armrest of her cruiser. The hangar was filled with the noises of hissing steam and the voices of the scrubs below checking gauges and ticking off final flight checklists, but even so Julia felt very alone. She flicked her comms transmit button, keeping the channel open,

"We should have flightsigns," she commented lightly, "in the stories pilots always have code names like 'Big Rig' or 'Hotshot' or 'Red Five' or something."

"That's a good point," Alex's voice crackled across the radio, her light and chipper tone a dead giveaway that she was apprehensive, "Captain, looks like we'll have to scrap this mission."

"Mission cancelled due to lack of necessary flightsigns," Jackson chuckled.

"You'd better come up with flightsigns damn fast then," hearing the Captain's calm voice helped settle Julia's stomach a bit, knowing she would be flying with them.

"I'm all in favor of giving Aimee the callsign 'Squad Pet' and making her our mascot," Marcus suggested, and the sqaddies chuckled again.

"'Squad pet' or 'Li's pet?" Preston asked slyly. Julia grinned. Aimee and Li had been spending an awfully lot of time alone together. The whole squad knew about them, but only Preston would call them out on it. Julia also knew she would be the only one to find his quip amusing. She and Preston had the same sense of humor; one that tended to offend the other squadmates. Bunch of pussies, she thought.

"Preston, a little much," Missy commented, her voice even softer than normal.

"Alright, my bad Aimes," Preston apologized good naturedly. Julia still wasn't used to that, the swaggery young man taking the cue of the tiniest and quietest member of the squad. He had been much nicer to be around since the two of them had started dating, but Julia sometimes missed the swagger and bravado. That, and it was nice to have a squadmate who laughed at her snarkier jokes.

While the apology had apparently satisfied Aimee, Li was apparently not as willing to forgive his crack;

"Hey Preston I'm just curious, how does it feel to be whipped by Missy?"

"What? Missy you've got a whip and you've been holding out on me?" Preston joked.

"I'm saving it for a special occasion," Missy's timid voice transmitted, and after a moment of shocked silence the channel was full of genuine laughter.

"Orbital A control to hangar bay, attention hangar bay. Bay doors are opening. All non-flight personnel please clear hangar floor." The announcement over the official channel quelled the laughter. Julia's stomach clenched as the scrubs moved out, leaving only the double line of cruisers stretching across the room. A slow moving ripple was the only indication that the huge clear wall of the hangar deck was moving, exposing the hangar to space. This is really happening. I'm really doing this. We're about to take on a Drake. She took deep, steadying breaths as the canopy of her cruiser clicked shut, sealing her up the ship. The steady hiss of air recyclers helped her regulate her breathing as she stared ahead at the back of Jackson's cruiser.

"How is everyone holding up?" she asked, just to hear her squadmates' voices. Her foot kept tapping against the thrust pedal, too lightly to activate it, but enough to comfort herself with its physical presence.

"Scared out of my skin, J, scared out of my fucking skin," Tess' voice answered back, and Julia smiled in spite of herself.

"'J'? Are we seriously doing the flightsign thing?" Aimee laughed.

"Roger that Squadpet," Tess imitated the clipped and official tones of Orbital A control, and Julia's grin grew even wider.

"I can't tell you how much I want that to not catch on-" Aimee began, before the real Orbital A cut her off.

"Orbital A control to squadron, attention squadron. Scanners show that the Drake has broken the fog surface. You are cleared for takeoff. Repeat, cleared for takeoff."

The double line of cruisers lifted from the hangar floor in unison, and Julia let out her held-in breath in a whoop, her voice joining several of her squadmates'. They shot out from the hangar in twos, the takeoff smooth and perfect after their countless training runs over the past several months. As Julia's ship slipped into empty space, as smooth a takeoff as anyone could ask for, her nervousness began to melt away. She settled into formation with barely a thought, calmer than she expected to be.

"Okay Rooks," in the stillness of space, without interference from the orbital's electronics, the Captain's voice came through crystal clear in Julia's cockpit. "This is going to be just like any training run. Navigate to the target, fire at the sweet spots, and take it out. Only differences are that this target can't shoot back, and we won't be navigating within a kilometer to it."

"Plus, you know, the possibility of death," Jackson added. Julia's stomach lurched.

"Not gonna happen," the Captain replied reassuringly, "Trust me, I personally know pilots who have taken down Drakes that weren't as good as you Rooks are. The academy wouldn't have suggested you for this if they thought you couldn't do it. Plus you get a pretty orange pin after your first flamer Drake kill, it'll really bring out your eyes Jackson."

Julia grinned, reassured, as she punched a short range destination into her computer. The computer hummed while it compared her destination to those of her squaddies, and lit up 'ready' after it corrected to prevent collisions.

"Alrighty Rooks." The Captain's voice was tight, excited, "I'm taking us in." Her ship strained, and Julia was slammed back into her seat and held there by the acceleration, as the cruisers made a jump that would've taken them five minutes at full speed to traverse. Suddenly the ships decelerated, and then they were there, within visual range of the Drake.

"Hoooooooly fuck," someone breathed on the radio, but Julia was too awestruck and terrified to identify who.

The Drake hovered just a little ways away from the fog, close enough that its tail still hung in the rippling waves of it. It was clearly waiting for them, and it noticed them the second they stopped accelerating, maybe even sooner. A pointed, reptilian head swung around to face them even as their engines quieted. The smooth silky movements of its long neck made it seem more like it was floating in liquid than in space, an illusion made even more confusing by the slow motions it made with huge stubby arms, as if treading water. Even at the distance Julia was holding, the things red eyes glowed so brightly in its head that it seemed like the creature was staring directly at her.

The Drake's pale orange scales caught the light as it unfurled two huge wings, spreading them wide and exposing their dark orange leathery skin.

"Okay, enough gawking," the Captain snapped, "you've seen it, now shoot it!" Her voice broke Julia out of her reverie, and a hundred jets of light shot across the dark star-filled sky as the entire squad opened fire on the creature.

The Drake slammed its wings down in a sweeping motion and shot forward, propelled despite the lack of atmosphere by some mystery that the scientists still hadn't been able to explain to them. Against all logic or physics the Drake banked suddenly, twisting its body and soaring at a sharp angle away from the path it had just been on.

"Alright ladies and gents," Captain Appet's voice was grim over the speakers, "you've seen the whole playbook. We fire, it dodges. Keep it up until you can land a shot or two, and stay a full kilometer away from it."

Julia found it hard to believe that a few shots would be enough to bring the beast down; from wingtip to wingtip it was roughly the length of three of their ships laid end to end. As she squeezed the trigger and watched her shots fall wide, the Drake swinging around them effortlessly, she hoped the Captain was correct. It's going to be hard enough to land just those few.

The cruisers had been jetting towards the beast at full speed, and Julia watched the console carefully as she unleashed her rounds, making sure the distance stayed outside of the dangerously close range. The creature watched the ships as they moved around it, giving it a wide berth. Its beady eyes seemed to size each ship up as they passed, and Julia shivered. There was too much deep and danger in those eyes; even from this distance she didn't want the thing looking at her. Julia broke away at the same time as the rest, swinging around and letting her squadmates in the back take potshots at the Drake.

Faster than she would've thought possible, the creature whipped its body around and burst into motion again, following Marcus' cruiser as he swung around.

"Marcus he's on you!" Julia kicked her thrust into full gear and broke formation, swinging to follow the Drake. Marcus' cruiser blew into full speed, but it slowly accelerated to match, wings moving awkwardly out of sync with its motion.

"If someone could attract his attention..." Marcus' voice was tense, but he kept control of his ship, swinging it from side to side to buy himself precious seconds, " ... I would be very grateful."

"We're on him, we're on him, he's just not breaking off," Julia muttered through her teeth, as Tess, Alex, and Aimee fell into formation with her, taking brief shots when they were sure they wouldn't hit Marcus.

"Marcus, if you can I need you to change course," the Captain said, and Julia marveled at how even and calm she sounded. "If you lead the Drake too close to one of the orbitals we risk him breaking off and attacking it instead."

"Better me than the orbital eh?" Marcus' voice was glum, but still tight.

"That's the job, Marcus," Julia said quietly, loosing a few more shots and mentally swearing when they went wide, "we all signed up for this."

"Listen J, if I don't make it-" Marcus began, but before he could finish the sentence one of Alex's shots landed on the Drake's shoulder. The beast tumbled through space, no longer following Marcus as he pulled his ship off in a different direction. It's mouth was open wide as it spun in the air, releasing what would have been an ear-shattering shriek if it had occurred somewhere with the atmosphere to propagate the sound.

"You got it!" Julia shrieked,

"'Course I got it!" Alex laughed, "the Drake thinks he can mess with Appet's A squadron and keep both its wings?"

Sure enough, as the Drake somehow stabilized, Julia could see that the shot had cleanly separated the creature's wing from its shoulder. It floated a ways off, knocked away by the tumbling. The Drake itself was still matching their speed in front of them a few kilometers off, but flapped awkwardly and turned to watch them.

"Slow down, Rooks, you're gaining on it," the Captain warned, and Julia glanced at her instruments, startled to note that she was indeed coming dangerously close to the kilometer distance. She slowed her cruiser, widening the distance between her and the monster that was floating at roughly the same speed. Aimee, Alex, and Tess were following suit, so the four girls kept in the same formation.

The Drake stopped.

Julia's mind seemed to freeze as adrenaline kicked her in the stomach, and time seemed to slow down. In a handful of seconds, too many thoughts ran through her head to process. The first thought was that it simply wasn't possible. Objects in motion stay in motion, and out here in the void of space, with no friction and barely any gravity, it was incredibly difficult to slow down, let alone come to a complete stop. The second thought was to note just how big the creature was. She was so utterly dwarfed by this creature ... they all were. It loomed, filling her entire view even as she slammed her thrusters in reverse.

We're within a kilometer, Julia realized belatedly, redundantly. There was screaming over the radio, but she couldn't focus on anything but the Drake's eyes. They weren't the eyes of a dumb creature, or even a creature of instinct or learned cleverness. The eyes that looked down at her, with an amused wrinkle in their corners, were evil. They were malevolently intelligent. They were laughing at the squad. They were laughing at her.

The creature lazily reached out an arm as the four rookies shot past, and closed its claws around the back of Julia's cruiser. With a horrible, wrenching feeling, the entire craft slammed to a stop. The restraints pulled tight, buffeting Julia so hard and suddenly that her breath was knocked out of her. Her vision darkened, but she dimly saw the other cruisers swerving to miss the monstrous beast, with just a moment to make the adjustment.

It took a few horrible, painful attempts before Julia was able to gasp in an agonizing breath. Time no longer seemed slowed, but her head spun with the confusion of the moment. Her comm was screaming, her squadmates yelling at her to boost out of the thing's grip, shouting at each other to take a shot, asking what to do. Her stomach lurched as the cruiser was lifted up, and she could hear the metal behind her shrieking as the Drake's claws dug in with a tighter grip.

Her mind slowly clearing, Julia began to panic, slamming her fist into the eject button even though she knew that the mechanisms would've been crushed already. The Drake had lifted her to face-level, watching her struggling through the clear but splintered plasticine canopy. Ignoring the creature watching her, Julia struggled to think of options. Without much hope she squeezed the trigger, but a faint clicking was all that resulted. Nothing. There's nothing I can do. I'm going to die, she realized. She looked into the Drake's eyes, trying as hard as she could to stop her shaking. With a deliberate and slow motion, the creature opened its jaws and spewed a jet of fire directly at the cockpit. Julia screamed, covering her face with a gloved hand and bracing herself for the searing heat, but the flame extinguished the instant it left the Drake's mouth, smothered by the lack of oxygen in the reaches of space.

"Marcus, Jackson, Alex, swing to your left and take your shots," the Captain's voice, just as measured and even as ever, silenced the shouting over comms. For a moment Julia's cruiser was silent except for her panicked breathing, then Captain Appet's calm commands continued, "Preston, Missy, Aimee, fire from its planet-side. Tess, you and I attack from the direction of the orbital. Julia," Julia took deep breaths as she focused on the Captain's voice, "Julia, stay calm. Its flame can't hurt you, and it's too stupid to crush you completely. It won't be able to dodge attacks from three different directions." The creature suddenly swung Julia's ship around, so hard that the pull smacked her head against the chair. "Orbital Academy," the Captain's voice seemed suddenly strained, "if you have measures to take this thing out before it becomes a threat, now would be the time to enact them."

"Orbital A to squadron," the reply seemed amused more than worried, and Julia's helplessness warred with a feeling of rage at whoever was on the other side of those coms, "just to confirm, your team cannot handle this Drake on your own?"

"Captain Leftrain, this isn't the time," the Captain sounded tense, and Julia clutched the armrests of her cruiser to keep her hands from shaking, "We can handle it, but the Drake is too close to the orbital. I'd rather be over-cautious than leave ourselves open to orbital damage." Julia glanced to her right as the Drake adjusted its grip with claws almost as big as she was. It was true, the orbital was far closer than she had assumed. It wouldn't take long if the Drake decided to fly for it, and she hated to think what it could do with its claws to the mechanisms of the orbital.

"We're in position," Preston's voice was just as calm as the captain's, and through the fear Julia felt a surge of pride in her friend. He had lost the arrogance, but the confidence and determination was still there. It helped to hear the assuredness in his voice.

"Ready on this side," Alex sounded more worried, but Julia didn't blame her. Tess didn't say anything, but she must've given the Captain a sign of some sort.

"Attack," Captain Appet ordered. From the corner of her eye Julia saw the jets brighten from the others' engines, but her attention was focused on the Drake. As if it had heard the order, the monster was staring at the Captain's ship. Its head was reptilian, but the twisting at the corners of its long mouth reminded Julia of nothing more than a cruel smile. It drew back its scaled arm, swinging her cruiser in a lazy arc, then hurled the entire ship at Orbital Academy.

The tumbling motion was sickening, but Julia fought against the nausea and panic. The ship was moving slowly, but more importantly it wasn't being held by a monster, and she focused on the controls and instruments rather than spinning view through the cracked canopy. The distance between her and the orbital was roughly fifty kilometers. She wasn't moving as fast as if she had been using her engine, but it wouldn't make a difference if her cruiser ran into the orbital. Julia yanked the thrust forward, but the Drake had been holding her ship by the engines; she wasn't surprised when her trajectory didn't change.

"Julia, can you hear us?" Aimee's voice was faint on the comms, but audible.

"Engines damaged, non-responsive," Julia's voice was grim. A slight hiss told her she was venting air, and she pulled her respirator over her face. "I can't even use an airpush to change direction, I'm leaking."

"Orbital A to squadron, attention Rookie Julia. You're on a collision vector with the orbital at 40 kilometers and closing, please confirm you are without propulsion," the voice on the communication was sounding worried now.

Julia took a deep breath, calculating in her mind. A collision between her cruiser and the orbital would cause a pressure break, even if she assumed her fuel cells didn't explode. In the very best of cases, a crash would mean the loss of a dozens of lives, and the damage could cause hundreds more to be without food or water or vital supplies depending on where she hit. It wasn't really a question.