Blackstone
A simple writer
Dungeon Master
Inner Sanctum Nobility
♔ Champion ♔
Nathan was seething inside. He was also irritable, but his irritation could be marked down to his wounds from the last engagement still causing him some pain and itching like hell. Damn how he hated the new bio-gel. Sure, the shit worked wonders, but they had not been able to reduce the reaction rate. One out of four people were still stuffed from a rash or hives from the stuff, and Nat was one of them. Still, it was better than the old fashion stitches and got him back into the fight where he belonged.
He certainly did not belong where he was right now, off his carrier and back at fleet headquarters. He had been pulled from duty two weeks ago. It took eight days to get to Midway Station from the front, and he had spent the last four days being wine and dined by big brass and politicians over his victory at Vesta Cloud. A modern-day battle of Midway people called it. Seven enemy fleet carriers dead, eighteen capital ships in all destroyed, and the plan to make it so was Nathan's. he suggested it, drafted the ops plan, and led the combined carrier strike which decapitated the enemy.
Not without a cost.
Only three capital ships, one of them a carrier, were lost in response. At least that was what all the NEWS outlets were focusing on. Nathan had a different perspective. Four out of ten. How many fighters made it back to their carriers. Out of the people who made it back, twenty-two percent were no longer combat effective. Same for the fighters as almost all of them were damaged. At the end of the day, a fighting force of nearly one thousand carrier-launched fighters and support craft was cut down to just over three hundred. They won, but at a terrible price.
Inwardly Nathan snarled. It was why he should be back out there onboard the Conviction. They received some jeep carriers to support them after the battle and brought their combat strength up to over five hundred fighters. With a group like that, Nathan could cut a swath through enemy controlled space, hit them where it hurt in supply lines, planet-based production centers, even space born repair facilities, many of them with enemy ships in them, sitting ducks right now. The loss of Veridian would be a huge blow and put them on the offensive, just for once.
He let loose a harsh sigh which seethed through him. He was here now, sitting in the office of the Director of Training. Why the hell was he even here? He could understand if the J3 wanted to sit down with him, or even the J2, but the J1? Nathan knew nothing about training other than the sorties he flew to stay current in his certifications. All he cared about was his pilots were also current. He did not care how they got there as long as they were done. They had a war to win against the Snakes after all.
His musings were interrupted when the door opened and a woman in uniform stepped through. What surprised Nathan was she was a Marine and not Navy. He was not current on fleet staff, but to him it seemed like a waste of a sport to have a proven combat leader heading up J1. She stepped forward and offered her hand. "Commander Nathan Barnes? I'm Major General Valerie Coleman, please, come on in and have a seat."
It was her hand which told him the story as to why she was here in her current post. Her hand was metal, a prosthetic, thus a field command was out of the question, but an HQ billet she could easily fill, freeing up someone else for the front. It was a cold calculator, and it was not to say she was unfit for combat, just not ideal. If push came to shove, she would be out there with her Marines again, spitting both fire and venom. It might not be too much longer till such was the case if they did not change the course of the war.
When she mentioned her name, Nathan knew of her. The battle of Europa to push the enemy out of the home solar system. She was a colonel then, and obviously was wounded in the battle. She earned the Navy Cross for rallying the Marines about her and making a push to eliminate the anti-space defenses the enemy had set up. It allowed the fleet to deploy close air support operations. Once air superiority was established over the moon, the battle was over, and the system was liberated. Again, not without a cost. Her arm was the least of it. Eight out of ten Marines died on Europa. Nathan thought he had it bad during Vesta.
Nathan tried to keep his anger and irritation under control. The woman was a hero and perhaps wanted time with him like the other brass. He could give her the hour or so she wanted. The sooner he did the sooner he would be back to the Conviction and back into the fight. He followed the General back into her office and waited till she took a seat, refusing her offer of refreshment. He was not trying to be rude but again, he wanted this done. He sat down when she did and waited. He did not have long to wait.
"I'm a Marine, Commander, and I don't do small talk or beat around the bush. I know you want to know why you are here. It's simple. You were transferred as of ten days ago from combat operations to training. Your new assignment is the 33rd Training Group as its new commander. The 33rd is responsible for Advanced Tactical Flight Operations. As you know from your own training, it's the last step for pilots before they get their assignments. We need you to take over."
Nathan was floored. He was not going back to the Conviction at all but back to Earth, to a fucking training group, a place where they hang people out to dry who can't cut it on the front line. Who in the hell did she think she was! He shot right out of his chair. "General, I am a combat pilot, and the best. Now is not the time to take out of the fight. We need to be out there, cutting the fucking Snake's jugular. A Training Group? Really! Come on, this is bullshit."
"Sit. Down."
Nothing more than those two words, spoken calmly but with a quiet and steely menace to let Nathan know she could put him down if she wanted to, and she was not about to put up with his attitude and shit. He sat down but was still fuming. When he was back in his chair she spoke again, keeping with the same tone. "Do you know what I took away from the Battle of Vesta?"
Nathan scoffed and parroted what every other big brass and politician had said to him during the last four days. "Turning point in the war, worst defeat yet for the Snake, today's Midday."
What she said next slid home to him like a knife, right to the heart, sending a wave of coldness through him. "418 dead aviators, and it's your fault."
He stood there gapping at her. How did she know? How could know what woke him up in the middle of the night in the aftermath of the battle? He told the medics it was his wounds and the medi-gel but in reality, it was the faces of people, friends, he was never going to see again. Ace, Rook, Mamma, Sin, Checkers, all of them gone, never to share a laugh with him, a drink with him, dead in the buzzsaw they ran into when they attacked the enemy.
The General picked up a tablet and started to read. "It is my belief that the lack of experience in close encounter tactics caused the most casualties among our CAP. While they paired off in wingman formation it was clear they were not well drilled on the capabilities of the enemy ships, and the lack of disciplined tactics and this lack of intel led to the most casualties among our strike group."
She put the tablet down and fixed him with a hard stare. "Straight from your after action report of the battle. You had four days to train them. I reviewed all your training runs, not once did you simulate any close encounter engagement. It was your ops plan, and you never once thought you would get into a knife fight. You, who has the most close encounter kills of any naval aviator in the Fleet. It never crossed your mind, and it eats you up inside because you know if you had, you would have countered what happened, and maybe, just maybe, more of your friends would still be here."
Nathan had nothing to say. She was right. He did not go with his gut and got talked out of the close encounter engagement training. Everyone was so sure the new sensor package on the Sentries would give them the edge in beyond visual range engagements, to wipe out most of the enemy before the enemy even knew they were there. They were wrong. Jamming had gone up the moment the first kill was scored. He did not know how many of the enemy CAP they took out, but it was far less than the simulations projected, and before anyone knew it, they were in a knife fight for their lives.
The General let it all sink in, to leave Nathan with his thoughts before she spoke again, her voice softening some, an edge of sympathy and compassion in it. "I've been there, son, where your mind is at right now, and I got the seventeen percent body as metal and plastic, and eight thousand dead Marines, to prove it. What happens now is what you do with it. Sure, you could go back to the Conviction, insist on the next operation you do it right this time, but what then? You fix the behavior of one fleet? What about our other fleets out there? We leave them so they go through buzzsaws like you did? That's not a way to win a war."
She stabbed her finger hard into her desk, leaving a small dent into it. "You solve a problem by tearing it out by the root, tossing it away, and putting something better in its place. You think the best place for you now is out on the front line? Bullshit. The best place for you right now in this war is at the 33rd, kicking ass and taking names there and training the next generation of flight and squadron commanders. It's not only Nuggets you will be training there, but veterans from the front lines too. Everyone will have a mandatory refresher course in Advanced Tactical Flight Operations. Rip up their doctrine there, make a new one, turn these old pilots and new kids into warriors, so the next time we have a fleet engagement like we did, it will be us sending the Snakes home in body bags, instead of the other way around. As it stands, all we earned at Vesta was an eighteen-month reprieve. That's how long you got, Crash, eighteen months. Now, are you going to Marine up and take on that challenge, or you going to be a little bitch and turn in your wings here and now. Those are your choices, what are you going to do?"
The auditorium was packed. Commander's Call was mandatory but, in this day and age of electronics, people could screen in via remote from other duty locations. In the past the 33rd Training Group's auditorium had maybe thirty, forty people who bothered to attend in person. This was different. This was Crash Barnes! Ace of aces in the war, hero of Vesta, recipient of the Navy Cross and three Silver Stars with valor. The man was a legend, and he was here, now as their new commander and the air about the 33rd had changed. It was electric and it was standing room only in the auditorium, breaking whatever fire safety regulation the building had for maximum occupancy.
At precisely 0900L, Nathan walked out onto the stage. The shout went out from somewhere in the crowd "Captain on deck!" in the age-old tradition of the military informing the room there was a senior officer now present on the floor. It was another surprise about his assignment, the field promotion. He was assured the next promotion board it would be approved, and he could knock the "field" off the front of promotion, but for all intents and purposes, he was a Captain now, a rank in the Navy in days of old when a Captain was speaking the crew assumed it was with the voice of God himself. He did not know what his future held, and he honestly was not too concerned with it. He was focused on the present. It was time to stop bitching and get to work. He had a job to do.
"At ease, and good morning. For those of you living in caves or under rocks, I am Captain Nathan Barnes, callsign "Crash". Yes, that Crash, and I am your Commanding Officer as of yesterday. Yesterday was the last easy day each and everyone of you will have here. The war is not going well. We are losing too many people, too many pilots, to the Snakes, and I am fucking tired of writing letters to families. I have lost too many people, too many friends, seen too many kids crying, to let it continue."
There was a small pause to let the weight of his words sink in before continuing. "It all ends, starting today. Everyone, right here, right now, forget what you think you know. Put it all aside as what you know is wrong. I have been out there, in the fight, teeth bared and hands bloody from the chaffing my flight gloves gave me working the stick. It's a different world than what you know, and starting today, I am going to teach it to you so when you get out there in the fleet, we can tell the Snakes no more, not today, as you are going to be a new breed of fighter pilots. Strap in people, as school is about to be in session."
Watching on a screen, back at Midway Station, Major General Valarie Colmen smiled a warrior's smile, the one which did not reach her eyes and had enough steel in it to make people wonder if she had a knife gripped between her teeth. She had to fight the whole fleet establishment, call in all of her markers, but she got what she wanted. The right man now at the right place and time in this war. Now, let's see what this kid's got…
He certainly did not belong where he was right now, off his carrier and back at fleet headquarters. He had been pulled from duty two weeks ago. It took eight days to get to Midway Station from the front, and he had spent the last four days being wine and dined by big brass and politicians over his victory at Vesta Cloud. A modern-day battle of Midway people called it. Seven enemy fleet carriers dead, eighteen capital ships in all destroyed, and the plan to make it so was Nathan's. he suggested it, drafted the ops plan, and led the combined carrier strike which decapitated the enemy.
Not without a cost.
Only three capital ships, one of them a carrier, were lost in response. At least that was what all the NEWS outlets were focusing on. Nathan had a different perspective. Four out of ten. How many fighters made it back to their carriers. Out of the people who made it back, twenty-two percent were no longer combat effective. Same for the fighters as almost all of them were damaged. At the end of the day, a fighting force of nearly one thousand carrier-launched fighters and support craft was cut down to just over three hundred. They won, but at a terrible price.
Inwardly Nathan snarled. It was why he should be back out there onboard the Conviction. They received some jeep carriers to support them after the battle and brought their combat strength up to over five hundred fighters. With a group like that, Nathan could cut a swath through enemy controlled space, hit them where it hurt in supply lines, planet-based production centers, even space born repair facilities, many of them with enemy ships in them, sitting ducks right now. The loss of Veridian would be a huge blow and put them on the offensive, just for once.
He let loose a harsh sigh which seethed through him. He was here now, sitting in the office of the Director of Training. Why the hell was he even here? He could understand if the J3 wanted to sit down with him, or even the J2, but the J1? Nathan knew nothing about training other than the sorties he flew to stay current in his certifications. All he cared about was his pilots were also current. He did not care how they got there as long as they were done. They had a war to win against the Snakes after all.
His musings were interrupted when the door opened and a woman in uniform stepped through. What surprised Nathan was she was a Marine and not Navy. He was not current on fleet staff, but to him it seemed like a waste of a sport to have a proven combat leader heading up J1. She stepped forward and offered her hand. "Commander Nathan Barnes? I'm Major General Valerie Coleman, please, come on in and have a seat."
It was her hand which told him the story as to why she was here in her current post. Her hand was metal, a prosthetic, thus a field command was out of the question, but an HQ billet she could easily fill, freeing up someone else for the front. It was a cold calculator, and it was not to say she was unfit for combat, just not ideal. If push came to shove, she would be out there with her Marines again, spitting both fire and venom. It might not be too much longer till such was the case if they did not change the course of the war.
When she mentioned her name, Nathan knew of her. The battle of Europa to push the enemy out of the home solar system. She was a colonel then, and obviously was wounded in the battle. She earned the Navy Cross for rallying the Marines about her and making a push to eliminate the anti-space defenses the enemy had set up. It allowed the fleet to deploy close air support operations. Once air superiority was established over the moon, the battle was over, and the system was liberated. Again, not without a cost. Her arm was the least of it. Eight out of ten Marines died on Europa. Nathan thought he had it bad during Vesta.
Nathan tried to keep his anger and irritation under control. The woman was a hero and perhaps wanted time with him like the other brass. He could give her the hour or so she wanted. The sooner he did the sooner he would be back to the Conviction and back into the fight. He followed the General back into her office and waited till she took a seat, refusing her offer of refreshment. He was not trying to be rude but again, he wanted this done. He sat down when she did and waited. He did not have long to wait.
"I'm a Marine, Commander, and I don't do small talk or beat around the bush. I know you want to know why you are here. It's simple. You were transferred as of ten days ago from combat operations to training. Your new assignment is the 33rd Training Group as its new commander. The 33rd is responsible for Advanced Tactical Flight Operations. As you know from your own training, it's the last step for pilots before they get their assignments. We need you to take over."
Nathan was floored. He was not going back to the Conviction at all but back to Earth, to a fucking training group, a place where they hang people out to dry who can't cut it on the front line. Who in the hell did she think she was! He shot right out of his chair. "General, I am a combat pilot, and the best. Now is not the time to take out of the fight. We need to be out there, cutting the fucking Snake's jugular. A Training Group? Really! Come on, this is bullshit."
"Sit. Down."
Nothing more than those two words, spoken calmly but with a quiet and steely menace to let Nathan know she could put him down if she wanted to, and she was not about to put up with his attitude and shit. He sat down but was still fuming. When he was back in his chair she spoke again, keeping with the same tone. "Do you know what I took away from the Battle of Vesta?"
Nathan scoffed and parroted what every other big brass and politician had said to him during the last four days. "Turning point in the war, worst defeat yet for the Snake, today's Midday."
What she said next slid home to him like a knife, right to the heart, sending a wave of coldness through him. "418 dead aviators, and it's your fault."
He stood there gapping at her. How did she know? How could know what woke him up in the middle of the night in the aftermath of the battle? He told the medics it was his wounds and the medi-gel but in reality, it was the faces of people, friends, he was never going to see again. Ace, Rook, Mamma, Sin, Checkers, all of them gone, never to share a laugh with him, a drink with him, dead in the buzzsaw they ran into when they attacked the enemy.
The General picked up a tablet and started to read. "It is my belief that the lack of experience in close encounter tactics caused the most casualties among our CAP. While they paired off in wingman formation it was clear they were not well drilled on the capabilities of the enemy ships, and the lack of disciplined tactics and this lack of intel led to the most casualties among our strike group."
She put the tablet down and fixed him with a hard stare. "Straight from your after action report of the battle. You had four days to train them. I reviewed all your training runs, not once did you simulate any close encounter engagement. It was your ops plan, and you never once thought you would get into a knife fight. You, who has the most close encounter kills of any naval aviator in the Fleet. It never crossed your mind, and it eats you up inside because you know if you had, you would have countered what happened, and maybe, just maybe, more of your friends would still be here."
Nathan had nothing to say. She was right. He did not go with his gut and got talked out of the close encounter engagement training. Everyone was so sure the new sensor package on the Sentries would give them the edge in beyond visual range engagements, to wipe out most of the enemy before the enemy even knew they were there. They were wrong. Jamming had gone up the moment the first kill was scored. He did not know how many of the enemy CAP they took out, but it was far less than the simulations projected, and before anyone knew it, they were in a knife fight for their lives.
The General let it all sink in, to leave Nathan with his thoughts before she spoke again, her voice softening some, an edge of sympathy and compassion in it. "I've been there, son, where your mind is at right now, and I got the seventeen percent body as metal and plastic, and eight thousand dead Marines, to prove it. What happens now is what you do with it. Sure, you could go back to the Conviction, insist on the next operation you do it right this time, but what then? You fix the behavior of one fleet? What about our other fleets out there? We leave them so they go through buzzsaws like you did? That's not a way to win a war."
She stabbed her finger hard into her desk, leaving a small dent into it. "You solve a problem by tearing it out by the root, tossing it away, and putting something better in its place. You think the best place for you now is out on the front line? Bullshit. The best place for you right now in this war is at the 33rd, kicking ass and taking names there and training the next generation of flight and squadron commanders. It's not only Nuggets you will be training there, but veterans from the front lines too. Everyone will have a mandatory refresher course in Advanced Tactical Flight Operations. Rip up their doctrine there, make a new one, turn these old pilots and new kids into warriors, so the next time we have a fleet engagement like we did, it will be us sending the Snakes home in body bags, instead of the other way around. As it stands, all we earned at Vesta was an eighteen-month reprieve. That's how long you got, Crash, eighteen months. Now, are you going to Marine up and take on that challenge, or you going to be a little bitch and turn in your wings here and now. Those are your choices, what are you going to do?"
The auditorium was packed. Commander's Call was mandatory but, in this day and age of electronics, people could screen in via remote from other duty locations. In the past the 33rd Training Group's auditorium had maybe thirty, forty people who bothered to attend in person. This was different. This was Crash Barnes! Ace of aces in the war, hero of Vesta, recipient of the Navy Cross and three Silver Stars with valor. The man was a legend, and he was here, now as their new commander and the air about the 33rd had changed. It was electric and it was standing room only in the auditorium, breaking whatever fire safety regulation the building had for maximum occupancy.
At precisely 0900L, Nathan walked out onto the stage. The shout went out from somewhere in the crowd "Captain on deck!" in the age-old tradition of the military informing the room there was a senior officer now present on the floor. It was another surprise about his assignment, the field promotion. He was assured the next promotion board it would be approved, and he could knock the "field" off the front of promotion, but for all intents and purposes, he was a Captain now, a rank in the Navy in days of old when a Captain was speaking the crew assumed it was with the voice of God himself. He did not know what his future held, and he honestly was not too concerned with it. He was focused on the present. It was time to stop bitching and get to work. He had a job to do.
"At ease, and good morning. For those of you living in caves or under rocks, I am Captain Nathan Barnes, callsign "Crash". Yes, that Crash, and I am your Commanding Officer as of yesterday. Yesterday was the last easy day each and everyone of you will have here. The war is not going well. We are losing too many people, too many pilots, to the Snakes, and I am fucking tired of writing letters to families. I have lost too many people, too many friends, seen too many kids crying, to let it continue."
There was a small pause to let the weight of his words sink in before continuing. "It all ends, starting today. Everyone, right here, right now, forget what you think you know. Put it all aside as what you know is wrong. I have been out there, in the fight, teeth bared and hands bloody from the chaffing my flight gloves gave me working the stick. It's a different world than what you know, and starting today, I am going to teach it to you so when you get out there in the fleet, we can tell the Snakes no more, not today, as you are going to be a new breed of fighter pilots. Strap in people, as school is about to be in session."
Watching on a screen, back at Midway Station, Major General Valarie Colmen smiled a warrior's smile, the one which did not reach her eyes and had enough steel in it to make people wonder if she had a knife gripped between her teeth. She had to fight the whole fleet establishment, call in all of her markers, but she got what she wanted. The right man now at the right place and time in this war. Now, let's see what this kid's got…
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