As I made my way through the ship, I tried to make sense of the situation. I was almost certain that we were in a drill, the fact that Commodore Ming had announced we would be participating in a wargame was one hint. Another was that either, the ship wasn’t accelerating at all or that, for some magical reason, only the artificial gravity was disabled, not the inertial dampening of which it was part of. Otherwise, the acceleration of the ship might have turned me, and everyone else onboard, into a red, chunky smear on the nearest bulkhead. But, as I considered things, pushing myself quickly through the corridors, I realised that it just didn’t matter at all. I had my orders, I had somewhere to be, so, unless that part of the ship was exposed to vacuum, I would go there.

Just as fast as that thought came, I sealed up my ship-suit, quite happy that I had remembered to take the helmet to breakfast with me. It had been turned into a conditioned reflex at the academy and I was quite grateful for that.

Halfway on my way to flight-country, I saw Commodore Ryker and followed behind him, taking up a flanking position, as if we were outside and I was flying wing-position. I hadn’t a weapon to cover him, but it felt right to me.

We didn’t speak, I simply followed behind him, and when we got to flight-country, I split off, moving into the ready-room, where i was supposed to be. He pushed off, moving into his office and out of my sight. The room was already nest to full, making me wonder if the other pilots had known something I hadn’t been aware off, an idea strengthened by the fact that, just after I had pushed myself onto a seat, the rest of the official pilots entered. The only one missing were the Commodores and Cadet Trezt, which made my suspicions even stronger.

A quick check of my clock told me that, since the alarm had gone off, only two minutes had passed. It felt a lot longer, but that was why we had clocks, because human temporal perception was quite bad.

At the three minute-mark, Commodores Ming and Ryker entered. This time, there was noone jumping to their feet to salute, instead everyone remained seated and gave the gesture of respect. It was simply problematic to jump up in zero gravity, especially if there might be sudden acceleration.

“Everyone, as you might have expected, this is a drill. The first part of it, is to get all sixteen Starfighters of Carmine Squadron into space with less than ten minutes of warning. The next part will be a simulated battle against another cruiser and I expect domination. We are the Carmine Squadron, so we will use the blood of our enemies to paint our Starfighters red!” Commodore Ming barked. Again, there was a sound of fists striking cloth as everyone saluted.

I was feeling a little out-of-sorts, having been unable to check my fighter before, having not even seen my fighter before, but I would do my part, right next to my wing-man. As was my job.

The meeting, short as it had been, was dismissed and I quickly made my way over to Commodore Ryker, following behind him.

“Commodore, what is Carmine standard starting order?” I asked when he had a moment of time, even if I internally cringed. I should know that, but there simply hadn’t been any time to learn those procedural things yet, not with the hours of simulator-time he had put me through.

“Normally, we would launch third but it seems your fellow Cadet changed the order. Unless he is here within the next few seconds, we’ll launch second.” he paused for a moment and, through the open face-plate of his helmet, I saw his eyes widening a little.

“For now, come with me. I’ll show you where your Starfighter is and you can do a quick walk-around. Hurry, we don’t have much time and I don’t want to explain to the Dragonlady why we are not ready.” he continued, giving a glance to Commodore Ming. If Dragonlady was her call-sign, whoever had coined it had hit the nail on the head. And I could understand his reticence to annoy her, she was one scary lady.

Commander Siloh and Lieutenant Wirum joined us on the way out and we quickly made our way over to the hangar area. There were techs moving around the fighter-bays with accustomed ease and I was introduced to the crew who were keeping the Starfighter of Captain Jayre in top condition. Still, despite the fact that they were professionals, I took the time to do the usual walk-around, internally psyching myself up while following the checklist I had saved on my computer. It was, quite frankly, not much that could be seen and done, but I asked the required questions of my bay-crew and got the answers I needed to hear. It was, in a way, a ritual, the bay-crew turned the Starfighter over to me, the pilot. Without one, the other would be useless and both sides knew that.

“Carmine Wing 2, get ready to launch!” a voice echoed over the hangar-area’s PA-system while I supressed a sympathetic wince for Cadet Trezt. I finished my walk-around with a little time to spare, finding only a bright-red, radar-reflector at the back of my Starfighter, nothing that would have influenced the actual performance but it would have made me stand out to every detector out there. Judging by the grins on the faces of the bay-crew and the other pilots, it was a usual prank, teaching the cadets that routines and practices were there for a reason. I just made sure that I hadn’t missed anything obvious, before getting into the Starfighter while the other pilots got into theirs.

Once I was strapped in and sure that I wouldn’t be thrown around too much, I connected the Hardware in my skull to the hardware in the Starfighter. It only took moments before I felt the familiar feeling of expansion. Humans were simply too slow to fight at the breakneck pace Starfighter combat required, their senses and limbs needing too much time to make it efficient. At the same time, every time it had been tried, human pilots had outperformed artificial pilots by a big enough margin that training and keeping human pilots had been deemed worthwhile. So, instead of trying to improve computers, to make them better, even if I was certain people were working on it, they improved the pilots, implanting them with computer-chips that worked with the Starfighters to integrate seamless control.

Delving into the Starfighter-menu, I made sure that everything was as it should b. When I got to the inertial compensator, it was a little on the painfully low side. I wasn’t sure if it was done on purpose, in another lesson that might result in very painful bruises and some embarrassment or if the normal pilot preferred it that way, possibly using a specially padded flight-suit. Setting the compensator lower gave a better perception of the Starfighter, allowing to fly it closer to the limits, or so some people claimed but the acceleration could be painful for the pilot. I set it to my preferred values, still lower than some but not to the point that I would bruise, until I stressed the fighter to the limits of official tolerances.

Once I was ready, I logged that into the squadron’s network and, just moments later, the light for Carmine 11, Wildcat, turned amber, signalling that the third wing was completely ready to be shot into the void. Wing 1 was still missing two lights, the one for Commodore Ming and Cadet Trezt, but there was no way I would be able to worry about hm. I had my own Starfighter to fly and fight, without slowing my Wingman down.

“Carmine Wing 3, get ready to launch.” the same voice announced over the Squadron-channel and I was quite sure it was audible in the hangar-area. The vibrations going through my Starfighter told me that I was being shunted into the launch-tube, ready to be shot into space. A countdown appeared in my mind, telling and indicators showed me that I was about to leave the cruiser, to ride the void.

And then, with the familiar pressure that drove me into the pilot-seat of my star-fighter, I was out, in the void, dancing with the stars.

Now, I just had to make sure I didn’t miss my steps, or I might have a very short career.

“Twitch, you take the wing.” Manta, Carmine 9, Commodore Ryker, told me over our paired channel. Without hesitation, I acknowledged, my mind already using the Starfighter’s sensors to locate him and nudging it into position. As soon as I was there, my mind quickly went over the data we had received from the Merathorn’s Combat Center, making sure that I had an idea what we were going into. For now, our objective was to get all Starfighters into space, which was why Carmine Wing 2 and 3 were loitering near the Cruiser, waiting for the rest of our Squadron.