Opening the mission orders, Eric skimmed through the five paragraph order and his heart sank.

The first mission was a drone fighter operation. The drones were to protect a flight of shuttles carrying avatars as they delivered their cargo to a UE space station. Part of the job was also to attack and strip away point defense weapons on the station so that the shuttles wouldn’t get blasted on approach.

Under Eric’s command were twelve drone fighters and three shuttles. There was no listed success criteria and Eric was pretty sure this scenario was not discussed in any Marine forums so any surprises would be nasty and a test of his responses.

Just like real combat.

It was an expected mission though and more than in scope with what Operation Shadow Strike would try to accomplish. Raiding enemy stations and otherwise conducting various attacks. Doctrine was pretty standard and clear. Six fighters for close in defense and six as a vanguard to strike at point defenses. What could go wrong? Was it just a test of individual skill? Eric doubted that. There would have to be some twist to make this an Operation Shadow Strike type mission.

The mission began and Eric maxed out the speed of his vanguard fighters. They would use their high velocity to attack the station and pave the way. Any weapons fired would get the addition of the fighter’s velocity to their punch, making the attacks harder to detect and intercept.

Sending his acknowledgment Eric instantly found himself controlling the lead drone fighter. Angled behind him at a distance of about a kilometer were five other drone fighters and about fifty kilometers back was the rest of his force, six fighters and three shuttles. They were not accelerating like the vanguard so they were only falling behind quickly.

Piloting a drone was very different from piloting an avatar. Marine avatars could mimic the feel and abilities of a human body. They were remote controlled androids and the avatars arms became Eric’s arms, and the avatar’s legs became Erics. Wearing an avatar it was like wearing another body. Drones on the other hand were less intuitive, although they used the human body as an analog. Pushing his legs, as if standing up increased the acceleration, squatting decreased it. The mental motion of pointing his finger acquired a target and his thumb touching one of the other fingers triggered the weapon. The current drone only had coil guns, blazers, and missiles in pairs, so with practice, which most Marines had, he could point at and fire at two different targets at a time.

The Zeefak-fourteen drone fighters only had six missiles, three in each bay, but they were very tough and able to handle a Marine’s accelerated responses.

On maximum zoom Eric began looking over the space station. Behind the station was a light brown globe, partially masked by a partial shell of white. The briefing had called the planet “Planet Seven” and it was being terraformed. Not that Eric really cared. The planetary gravity well would be useful to reduce his velocity a little. The vanguard fighters would only get one pass at the station before they were flung back into deep space.

At these velocities there would be some time dilation but Eric tried not to think about that too much, he wasn’t going fast enough for it to get too bad, but in the fighter courses they had gone over it in a lot of detail. The fighter was moving at a ninety thousand kilometers per second, which meant time was dilated to ninety-five point four percent. His coil guns and blazers would be inflicting massive damage but then a small chunk of floating space debris would vaporize a fighter.

At these speeds Eric would never see a cloud of debris and the only way he would know the fighter had been splattered is he would wake up back in Marine operations with a splitting headache. Not as bad as having an avatar killed, but it wouldn’t be pleasant.

The focus on the space station made Eric realize what the briefing had failed to mention. The station was the regular massive ring, about ten kilometers in diameter with a central spoke. It was part military and part civilian. Did the bastards intentionally plan on using the civilians as a human shield? Leonis Republic Marine Doctrine was pretty clear on that. Attempts would be made to avoid civilian casualties but they were not allowed to compromise the mission.

“Razor one, this is Edge Control,” a voice said in Eric’s ear. That would be the Fleet officer in command of drone fighter operations. The briefing had said other Marines were conducting other fighter operations in different areas, not that Eric really cared.

“This is Razor one,” Eric said. “Go Control.”

“I’m marking a Hulk class freighter,” Edge Control said. “It appears to be on approach to your station.”

Scanning the area, Eric saw it flag as pink, the typical color for an enemy ships deemed hostile and unarmed. It could turn red quickly though.

“Copy that Edge Control,” Eric said.

For a second Eric considered putting his fighters between the ship and the station so that when they fired at him they might run the risk of hitting the civilian ship but then he discarded the idea. The UE’s would probably fire at him and then blame him for the civilian casualties. Is that what the evaluators wanted? Marines who would do their utmost to inflict damage on the enemy? Or did they want Marines with honor who would not needlessly endanger enemy civilians? They hadn’t said anything in any briefings and for a split second Eric froze with indecision.

Damn.

Eric chose not to use the civilians as a shield. If that was the wrong decision, so be it, but what would his uncle do? His uncle had regrets. Were situations like this the reason why? If these scenarios were what the evaluators were looking for this was going to be harder than he thought. Maintaining his course Eric zoomed into the station some more. The drone fighter was linked with more powerful computers aboard the Reaper Two and a more detailed analysis was underway. Point defense batteries and potentially concealed batteries were highlighted in read and as they were high lighted Eric pointed at them and released a burst from his coil guns which would hopefully shatter any shields and then he released a burst from his plasma guns. Any attacks that failed would continue to remain highlighted and he would deal with them later.

The enemy had not powered up shields yet although Eric saw several shield hard points. Had they detected Eric’s fighters? The freighter likely had and would share that information with the station. Probably. With tachyon links the station would get the information faster than light.

Eric’s other fighters also targeted and fired on possible shield and weapon mounts as well. They didn’t need his authorization once he initiated combat and they would insure more of the station was covered.

Time was moving slow.

Still at two light seconds the space station had not powered up shields yet. This was supposed to be a surprise attack but Eric never put much trust in that. Six seconds took too much time when his mind speed was accelerated. During that time he identified and fired on three confirmed defense batteries and eight suspected batteries. He also fired a couple rounds into a somewhat obvious military only shuttle bay. The vanguard fighters changed course slightly so they didn’t ram the station. Two possible drone launch bays also exploded.

When the light from the eruptions began to reach him Eric felt relief in that they hadn’t had a chance to raise shields yet. The first strike was a complete surprise.

The vanguard shot past the station, a hundred kilometers away. Changing his drone Eric took control of the lead escort drone and watched explosions ripple across the station. Some shields came on but it was too late. The escorts drones and shuttles were braking hard so they didn’t slam into the station at terminal velocity but no weapons fire reached out toward them.

One turret began firing a spread of pellets but one of Eric’s other fighters quickly lanced it with blazers. Each fighter was tasked with covering a sector of the station while Eric could target anything.

The turret fell silent. Two drones dropped out of a bay Eric hadn’t seen but the other drone fighters were quick to target and destroy them before the enemy drones could accelerate to a point they were hard to hit. The shuttles began sliding into potential boarding spots. He hadn’t lost a single shuttle. So far so good. Eric expected things to go wrong any second, that’s just how the scenarios were usually designed. Something always went wrong when it was least suspected.

In the lead fighter Eric waiting for something to go wrong, hoping he would be able to respond properly in time. He had to get those three shuttles docked and the avatars offloaded.