Chapter Perspective: Novarod

“Frequency masking is activated!” Sera called out.

“Heard,” Vicky responded before Curtis could do it himself.

“Keep those angles as tight as you can Doc,” I said into my own speaker, the direct line between us still activated as we effectively played follow the leader.

“Orale amigo, I got this,” he said.

The path was actually pretty simple, a series of continued, circuitous passes inching closer and closer to the satellite’s orbital path. With Sullivan’s mimicked drone signals causing multiple new drones to appear and disappear from the radar at random, utilizing whatever piece of tech he designed that rotated through the Captain’s ordered paths, the closest satellite was already starting to get confused, and each time I got an enhanced visual of it on the screen window I could see it’s dishes trying to move between the signals.

I had to hand it to Curtis, this wasn’t actually a terrible plan, and using Sera’s knowledge of the radar systems and shielding, our ship suddenly appeared on the radars, at least our own, as an exact copy of the drone that Doc was leading us with. After several of the circuits, as the nearest relay satellite was just hidden within a single blind spot that the Captain had noticed in his planning, I would break off and hit the throttle to blast past, getting us into mid-orbit and out of the line of sight of the satellites that only seemed to be set up defensively.

“Blind spot incoming,” Curtis announced over the intercom, “Sera, once we fall out of line with Doc, activate our long range radar. Sullivan, we need to be ready to run a scan of that planet’s surface, run it through our short range if needed but we want to be in and out of here as fast as possible. Doc, you’re doing great, once you see us peel off, fall into the “Look at Me” phase.”

“I still can’t believe you named his distraction the “Look at Me” phase…” I heard Vicky sigh and I did my best to surpress a laugh.

I pulled the ship around, keeping a direct path behind Doc’s smaller drone and feeling my fingers itching for the throttle. It really did feel sluggish to move the ship so slowly and even with our practice, the NEUTRINO was just too large for the sharp turns that the drone was capable of. It created a far more circular route than I might have preferred, but somehow it seemed to be working.

And then the moment came. The closer we got to it, the large the satellite was and I didn’t have to wait for Curtis’s order to come. With a quick jerk of my wrists, I pulled our ship out of line and slammed the throttle forward. We were close… Really close in fact to the satellite and I spun the ship on it’s side, the top of our ship looking up at the side of the massive monitoring device and down toward the large planet.

I held my breath as I pulled us out of the path and latched into a mid-planet orbit several thousand kilometers past our target. Dropping the throttle, I moved our ship so we were facing the clockwise orbit and waited.

“Surface scan starting Captain!” Sullivan’s voice crackled over the intercom. “I’m already picking up several rocket sites, as well as large pockets of civilization. All data is being uploaded into our briefing package.”

“I think I still got the satellite’s attention, though it’s definitely bouncing to the decoy as well!” Doc’s chipper voice came through my console’s speaker as I realized he was either talking to me or Sullivan who was in the room with him.

“And Doc has his hands full with the controls but it looks like Novarod’s blast past didn’t draw any attention on us,” Sullivan added while he was still on the intercom.

With a moment to breath, though I didn’t move my hands from the controls, I peered over my shoulder and could see what looked like visible relief spreading over Curtis’s face. “You good Cap?” I called back to him and he quickly straightened himself, pulling at the bottom of his jacket to pull the wrinkles out of it.

“Yup, not out of the weeds yet,” he said, his finger reaching for the intercom. “Let us know the moment that scan is complete. Rerun the decoy’s patterns at random.”

“Cap, I’ve recorded three dozen signals already, I think they have a space station on the other side of the planet,” Sera announced and I could see her fingers dancing over the various consoles she had activated at her seat.

“What kind? Or at least… what size?” Curtis asked and the relief he had briefly had was suddenly masked in concern.

“Star Launch comparable,” Vicky responded, her own hands moving between her consoles. I could feel my stomach starting to turn and I returned my attention to the screens. Obviously there had to be some data that had been excluded from our briefing. Heck, you could probably argue that discovering that station was a part of the purpose of this trial. But something that size…

“They could be building and launching space craft from there,” Curtis muttered. “Okay, log it and keep an eye on if any signals start leaking out of there. If they see us, we might have to be prepared for-“

“Something is happening Captain,” Sullivan’s voice cut him off as the intercom sparked to life. “Vicky, I’m sending a handful of images to your console that I collected during Novarod’s blast past and am looking through them here, tell me what looks off to you.”

“Are those…. Torpedo bays? Why would they have torpedo bays on the back of satellites? How would you even load those?” Vicky said, though I wasn’t sure if she was using the intercom.

“That thing was really big for a satellite too… are we sure that’s all it is?” I called back.

“I mean… that’s what the briefing said they were…” Curtis muttered and then cleared his throat. “Sullivan, what’s the status of the planet scan, we need to get moving and extract before they-“

I saw the radar on my console light up before Curtis could finish his thought and I hit the throttle just in time for a large missile to go bursting past us.

“Dios Mio! Some sort of missile just hit my drone, I’m drifting!” Doc reported to me and instead of relaying it, because I was suddenly aware of more missiles heading our way, I pushed the NEUTRINO forward.

“Captain, several ships are launching from the Station but they don’t seem to be coming our way just yet. Each of the other satellite’s are launching missiles as well but… it doesn’t look like they are at us,” Sera’s yelled out in a rush.

“Surface scan is complete Captain!” Sullivan announced. “Doc’s drone is out of commission and the satellite seems to have opened fire on us!”

“Novarod get us the hell out of here! I’m not sure what is going on but now is not the time to sit around and find out,” Curtis ordered and I could actually hear the button click as he hit the intercom. “Reagan, do you have our weapons systems online?”

“Yes sir, I have our main systems ready, which mount do you want running?” Ty’s responded without a moment of delay.

“Get in the Rail-Rifle, Nova, take us out in a backwards path of our approach but make sure the mount is pointed toward the satellite,” Curtis ordered. In the slight reflection of my artificial window, I could see he was leaning forward slightly and his brow had pinched together. “When we blast past that thing, light it up.”

“Light it up? Are you sure Captain?” Ty seemed unsure, hell, so did I, especially knowing they were already launching missiles down toward us. But as I dodged past another one, it seemed almost obvious that they weren’t actually targeting our ship. It was as if they knew there was an intruder, but had no idea where they were.

“Yes, I’m sure, we need it gone so that we can disappear. If you take the satellite out, at least by interrupting it’s systems, the others around the planet shouldn’t be able to see us getting to the finish line. Nova, once we get past that satellite, can you slow down just enough to collect the drone before blasting us out?” He asked and I swallowed the slight bit of spit in my mouth before giving him a curt nod.

“Doc, get me your drift trajectory, I’m gonna thread the needle,” I said, loud enough that the bridge could hear.

“Thread the needle?” Sera asked and I caught a skeptical brow raise up.

“It’s exactly what you think it is,” I said, “But it’s better than slowing down.”

“15 degrees at 10k meters per second,” Doc answered me and I felt my stomach turn.

This wasn’t a worried nausea though, no, I didn’t get that when I was behind a pair of flight controls. My stomach turned at the chance to pull off a flight move I had always wanted to try, but never quite had the opportunity. It was stupid, very stupid in fact and if someone was actually in the drone it could end with them getting crushed on the landing.

“Exit blast coming,” I barked into my own intercom button and I quickly spun the ship past another missile as I pointed our trajectory back toward the satellite we had already gotten by once. “Ty, light it up!”

While I couldn’t see the satellite with how I had oriented the ship, I knew she was taking her shots.

“Satellite is offline!” Sera announced, her radars still clearly activated.

“Hey Doc, you might want to take those Goggle off unless you want to lose your lunch,” I warned as I saw the speck of a ship getting larger in my field of view. I pulled the controls up altering our path ever so slightly as I soared past the drone and moved the ship in a sharp but near perfectly executed turn, hitting the brakes as the NEUTRINO dropped back into line with the approaching drone.

“DIOS MIO!” I heard him shout before a loud, CRASH, echoed throughout the ship. I was actually surprised they had gone that far with the simulation, though that was mostly because I had thought I might have been the first to do something like it.

“The Drone is in the ship,” Sullivan said over the intercom, “And Doc is puking….”

“That’s ironic right? A doc getting sick?” Vicky mused, though I wasn’t sure if it was a serious question or not.

“Yeah… it’s not fun having those goggles on when a ship going thousands of miles per hour, even when you line up the catch as evenly as possible to slow the landing, crashes… To be fair though, I did try to warn him,” I responded over my shoulder.

“We can nurse his stomach later. Let’s get out of here and finish this thing,” Curtis said.

“Don’t need to tell me twice,” I said and righted the ship so we were facing directly away from the planet, then threw the throttle to max.