Tana
was in the canteen sipping bad tea when the call for pilots sounded. She tossed her tea aside, grateful for a
reason to waste it, and headed for the bay.
The call had been unexpected.
Usually they had some warning of trouble in a sector.
Krisin
caught up with her at the bay entrance.
Their Catchin team mate Lisel already prowled, around the craft. His
long pointed, furry ears twitched with agitation. People snarled his way as
they passed; few people trusted Catchins.
Other
fighter teams darted around the bay, but her craft would be the first one
out. Maybe not wise, but at least it
gave her more options before everyone else got in the way. She was a scout. They did not fly formation.
"Any
idea of what's going on?" Lisel asked.
"None."
Tana climbed into the pilot's seat. Krisin got in behind her at weapons and Lisel
took the copilot's spot. He began to
automatically key on the systems while she checked the engines. A green light
flashed to her left. "Odd. We
already have the okay to launch."
"Very
odd," Lisel agreed and his cat-like ears went almost entirely flat to his
head. "They always want checks
before clearance. This doesn't look
good. Do we really want to be the first
out?"
"Why
get wise now?" Krisin asked.
Even
Lisel found that one amusing. Tana keyed
the pad down and they took the quick drop
from ship to the launch bay and then to void. She didn't see anything. Was this some sort
of new drill? They didn't usually waste fighter resources --
"Behind
us," Krisin said softly.
Tana
glanced at the screens but couldn't make sense of the spots. Her mind refused to believe, until she spun
the craft around and faced --
"How
the hell did they get that many werecraft this close without notice?" she
demanded, suddenly more angry than afraid.
That was her own personal insanity.
Other
fighters had begun launching but all she heard was the jabber of panicked
voices. She cut out that commline.
"We
can clear out," she said, glancing at Lisel. Krisin made a little sound, but she couldn't
tell what it meant. "Because the
reality is --"
"Real,"
Lisel said and suddenly began to run his long fingers over the controls. His claws were out and they made clicking
noises against the board. "What if
they aren't real?"
"They
have to be real. We can see them out
there and on the scanners!"
"We're
seeing something on the
scanners," Lisel said. "But
they aren't reading like wereships."
"Some
kind of change in configuration of the craft?" Tana asked. "Is that
how they got so close?"
"Maybe."
Tana
keyed a commline straight to the main ship's control deck. "Information, please," she said,
keeping her voice as light as possible.
"How the hell did these things get so close without any
warning?"
"We're
looking into the possibility of in-ship systems failure," someone
answered. "They just suddenly
appeared."
"Thank
you," she replied and probably sounded insanely happy as she keyed back
off. "Okay, Lisel: real or
not?"
"My
guess would be not exactly what they appear to be. They are something, but -- no weapons coming
up. And they're holding pattern far too
well."
Tana
studied the data, then looked back at the craft before them while still moving
in closer. "Makes no sense. Why would they bother?"
"To
hide something else," Krisin said.
He was suddenly sounding anxious.
"If this is mostly illusion, then there might be something back
behind it. Like a werecraft
mothership."
"Oh
hell," Tana her hand pulled back from the boards. "Lisel?"
"The
configuration could hide a craft that large.
If you don't turn aside in the next two minutes, I think we'll be
getting irrefutable confirmation on all answers."
"Should
we turn back?"
"No,"
the other two chorused.
"What
is everyone else doing?"
"Deploying
around the Belgium," Lisel
said. "Wise, probably. We could be wrong."
"Weapons
ready?" Tana asked.
"Ready,"
Krisin answered. He sounded anxious, but not worried. "I'm going to clear a path straight
ahead of us. If there is something else
out there, we'll know soon enough."
"It's
not picking up on the scanners," Lisel pointed out. "But maybe that's part of the
illusion."
Tana
knew she was crazy to keep going. She
almost turned aside . . . but the werecraft were not coming after them like
they normally did. This was not right.
Krisin's
first shots took out six of them -- just flashes and gone. Tana kept going
while taking side shots. They were doing
well until two things happened; the real werecraft showed up and they reached the
mothership.
"Maybe
we should have had a plan," Krisin suggested.
"Friendly
craft following us in. We need only stay
alive for three minutes and 11 seconds before we have help."
Those
were a damned long three minutes, especially after they lost one engine. However, they had the chance to see what no
other humans alive had ever seen: a
werecraft mothership up very close.
"I'm
not impressed," Krisin said.
"Big, but ugly."
Big
was an understatement. It could have
held a hundred Belgiums without any
trouble. How many of these ships did they have?
"Weapons
coming up," Lisel said with another tap of claws. "Aiming at the Belgium, which is closing in for the kill."
Tana
saw the hot spots. Her fighter couldn't
move fast enough to take up the battle with the smaller ships again, but they
could target the mothership weapons. They were close enough that the larger
ship couldn't aim at them. In the end,
the only problem they had was getting clear before the Belgium blew the larger ship to hell.
They
had been the first out of the ship; they were the last back in, limping to
safety. They'd done the impossible and everyone knew it. For once no one glared
at her Catchin crew member.
The
three went to the canteen and had something stronger than bad tea.
999
words
For
more about Tana and her team read:
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