Wings of Honor by Craig Andrews (black authors fiction .TXT) 📗

his squadron. “Seventy percent burn for sixty seconds on my mark… Mark.”

Viking Squadron moved as one, angling below their previous flight path, and creating some space between them and their capital ship. The scenario’s objective was simple: destroy the opposing side’s capital ship and the easiest way to accomplish that was to destroy the opposing squadron then go for the capital ship itself.

The way this particular scenario had been constructed seemed to push them toward that inevitability. There was no cover, no territory to hold, nothing that would make their sensors go haywire. Not even a planet and an associated gravity well to contend with. Just empty space. The academy leadership wanted an old-fashioned duel. But Coda wasn’t interested in giving them what they wanted. He was interested in winning. Thoroughly.

He wasn’t planning on taking on the second-best pilot in the academy straight on, either.

“Vikings, form up in the Revised Coleman Diamond and wait for my mark.”

The Coleman Diamond was a formation named after the famed pilot Commander Chadwick Coleman, a hero from the early days of the Baranyk War before drone warfare had replaced real pilots in real starfighters. Commander Coleman had used the formation in a suicidal attack on the Baranyk Fleet, the battle that had turned the tide of the war—or at least staved off imminent defeat, depending on who was telling the story.

The tactic was simple enough to understand though rarely leveraged. Unlike the starfighters of old, drones could be fielded in much greater numbers, replenished faster, and more importantly, since their pilots were tens of thousands of kilometers away, not limited by the same physical constraints the former star pilots had been.

As a result, the newer formations employed on the front were more fluid, capable of shifting strategies at a moment’s notice. They more closely resembled a school of fish, changing directions on a dime, yet still coordinated, moving as one, never colliding. With that in mind, Coda hoped the formation would distract Moscow enough that he wouldn’t notice the new wrinkle Coda had put on it.

Coda remained in position while thirteen drones formed a diamond behind him, its top and bottom points equal distances above and below the plane of the impending battle. Coda’s wrinkle was to have the remaining two fighters throttle down to fall behind the formation then match speed before going completely dark. Their dark hulls would make them all but invisible to visual identification, and their lack of heat signatures would help hide them from computer detection.

The plan wasn’t foolproof since radar or lidar could still detect the drones, and their residual heat signatures might intermittently pop up on enemy HUDs. Of course, anyone paying attention might also notice that the incoming squad was suddenly two fighters short, but that would be easy enough to miss since the fighters would go dark while the formation was coming together.

As soon as Viking Squadron completed its formation, Moscow countered it with one of his own.

“Coda, this is Buster. Are you seeing this?”

“I am,” Coda said. Shadow Squadron had slipped into a spear with Moscow at its tip. “He means to punch through our diamond.”

“What are we going to do?”

“We’re going to let him.”

“We’re going to do what?”

“Three seconds before collision, break formation and form up into seven battle pairs twelve degrees positive-Z,” Coda said. “That will give us a better attack angle as they break though. If they don’t engage, burn hard in pursuit. If we do this right, we’ll have time to break their formation before they’re able to get to our capital ship.”

“That’s not going to give us a lot of time,” Buster said. As Coda’s best friend and flight leader, he was the only one who could get away with directly question Coda’s orders.

“Then don’t miss,” Coda said. “Every shot counts. Vikings Fifteen and Sixteen, remain dark and maintain your trajectory. We’re going to end this before they know what hit them.”

They were committed now. Even if Coda wanted to alter strategies, they didn’t have time.

“Contact in fifteen seconds.” Coda shifted excitedly in his seat. All his time spent at the prestigious military academy, everything he’d worked for, every test he’d aced, and each battle he’d won culminated in this moment. Anything short of a decisive victory would be a supreme disappointment. “Ten seconds. Prepare to break formation.”

At seven seconds, Coda fired a volley of digital projectiles at the incoming drone spear. He hadn’t given the order, but the other ships in the formation followed his lead, firing as well. The odds of them hitting one of the incoming vessels was slim, the distances were too great, but like before, the action allowed his fighters to get the first shots out of the way.

“Five seconds,” Coda said. Then three. “Break!”

The diamond shattered, breaking into seven shards of two fighters apiece, all darting above the battle plane. There was no up or down in space, but if there were, the new position would have given Coda’s fighters the high ground. They blanketed Shadow Squadron’s flight trajectory with cannon fire.

Moscow didn’t have time to adjust course and lost four fighters as they sped through the barrage. Unfortunately, the losses weren’t enough to force them into a different strategy.

Coda keyed in his pursuit and maximized thrust, burning hard. His wingman, Hound, just off his wing in the dash-two position, did the same. Panic flared in Coda’s chest as Shadow Squadron showed no signs of breaking course. He keyed in on the nearest enemy fighter, thumbing the switch on his joystick, activating his missiles. A red square appeared around the target, and a second indicator, larger than the first, tracked behind it.

The target took evasive actions, trying to slip missile lock. But this is where Coda shined. He countered the target’s moves almost as if he knew what the other pilot was going to do before they did it, and quickly closed the distance. As he did, he toggled the lead fighter and the Viking capital ship. A countdown appeared in the