Part 8: The Fight Below

Alex was certain he hadn’t heard Byron quite right. “You mean you’re going to put this new Flyer team that Michael is a part of on the Bucephalus, right? You want my ship flying his team in.”

Byron leaned back in his chair. “Well, I do want the Bucephalus to fly Team 13 on this mission, but what I meant was that I need you to lead that team on the breach and clear.”

“You told me that if there was a job I didn’t want to take, then I could refuse it. Why would I want to do this?”

“Trust me, Alex, if I had any other choices, I would have never even considered asking.” Byron stood up, and walked around the desk, taking a seat on the corner next to Alex. “I need this team ready to go on our next target. I can’t spare any of my other team leaders, because I need every team in action, no reserves. Going to be our biggest job yet. But Team 13 is green. I know Michael can do anything he sets himself to, but I’d feel better if I had someone experienced to guide these people. Then I discover you’ve been holding out on me.”

Michael was still listening intently. Alex stood with arms crossed, annoyed but not quite defiant. Byron picked up and opened the folder he’d thrown to Alex. “You flew bombing runs during the Siege of Urbemavis, in the last days of the Kilos campaign.”

“Urbemavis?” Michael asked.

“Home to the Kilon ruling council on back on Kilos,” Byron explained. “Before the arrival of the White Fleet, the Redipsilons had gained a foothold planet-side, and were laying siege to the Kilon capital city, Urbemavis. Even after the Terran fleet destroyed or drove off the Redipsilon ships, there was a brutal ground war. The Kilons refused to allow orbital bombardment, and the Redipsilons refused to surrender. The Terran command instead sent human boys down to the ground, to pay for the liberation of that alien world with human blood.” Byron’s usually calm exterior seemed to fade for a moment. Alex could see the jaw clench, a flicker of hatred in Byron’s eyes. It was gone as quick as it came.

“Your boss here,” Byron pointed to Alex, “bled along with them.” He looked down at the files in his hand. “Awarded the Armstrong Medal for exemplarily service above and beyond the call of duty under the command of the Terran Fleet. The only starfighter pilot ever awarded such a medal for actions taken against the enemy after being shot down.”

Byron tossed aside the folder. “You’ve had experience, seen real war up close and personal.”

“That’s not something I’d like to do again.”

“I understand that, really, I do. But Michael here, he’s on your crew. He trusts your leadership. And you know what, I’ve been keeping an eye on you. I trust your leadership, too. You care about your people. Furthermore, I care about my people. Every mission we have, every target we hit, I intend for all of my people to come home safe. Now, we have an opportunity here, one that we might never get again. I need every breach and clear team I have. This new team, Team 13, I can get someone trained up to lead them soon enough. But for this job, I need someone now. I know you can lead people. I know I can trust you with people’s lives. I’m asking you this, just this once. Lead these people. Bring them back safe and whole, and I’ll never ask again.”

Alex sighed. He looked over to Michael. As much as he would hate to admit, the crazy man lost in time had grown on him. Byron was right, whatever Michael set himself to, he was good at. What worried Alex, though, was that Michael had failed to show even a token amount of fear, in any situation. And as far as Alex was concerned, fear was healthy; it was what kept us alive. Fear kept men from smiling like an idiot as they walked right into certain death. And without someone to rein him in, Michael would be that smiling idiot.

“This is the only time.” Alex said, a statement more than a question.

“Absolutely,” Byron replied.

“You have trained someone on the team on how to actually breach a ship, right?”

“All I need is your steady hand once the team is inside. I’ll brief you on the details later.”

“Fine, I’ll do it.”

“Great!” Byron said. He jumped to his feet and threw an arm around Alex. “I knew I could count on you! See Joab tomorrow morning at 0900 for a briefing and to get your gear.”

The walk back from Byron’s office was quiet, and Alex was thankful for that. Michael seemed to be entirely engrossed, processing the information that Byron had given. Alex too was lost in thought.

Kilos was a long time ago, and something he tried to keep out of his mind. When the Terran government announced their intervention in the Kilon-Redipsilon War, Alex was excited to join the Terran Space Command. He trained as a pilot, and graduated near the top of his class. He led a squadron as the White Fleet arrived over Kilos, routing the Redipsilons and driving them into space.

The war seemed like it would be a quick and easy victory. Even when the Kilons barred the fleet from using orbital bombardment on the Redipsilons forces embedded on the planet, Alex thought it wouldn’t be long before the war would be over.

But the fighting on the planet was wasn’t like the fight in space. The Redipsilons were resilient. Those on the planet intended to fight to the last. Despite the loss of their fleet, they still controlled the southern continent, and managed to keep the Kilon government pinned in Urbemavis.  

The days and weeks stretched into months. There would be no swift victory in the ground war. The Redipsilons were a burrowing people, and their troops had moved underground. Finding their tunnel complexes and clearing them was slow and costly. Casualties mounted.

Alex was flying air superiority missions in support of Terran and Kilon combined infantry, dropping bunker busting munitions. It was a routine mission that day, when he went down. Topside was supposed to be cleared of resistance before he made his run. But as he closed in on his target, the air exploded with flak. The limited remaining Redipsilon fighters came out of nowhere, tearing apart Alex’s squadron.

His fate was no different. An explosion rocked his ship, taking out the main engines. His cockpit jammed when he attempted to eject, so using what capabilities the fighter had left, he plummeted to the ground.

Alex didn’t remember much of the crash, getting knocked out from the impact. When he awoke, he only knew the pain, in his head and chest. Beyond that, he could see he was underground. He’d managed to crash on top of one of the Redipsilon tunnels, the ceiling of it slowing him down enough to make the final impact survivable.

He knew that if he stayed where he was, he was as good as dead. The Redipsilons had neither the logistics nor the desire to care for prisoners of war. Using the medication in his emergency aid kit, he managed to dull the pain of what would later prove to be broken ribs, and tried to make his way to the surface and to rescue.

But that rescue would be long in coming. Terran and Kilon forces had been routed on the surface, and the Redipsilons strengthened their position in the area. But Alex had no way of knowing that. His communications device was destroyed in the crash. All he had was a few day worth of rations and a need to survive.

He managed to avoid enemy patrols long enough to get to the surface. There, Alex stumbled across the remains of a human infantry platoon. Most of them had been wiped out in the battle, including the platoon leader, and the survivors knew that capture would mean death. Being the ranking officer, Alex took command of the unit.

They began launching guerilla attacks on the Redipsilons forces, finding remnants of Kilon and human units, and adding them to their numbers. And in a move of utter desperation and insanity, Alex led those soldiers on a sweep and clear of the tunnels, taking out the command center and throwing the local enemy forces into chaos, leading to a new Terran/Kilon offensive, a final push that would end the war for good.

In the weeks he was on the ground, Alex learned that war was not the technological dominance that the Terran Fleet had demonstrated in orbit, but the hell he had endured trapped underground. It was a fight to survive, a fight where anyone engaged in it would lose something. Their innocence, their naiveté, their sanity, their lives, all gone, for reasons most didn’t know or understand.

Alex knew the cost of battle, and had paid his share. He’d tried a quiet life on Earth, but when the Venusian Crisis pushed people to fight in the streets, and the Kilons were imposing order, he moved out to the fringes of space. But it seemed the fight had found him again. He was a man who desired peace and freedom, yet he had none.