Starcorp 1: Escape from Sol

Sawyer had been outside of the Orion for little more than thirty minutes when he got the order to return to the basestar. This instruction came as a surprise to him. He, and the seventy-eight other mow pilots had yet to engage with the UFP force that was pursuing the Orion. Sawyer suspected that this change of plan had something to do with the sudden dispersal of the UFP spacefighters. This was an unexpected event, but it was not an unwelcome one. Sawyer knew that engaging the spacefighters would be a far simpler task while they were separated. When they attacked them as isolated targets, they had only the one gun aboard the spacefighter to contend with. While the spacefighters were in formation, the mows had to deal with the guns from multiple spacefighters with each engagement.

As it was in the sortie before, Sawyer was given the commission of wing commander. After transmitting a return to base directive to the wing, all seventy-nine mows turned about and commenced to thrust back towards the Orion. It took twice that amount time to get all of them back inside. This was due to the basestar’s high-powered acceleration in the opposite direction. After each mow docked, the pilot vacated it and went back to their assigned space capsule. Once inside there was nothing for them to do but wait for news and orders.

Marvin was not one of the pilots that went out on this sortie. But this was due to the sudden fall off of two-thirds of the UFP Armada. Immediately after this, the overwhelming majority of the gamers took the view that they would likely survive the next encounter with the UFP. The gamers knew that their skills were in high demand and that they gave the Orion its best chance for escape. When the gamers took to their assigned mows, there was none left that was unoccupied. When Sawyer, CC, and Oscar returned to the basestar unharmed Marvin welcomed them back with a hefty display of relief.

“What happened out there?” Marvin queried to anyone with an answer.

“I have no idea, man,” Oscar returned with exuberance. “I was all pumped up for a fight and then I hear Sawyer telling everybody to return to the basestar.”

“Those were my orders,” Joshua defended from across their video conference link.

“They didn’t tell you why?” Marvin questioned back.

“They didn’t tell me anything.”

“It had to have something to do with the UFP scattering away from us,” CC suggested with a ponderous expression.

The scatter tactic was nothing new to the Gamers. Each of them had seen it used in the video games on more than one occasion. But in the game, the basestars were never running from the conflict. They did make every effort to stay out of range of the sensor fields of enemy spacefighters, and they used their intrinsic stealth and evasive maneuvers to stay hidden from them. This was the standard counter tactic to a widely-dispersed fighter force. This put the spacefighters in the position of having to search for it. This they did in pairs or in small groups. This effort always produced a waste of valuable time. And this, in turn, made the spacefighters, extremely vulnerable to the mows that were defending the basestar. Time was not on the side of the spacefighters. When they did find the basestar the spacefighters learned it was quite capable of putting up a fight. To overcome it defenses the spacefighters needed to engage it in unison and preferably in double digit numbers. This was necessary if they were to have any hope of overwhelming its defensive weaponry and hitting it.

The time jump made this situation different. The idea of a star-drive was never programmed into the game. The games were about engaging and destroying the enemy. The strategy of the basestar was always to evade and endure. In this situation, the basestar was obliged to stay on a straight-line trajectory to maintain acceleration. Its main thruster was engaged in a continuous burn. This made it easily visible and prevented the basestar from employing a stealthy posture. But the gamers were not immediately cognizant of this difference between the game and this reality. Their first thought was to dismiss this scatter tactic as a desperate and foolish plan. Marvin was the first among their group to touch upon the reasoning behind the recall.

“Maybe the Admiral was afraid that some of them would get past you.”

“Why would he think that?” Oscar questioned with an intonation of incredulity. “There’s only four hundred of them. We could have destroyed them all.”

“Maybe not in time,” Sawyer pondered out loud.

“What do you mean, Sawyer?” CC queried with a look of confusion.

“We’re accelerating for this time jump to Proxima Centauri,” Sawyer explained as he worked it out in his thoughts. “The basestar can’t hide while it’s accelerating, and we dare not throw away this momentum. We might not be able to attain this velocity again, and the other portion of the UFP Armada could change its mind and come after us, as well.”

The truth of this idea was quick to register in the thinking of the others. They all said nothing while they gave it thought for a further. At the end of this rumination they shrugged it off as just a possibility. Over the next five hours, this thinking crept into the thoughts of all mow pilots. Infrequent reports on the pursuing UFP spacefighters came in from the command capsule during this time. The message was always the same, “the UFP is still in pursuit and closing.” While this was happening, the mow pilots had nothing to do but wait for orders in anxious silence. They all feared what these orders might be given their situation and the limited options. At the end of this wait, Admiral Joshua Sloan’s image popped up on their monitors and his voice resonated through their speakers.

Immediately after hearing that the last mow had been secured aboard the Orion Joshua barked out an order to reduce the sensor field down to two percent power and to divert the reclaimed power to the thrusters and the anti-gravity field generators. This act increased their acceleration to a new maximum.

The weight of acceleration was determined by the division of power between the main thrusters, the sensor field, and the anti-gravity generator. The latter canceled out the stress of inertia on the ship and its occupants and required more energy as the weight of acceleration increased. The power that was recouped from the sensor field generator gave the basestar a large boost in thrust. Less than a minute after this change the navigator reported that lethal range for the UFP Armada had been extended out from two hours to five.

This change in power distribution reduced the basestar’s sensor field to the lethal range of the fastest projectile that the armada had the potential of launching. Joshua concluded that he had no need to see beyond this distance. He knew that the UFP Armada was behind them and closing, and that there was nothing else around that he needed to concern himself with. The power to accelerate as fast as possible was what he wanted at this moment. He also knew that the armada would engage with them three hours before the Orion could make its jump.

“We’re not going to make it to the jump, Admiral” Noonan advised with a fixed stare. “We need to turn about now and fight while there is still time.”

Joshua had no ready response for this. He understood Noonan’s thinking that they had just enough time to lose themselves in the black. To achieve this, he needed only to shut down his main thrusters, push off laterally with secondary thrusters and assume a stealthy posture. Radar was all but useless for finding a warship in stealth mode in the vast distances of space, and visual sightings from a distance were almost impossible if the spaceship was not emitting any light. Given their five-hour lead, it was now or never for the deployment of this defensive posture. But Joshua knew that a defensive posture was a far greater gamble than it was two hours earlier. The UFP spacefighters were closer which meant that the area of space for them to hide in would be smaller.

Joshua believed that there was a second option that offered them a better chance for escape. This alternate plan of action was one that he loathed to put into action, but of the two it was the option that he loathed the least. His thoughts teetered between putting up a fight on a risky plan that might cost him the basestar and a significant portion of his crew, or gamble on a less risky plan at a cost of a small portion of his crew.

“No, we’re not going to do that,” Joshua retorted after a long thought.

This reply shocked Noonan. He saw no other way out of this situation. The fact that Joshua looked to be clinging to an idea that they could avoid any further fighting with the UFP began to produce thoughts in him that Admiral Joshua Sloan was mentally unfit for command. Because of this concern he felt compelled to challenge his thinking.

“What are you going to do when they catch up with us, Admiral?”

Joshua was reluctant to answer this question. He still had hope that the pursuing UFP Spacefighters would follow the lead of others and turn back for Mars. In his mind, this was the reasonable thing to do. It made no sense to continue the pursuit. The commander of that force had to know that he would not surrender the Orion to them. It only made sense that he would have orders to destroy the basestar if he could not escape with it.

“I will cross that bridge when I come to it,” Joshua returned after a thought.

Joshua knew that this answer was not what Noonan wanted or expected to hear. He knew that Noonan wanted to hear exactly what plan he had in mind to address the situation that they were in. But this was information that Joshua did not want to give. He suspected that it would not sit well with his second in command, and he held onto hope that the UFP force behind them would give up the chase. Joshua did not want to entertain this conversation if he did not have to. He continued to thwart Noonan’s attempts to push past his resistance for another four hours and then he told him his plan.

“You can’t be serious,” Noonan extolled with an expression of shock.

“It’s the only way,” Joshua returned with insistence. “We don’t have time for anything else.”

“Only because you wasted it!” Noonan roared back at him.

“We’re beyond arguing about this,” Joshua returned in a firm voice.

“Okay!” Noonan reacted with a delivery of resignation. “But you can’t ask this of those kids. Let me put a team together.”

Joshua was shaking his head no even as Noonan was speaking.

“It has to be the gamers,” Joshua uttered back.

“No, it doesn’t,” Noonan argued back. “We can do this.”

“There’s too much at stake,” Joshua disputed glumly. “It has to be the gamers.”

Noonan was at odds with this thinking, but he could tell from Joshua’s demeanor that his mind was made up. With reluctance, he accepted this reality and watched as Joshua activated his computer and initiated a ship wide address.

“To the crew of the Orion, we are two hours out from time jump velocity. The UFP force pursuing us is forty-seven minutes out from lethal range. If something is not done to retard this advance, we will have no choice but to turn about and engage with them. There will be no place for us to hide in this battle. The Orion will likely sustain damage and there will be losses. How this conflict will end is unknown. But one thing is almost certain, at the conclusion of it the Orion will either be destroyed or unable to make the time jump. But I do have a plan—one that I believe will enable this spacecraft to make the time jump as scheduled.”

Joshua paused after this last remark. He was hesitant to say what he needed to say next. At the end of a deep inhale and exhale he continued to speak.

“To work this plan, I will need six mow pilots.”

Joshua paused once again. This delay was motivated by a feeling of sorrow for what he was asking of six of his crew. At the end of this time, he began to speak again.

“It’s my calculation that six mows, attacking behind a barrage of fire from Orion’s guns can buy us the time we need. Calculated into this plan is the factor that the six mow pilots must be gamers.”

Joshua paused for the third time. He inhaled and exhaled visibly so. And then he began to speak again.

“The risk to these six pilots will be high—There is the possibility that none of the six will survive. But the success of this plan does not require that they do—The plan only requires that they impede the UFP force long enough for the Orion to escape.”

Joshua took in and let out a deep breath before speaking again.

“Without this gamble—this sacrifice—none of us will escape Sol space.”

Joshua paused again. At the end of this, he spoke his final words in this speech.

“I am calling for six volunteers—six gamers.”

For what felt like a long three minutes there was silence. Joshua, Noonan and the crew of the Orion watched and waited for a response to appear on their respective computer monitors. Joshua was just about to speak again when a name appeared at the bottom of his video messenger window, Commander S. Beck. Joshua activated the call with a touch of his finger. A new live image of Sawyer popped onto the monitors throughout the basestar and split the screen with Joshua. Two seconds behind this Sawyer spoke in a solemn voice.

“I’ll do it.”

“Thank you, Commander. Report to your mow. Your orders will be transmitted to you.”

Joshua waited for Sawyer’s image to disappear from the screen before speaking again.

“I need five more.”

Joshua had just finished speaking when a second name appeared at the bottom of his video messenger window, LTJG O. Nehru. Joshua activated the name and a live image of Oscar appeared on the monitors alongside Joshua’s. A second behind his appearance Oscar spoke with resolution.

“I’m with Sawyer.”

Joshua repeated to Oscar the instruction he gave to Sawyer. After this, he waited for the second image to disappear before speaking again.

“I need four more.”

Over the next four minutes, Joshua repeated this act three times. Across this time, Lieutenants Gary Dixon, Nicholas Lazaro, and Roy Pappas volunteered for this mission. They were all gamers and they all displayed courage in their acceptance of the task. Another two minutes had passed behind the last volunteer before Joshua spoke again.

“I need one more volunteer.”

Another minute passed behind this and then a sixth name appeared at the bottom of Joshua’s video messenger window.

When a live telecast of Admiral Sloan appeared on the computer monitors throughout the Orion a fear of what was to come filled Sawyer. He had his suspicion that the Admiral would act to resolve the situation they were in. He was not sure what that action would look like, and he had no idea why he and the other mow pilots were not allowed to engage with the UFP two hours earlier. But he had little doubt that the mows would have to contend with the UFP spacefighters now for the safety of the basestar. Verification of this intuition did not take long in coming. The crew of the Orion listened for two minutes as Joshua explained their situation and reported to them that he had a plan for managing it.

When Sloan announced that he needed six volunteers from among the gamers, Sawyer and the other gamers were stunned. They all knew that six mows had no chance against four hundred and fifty-seven spacefighters, even with gamers as their pilots. Everyone knew that six mows could do nothing more than delay the UFP long enough to allow the Orion to escape, and they all feared that the six, whoever they might be, would be sacrificed to save the basestar. Secretly they all prayed that someone else would volunteer.

Everyone knew that Joshua could not order anyone to perform this task. They were not soldiers in the traditional sense. They could not be arrested, charged with a crime and punished for disobeying an order. They were starcorp personnel under contract to perform a task. They could be subjected to financial penalties for failure to perform a reasonable request. But they were under no threat of arrest or financial penalties for choosing not to sacrifice themselves. They all knew what Admiral Sloan was asking had to be performed by a volunteer. But they also knew that if six did not come forward, they all would suffer for their absence.

No gamer aboard the Orion was more sensitive to the situation than Sawyer. As the wing commander, he felt an obligation to be a part of any action the mow pilots undertook. The lengthening silence that came after Joshua’s speech germinated a thinking in him that he should lead by example. This was not an easy thought for him to entertain. Even while he was thinking it, Sawyer could not believe that he would volunteer for this. But his fears could not wash away his reasoning that all would suffer for the lack of action by six. Almost without his knowing it, Sawyer activated his computer and directed his video messenger to call Admiral Sloan. With near equal oblivion, he found himself volunteering to be one of the six.

“Sawyer,” CC called across her computer monitor and through to his. “You know what he’s asking?”

Sawyer had just started collecting himself for his journey to his mow when CC’s video messenger call came in. She burst onto his screen with this inquiry an instant after he activated the connection. Before he could respond to it, his attention became diverted by the sight and sound of Oscar’s exuberant offer to join with Sawyer on this mission.

“Oscar!” CC called out of reaction to his announcement.

Sawyer was quick to direct a video messenger conference call at Oscar. An instant after it was sent Oscar answered it. Sawyer commenced to plead with him as soon as he did.

“You don’t have to do this.”

“Too late,” Oscar dismissed cavalierly. “It’s done.”

“Neither one of you should do this,” CC shouted out with a startled expression. “The risk is too great!”

“This is the final battle. I’m not going to sit on the sidelines for this,” Oscar insisted.

While Oscar was speaking, Sawyer answered Marvin’s video messenger call and linked him into the conference.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Marvin stated flatly and with a shake of his head.

“I’m the wing commander,” Sawyer returned with an intonation of regret.

“You still don’t have to do this,” Marvin retorted with a stunned expression. “They can’t make you do this.”

“Someone has to do it,” Sawyer returned.

“You’re both crazy,” CC cried out.

“We can’t let someone else do it,” Oscar countered with a look of surprise. “Then they’ll get the fame and glory.”

“Oh, grow up,” CC yelled back. “This isn’t a video game. And I know you, Sawyer, this is just some feeling of duty.”

“I can’t back out now,” Sawyer insisted somberly.

“Yes, you can!” CC exclaimed an instant behind.

Sawyer had no ready reply to this. After a momentary silence, he chose to end the conversation and start his journey to his mow. He said his good-byes and terminated his connection. Oscar followed his lead and did the same.

After these disconnections, CC and Marvin did not know what to say to each other. They both disconnected from the call without a word passed between them. There was no need for the video connection between them, they were both situated within the same space capsule. They glanced at each other from time to time, but neither could think of anything to say. During their silence, they watched as three more gamers volunteered for the task that Joshua had planned for them. After an additional two minutes without a new volunteer, they listened as Joshua made an appeal for a sixth gamer to come forward.

CC had no wish to be a part of this final battle. She knew that her reason for being a part of this entire expedition had more to do with stubbornness than anything else. She was not prepared to let her male friends relegate her into a protected class of citizenry. The very thought of this chafed at her like a dare from a detested competitor. But her feelings at this moment were entirely different. She felt no slight by Sawyer’s and Oscar’s gallant offer to be a part of this final endeavor. All that she felt at this moment was fear that they would not return from it. She could not imagine a way for them to get back aboard the basestar once they had left it. This was not a challenge. This was a sacrifice. And what she wanted more than anything was for her friends to not be a part of it. This feeling was especially strong with regards to Sawyer. With every second that ticked away in wait of a sixth volunteer her fear for Sawyer’s safety grew. Suddenly, the thought of him going out with one less mow than what was planned became unbearable for her. And she acted, almost without thinking.

With a touch of her finger, CC directed a video conference call into Joshua’s ship wide connection. Joshua answered it a second later. Behind this, and after a brief inhale and exhale, CC spoke.

“I volunteer.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Joshua answered back. “Report to your mow. You’ll get your orders there.”

Over the next two minutes, CC collected herself and tossed herself towards the space capsule door. All within her space capsule watched in silence as she floated by. She stopped at the door and looked back towards Marvin. He waved good-bye. She did the same in return, and then she left.