Dimension Fracture (26 page)

Rin turned away angrily. “I'm going to go check on the Lancer. We have to be ready for when Commander Isaacs sends us out.”

Alisa said nothing as her partner stalked out of the ready room. She glanced over at Lindy, noticing the embarrassed woman had sunk deeper into the couch, blocking her face from Alisa's view with her tab.

Her mind whirling with emotions, most of them negative, Alisa sat back down at the ready room table and pulled up the tactical forecast Rin had copied to her tab. It would do her no good to dwell on the issue now, especially not when she was anticipating being deployed within the next few hours.

She could feel the neural link to Rin grow fuzzy and indistinct; Rin was actively blocking it to prevent emotions or thoughts from reaching her. There was nothing she could do about it right now, but Alisa wasn't a quitter.

We'll talk about it tonight, I promise,
she sent with her thoughts. There was no response that could be put into words, but Alisa could have sworn she felt a softening of Rin's mood through the link.

[-]

The expected call came two hours later. Alisa looked up at the dagger-shaped form of her Lancer, the vessel's fresh coat of paint gleaming under the bright overhead lighting. She walked up the gangplank leading to the boarding catwalk overhead.

Ready to go?
Alisa sent through the neural link.

All systems check out,
Rin's voice came back in her mind. Alisa, unlike the other pilots in the wing, had modified her vessel's system access permissions to allow Rin more control over the vessel's systems than was standard. Rin's access was effectively unlimited, a choice most pilots in the Fleet wouldn't have made, but Alisa considered it wise. If she were to be incapacitated again…

Alisa shook herself out of her dark thoughts and focused on the present. The mission was more important than her old memories. She entered a few commands into the catwalk console and the Lancer's command module slid upward. The solid, reinforced canopy retracted, revealing the heavy fighter's single seat.

“Let's get moving, Alisa,” Rin said, the small holo standing on its pedestal, her miniature hands placed on her hips impatiently. Alisa said nothing as she dropped into the command couch. The canopy slid downward over her, sealing her inside the command module as it descended back into the vessel's interior.

“Exterior seal activated. We've got a stable internal environment. All systems are green and we're ready to go.”

“Got it.” Alisa reached over and keyed her communications console to the Delta flight frequency, “Delta Flight, are we ready to sortie?”

“Delta Two, all systems checked out and ready,” Portland's bass voice came over the comm.

“Delta Three, ready and eager,” Daniels reported in. His tone suggested that he was not especially eager, however.

“Delta Four, standing by,” Lindy said.

“
Infiltrator
flight deck, this is Delta Lead,” Alisa said into the comm, keying the channel for wide-cast. “We're ready to sortie.”

“Acknowledged, Delta Lead,” the
Infiltrator
's deck officer said in a bored tone. “Try not to fall asleep out there.”

“Tell Commander Isaacs that I don't think this mission will be as easy as everyone seems to think,” Alisa told the deck officer, a note of concern creeping into her voice.

“Do you have any basis for that theory?”

“Just a gut feeling.”

“I'll tell him,” the deck officer replied. Alisa could sense exasperation in the man's voice, as if Alisa's concern was entirely misplaced and simply a waste of time. Fortunately she outranked him and he would comply with her order, regardless of whether he agreed with her assessment or not.

The Lancer shuddered slightly as the docking clamps disengaged, freeing the vessel from the cradle. The repulsion panels on the fighter's underside activated as Alisa tapped the stick slightly, angling the nose toward the fighter bay doors. The metal shutter seemed to shimmer oddly for a moment.

“Curtain barrier is active, doors opening now,” the deck officer's voice came over the comm. Alisa watched as the doors began to slowly open up, exposing the fighter bay to the void beyond. The curtain barrier maintained the internal atmospheric pressure, allowing the crew below to continue working while fighters were launched, but any shielded object would be able to pass through the barrier as if it weren't even there.

“Shields are active and charging; currently at ten percent,” Rin reported. “Burst banks are around 60 percent.”

Alisa opened the comm channel again. “
Infiltrator
flight deck, this is Delta Lead. Delta Flight is heading out now.”

“Copy that, Delta Lead.”

The starfighter moved slowly toward the wide-open fighter bay doors, its main thrust apertures still inactive. Carefully Alisa edged the fighter through the opening, using only the reaction control units and the repulsion panels for acceleration. The instant the Lancer passed through the barrier, Rin engaged the starfighter's primary drive and sent the fighter streaking out into the void.

The entire procedure took only about twelve seconds—far faster than the seven minute full evacuated launch procedure used before the curtain barrier technology gained widespread adoption.

“Delta Two has launched,” Rin reported a few seconds later. “Delta Three is navigating the flight deck and will be joining us shortly.”

“ETA for full deployment?”

Rin's projected image turned toward the tactical display. “Twenty seconds.”

“Delta Flight, form up on me,” Alisa ordered over Delta Flight's private communications channel. “Pattern sigma-37 on our way to nav point one.”

“Delta Three; acknowledged. Forming up in sigma-37.”

Alisa watched the tactical display panel as the three green “friendly” icons, each representing one of Delta Flight's Lancers, arranged themselves in a loose diamond shape with her vessel at the top vertex.

“What's the plan, Lead?” Daniels asked. Alisa's lips twitched slightly as she detected a note of impatience in the man's voice. He wanted to prove himself on the battlefield, she knew, especially after Lindy had been given kill credit for the Gray frigate during their last mission.

“Simple hit-and-fade on the Gray supply dump,” Alisa told him. “Nav points one, two and three are munitions storage. Nav point four is an unmanned helium-3 refueling station. We're here to destroy all of them.”

“Opposition?” Portland asked.

“Preliminary scouting of the Lethe system suggests that the Gray have only lightly defended this supply dump,” Alisa continued. “We're told to expect only half a wing of gunboats.”

“That's all?” Lindy wondered.

“Doesn't smell right, Lead,” Portland added.

“I agree. There's something not right about this system. Fortunately, Commander Isaacs agrees as well. He ordered Alpha Flight to sortie an hour ago. They should be destroying the system's comm relay right about… now.”

“So the defenders will be expecting us,” Portland said.

“They will,” Rin told the pilot. “They'll probably try to stand until they figure out how many of us there really are. Then they'll have one vessel jump to the nearest friendly outpost and request backup.”

“What's the plan, Lead?” Daniels inquired.

“Delta Two and Delta Three will be tasked with engaging the gunboats. Ensure that none of them makes it out of Lethe alive. Delta Four will take out the refueling station.”

“And you, Lead?”

“I'll be hanging back in case the Gray have an ace up their sleeve.” Alisa felt her voice grow colder and harder. “The longer I think about it, the more likely it seems.”

“We're coming up on the nav point now,” Rin cut in. “Everyone knows what to do, so let's get to it.”

Portland spoke up. “Delta Lead, mind if I have my operator link a real-time data feed to yours?”

“Go ahead.” Alisa nodded at Rin's holo. The volumetric projection of her partner nodded and a second later, Alisa's tactical data began streaming, unabridged, to Portland's AI operator.

“Linked up with Dragon, connection is solid,” Rin reported.

“We're ready.” Alisa tapped on her tactical display and triggered the countdown. “Begin the mission. We'll make our first move… and see how the Gray respond.”

[-]

Binary System: Deneb
is available now on the Amazon Kindle Store!

about the author

Hi there! My name is
Corinn Heathers
, and I'm the author!

Most about-the-author blurbs are written in the third person, but I find it tiresome and dull to do so. So here it is, from the top: I'm a lesbian transgender woman, a fairly girly girl, a gigantic nerd who loves role-playing games, visual novels, the occasional anime or manga… oh, and I'm an author of speculative fiction based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

I love to write science fiction and fantasy, or science fantasy fiction, or science fiction masquerading as fantasy and everything in between. As you might have noticed, I write stories with predominately female and queer casts, often with mixed-race or otherwise non-white protagonists and supporting characters.

dimension fracture
is the second book in my urban fantasy series
Dawn of a New Astral Age
. My other novel-length works include
bound together
and
Binary System: Deneb
. I've also published multiple short stories; two in anthologies published by Skipjack Publishing, as well as a guest author contribution to my fellow author and close friend K.J. Russell's debut dark fantasy tale,
The Dusty Man
.

Readers can connect with me through my Twitter account, @syn010110, or by following my Tumblr (
syn010110.tumblr.com
), though I'm not the most active social-media butterfly. I also maintain a public email account that readers can use to contact me if they wish (
[email protected]
), which I check reasonably often.