4 years after the Armistice

Fwup-fwup-fwup-fwup.

The thin blades of the Yakama helicopter drone buzzed rhythmically over her head, but they were barely a distraction for Bertel. After all, she'd been living in one attack chopper after another since she was hatched. And in a less… physical sense now than during her service in the Dominion, but it was all-so-familiar. She could fall asleep in this loud cockpit.

She closed her eyes for a brief moment and let the feeling of power wash over her as the interface booted up.

Her radio buzzed in her headset. "Spotter drone ready. Launch in ten… nine… eight…"

With the deft click of a claw, Bertel linked the target drone to her data-link sensors. Her Yakama helodrone couldn't see it yet, but it knew what was coming too. The predators who'd taught her to use it, they had… inhibitions.

They believed it was important to separate the machine from the operator. That there was something unnatural, something uncomfortable about that link. It wasn't so much a direct neural connection (those existed as well, mostly in experimental or specialized applications) as it was the machine simply watching her, learning from her patterns and behaviors. It understood intent, and in battle, a machine that could understand — truly understand — what its operator wanted was worth its weight in Republic credits.

The predators taught her tricks, taught her to use that connection, to truly utilize its frightening effectiveness sparingly in combat. They taught her the hardware, what each button and functionality on the multi-million credit Raytech-designed helodrone did. They taught her how to maintain it, to keep it combat effective even when out of logistics reach. They taught her their fears, their ever-present paranoia of losing control to the machines.

Bertel had none of those fears. She'd dropped those the moment she joined them on Grantor. She didn't care who was in control here; she wasn't bred to.

Fwup-fwup-fwup-fwup.

Her sensor suite beeped in the background to inform her of what the circular dome on top of her rotors could see. Most of it was civilian radio devices in the city, their emissions clear enough for her machine to categorize and discard. A few friendly radios showed up as well, as their sensor networks merged with hers after only being the briefest authorization.

"Three… two… one… launch!" the traffic control team reported to her via the hardline.

The Yakama drone opened its eyes.

Boop. Boop. Boop. Boop.

In Dominion aviation, that sounded dangerously close to a warning that she was being radar-locked. But Bertel knew that was not the case. It couldn't be. Her helodrone was dark black, its skin meshed with a layer of soft radar-absorbing material and paint that made her appear as no larger than a bug from the front.

No. That was not a warning. That was the sound of the dinner bell for her Yakama drone. As she raised its collective to rise above the ten-story city building she'd been perched behind, nearly three dozen red boxes popped into her interface.

Boop. Boop. Boop.

More targets arrived. And then, the expected happened.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt.

One of the enemy Light Longclaws evidently detected the spotter drone, its autocannon raking the skies with tracers. After only a second of continuous fire, the link for the spotter drone blinked out from her feed.

Their locations now revealed, two of the enemy vehicles began pounding the traffic control tower with their cannons, glass and concrete flying off it as they peeled away at its thin walls.

But the Yakama got what it needed, and so did she.

Bertel let the computer select the targets, watching the boxes tick up, then she squeezed the trigger. The machine knew she was going to do it, and she couldn't tell if it acted before or after she gave the signal. It didn't matter.

Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

A dozen Made in Ceres Hornet-80 guided rockets flew off her rack almost simultaneously. Ever since missiles were invented by humans, turning on their seekers so they could begin tracking their targets was a process their pilots called "uncaging". Here, it was almost literal. The intelligence chips in her Hornet-80s had been on standby, dreaming about this moment since they were produced. Uncaged, they sought their targets.

They each independently noted the moderately heavy electronic warfare signals in their airspace. Four years ago, Znosian electronic warfare was barely distinguishable from slightly more powerful civilian toys. Now, after four years of continuous war, after all the advances imported into the battlefield by the grand predator coalition egging the participants on, it was enough to make the intelligence chips at least sit up and crack their knuckles.

The Hornet-80s coordinated targeting and produced matching countermeasures as they went hypersonic. The targets were only a short distance away from the Yakama drone that kept feeding them its sensor data, but it wasn't like Republic taxpayers were getting a refund for the fuel they didn't use up here. Their sophisticated variable-thrust engines burnt brightly as they sped towards their targets.

They deployed a series of penetration aids, confusing the enemy approach detection radars. A few automated guns tried to track them. These were significantly more advanced than the primitive computers that the Dominion fielded at the start of this war, but the research and development divisions at Raytech had not been slacking off during the Znosian schism either.

After all, there were six hundred planets at war. Continuous interstellar war. These were the greatest four years in history, ever, to be a weapons maker. Republic defense companies saw their quarterly revenues take off like the turret ring of a Znosian tank when hit by plasma fire. And some of that money even went towards making better weapons.

In any case, this was their job.

The Longclaws on the ground had been designed for a variety of tasks: transport, fire support, suppression, drone detection, and a few of them were even meant for air defense.

But everything at Bertel's claws was designed to turn those metal boxes she saw in her white-hot thermal imagery into burning heaps of scrap. Her agility. Her sensors. Her electronic warfare module. Her avionics. Her weapons. Everything.

The Hornet-80s honed in on their targets like their namesake.

Boooooooooooooooom.

For the untrained biological eye, it would appear as if all dozen enemy vehicles exploded simultaneously. For the machine, if there was any gap between the explosions, it readily acknowledged its imperfection that it didn't have the sensors advanced enough to see them.

Bertel watched them explode, but she didn't celebrate. Her job was not over.

Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

Another dozen enemy vehicles disappeared in fiery explosions. The last few Loyalists began reacting. Their turrets moved, their track pivoted them in her direction…

Her third volley finished off the rest of the enemy vehicles.

"Enemy armor neutralized," Bertel reported dispassionately as she began cataloguing the smaller targets through her sensor pod. Unfortunately for the enemy infantry remaining, the spaceport was very much a flat, open area. Which was favorable condition for the operation of their armored vehicles… about five seconds ago when they still had those.

Snick.

With barely a sound, a hatch in the Yakama's belly opened to expose its 20mm autocannon. "Working on the hoppers now," Bertel continued calmly.

That was slang she picked up back on Grantor.

That was where she started, flying for her unit of rogues and volunteers in Grantor Intelligence. But that part of the war had been over pretty quickly. Without support, the Loyalist and State Security units on Grantor had been wiped out in droves, even before the Dominion's armistice timer with the predator coalition officially ran out. She spent a couple months re-living her earlier experience in the Grantor occupation, a bird of prey raining fire at specks of heat from a kilometer above the battlefield, except this time the holdouts and insurgents were Znosian and not stubborn Granti. Those guys didn't last very long either; the Granti cleared them out from their home planet with enthusiasm you just couldn't breed.

After that stint, she was loaned out to one Free Znosian unit after another that needed a pilot who knew how to work predator equipment or with their tactics. It was a surprisingly in-demand position. After all, the predators weren't supposed to be actively fighting this war on the ground. Deploying them — even the volunteers — to frontline planets was a politically sensitive subject for decision makers back in the predator civilizations. But Bertel had fluffy ears and long whiskers like the rest of them. Take off her Granti Intelligence unit patch, put on a Free Znosian Marine uniform, and no one asked any extra questions.

Far more difficult to smuggle down to Britvik-3 than Bertel herself was, of course, the helodrone. But it was a planet of billions. Among all the daily interstellar shipping, one standardized shipping crate with forged documentation was a trivial task for the Free Znosians. By the time anyone noticed, it had already been whisked away from the spaceport with the rest of Sjulzulp's unit and unpacked at a safe location.

Bertel concentrated on her task. All that preparation, and she wasn't about to waste it all.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt.

A squad of unfortunate Loyalist Marines in her sights disappeared, limbs and ears flying off in every direction as the high explosive shells from her gun landed. The debris it kicked up threw rocks fast enough to cut people in half, and that was exactly what it did. She watched in satisfaction as one Loyalist who held a long tube — she couldn't tell if the launcher was meant for armor, structures, or her — disappeared in a cloud of white-hot smoke.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrt.

A shorter burst this time, neutralizing a small group that had been huddled near the spaceport's worn barracks. A scattered platoon of Loyalists hopped across the spaceport tarmac wildly.

They didn't make it very far.

Brrrrt. Brrrrrt. Brrrrrrrrrrrt.

The troops on the ground joined her with their own small arms, cutting down many of the routing enemy infantry.

She felt a paw on her shoulder as she eased off her controls, watching the carnage slowly peter out beneath her as the remaining Loyalists were massacred.

"Good work, pilot," Sjulzulp praised. "Fall back. We'll need to prepare for their next wave."

Up in orbit, the atmosphere was a little less congratulatory.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Rolaskt tried not to look at the political officer glaring daggers his way as he stonily listened to the report. "Our best guess?"

"Orbital recon isn't revealing much. We didn't spot the launches. Troops reported they were coming under heavy attack before they were cut off, but none of them saw the source of the attack. And none of our vehicles survived to relay their sensor data. The Digital Guide's working theories are: heavy artillery, drone swarm, and possibly a— hold one, we're getting a remote analysis."

Rolaskt brushed his whiskers. "Remote analysis?"

"We sent the data back to Znos-4 and they're coming up with something… They say based on the size and nature of the craters in the orbital imagery, there is some similarity— it might be related to an unexplained attack at a frontline engagement about eight star systems away. About two months ago."

"What are they saying? What are we dealing with here?"

"Uncertain. Dominion Design Bureau hypothesis is it's a new weapon from the schismatics. Possibly experimental, possibly imported. It makes sense they'd bring them here. We assumed that they're based on the heavy rocket artillery used by the Great Predators."

"Rocket artillery?"

"Possibly some kind of— perhaps a battery of launchers in the city?" she speculated.

"Brought down by a recon battalion? Our State Security sources on the ground say they didn't bring in any heavy vehicles like that!"

"A drone swarm launcher, then, maybe? Whatever it is, they should not have much in the way of resupply. It is even possible that they've run out of ammunition by now."

"That may be true." Rolaskt said, injecting as much optimism as he could into his voice. "There may just be a battalion of schismatic Marines down there… but I can't afford to waste another wave of my elite troopers on the off-chance that they've used up everything they brought with them! What does command say?"

"No… additional guidance from Znos, Nine Whiskers. What are your directives?"

Rolaskt continued to avert the unblinking gaze of his political officer. "Ahem… By my calculation, speed is still of the essence to our ultimate objective. We need to take care of this problem as soon as we can. Send the Skyclaw orbital deploy pods, and tell them to bomb whatever launched these… to dust."

"How many?"

"How many what?"

"How many Skyclaw orbital deploy pods?"

"Load up every transport we have," he said flatly.

"All forty-two?!" She looked up in alarm. "Nine Whiskers? Are you certain? It's a little… overkill, and combat deployments are highly risky. Znos tallies six major accidents involving those in the last week—"

He nodded emphatically. "There are no half-measures today. If we don't dislodge the Free— the schismatics now, everything in my fleet will be written off when their squadrons arrive here anyway. Swap out the drop cargo and send them in, Computer Officer. And do it quick. We need to clear out the threats before we send in our infantry."

A less experienced pilot might have been anxious as they watched the maintenance crew replace her spent rocket pods with fresh replacements through the belly external cameras, but Bertel knew her crew. They were bred for this task. Big, strong paws optimized for twist strength, beefy legs for carrying heavy loads, and a superior ability to read facial expressions for teamwork-oriented tasks. Sure, the Dominion scientists who perfected that genetic bloodline may have been thinking about a slightly different set of equipment, but as it turned out, rocket pods were rocket pods. What worked for Skyfangs now worked for her helodrone, with only the barest re-training.

Bertel hummed a quick tune as they worked.

Hmm. Hmm hmm hmm hmmmmmmmmm hmm. Hmm hmm hmmmmmmmm—

Sjulzulp's voice cut into her singing. "Pilot Bertel, the enemy is deploying the second wave of transports. They've just entered the upper atmosphere. How long do you estimate your crew will need before you can get back in the air?"

She glanced to confirm the state of her pylons. But she didn't estimate. She calculated. "Almost there. We'll be ready before they land."

"Good… The telescopic crew says there is something odd about these transports."

"Odd?" Bertel tilted her head. "Odd, how?"

"Bulkier around the middle, they say. Maybe they figured out what hit them and they're carrying additional anti-aircraft firepower," Sjulzulp speculated.

"Send me the imagery."

A telescopic image appeared in a window in her vision almost immediately, displaying an armored transport lander with — as Sjulzulp described it — a bulkier mid-cargo module. She sighed as she recognized it immediately. "Ah. Skyclaw pods. How many more are like this?"

"All of them."

"All of them?"

"That we could see."

Bertel was quiet for a moment as she calculated more. "I guess they really want me dead."

"What is it, Pilot Bertel?" Sjulzulp said, worry creeping into his voice. "What are we looking at?"

Skyclaws were technically still part of the Dominion Marine aviation "family", falling under Marine commands in battle, but their close cooperation with space fleets meant they were usually lumped in with Navy personnel and equipment in the minds of Dominion Marines. Like spacers in elite squadrons, their pilots were all specially bred (obviously), with their genetic bloodlines selectively picked from the best-of-the-best in other aviation units. For them, the Dominion spared no expenses. Rapid reactions, high cognitive capacity, higher-than-usual blood pressure for high-G tolerance. It was said that even their diet was rich in beta-carotene to maintain good eyesight.

And these were no ordinary Skyclaws. These were orbital-deployed Skyclaws. The risks were higher. Thus, the cut was harsher. Every positive trait Dominion geneticists could cram into a standard one-meter tall pilot body. They instinctively knew when to be aggressive in combat, when to be coldly calculating, and when to let calm flow through their ears.

Like now.

Nothing else in the galaxy could have prepared a Skyclaw pilot for orbital deployment. It was a task of zero-tolerance precision engineering. A millimeter off for one of the metal struts, an unaccounted-for vibration in the pod, and the pilot would end up scattered across three different continents. If they were lucky.

Ka-chunk. Poooooooooooof.

The final boosters on the transport landers fired. But they were not landing, not this trip. Their cargo destination was 25,000 meters above sea level.

"Lightning 1, go."

"Lightning 2, go."

"Lightning 3, go."

The pilots ran through their checklists, and their calm, monotone voices signaled their readiness to the others through the radio.

"Lightning 40, go."

"Lightning 41, go."

"Lightning 42, go."

"All Lightnings, ready for deployment," their controller in orbit tallied as all the lights on their helmet display flashed green. "Deploy."

Baaaaaang.

An explosive charge detonated in their outer hull module, separating the hull panels from the transport landers. A hundred milliseconds later, a rocket engine lit up, propelling their pods away from their landers' downward vortex. Then, the struts of the modules itself unwrapped away from the internal cargo, revealing each Skyclaw inside.

Bang.

This explosion was a little less kinetic but no less final. With the last pieces of the pod and its supports falling away, the Skyclaws were officially on their own power.

Some didn't make it.

"Lightning 14. Lightning 14, do you copy? We've lost your signal."

"This is Lightning 12. I have visual on the Lightning 14 deployment site. Appears to be a deployment failure. Lander is a casualty as well."

"Understood, Lightning 12."

"This is Lightning 31, reporting a catastrophic failure on Lightning 33."

"Are you sure Lightning 31? We still have telemetry from—"

"Confirmed. Lightning 33 has been lost. Its transport appears intact."

Of the 42 pods, four didn't complete the deployment. It was such a high-risk combat deployment that most orbital Skyclaw pod pilots weren't even expected to do it a single time in their lifetime. Partially because they cost a lot of resources to breed, partially because of how expensive their equipment was. In most wars against predators, they were used sparingly. Most planets were so large that it was trivial to gain a beachhead once orbital superiority was established. Ultimately, there was very little point in deploying Skyclaws mid-air. Unless, like today, they didn't have time to establish a beachhead, unload a logistics team, build an airstrip, and then launch the jets.

Each Skyclaw entered a downward stall. This was expected. They'd just exited their landers mid-air, with their engines barely warm. They each fired their afterburners as they struggled to regain flight control. At this high up, the atmosphere was thin, compounding the difficulty of stall recovery. But with 25,000 meters of margin to work with, even amateur pilots could recover control, not to mention those specifically drilled on the task. The only risk was to the structural integrity of the Skyclaws' fragile aluminum wings.

Which claimed another Skyclaw in Lightning Squadron.

The remainder would have breathed a sigh of relief if they were even bred to feel anxiety.

"Lightning 1, stable flight at 18,000 meters."

"Lightning 2…"

As the 37 remaining pilots called out their altitudes and confirmed their translation into regular flight, they began switching on their sensor and radar pods, their machines closely monitoring the sprawling capital city below them, looking for what had unceremoniously ended the first wave attack.

And as expected, nothing showed up. There was some hope that whatever secret weapons the schismatics had were stupid enough to show their ears with a massive squadron of air superiority jets buzzing overhead, but they couldn't really fault the enemy for not falling into such a simple trap.

"Lightning 1 to controller, nothing visible on sensors. We have direct visual on the spaceport; there are signs that the schismatic troops are deployed inside the spaceport logistics terminal."

"Understood, Lightning 1."

"Should we clear it out? We've got air-to-ground munitions."

There was a brief moment of quiet on the radio as the controller ran the question up the chain of command. "Not yet. We're going to need those facilities for the push into the city, and if we are going to level them, we've got orbit-to-ground for that."

"Understood. Directives?"

"Lightnings, hold the area while we deploy our second— third wave."

The Lightning pilots kept up the search as they loitered over the target site. They had plenty of fuel. They'd run out eventually, at which point they'll need to decide whether to ditch their jets or to risk landing somewhere flat, but for now, their job was to simply lock down the battlespace until the next wave arrived. Their sophisticated radars looked high and low, all over the capital city, hoping they'd catch a glimpse of an anomaly.

As it turned out, Bertel's helo drone was actually on their radars. A radar signature the size of a bug, as Raytech advertised it in their sales brochures. The sophisticated radars on the Skyclaws were good enough they could detect something the size of a bug. But there were a lot of bugs down there on the planet, and it was practically impossible to tell the gazillion tiny flying objects near the ground from one another. It was discarded as noise like the rest. The Skyclaw pilots continued their coordinated search, beaming their active radar sensors down at the ground.

Some of them might have been tempted to relax when a Hornet-80 missile burnt its way into Lightning 18 at six times the speed of sound. The missile was designed to take out heavy armor; it was not designed to be used against flying enemies, but the digital intelligence on board took on it as a challenge, not discouragement. It didn't leave much of the hit Skyclaw remaining with its oversized anti-tank warhead.

"Lightning 18 is down! Lightning 18 is down!"

"I saw the smoke trail. It's coming from near the ground!"

"What is it?!"

They checked their sensor records, and all they saw on their screens was more noise. They continued their diligent search until…

"Incoming! Missile incoming! Lightning 12, there's one headed to you!"

"Defending! It's on my twelve! What in the Prophecy is that—"

The Skyclaw deployed a spectacular cloud of flares as it maneuvered to avoid the hypersonic munition, but it was in vain. It fell out of the sky, and this time, there were still some pieces remaining as it trailed smoke. At least the pilot got out as a bright parachute unfurled near his sinking aircraft.

"Did anyone see where that came from?"

Their machines carefully replayed the last few seconds of the "engagement", and…

"Got something!"

Like most Republic-made missiles, the Hornet-80s had some low observable characteristics. They were coated in the same radar-absorbing paint as the Yakama drone that launched them, and like the drone, they too were registered on the enemy radars as tiny, bug-sized objects.

But bugs didn't usually fly at six times the speed of sound, and that little detail didn't escape the notice of the upgraded and linked Skyclaw computers.

"Got them! Launch origin was about six kilometers to the south of the spaceport! Narrow the search to that area."

That was a small enough search window for the infrared search and track sensor pods embedded in the bellies of the Skyclaw jets. They began combing over the area, slice-by-slice. Unluckily for them, infrared detectability was also a major concern for Republic equipment, and the technology to reduce heat signatures to avoid thermal optics had come a long way from insurgents hiding under thick wool blankets in the desert over a century ago.

On their sensors, Bertel's helodrone looked no different from a regular, Sun-warmed ground vehicle, parked just six meters above the ground, emitting the radar equivalent of a small bug. Sure, that little inconsistency was a minor giveaway, and if they knew what they were looking for, all of that combined might have enabled the right sensor software to find her. A Raytech digital intelligence would have found it. But the Loyalists didn't have those, not even after four years of grueling schism.

"Missiles incoming! Lightning 28, there's one on your tail!"

"Lightning 25 defending!"

Four more Lightnings dropped off the friendly asset tracker.

"The launches! Did anyone spot the launches?!"

"Negative, Lightning 1. I've got nothing!"

"This is Lightning 2. I'm launching a response. Radar missile out."

Fwoooooooooooosh.

"What are you aiming at, Lightning 2? I don't see a target on your data-link!"

"The general area. Keep your sensors aimed. Just disturbing the nest."

The oldest trick in the book. The ancient ancestors of the Znosians had known this by instinct. Predators — then not yet extinct — would sometimes stalk their intelligent prey in the forests of Znos-4. Hunting them patiently. The easiest way to reveal them was… to throw a rock in their general direction, making them think they were discovered, startling them to make a move.

The active radar emitter on the nose of the missile beamed its noisy signal in every direction, triggering the radar warning sensors of the Yakama drone.

A less experienced pilot might have panicked and moved, revealing its position in its evasion, but Bertel took her time to calmly verify the bait that it was. She knew the trick. She'd been fighting this war for years. And after all, those ancient ancestors on Znos-4 were her ancestors too. She held the helo still.

"Nothing. I'm beginning to think… maybe these are paw-launched missiles, Lightning 2."

"Paw-launched hypersonics?! Not unless the schismatics somehow got their paws on— Missiles incoming! One on my front! Defending!"

"Lightning 2, there's one on your rear too! It's going for Lightning 30! Countermeasures out!"

"Lightning 40, I've got it on my tail too— Ahhh!"

Three more Skyclaws dropped off the radar.

"Anyone see something? Anything?!"

"I've got something! Pinpointed the launch location of the last salvo, and there's… something there."

"What is it, Lightning 35?"

"I don't… know. What— what in the Prophecy… is that… thing?"

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.