Here's the first chapter of a story that I'm writing
please give opinions
the story is untitled so far
Chapter 1
Orion intergalactic space station
Charlie Jackson stepped off the gangway into the hustle and bustle of the Orion Intergalactic Space Station. The station is located in the Orion system (hence the name) and was a focal point for trade and tourism in the system. The station houses numerous hotels and shopping centers and multiple docking points large enough to accommodate humongous freighters from distant parts of the galaxy. The station also was home to the Universal Earth Federation’s 2nd fleet headquarters.
Charlie was what you called a security pilot, a pilot who flew a star fighter for a company to protect the company’s assets from possible attack. Although the star fighter was fully armed a security pilot’s main role was show of presence rather than brute force. Rarely did a security pilot experience combat.
The UEF did however scout for pilots within private companies and that is how Charlie came to be at the Orion Intergalactic Space Station. The UEF had invited Charlie to join the 45th Puma Squadron on tour with the Corvette Duke. Charlie had accepted.
Charlie was amazed by the sheer size of the station. It looked big obviously from the outside but the inside looked just as big, so big Charlie questioned the thickness of the stations hull and the protection it would provide if anything collided with it. The terminal that Charlie was in was the size of two football fields and as high as a three story building.
Before Charlie could find the location he had been given to meet up with his squadron he had to be processed through customs. It was the usual checking of bags and asking of questions like ‘what is the reason for your visit to this system?’ or ‘how long are you intending to spend on this station’. Boring and unnecessary questions Charlie thought it would have been infinitely easier if someone from the UEF had come down to bypass the dreary customs process but that was life and they were probably to busy anyway.
After some wondering around and inquiring of directions from strangers Charlie eventually found Puma Head Quarters. Their HQ was a small bar called the White Monkey close to UEF barracks. Because the Pumas operated off of a corvette or frigate they had no real Head Quarters so they used the White Monkey as their makeshift HQ.
Charlie went in and inquired at the bar about the Pumas and was directed to a room at the back of the bar. He was greeted by two men, one middle aged and the other in his early thirties, both in military uniform and both with a small badge in the shape of an eagle’s wings on their jacket.
‘Charlie Jackson?’ the older man enquired and extended his hand toward Charlie.
‘Yes, Commander Flint?’ Charlie replied and took the mans hand and gave him a firm handshake.
‘Yes, welcome to the 45th Pumas Charlie may I introduce Captain Hanson squadron leader,’ Flint said and motioned toward the younger man, Hanson nodded.
‘How do you do?’ said Flint, ‘I hope you had a nice flight. At 0600 we join the corvette Duke so after your finished here I suggest you get some rest. If you’ll excuse me I have some preparations to finish’. With that Flint left the room.
‘I’m glad you can join us Jackson, I understand you were a security pilot before you joined us?’ asked Hanson.
‘Yes sir I was’.
‘Ah good you should fit right in then. I’m sorry but unfortunately I have some pressing matters of my own to attend to, if you’ll excuse me’.
Captain Hanson walked out of the room and Charlie followed.
* * *
U.E.F.D Churchill, Northern part of the Orion system
Paul Kenneth was the commanding officer of the UEFD Churchill the flagship of the UEF 2nd fleet. The 2nd fleet was located in the Orion system and its Head Quarters was the Orion Intergalactic Space Station. The UEFD Churchill was a Hammerhead class destroyer, which had a crew of 4000 and it could hold and deploy hundreds of fighters. At 1.5 kilometre in length it is an awesome site to behold striking fear into its enemies with its cone like body, four huge engines seemingly slapped onto the sides like an after thought and toward the front near the nose two smaller engines jut out on the sides giving it a unique Hammerhead shark appearance. It bristled with dozens of anti-fighter beams and laser canons and numerous heavy beam canons designed to rip through the shields and hulls of capital ships. Felt pretty safe as well thought Paul as he sat looking out toward the void of space from the command bridge.
The Churchill had just come out of sub-space and was en route to a hotspot of pirate activity code named the ‘belfry’ by UEF command. The ‘belfry’ was a small asteroid field located in the East sector of the Orion system and recent intelligence had reported increased pirate activity in the area including at least 2 reasonably sized freighters and accompanying fighter wings.
All systems have small-scale piracy, usually two or three fighters attacking a private freighter, but organized piracy on this scale was very rare so the Churchill was being deployed to either capture or destroy the pirates. Paul didn’t mind having to deploy the Churchill to deal with the pirates because it meant the crew and fighter pilots would get some combat experience and pirates weren’t known to be a great threat to UEF pilots because of their lack of proper training and experience with star fighters.
‘Intel how’s the traffic at the “belfry?”’ Paul asked his intelligence officer who was sitting at a computer console to his left.
‘Nothing new sir, the scouts report occasional freighter traffic but nothing more than that’ came the reply.
‘Good, keep me posted if anything changes. Radar anything doing in the immediate area?’
‘No sir, quiet as a tomb out there,’ replied the radar officer to his right.
‘Good. Com has the Neptune confirmed for the joint attack on the “belfry”?’
The Coms officer piped up saying ‘yes sir, four minutes ago sir’.
‘Good, officers of the bridge if anything changes you know how to contact me but for now I’m going to brief the pilots on the mission. Good job every body’. Paul walked off the bridge and into the depths of the Churchill in search of the pilot’s quarters.
* * *
U.E.F.Cv Duke, Northern part of the Orion system
‘Gamma 1’, Squadron Leader Hanson motioned toward the first pilot in the line up, ‘Manfred Richardson, record of 15 kills and 5 assists, one of the highest scoring pilots in a patrol squadron’.
‘Hello, welcome to Gamma wing’, said Manfred as he saluted Charlie and Charlie saluted back.
Charlie was in a green jump suit, on the cramped flight deck of the Duke, being introduced to the pilots he would be flying with as part of Gamma wing. Captain Hanson was introducing him and all around them were flight crews reapairing and readying fighters for flight.
Hanson moved on to the next pilot, ‘Gamma 2, Jason ‘Point Blank’ Burt, 6 kills and 1 assist’.
‘Welcome Charlie’.
‘Jason got the nickname ‘Point Blank’ after his second mission with us when he had a great deal of trouble trying to hit targets with his main cannons’, said Hanson with a smirk on his face.
‘Not my fault’, retorted ‘Point Blank’.
The pilot next to him piped up saying ‘come on man face it you couldn’t hit a destroyer if it was looking you in the face’.
‘Shut up man’ Burt said as he took a swing at his college.
The pilot dodged and Hanson raised his voice ‘settle down you two. That brings us to Gamma 3, Darrel Jenkins, 5 kills 2 assists’.
‘Welcome to the 45th’.
‘You’ll soon meet the other pilots of the 45th aboard the Duke. Now to what you’ll be flying’, Hanson walked off toward the nearest fighter and raised his hand motioning toward it. ‘This is the MiG 227 space superiority fighter. This baby will reach 225 m/s flat out and when you hit your burners she’ll get up to 270. Not the fastest ship in the fleet but certainly not the slowest. This is a pretty average ship in most regards but don’t be fooled back in the day she was renowned for her excellent handling and can still mix it with the best of them. I think that’s all you need to for know now you’ll pick everything else up as you go, Pumas lets get airborne’.
‘Yeeeha!’ Jason yelled and slapped the backs of Manfred and Darrel then slapped Charlie’s as he ran off to his fighter closely followed by the others.
‘Your fighters this way’ Captain Hanson said as he led him of towards an identical looking fighter as all the rest except it had a big ‘Gamma 4’ written across its bodywork along with the 45th’s insignia, a picture of a Puma, and the U.E.F logo three triangles in a v formation. The MiG 227 looked like a jet fighter but it had the stubby body of a World War 2 plane. It had two engines spaced fairly far apart at the back with a cockpit wedged in between two intakes up the front of the fighter. It also lacked the smaller tail wings of atmosphere fighters.
Charlie climbed the ladder that was on the side of the ship and hoped into the cockpit. From the outside Captain Hanson saluted Charlie so he saluted back and donned his helmet.
One by one the platforms that Gamma wing’s fighters were on picked them up and took them to a long tunnel that led to outer space. One by one the fighters were positioned in front of the tunnel then launched up it. The pilots called it the ‘chute’ and it was basically an easy way to launch fighters quickly in the form of a catapult.
Charlie was the last to launch but he soon caught up to the rest of Gamma wing.
‘Gamma wing report in’ said Manfred over the radio. Each pilot reported in respectively then he went on and said ‘all pilots prepare to make the jump to rendezvous with the Duke’, and in each cockpit the pilots started punching in commands to their computer. ‘We jump in 5…4…3…2…1…jump’ around each fighter a blue cocoon of energy formed, the fighters accelerated and they disappeared into the void of sub-space.
* * *
U.E.F.D Churchill, Northern part of the Orion system
Admiral Kenneth had just finished briefing the pilots who were part of the attack group on the ‘belfry’ and was on his way to the command bridge as the attack was commencing in a few minutes. The plan was simple get in and give the ‘surrender or be destroyed’ speech and if they try and run, blast them into space dust.
By the time Kenneth got to the bridge the Churchill had moved into the asteroid field and was ready to pounce on the pirates.
‘Com is the Neptune in place?’
‘Yes sir its in place and their pilots have been briefed’.
‘Radar, Intel what’s happening in there?’
‘Same as sir’ replied the Intel officer.
‘Nothing new’ said the radar officer.
‘Ok lets get this party started, Com contact the Neptune tell them to start the assult, helm take us in fast I don’t want them to know what hit them and fighter command launch your fighters I want these pirates shacking in there boots when we hit ’em.’
A torrent of ‘yes sirs’ came, more orders were given out and the Churchill gained speed and went further into the asteroid field. Small asteroids bounced off the super strengthened hull and larger rocks were blasted with the Churchill’s cannons as it flew through the asteroid field.
After a while they came to a sort of clearing in the field and could see fighters flying around and two freighters picking up and dropping off goods.
‘Attention all craft in the immediate area; this is the Commanding officer of the UEFD Churchill,’ said Kenneth into the radio, ‘You are ordered to surrender and power down your vessels, I repeat all craft in the area are ordered to power down and surrender to UEF forces immediately.’
There was a tense pause on the bridge as every one waited for a response from the pirates. The fighters and freighters started moving away from the Churchill fleeing toward open space.
The Radar officer broke the silence ‘Sir all hostiles are taking up defensive positions around fleeing assets.’
Paul looked out toward the pirates who were madly trying to escort their vulnerable freighters to safety.
The Intel officer came up beside Paul and said ‘notice anything strange about those pirates?
‘Beside the fact that these guys can hold formation better than most U.E.F squadrons, no’
‘Well other than that see what those guys are flying, those are Su J-22’s straight off the plants in Vega.’
Paul picked up a pair of binoculars and zoomed in on one of the pirates ‘your right brand new J-22’s, how the hell did they get their hands on them.’
‘They are pirates ya know’
Paul gave him a look as to say ‘idiot’ then handed him the binoculars and keyed the radio ‘We take your lack of reply as a refusal to surrender, All units open fire!’
The crew down at gunnery control had been waiting for the word and immediately all of the anti fighter weapons activated and the 4 facing beam cannons came bearing down on the fleeing freighters. The squad of fighters that had been lingering around the Churchill started to attack the pirates and the Neptune jumped in on the other side of the field accompanied by another squad of fighters.
The Intel officer stood beside Kenneth with the binoculars watching the battle.
Kenneth had picked up another pair of binoculars ‘Status on the two freighters and a fighter count?’
‘Shields at 75 and 69 percent and 5 out of 21 fighters down’
Kenneth didn’t reply he just kept looking through the binoculars watching the battle. A small freighter designated Fury caught his attention, ‘Did we pick up that freighter on our initial long range scan Radar?’
‘No we put it down to asteroid interference.’
Kenneth nodded, ‘are those J-28’s protecting that small freighter?’ he said as he pointed toward them.
‘Hell those are even newer than the J-22’s’ said the Intel officer.
Alarm came across Paul, the J-22’s may have been straight off the plants in Vega but the J-28’s were fresh out of the design rooms and that meant these pirates were very well connected.
‘Alpha wing,’ Paul said over the radio, ‘I want you to intercept the freighter designated Fury and its escort, be careful Alpha the escort is using J-28 Sukhoi fighters.’
‘On it command’ replied Alpha 1.
The fighters of Alpha wing branched of from the attack to chase down the Fury. The Fury began accelerating heading away from the battle and the escort fighters turned to cover. The fighters met, exchanged a barrage of laser and missile fire resulting in fighters being lost. An intense dogfight ensured.
‘Those Sokhoi’s are all over Alpha’ Commented Intel.
‘Command we can’t shake these fighters! We need help now command!’
The pirates were now in pursuit of Alpha who were ducking and weaving trying to lose their pursuers.
‘Beta wing assist Alpha.’
‘Copy that.’
Beta wing responded by turning around from the pirates they were chasing and went in pursuit of their new targets.
‘NO NOOOOO!’ shouted Alpha 1 before he disappeared into a ball of flame.
‘Beta wing hurry up and assist Alpha.’
‘Mayday!’ yelled Alpha 4 before he met the same fate as Alpha 1.
‘The Fury is about to make the jump Admiral’ said the radar officer.
‘Beta take out that escort you wont be able to catch the Fury.’
No sooner had he said that the Fury was consumed by energy and disappeared into sub-space. The escort fighters seeing that their job was done peeled away from what was left of Alpha wing and soon followed the Fury into sub-space Beta wing coming to late to catch them.
‘Dam it! The Fury and its escort have jumped command’ said Beta 1.
Paul was crushed not only had the mysterious freighter and its escort escaped but he’d lost seven pilots so far in the attack on the ‘Belfry’ and was no closer to finding out how the pirates had managed to get hold of such well equipped star fighters.
‘Beta get back to the main attack party, Alpha come back to the Churchill for de-briefing your mission is over.’
