Arusian Crusade: Deployment
Chapter 1: Mission Parameters

The morning started out well; Keith's alarm clock had chosen the worst possible day to die. They weren't exactly late to their priority alpha appointment. They weren't early, either.

Colonel Hawkins was waiting for them in the briefing room. Sven studied him as thoroughly as possible without staring; he had the look of one who'd clawed his way up through the combat ranks to reach his place. No nonsense here. He didn't look like the kind of man who would get roped into a disciplinary action. Not that they'd ever seriously been blaming Lance for the summons, but... maybe half seriously.

It had happened before.

There was another man in the room, smaller than Hawkins and a bit nervous-looking, with a shoulder patch that identified him as a lieutenant. He was holding a clipboard and attempting to look very serious, as if that would hide the fact that he couldn't be much older than the cadets themselves.

While Sven was still observing things, Keith stepped forward and saluted. "Cadets Kogane, Holgersson, and McClain, reporting as ordered, sir."

Hawkins calmly waved them to chairs. "Good morning, gentlemen. Have a seat, we're still waiting for—"

Before he could finish the sentence the door swung open again, admitting two bedraggled-looking cadets, panting for breath, who snapped off hasty salutes before they even looked up. Both wore green engineering badges, but otherwise they were a study in contrasts—one enormous and powerfully built, the other short and wiry and startlingly young.

"Cadets Stoker and Garrett... reporting... sir!" the small one gasped. "Apologies for being late... sir... Commander Tetsuya thought we hacked the priority orders... sir!"

"A kid and a giant, huh?" Lance whispered, just loud enough for his two friends to hear.

"Little one's not human," Keith hissed back. Sven could not even fathom how his friend could tell that, but took his word for it. It was always best to assume Keith knew what he was talking about.

Hawkins merely studied the newcomers for a moment, expression unreadable. "At ease, cadets." His gaze zeroed in on the one who'd been speaking so far. "You do go by Stoker, then?"

"In, uh, formal situations, sir."

"Calling this a formal situation might be something of a stretch, cadet. If the two of you would have a seat we can get started."

"Must be a Yulie," Keith mumbled before the other two could even give him questioning looks.

Hawkins stood and swept his gaze over the room. "First things first. The five of you are here because you've been chosen to form a special combat detachment. This assignment will involve being placed outside of both the standard Academy curriculum and, ultimately, the regular Alliance chain of command—and on the front lines of the conflict with the Drule Supremacy, should it reignite. If any of you object to any of this, now is the time to speak up."

The room could not have gone more silent if every one of its occupants had dropped dead. Keith was the first to stammer out what everyone was thinking. "With... with all due respect, sir, that's an awful lot to take in and not a lot of time to do it."

"Take some time, then," the colonel answered simply.

The other two—Garrett, and Stoker or whatever his name was—had put their heads together and were muttering about it. Sven avoided looking at either Lance or Keith, at least briefly. He already knew where his gut feeling was taking him, and he was pretty sure he knew what his friends were thinking as well.

It was an enticing offer. Not on its own merits, not really. Hawkins hadn't told them enough about its merits in any case. But enticing because it was so mysterious, and so... odd.

There had been a Holgersson piloting for the Alliance for five generations, and Sven had never exactly been given an option on being the sixth. This was his duty. He took it seriously, even occasionally managed to take some pride in it—but as carefully as he walked the line of loyalty, it was not where he'd have chosen to take his life. And so he took every small opportunity for independence that he could.

This was a rather large opportunity. To serve the Alliance as he was required, but also... perhaps... to do something interesting. Hopefully something more inspiring than years upon years of mapping the same interstellar jumps for some supply fleet.

He looked to Keith. "What do you think?"

Keith's eyes narrowed. "We all swore an oath when we enlisted. To go anywhere, perform any task, assume any burden. I intend to fulfill that oath."

Pretty much what Sven had expected. There were twice as many Koganes in the Alliance's history as there were Holgerssons, after all, and Keith guarded his honor as if his life depended on it.

Both of them looked to Lance. The cheerful spark usually present in his eyes had vanished, replaced by a blazing ferocity. "If we get to kill Drules, I'm in."

Also pretty much as expected. Disturbing. But expected.

Sven merely nodded his own acceptance of the proposal, and they turned back to look at Hawkins. After another minute or so, the other two also looked up. "We're game."

"Excellent. Everything that follows is to be considered classified at the highest levels." Hawkins began typing on his wristcomp; the viewscreen at the front of the room sprang to life. It displayed a planet that looked similar to Earth, though with a bit more land coverage. "This is Altea II, better known as Arus. It's a hereditary monarchy, largely agrarian. Raw technology is at about Industrial Revolution levels, but it has a very strong technomystical branch and a highly educated society."

Altea? Sven frowned. There was no such star... unless... he grimaced. "Extragalactic?"

Hawkins seemed to have been expecting that. "Yes. Part of the Denubian galaxy."

Wonderful. Five minutes in and we're talking intergalactic jumps. Sven was not familiar with the Denubian galaxy, but he had a sinking feeling he was about to be.

"The primary power in the Denubian is the Ninth Kingdom of the Drule Supremacy. It's traditionally the weakest of the Supremacy's holdings, but for about a decade King Zarkon has been on a campaign of rapid expansion, taking almost thirty unaffiliated worlds in the Denubian with no sign of slowing. Arus is of minimal tactical importance now, but within the next two years it will become the proverbial dagger at Zarkon's throat." Hawkins' eyes narrowed. "Assuming, of course, that Zarkon doesn't decide to just conquer it first."

Now it was Keith's turn to break in. "Would he really attack an Alliance world that easily? I mean, all we keep hearing in poli sci is that the Drules don't want open war."

"The Drules as a whole do not, for the moment. But the other kingdoms have their own problems. All our intel indicates they're in no position to reign the Ninth in, and they've hinted at the same in diplomatic contact. Anything Zarkon does is on his own head."

The lieutenant in the back of the room spoke for the first time. "The Ninth Kingdom considers the Alliance to be something of a paper tiger. Unfortunately, in the case of the Denubian, they're largely correct."

Hawkins nodded a confirmation of that assessment. "We can't afford to send a defensive fleet to Arus. The logistical support just isn't there. Not now, not in the foreseeable future. We're still rebuilding from the Rift War, as you're all well aware—it's mostly smoke and mirrors convincing the Drules they want no part of us right now."

"So you're sending Arus five cadets who can't do anything, just for kicks?" Lance blurted. Sven elbowed him.

The colonel seemed oddly unperturbed by this. Strange mission, strange commander. "We've been in contact with King Alfor, the ruler of Arus. He's been developing a secretive defense system for some time. We've been sent cockpit schematics, and Alfor is now requesting five specially trained pilots to operate these craft. That's where you five come in."

Silence again. "He's got five ships that he thinks are gonna fight off an entire Drule invasion?" the big engineer finally asked, in a voice that was surprisingly soft.

"Precisely." Hawkins hesitated. "I can't overstate this. The schematics we've received are unlike anything we've ever seen. The mission profile of the ships is impossible. But King Alfor is a man of impeccable integrity, and we know very little about Arusian technomysticism. He believes this project will not only save his own world, but could bring massive benefits to the Alliance as a whole."

Lance's eyes had lit up when Hawkins started discussing the ships; piloting something so exotic was almost as exciting as the prospect of killing Drules. Sven felt it too, though certainly less than his friend did—it was intriguing, no doubt. Fascinating, even. But something didn't quite seem to line up...

He glanced over the five cadets and counted exactly one blue piloting patch between them.

The others had noticed too. "Sir, just one thing, if Arus wants five pilots..." The little one leaned back in his chair. "Hunk—uh—Cadet Garrett and I aren't pilots."

"Maybe not, but your basic training scores were admirable," the lieutenant commented. When all eyes turned on him he seemed to finally realize he'd forgotten something. "Sorry. I'm Lieutenant Brown; I did the personnel research for this mission."

Hawkins leaned forward. "You may as well forget everything you know about traditional Alliance piloting systems. That's how different these plans are. You will be the only Alliance personnel on Arus, and we want all our bases covered. Given that, our intent is to send an elite, well-rounded force, basically a special ops unit."

"An elite force of cadets?" Lance snorted.

"You'll be elite enough when we get through with you, McClain." The colonel frowned. "God help us."

"I already said I'd help you." Now it was Keith's turn to elbow him.

Mercifully, Hawkins ignored that. "As I said, you'll be outside the normal chain of command, under King Alfor's direct authority. We decided to pull cadets who could be specially trained from the start, rather than soldiers already entrenched in Alliance routines. And now," a steely glint appeared in his eyes, "you know all the details. If there are any objections to this assignment, this is your last chance to voice them."

Sven couldn't think of any objections—beyond the fact that intergalactic jumps were hell, but that was hardly sufficient to back out of the mission. The intensity in Keith's gaze matched the colonel's, and Lance seemed to be overflowing with excitement. Mysterious spacecraft and killing Drules. It did not get any better than that.

When nobody spoke, Hawkins nodded as if he'd been expecting just that. And he probably had. "This room is free for another half hour; you five may as well get acquainted. Your training will begin next week, once your new schedules are sorted out..." He gave the two engineers a significant look. "I will see to the arrangements with your instructors."

They looked very relieved.

Keith took the lead once the officers were out of the room, turning to the two engineers and extending a hand. "My name's Keith; this is Sven and Lance."

The big engineer shook the hand he'd offered. "Everyone calls me Hunk."

"I'm Pidge," the little one added, hopping out of his chair and taking a seat on the briefing table instead.

Keith focused on Pidge. "If you don't mind me asking, what planet are you from?"

He looked startled at the question; maybe he couldn't figure out how Keith had caught that so quickly either. "Balto. Uh, Kaasen IV." Another star Sven had never heard of. He was quickly getting tired of that, but... "It's actually in the Denubian also. Never heard of Arus, though."

"That makes five of us," Lance shrugged, then turned his attention to Hunk, eyes sparkling with excitement. "So... would you happen to be the Hunk Garrett? The four year crush car grand champion Hunk Garrett?"

The big man actually blushed. "Uh... I... yeah, that's me."

Sven found the reaction odd. Crush car drivers were one of the few professions more reliably insane than interstellar navigators; a shy one didn't seem to mesh at all. Lance's thoughts seemed to be on a similar track. "Dude, that's not a bad thing."

Glancing between Hunk and Lance, Pidge chuckled. "Be careful with that," he advised, "once Hunk gets used to you he'll never shut up about the crush cars."

That got him a mock offended look. "How am I supposed to shut up about them when you keep asking me to tell you stories four times a week?"

"Details, details."

Immediately Lance switched his attention to Pidge. "Can't you talk him into telling some stories now?"

Keith and Sven exchanged amused glances. "Looks like this ought to go alright," Sven observed dryly.

"Alright?" Keith repeated. "I'd say it looks like the start of a beautiful friendship. I just hope Lance remembers we've actually got to start doing work sooner or later."

Work. Right.

That part ought to be interesting.

King Alfor of Arus may have been a man of impeccable integrity, but he liked his secrets. Pidge could understand the need to keep things quiet if a Drule king was eying him, but seriously. The Alliance had the cockpit schematics but hardly knew anything about the ships the cockpits went to.

So the Alliance scientists programming the sims had simply made most of it up. And probably hadn't done too badly, all things considered... the craft they'd come up with had redundant drive thrusters in strange places, and weapons that seemed to overlap in ways physics didn't allow for. As Hawkins had said, the performance profiles were impossible, but then... Pidge had taken an overview course on technomysticism. It had mostly taught him the Alliance didn't know much about the discipline in general, and a specific Arusian branch hadn't even been mentioned.

Perhaps all this made sense on Arus, but that made it even stranger to not tell the Alliance everything. As it was, it felt like they were all flying blind, because they pretty much were.

"Everyone in formation. Activate omega protocols."

Keith was taking it quite seriously, anyway. Keith took most things seriously.

Falling into formation and triggering the systems which comprised the so-called omega protocols, Pidge considered the team. The new ones, anyway. Hunk was his dearest friend at the academy—his only friend here, admittedly—and the two of them had forged into this together, the only way they did anything. No need to wonder about that one.

Keith was a good commander, but he could really use a personality. Surely one would spring up eventually. They usually did, once you got to know people. He just played everything close.

Lance was a maniac. A great pilot, but a maniac. Having him around was going to keep things interesting, without doubt; perhaps that was why he and Keith were a package deal. Lance had enough personality for two.

Sven was the only sane navigator Pidge had ever met. Or heard of. He seemed to spend a lot of his time keeping Keith and Lance from killing each other, though Pidge wasn't sure how serious that was. No more serious than his own sparring with Hunk, probably.

"Omega protocols fully engaged."

Omega protocols weren't really a thing. It was just the name Keith had made up for the secondary configuration the cockpits came equipped with. A week into their training the team was finally managing to get into omega protocol formation without anyone crashing into each other, which was always a plus, but the actual utility of the practice was still debatable. Most of the ships' weapons were disabled, though the remaining few seemed to become supercharged, and a handful of new systems came up. Trading flexibility for firepower made perfect sense; Pidge didn't dwell on it.

More problematic was the fact that under omega protocols, each ship seemed to exert some kind of influence on the movement of the others. Nobody was doing particularly well with that aspect, though Hunk and Sven seemed to be getting the worst of it.

"ARGH!" A thud that was probably Hunk slamming a fist on his console as the two of them nearly collided, again, causing the rest of the ships to lurch slightly. "You know, I could accept that we're just slower at this, but why's it seem like we're mostly messing with each other when we mess up? Did they program the sims to hate us?"

"That's as logical as anything else, honestly." Sven sounded mildly irritated, which was his version of yelling and punching consoles. "Here... do you think we can open a private channel in these things?"

"Ought to be able—" Apparently they could, because Hunk's voice cut out. Pidge gave them even odds of coordinating or commiserating; in any case, things seemed to go a little more smoothly after that. He went back to focusing on his own ship.

Which was plenty to keep him occupied, really.

Under omega protocols, he had access to his main frontal cannon in two separate firing modes—the difference between the two was impossible to tell—and a couple of other frontal blasters which weren't active in his main configuration. Everything faced forward, which seemed inconvenient... especially because anyone else moving had a tendency to angle his ship so that 'forward' became entirely unpredictable.

This is ridiculous.

A fleet of Drule fighters appeared on the horizon and he took aim, only to be yanked off his lock at the last second when Lance started angling for a better shot. "Hey! Give a little warning next time, would you?"

"Sorry!" Lasers danced over the oncoming Drules. "Ugh, this is ridiculous."

My thoughts exactly.

"Let's try something." Keith had gone from sounding deadly serious to irritably serious, never a good sign. "Lance, take the lead. Everyone else, stay alert and try to compensate, but most importantly, look for a pattern. Do not take any independent action. We're going to try to figure this out."

That made a lot of sense, but the ships seemed to be resisting Lance's best efforts to move to the front of the formation. On the plus side, the rest of the team was managing to fly mostly level, reacting to his movements in a lull in the combat. But a pattern? Pidge certainly couldn't find one of those just now.

It was bizarre. He couldn't think of any gravitational or warp field effect that might account for the movements, let alone how they could possibly be beneficial, but...

"Just heard something squeal. I don't think it was good."

"We've got another wave coming in."

"Stick to the plan. Stay tight. Lance, take evasive action, we'll follow your lead... hopefully."

"You got it!"

Lance shot forward, and Pidge's stomach dropped as his own craft decelerated, almost halted for an instant. He slammed his speed controls, overshot by a significant margin, and heard a shriek of stressed metal. An upper lever shuddered, and an auxiliary console shifted slightly; both were omega protocol systems. "My ship's trying to reconfigure."

"Fight it. Hold it together."

Easier said than done. Pidge shoved the lever back into place and was rewarded with a longer, louder shriek. "Can't take much more of this."

"You and me both." Lance's ship suddenly halted dead, and Keith's came inches away from slamming into it.

"Lance?"

"I've got more red lights in here than a strip—" Lance's comms fizzled out, and a diagnostic icon sprang up on Pidge's screen, indicating that his squadmate's ship had lost power.

Uh oh.

"Disengage omega protocols!" Keith ordered, not that he really had to say it; the formation had broken just fine on its own as Lance's ship went spiraling to the ground. Pidge tuned out the alarms, hit switches, and gritted his teeth against the overly well-simulated G-forces as he wrenched his own ship up and over the Drules. Just to prove he still had his wits more or less about him, he took a shot with his laser turret as they passed, but the angle was bad and the shot went nowhere in particular.

Eh, at least I tried.

As they detached from formation, Sven and Hunk clipped each other, sending both ships careening in opposite directions. Sven pulled up just in time to meet the ground with his landing gear rather than his cockpit; Hunk shot half a cliff up before he could smash into it and managed a reasonably soft landing in the rubble. Keith's ship shot past both of them, cannons blazing, providing cover fire for his fallen companions, for all the good that would do.

When Lance hit the dirt, the sim was over.

Hawkins was standing at the main monitor bank, and raised an eyebrow as the team started making their way out of the pods. "You lasted seven minutes in formation. Much better than yesterday."

"Sad but true." Hunk shook his head. "Sad but true."

"We're gonna get the hang of this someday, right?" Lance asked, stumbling out of his simulator and collapsing. He looked ill—the pod had flipped him very realistically as his ship had gone down.

"Someday," Lieutenant Brown agreed from his spot by the door. "You're improving, and it hasn't been that long. Nobody expects you to master these right away."

"Well that's good. I'd hate to be a disappointment. If nobody minds," the brown-haired pilot crawled to his feet, "I'm gonna go barf now."

"What if we do mind?" Keith asked.

"You're catching it!"

"Ugh. Get out of here, then."

As Lance darted out of the training room, Pidge exchanged shrugs with Hunk. Brown was right; they'd get this down someday.

They weren't going to have much choice.