Jon Clark's Story
Jonathan Clark didn't always want to be a Rhino pilot.
After high school, he started his adult life as a computer programmer at one of the larger insurance companies on Terra Nova. After a couple of years of practically living in a cubicle farm, he started going slowly mad. Well, he wasn't going nuts in the clinical sense; he was just getting really, really bored churning through a mind numbingly endless number of minor projects tweaking customer interfaces or sorting through databases.
At the insistent prodding of one of his best friends, he began taking flying lessons. After two and half years of weekend lessons and sleepless nights studying for the various certifications, Jon earned his multi-engine commercial rating. Although he wasn't really looking for a new job, one of the smaller cargo haulers offered him a job as a shuttle pilot serving the orbiting platforms and some of the mining operations on Terra Nova's moons. The pay wasn't that bad, either. In fact, he would be making about 10 percent more than he was making at the insurance company. Without a second thought, Jon put his two weeks notice in at the firm. He was going to be a pilot.
Life was good for the next year. He didn't realize it at first, but flying was in his blood. Even though the routes were fairly well established, no two missions were the same. One day, he could be hauling a load of spare parts to the Watkins Orbiting Habitat, and the next day, he could be landing on an unimproved landing grid at one of the Titancorp lunar mining facilities. (Ok, it was never fun landing on the dark side of a moon with a mountain at one end of the grid and a two thousand meter deep ravine at the other.) Jon even took part in a rescue and salvage mission when one of the military's fighters suffered a navcomp failure during a ferrying flight (and it didn't hurt that his share of the salvage rights put him five years closer to retirement). Jon was so committed to his new job that he got his mission commander certification within nine months. Yeah, life was sweet.
Then things started going sour. He began hearing rumors of outlying facilities and ships along the rim going silent. He could tell something was brewing by the sudden increase of military cargo and personnel that he was hauling to the Fleet facilities orbiting Emile. Didn't they have regular Fleet shuttles for this kind of stuff? And the Fleet types seemed awfully nervous. Something smelled funny.
And then things went sideways. Halfway through a run to the Tico Industrial Platform, he heard the flash comm message on the emergency channel. No, it was being broadcasted on all frequencies. What the hell was going on?
"... will immediately make for the closest port facilities at best possible speed...The Terran System is being invaded by unknown hostiles...All commercial traffic will imme..."
Without a thought, Jon tossed the book he had been reading aside as his co-pilot laid a course for the Federated Habitats. At maximum Gees, they'd be there in about four hours. In the meantime, he'd have four hours to let his imagination run wild. Jon was very enthusiastic about his science fiction; he had read and seen everything from the classics by Asimov to the newest interactive holovids. Now he was having visions of monsters sucking the life out of their victims.
He was horrified about how close he was to the truth when he and his crew reached the Habitats. The reports of the unconquerable task force's annihilation sent a chill down Jon's spine. He didn't know anymore about the Fleet beyond what his best friend, Nathaniel, had told him while he was on shore leave, but he didn't think the task force could have been beaten so easily. Jon could almost sense a feeling of panic and horror among his crew and the patrons gathered around vidscreens watching news of the UNCONQUERABLE task force's fate.
Jon and his crew found themselves pressed into service ferrying supplies between Terra Nova and the Fleet facilities two days later; two long days of non-stop flying on no sleep and bad coffee. Even worse, he had a feeling that things were going from bad to worse. Fleet was getting their collective asses handed to them and it didn't look like it was getting any better.
As Jon's shuttle approached a minor asteroid field about an hour from the Fleet facilities, his copilot noticed something weird on the sensors.
"Hey, Jon, check out the radar. I'm getting intermittent contacts about five hundred klicks off the bow to port."
"May just be a couple of fighters out of Emile. Are they broadcasting IFF?"
"Nope, nothing's registering," as his copilot, Bruce Delancy, checked and rechecked the shuttle's sensors.
That familiar feeling of unease so common over the past two days began whispering in the back of Jon's mind as he goosed the shuttle's throttle increasing its velocity. The sooner they were within the Fleet's protective umbrella, the better he'd feel.
"Uh, Jon, I've got something approaching us from the direction of those intermittent contacts."
Two minutes later, those mysterious "contacts" materialized into three strange craft with triangular bodies. Strange, the contacts had arms and legs, and they were SHOOTING at them!
"HOLY SHIT! They're shooting at us! Jon, get us the hell out of here! Fleet, this is shuttle Delta Five Niner Heavy, we are under attack and request immediate assistance. Fleet, we need immediate assistance."
Jon didn't have to be asked twice. He instantly jammed the throttles forward and began jinking in an attempt to throw off the enemy's aim. His jinking wasn't doing a lot a good as shots began connecting. The shuttle's navigational shields weren't meant to take this kind of punishment; it wouldn't be long before the shots began doing damage. He sure as hell wasn't going to stick around to let that happen.
"Bruce, I'm making a run for that asteroid field. We may not be able to shake them, but we sure as hell can try to hide from them until help gets here."
The shuttle began groaning as the shuttle's inertial dampeners were stressed beyond their design limits. Jon didn't care, though; if he got out of this he'd personally overhaul them himself. He didn't have time to be worried about the dampeners now; he just wanted to get into the relative safety of the asteroid field. Geez, this can't be a good idea.
It may not have been a good idea, but it bought Jon and his crew some time as the shuttle roared into the asteroid field at what could be technically called "unsafe speeds." The attackers were temporarily thrown off by the shuttle's sudden disappearance among the asteroids. Jon may have bought himself and his crew some time, but the good news kept on coming.
"Shuttle Delta Five Niner Heavy, this is Emile Flight Ops, the Stilettos en-route your position. ETA is two zero mikes."
"Get your asses here NOW! Fleet, we're not going to last two minutes let alone twenty!" Jon screamed into the radio's mike.
As if to emphasize his point, Jon felt the shuttle's hull violently vibrate. He saw one of the ships had found him, and was attaching some sort of pod to the hull. A second later it dawned on him that it was some sort of breaching pod. He and his crew could be expecting guests any second.
Jon watched the security monitor as two forms move out from the breaching pod. From his perspective, they looked like bloated mechanical crabs and they were making a beeline for the shuttle's cockpit.
Several agonizing minutes later, they were attempting to bash in hatch to the shuttle's flight deck. Jon never felt so helpless in his life as he huddled in the front of the cockpit with Bruce and Sean Deacon, the shuttle flight engineer. His feeling of helplessness grew as the reinforced titanium hatch began buckling under the relentless battering. Sean began wailing when he caught his first glimpse of what would be killing him in the next minute.
Jon's world went black when the hatch finally gave way.
He woke two days later in the hospital wing at Fleet facilities at Estelle. Search and rescue crews found him along with the rest of his crew an hour after the attack. In the background he could see doctors, nurses, and attendants scrambling to and fro tending to the hundreds of unfortunate souls unlucky enough to be caught in the path of the rampaging Harvesters. That's what the invaders were called, weren't they? In any case, he spent two more days recovering before he found himself again pressed into service flying military shuttles ferrying disaster relief supplies and personnel to the hard hit outlying regions. It didn't matter, though. He was grateful to be alive and urgently wanted to do ANYTHING to help. And help he did. He logged more flight time in the next month than he did the previous year.
"My fellow citizens..."
Jon watched the President's address to the Terran system while en-route to supply the salvage teams operating around the Flagler moon. He wept the remainder of the flight and vowed that he would do anything in his power to prevent the Harvesters causing so much pain and suffering. He could still remember vividly his friend, Nathaniel, weeping at the loss of his sister to the Harvesters. He had never seen his friend show so much naked emotion. And around the system, rivers of tears flowed throughout the system for the millions of people lost to Earth.
He did what millions of men and women throughout the system were doing. He joined the military. He, and others like him, wanted to take the fight back to Earth and punish those bastards for the pain they've caused. And so he found himself flying Fleet supply missions in the old workhouse, the Whales. They weren't glamorous, but they were necessary. He was perfectly content flying support missions until one fateful mid-flight refueling mission.
"Hey, LT, you might want to see this."
"What's up," asked Jon, glancing up from a flight manual.
"Check out what's tethered to the refueling probe," came the response from Jon's flight engineer, Petty Officer Roper.
Quickly scrolling the petty officer's video feed to his own multifunctional display, he saw what had to be the ugliest ship he'd ever seen. They were supposed to be fueling a flight of Fleet Stilettos, but the fighter at the end of the refueling probe did not even come close to matching the Stiletto's sleek lines. It was bigger, a whole lot bumpier, and Jon instantly fell in love.
"What the hell is that!" Jon asked almost reverently.
"I think those are the new heavy fighters we've been hearing about. I think they're code-named Rhinos. You weren't paying attention at the pre-flight again, were you," Jon's co-pilot, Ensign French, quickly chimed in.
"Erm...," was Jon's only response as he continued to gaze at the ugly beast tethered to his shuttle.
A decision was made on the flight back to base. As soon as the engines had spooled down, he was making a beeline for his CO's office. He wanted to fly Rhinos, and after two months of begging, pleading, and general sucking up, he got his transfer to the Rhino training squadron. Never again would he feel as helpless as he had that fateful day during the Invasion. Nope, Jon Clark was going to kill some Earthers.
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Well, I hope you enjoyed this little one shot deal. I wanted to write it as a way of keeping in practice while I was in school. It gives a little background behind one of my characters in Terra Nova, which I'm still working on. I also wrote it for a friend as kind of a b-day gift. I hope you enjoyed it.