18: Flight
There was a good reason why this particular spot was known to many across the Proving Grounds as 'Dead Cliff'. It was a somewhat understandable name, given the fact that the cliff in question was a solid seventy metres high and overlooked part of the mostly flat, rocky valley within which the Proving Grounds were situated. Cliffs were dangerous after all, and any wrong step by such a one could prove for a long fall and an untimely end. However, in the case of this particular cliff, the name had come about solely because so many Sky Rider rookies had died here over the many years the unit had existed. It was the perfect place for one to begin their initial training when it came to the finer points of using a glide pack, a beginner's course before one moved on to the proper in-vacuum training that would necessitate going into orbit to attend the training facility there.
For Toron, it was his first time since his initial officer training that he would be using a thruster and glide pack, better known as a 'Sky Wing'. The ones he had used were basic models, those often reserved for use in emergencies that may have occurred within the vacuum of space; abandoning a ship, for instance. The ones at the disposal of the Sky Riders were more advanced, and they clipped easily to the skin-tight Sky Rider suits that served to protect one from harsh environments and from the intense friction that came with shooting through the air at high speeds. Those suits were not much different to the pilot's suits Toron was used to, although the Sky Rider ones were sleeker and better insulated. The rest of the suit was taken up with a protective vest and pouches containing basic supplies, each vacuum sealed. The addition of gravity would make manoeuvring a little simpler, whereas in space one had to contend with the fact that any slight amount of momentum could end up propelling someone well beyond their control. Gravity, however, made for an obvious danger as any wrong move could send him face-first into the rocky desert ground below.
Toron stood on the precipice now, the suit stifling in the heat. The rest of the team was gathered around, all outfitted in their own suits and Sky Wing packs. All watched Toron and waited for him to take the first step, that is, his first step over the edge with only the pack to save him. As a pilot, Toron had needed to contend with heights but never like this. He could feel the others in the team watching, judging him even. Corporal Ral Norvak looked on with narrowed eyes, no doubt hoping for his new commanding officer to make a fool of himself.
The controls of the Sky Wing pack came in a pair of small handles that wrapped around the user's stomach. They could be retracted, extended and manipulated to a wide degree. Toron set his gloved hands around both of them, and there he activated the ignition of the pack, setting it idling as he went through the various steps that preceded a flight with such a device. He had memorised the steps and he worked through them now, knowing full well that Norvak and his compatriots were watching his every move. After a moment, Toron readied the throttle and turned to the team.
They were all out here, twelve of them plus Toron. Some, such as Private Jaron Korvka, were still very new to this. Others, such as Norvak, were veterans. It was no wonder that most of the team turned to Norvak for leadership more so than their actual commanding officer. Norvak had made no secret of the fact that he harboured little to no respect for Toron. It was a mix of the fact that Toron was no Sky Rider, as well as the fact that he was from the home world and as such that alone carried a stigma here on the colony of Tornya, ever since the civil war had started.
Lieutenant Sark Varsla stood nearby, fiddling with his Sky Wing suit. He looked far more anxious than even Toron could muster. The Lieutenant was young, eager to please but seemingly ill-suited for the Sky Riders. Nonetheless, he had his orders and those included getting this team combat ready in about three weeks' time. The briefing the day before had made this all clear, and Toron both relished the challenge as well as feared it. A healthy dose of fear was necessary in this line of work.
"Lieutenant, you need to relax." It was Private Leva Pelinos who said this, and she stopped alongside the Lieutenant. He turned to her, noticeably tense. Leva smiled, before she made a show of relaxing the muscles of her arms. "You don't need to be high strung when flying. You don't want to overthink this sort of thing."
"I'll be fine, Private," Varsla told her. The wavering in his voice suggested otherwise. Naturally, he wanted to appear confident in front of the young female. Leva no doubt saw through his façade, although her good nature kept her from making a remark about it.
Toron, as the ranking officer here, was to be the first one over the precipice. He turned to the team as a whole, his eyes meeting with Norvak's own.
"Any advice, Corporal?" Toron asked him. The Corporal scowled at him, appearing to consider the question for a moment, before he simply shook his head.
"Don't die," he stated, using a tone that suggested that Toron's death would be of no consequence to him. Toron smiled, before he turned back to the cliff and looked ahead. The hangars of the distant Proving Grounds were far off into the valley, gleaming in the heat of the desert sun. A cargo transport was descending over the landing platforms and runway now, engines whirring loudly across the barren plains. Toron watched it for a few seconds, trying to picture himself as flying just as smoothly. To fly a fighter craft was a different beast compared to what he was about to do. He thumbed the throttle and took a step forwards. Another step and he would be over that edge. A few small, loose rocks went tumbling down the cliff before him, dislodged by his movements.
"You heard the Corporal, Lieutenant," Toron said. The younger officer turned to him, his emerald green eyes a little wider than before. "Don't die." With that, he hit the throttle and took a step over the edge.
"The Union has been constructing newer, prototype fighter craft at an orbital research facility near Jur's Anvil." Toron paced along the front of the briefing room, with about fourteen sets of eyes following him. This included those of General Volk Durren, who stood to one side of the small stage upon which Toron paced. Behind him, a large wall-mounted screen displayed a computerised map of the facility in question, an orbital bastion built within a large asteroid. That asteroid, in turn, orbited the deep blue-purple gas giant known as Jur's Anvil, a behemoth of a planet named after an ancient pagan god from the oldest Calsharan mythologies. Jur had been a god of war and a master weaponsmith, and the stories told of his swords and axes being capable of levelling entire mountains with a single strike. It was all legend, of course, yet naming a massive gas giant after him seemed apt. As did putting an advanced weapons research facility into its orbit, protected in a field of asteroids that made for a natural hazard to intruding vessels.
The briefing room was situated within one of the main buildings of the Proving Grounds here on Tornya, and to stave off the sweltering heat outside the climate control systems inside the building were on full bore. A cold blast filtered in through the vents in the ceiling, the shutters drawn over the nearby windows to keep the harsh glare out of the room. Toron was in his new Captain's uniform, emblazoned with the emblems of not only the Tornyan Defence Force, but of the Sky Riders themselves. The twelve members of the Sky Riders were outfitted in their own similar uniforms, and Toron had made sure they had had them freshly cleaned and pressed. Since the last commanding officer of the team had gone, standards amongst the Sky Riders in terms of etiquette had dropped.
Corporal Norvak sat near the front, having put at least two empty chairs of space between himself and Lieutenant Varsla. The rest of the team had scattered about the rows of seats, a few in pairs but otherwise they all took advantage of the space on offer. This place was built for at least forty attendees, so fourteen was hardly an issue.
"Intelligence reports suggest that the first models of newer fighters have been built and put to use in the sector," Toron continued. He had the necessary reports open before him on the podium in hard-copy form, and he had spent much of the night before sifting through them, making notes of what Alliance Intelligence had gathered. Some of it was supposition, educated guesses made on what they had observed as well as anything derived from records from before the war had begun. The facility at Jur's Anvil had been known as a hub for advanced ship research, be it small fighter craft or larger cruiser-class vessels. It was also known to be well-guarded and hard to reach.
"Our current generation of fighters have had difficulty in these encounters." He paused, halting in his pacing as he recalled Kavi's burned, blistered and bloodied features. She had died to one of this new generation of spaceborne fighter craft. He intended to put a stop to any more losses of that kind, and the Sky Riders were the best bet to do so. "We estimate only a handful of functioning prototypes have been completed. Given the compartmentalisation the Union is known to employ in these matters, it is likely the designs are isolated to this facility. That means if we cripple the place, we essentially cripple their fighter research for years to come." He looked to Corporal Norvak, narrowing his eyes. The Corporal appeared only half-interested, and he appeared to be in the process of picking something out from underneath one blunted claw. "The importance of this assignment cannot be understated. That facility must be destroyed. In an ideal situation, we would steal those fighter designs for ourselves. Perhaps we still will, but the difficulty of accessing the facility necessitates that we make the most of our time there. We infiltrate and destroy. Stealing blueprints, schematics, parts or the like is purely secondary."
He saw the Corporal look up at him then. His disinterested attitude seemed to dissipate under the Captain's harsh stare. Sitting up, he at least made a show of paying close attention.
Toron turned to the screen behind him. Tapping the screen at the podium, he shifted the image to that of a layout of the asteroid field around Jur's Anvil. It was believed that a much smaller planet had been broken up within the gas giant's gravitational pull millions of years ago, torn apart by the sheer force of gravity. What was left of that celestial body was spread around the gas giant in a thick, far-reaching belt of space rocks. The image on offer showed a map of part of that asteroid belt, including the location of the facility.
"The field around the facility is mined. Sensors are concealed amongst the rocks. Ships with the proper authorisation must transmit their approval codes once they arrive in-system. The facility will then transmit details as to what path to take through the field." Toron had spent most of last night studying schematics of the facility and of the security measures used to protect it. What they knew was likely to be out of date, but it was better than going in completely blind. "However, if we were to fly in on our Sky Wings, we would likely prove too small for any anti-ship mines. The sensors are a different story, of course. We will likely be detected shortly after entering the field. Automated defences will come online then, and we will have only minutes before the facility organizes a fighter response."
"So, just how do we get in without getting killed, Captain?" It was Corporal Norvak who asked this. It was a question on everyone's mind, of course. Toron turned to the General, who stepped forward.
"A stealth ship will get you close whilst the assault force is gathering for the initial strike against the asteroid field," General Durren stated. He looked across the assembled team, his ageing features remaining stern. "You will make your way into the field at high speeds. Any sensors in there are likely to mistake such small targets for debris. The initial first minute after entry should not offer any danger of discovery. It's only once those sensors determine that the debris they're seeing is moving unlike any space rocks that the trouble will start. The stealth ship will listen in on the facility's communications and alert you as to when your presence has been discovered."
"Once discovered, we'll have at most three minutes before countermeasures are deployed," Toron added. "We will utilise fast entry devices to get as close to the facility as we can, before we make use of our Sky Wings."
The 'fast entry' devices in question were pods of a sort, equipped with inertial dampeners and blast shielding. They were single-use items, capable of holding an occupant as they hurled through space at high speeds. However, they had rudimentary manoeuvring capabilities, and the occupant would need to avoid the dangers of the asteroid field whilst travelling at mind-bending speeds.
"We will approach the facility and access it through these thermal ports that lead directly to its power generators," Toron continued. He motioned to the image on the screen, which changed to a computerised mock-up of the facility's outer shell. There was a hangar bay built into an asteroid, with other grey structures jutting out of the barren rock around it. A few points along that rock-face were marked in red. "We will proceed into the power generator and plant explosives. We will also locate the munitions dump and do the same. If the explosives are planted correctly, then the resulting detonation should tear the facility and the asteroid it is contained within apart."
"What of our escape, sir?" It was Leva who asked this. She sat off to Toron's left, having listened closely with an intrigued eye. Now she sat up, attentive, some worry evident on her youthful features.
"Escape is up to the discretion of the individual," Toron said. "However, the General here has promised the Fourth Tornyan Fleet Taskforce will be on station to run interference. They will launch an assault on the asteroid field, a diversion really, but it should be enough to cover our escape by whatever means necessary. The hangar, I believe, should be full of fighter craft and shuttles." Again, this was supposition. The looks on the faces of the team members assembled suggested they knew this too. In fact, the notion that this was a suicide mission was clear in everyone's head here, even the young Lieutenant.
There was nothing quite like soaring up high, the wind buffeting against you with nothing between you and the ground save for the thrusters at your back. Toron had flown many times before, but always in an aircraft of some variety. This was something different, something even more dangerous than flying a fighter craft. He rocketed through the air high above the desert valley, hands tight against his sides, visor down on his helmet. He was followed by the rest of the squad, who came after him in a staggered formation. Some wavered in their flight paths, others moved at slower, more cautious speeds. And like any wing of aircraft, there had to be discipline and formation within the group. For today, however, this was merely a test run. The Lieutenant, who flew lower and slower than the rest, trailed behind and appeared to wobble around as he adjusted his controls with an uncertainty tinged with sheer terror. It was a terror he would otherwise have hidden, if only to keep the rank and file of the team from assuming weakness from him.
Toron led the pack across the valley. Corporal Norvak had come into position a short distance to his right. He flew with a confidence that spoke of his experience, which was more than most of the others in the squad. Toron turned his head slightly, sighting Norvak through his visor and the heads-up display that filled his vision. Indicators flashed, showing the vitals of the other squad members as well as highlighting their general locations. There were other readouts as well, such as altitude and speed. To say he was moving fast was an understatement, yet at this height the ground did not move all too quickly under them.
The valley narrowed ahead. Beacons flashed on Toron's heads-up display, indicating where the required path had been set. A rocky passage lay further along, where the valley closed up. Below, a winding road cut its way across the dry, rocky ground. The passage ahead was narrow, and Toron had set the course such that they would be taken partway into it, which in turn would necessitate some tight, dangerous manoeuvring. It was the kind of training course that would otherwise have come up much later for the newer recruits. Seeing as how they had little over two weeks to be ready for a dangerous mission, Toron had decided it would be necessary to push the limits of the team's capabilities much earlier.
He was first into the rocky pass. Norvak followed close behind, with Pelinos coming up a few metres behind. The rest of the team zoomed in after them, and Toron found himself having to weave around one particularly sharp bend. And then came a rocky overhang, a natural bridge comprised of solid rock that extended over the upper heights of the narrow gorge. He went under it, passing by so close to the rock face on his left that his passage kicked up a small rush of brown desert dust.
Unperturbed, Norvak raced on through it, and he hit the throttle on his pack as soon as he was out the other side. His speed picking up within the confines of the passage, Toron was suddenly beset by the burly Corporal who scooted over the top of him and overtook him entirely. The Corporal moved with a deftness that the others lacked, and Toron felt some small hit to his pride as Norvak zipped on for the final beacon.
The Corporal's backwash struck Toron suddenly, and he lurched downwards in a way that caught him off-guard. He gripped the controls of his pack, pulling up hard in an effort to regain control. By this point, Norvak was far ahead of him, rounding a bend in the canyon before the final marker flashed into view across his heads-up display.
Norvak ascended to the height of the gorge and slowed, resulting in a gentle, gliding landing upon the top edge of the passage itself. He was already settling down when Toron followed suit, his landing a little less graceful. He stumbled slightly, but otherwise caught his footing and killed the engine on his thrusters. Norvak turned to him, the barren rolling plains at his back, and he pulled off his helmet and gave the Captain a wry grin.
"Too slow, sir," he remarked. Toron narrowed his eyes but said nothing, before he lifted his visor. It was stifling under there, the heat within the flight suit severe enough as to be almost oppressive. Calsharans did not sweat nearly as much as humans, being more tolerant of the heat, but even they had their limits.
Anger surged through him as he regarded the Corporal, and he could tell from the smirk the other male was giving that he was practically goading Toron to say something, to have an outburst and perhaps even physically assault him. Instead, Toron caught himself, quelled the building anger within him as best he could and simply clenched his jaw in the face of the Corporal's attempts to mess with him.
Toron turned around as some of the others appeared. Pelinos landed nearby, almost as gently as Norvak had done. Each team member made the landing, some with more ease than others. Toron could pick out right away who the newer recruits were and who had some actual experience under their belt. And lastly came Lieutenant Varsla, who landed in a heap just over the edge of the canyon. He hit the ground face down, coming in a little too quickly, kicking up a cloud of the red-tinged dust behind him. Letting out a groan, he was mindful enough to switch off his pack's thrusters and lift his visor before he propped himself up on all fours and threw up into the dirt. The others standing around him reacted with a mix of disgust and amusement.
"I could do that again," Toron remarked. Norvak, who so far had worn an expression of apparent disdain, let out a derisive huff.
"That's because it was easy, Captain," the Corporal countered. He pointed skywards, his wry smirk reappearing. "Just wait until we're in orbit."
He was right, of course. This had been easy, little more than a means for Toron to gauge just at what level the squad was at when operating their packs. In a few days, they would head for the orbital proving grounds and that would be where the real tests would begin.
Turning about to face the team, he saw that Pelinos had offered a hand to Lieutenant Varsla. He took it, giving a meek smile as she helped him up onto his feet. Some of the others appeared a little shaken, among them the more reserved Private Korvka, who had taken his helmet off and appeared to be slightly dazed.
"It's a start, Corporal," Toron said, turning to Norvak again. The burly male's smile faded, and he simply gave the Captain a slight nod of agreement. "I'm honestly surprised that went as well as it did."