A Big Shiny Blue Marble Ch. 56

Oh, and you were in the hedge with somebody named Troxi. I met her earlier and we had a great chat."

Ronkahh groaned as the male came up to them and his brilliant smile shone down on them.

"Good morning, Ronkahh," he bowed, "and to you as well, Jerrthi."

He continued smiling as he spoke, "I don't know if you remember me. I am Flight Officer Arshan. I have been sent to bring you to the Xer operations center here. You are to go on a familiarization flight with us this morning, now that you appear to be ready for it."

Jerrthi exchanged a few pleasantries with Arshan while Ronkahh mostly spent the moments looking uncomfortable and then they were off, walking on either side of the large male.

"Are you a pilot?" Jerrthi asked, and he nodded, "I am, though in our tasking here, I am second-pilot for our craft, the one which you are to ride along in, since we have the extra seating for you in it. My role is to fly when Doona, who is the leader of our attack flight needs to rest or in the event of an emergency. The rest of the time, which is mostly, I oversee the operation of the craft and monitor its state while handling the defensive weapons if we are engaged."

He stopped and looked over at Ronkahh as his expression became one of concern, "Are you not feeling well today, Ronkahh?"

"Huh? Oh, I'm fine, uh, Arshan, fine. It's nothing that a little quiet regret won't fix in time."

"What do you regret, if I might ask?" he said, "I enjoyed your laughter very much the other evening and this marks a sudden change. As far as I know, you did nothing to feel badly about if that is your concern. All of us were having a good time. There are no unkind thoughts of you in my mind -- or anyone else's, as far as I know."

The Merren female groaned again, "I'm afraid I must have made quite a fool of myself that night."

"Your memory of events must be a little foggy from the drink," he said, "You did nothing to regret that night. I would have stopped you beforehand if you were about to engage in anything which might have had lasting effects.

It was my task that night to watch over you and that was what I did. We are different, but I watched over you as I would for my own sister. You would have come to no harm."

He leaned down a little toward her, "Nothing was done for which you should feel badly. You were only playing and feeling good. There was no harm done by your actions and you did not mate with any male. I would have interceded quietly then, to make certain that it was what you wished for."

"You -- you would? Why?"

His smile was back full force in an instant, "We are different species, Ronkahh. I was there for your welfare and to make sure that you would not engage in any coital acts with a male, since there is a possibility of being bitten. Such a thing is not to be done with a Merren of any kind while the participants are under the influence, though I believe that Merren do not come to any harm from it -- other than the marks. It would be a shame to wear the mark of a male that you didn't really know."

"You were with me the whole time?" she asked nervously and he nodded.

"Often from this close, but I was never more than a little away from you regardless. You were in my arms for brief periods several times, for which I thank you. I have never held a Merren female."

He looked away then for a moment as he watched a Merren craft whistling past some distance away, "I found it very pleasant, surprisingly so. Thank you for that, Ronkahh, and thank you for your kisses as well."

She chuckled then, feeling much better suddenly, "It's a shame that I don't remember. I'd have thought that I'd remember doing something as nice as that sounds. Don't mention it, Arshan. I'd do that for you anytime. Just ask."

Arshan grinned then, seeing that she was back to being more like the pretty Merren that'd he'd loved to feel against him that night, and her kisses, though wet and drunkenly sloppy, were memorable to him as well.

He suddenly saw a chance for a bit of payback as far as the Merren trainees were concerned.

"Oh, I'd almost forgotten. May I see your helmets? I've brought you both a little something for before you begin."

He pulled a few stickers from his pocket and began to put them onto their helmets one after the other in a prominent position. "I had these ones here made up for you. After the other evening, it was decided that you be made welcome among us at any time. We rarely accept outsiders -- even other Xer - so it is a little unusual. These others are never seen on a non-Xer's helmet, but we are far from home now and we all decided it."

He fumbled for a few moments first with one helmet and then the other, but when he held them up, each one bore its owner's name in bold Xerian script over the dark visor and above that, there was an emblem -- a larger version of what each of the unit wore around their necks.

"First of the Forty-third," Jerrthi said in a little awe, and Arshan smiled a little softly as they both bowed a little," It's an honorary thing, but we've all accepted you, so you're stuck with them. I think you must be the only non-Xer who have been accepted by a Death hound unit anywhere."

He ignored the others, but he did see the Merren trainees who stood nearby stare at the helmets. As he handed them back, he said, "Big rule about these - never wear them around on the ground if you aren't getting aboard or climbing down. It's considered bad luck, and it's something that Merren aircrew do. Come along and we'll get started."

As they passed the group, Jerrthi noticed something and so she decided to give Arshan the opening, "Is wearing your helmet on the ground a sign of something or anything like that, Arshan?"

He nodded, "It's the sign of a trainee who needs to show that he thinks he's important. We like to see it since it makes us laugh. The unit sticker is never given until after you've flown a mission where you have killed something, but as I said, you're in with us now. If anyone asks you to return your helmet, come see me, and I'll remove the stickers."

As they walked away, the two female Merren pilots groaned and wished that they'd get to fly one time with the famous Xer group, especially if the tall one there was along. Several of the others removed their helmets quietly.

"How many are there in a normal crew for the attack craft?" Ronkahh asked.

"The normal compliment is three for that type; the first-pilot, the second-pilot, and the countermeasures specialist. You'll meet them all when we get there. If we carry no munitions load, aside from what is always there for emergency use, we can also carry about ten ground fighters, though it is almost never done, because it would mean moving slowly to set down and lift up again in the middle of a fight. Attack craft are too expensive and needed for that.

The crews are always kept together," he said, "It makes for a better bond between them. They begin to resemble a sort of family group within themselves, and they do most things together, even off duty."

Ronkahh looked over, "What did you mean when you said 'emergency use'?"

"We're not like normal units," he said, "We always carry a few things for self-defence. For regular Xer craft to be here, they have to come unarmed. We don't. It's not much, but it means that any Death hound craft is able to fight at any time, in any arena."

They walked straight into a hangar when they arrived, and Arshan took them right to their ride, a dull gray thing which sat on the ground looking as though it was annoyed to find itself at rest. There were small markings which identified the craft as a Xer warship on it as well as a few stenciled unit markings, but on each side, the Xer skull was visible though it was muted in the matte paint job.

Their pilot Doona was already aboard and she nodded in a cursory manner, apologizing a little as they watched her helmeted head swivel while she prepared for their flight. She seemed to always be doing several dozen things at almost the same time.

As Arshan got them seated, a smaller Xer bounded aboard and set a large folder aside for the moment so that she could help him.

"Hi," she said cheerily, "It's Jerrthi, right? Great to see you again." When Jerrthi had replied, she turned to the second visitor and smiled warmly.

"Hey, Ronkahh. I was so happy to hear that you're with us today instead of crawling along in the air inside of the Command rig. You up for some fun today?"

As awkward as Ronkahh seemed to find herself wanting to feel today, it was hard not to share in the girl's infectious mood, so she threw the last of her gloom away and grinned, "I sure am. I'm happy to see you too, Troxi. What do you do in here?"

The girl laughed, "Mostly, I'm here to ride along and pester everyone with my sauce so that nobody gets enough peace to doze off."

They heard Arshan's quiet chuckle as he nodded before resuming his spoken instructions to Jerrthi and guiding her in getting situated and strapped in.

"Other than that," Troxi said, "I'm here to keep nasty things from finding us. There won't be anything like that today, so I'm just here for the ride."

A little later, the two friends sat side by side, strapped in to ejection seats as the Xer close-air pilot wrung their ride out fairly hard. There had been no allowances made for much in the way of gentle familiarization flights for the two journalists and so while Xhan's group got in a little air time over a Merren gunnery and bombing range to stay sharp, the girls tried to work out how to report from the air in the middle of things.

The buzz of information which flowed through the earpieces of their helmets was like sitting inside a working trash compactor to them, but somehow the pilot heard the call to them and in there somewhere, Jerrthi could make out Xhan's voice sounding clipped and tight in her right ear.

" -- two hundred left of the last pass. I want it right in the little hole there where the ground drops a bit."

"Copy on the little hole," Jerrthi saw the bottom half of Doona's grinning face when she looked to her right to see where her wingman was.

"Inbound in three. " she said as she stood the dark gray attack craft on its ear to bring them around again.

Jerrthi's neck muscles felt as though her head weighed a ton as she forced a look over to where Ronkahh sat with a big smile on her pretty face. Jerrthi was struggling with the overflow of information which her senses brought to her brain while Ronkahh just threw her a shit-eating grin.

At least the helmet cams were a success, she thought. She just wondered if their viewers would be able to make anything out of the high-speed jumble that they'd be seeing if the unit went into action.

The next time that she listened in, she heard some of their pilot's instruction s to her flight, "- and then it's down in the plants on the way in. We're supposed to assume that they'll have rockets during the real thing on Ethens, so it's gonna be in on the down low, pop up for the release point, and then we scoop dirt out of there. Five, you're in first. Everybody else in reverse order. I'll hang back to evaluate."

There were sounds of acknowledgement from the rest of the group as they came around and began to sink lower. Jerrthi felt the tickle in her chest and she could have sworn that her internal organs were floating freely inside of her as the craft fell out of the sky.

"Mud flight's on station," Doona declared.

Jerrthi couldn't see what the objective was so she asked.

"I can't make you see it if I just say the third bush from the right," the pilot said a little gently, "Just watch where the others drop their stone eggs and you'll see it then by the dust. They're not explosive, but they make the dirt fly a little anyway. Just watch for it."

"Stone eggs?"

"Yeah," Doona said, "All we've got today are training bombs. They're just made of cast paving material, the same as you walk on but they're shaped like the regular bombs. They're dumb as uh, rocks. No eyes or ears or guidance. We're doing it the old-fashioned way today."

"Mud from Mother, acknowledged," Xhan's voice came over the air, "You're cleared. Go."

The pilot echoed the command over the flight's net and Jerrthi watched as the other craft rocketed away from them, still falling before they raced out over the valley floor.

The others streaked in very low -- low enough to disturb the dirt on the ground and in a few seconds. Jerrthi saw it as they seemed to jump upward and then they dropped low again before climbing hard to leave the area. There were small explosions of dirt from the ground as the bombs landed, some of them tumbling a little as they bounced, but there was a sudden strident warning ringing in Jerrthi's ears from the compartment behind them.

"I've got action," the countermeasures specialist said, urgently, "Ranging signals and .... Height-finder coming up. There's guns out there."

Doona got on the communicator to warn her flight, and the five craft scattered, dropping out of the sky again to hide in the ground clutter.

"There isn't supposed to be anybody out here!" she yelled as she switched comms to tell Xhan.

"I hear a lock on somebody," Troxi said, "and ... they're firing."

Jerrthi watched as some glowing orbs seemed to float up from the ground toward one craft for a few moments and then there was nothing.

"Gimme a map, Troxi," Doona said, "Come on, a map, a map, a map."

Troxi reached for her positional console, needing to pull location information as her systems plotted known positions of what was active out there.

"There might be some miscommunication," they heard Xhan say, "Merren range control is trying to identify and they've issued a cease-firing command."

"That's shit," they heard Doona snarl over the internal, "They're not controlling anybody out there. Some range control."

Back on the flight's net, she called out," Anybody hit? I want status reports."

She switched to internal, "Trox, a MAP!"

"Got the weapons plotted on an overlay. Control units too. On your Nav screen now," the voice said.

One after another, the other craft called in to report that they hadn't been hit until there was only one left to hear from.

"This is Three. I have some damage, but it seems to be slight. We heard it hit."

"Three, this is One. Meet me at five thousand," their wingman said in a gravelly male voice, "Slow and steady climb so I can assess. Anybody hurt?"

"Negative," came the response.

They held a low orbit as they waited and the pilot studied the slowly rotating image which Troxi had put onto her display. The orientation of the image turned with the circling of the craft.

"Fuck-slits," Doona muttered over the internal, "Nasty Merren fuck-slits. Bet this is a fuck-you over Xhan winning his case."

"Our riders are Merren," Arshan said to remind his first-pilot.

"Oh, ... I'm sorry Jerrthi. You too, Ronkahh, I didn't mean -- I'm already thinking of you as us."

"It's alright," Jerrthi replied, "You mean they fired over something like that?"

"It's not big stuff," Doona replied, "I'd bet on it and I'd also bet that there'll be the most insincere apologies when we get back. The Merren military is always a little hostile for the way that their bosses always contract us. If they were any good, we wouldn't get the call, would we?"

She looked at her fuel cell state and then she switched off her identification beacon, "Troxi, warm up the stealth suite and the jammers. We're going for a ride and we're going in faded. Arshan, can we mess up their guns with our emergency load?"

"Roj, Boss," the girl at the rear said with her smile easily heard over the internal.

"Sure, Doona," Arshan smiled, "Converting Troxi's overlay to targeting now."

"Hang onto your skirts, ladies," the pilot grinned back, "They'll be floating a little in a bit."

Ronkahh almost squealed as they dropped suddenly," I love it!"

Jerrthi suddenly remembered that she hadn't eaten breakfast and now she was a little glad of it, "What are you going to do now?"

"Gotta make my own run," she heard in her ear, "I'm just gonna do it a little differently. I'm going to play this as though it was intended to be a live-fire training exercise with a mistake made in the middle of it. That's what I expect to hear from the Merren ground people when they lie to me, so this will just be us adapting to the changed rules as we saw them.

We've heard of this shit being done to visiting Xer units before. They've even killed somebody and they just smile and nod and mouth their apologies and regrets. I'm just going to play it the other way today. They want to shoot at us, well, we can adapt to that. I've heard no call to tell me to abort yet, and unless I do, I'm going to do what the book says and the unit has always done."

Jerrthi saw Doona shrug her shoulders from where she sat, "You give Death hounds a target, that's all we need."

"Six, this is One. I'm looking at Three from underneath. The maintenance folks are gonna scream at this, but I don't see any fluids leaking. There's a few rips, small stuff that we'd have avoided if we knew our friends were gonna be shooting at us."

Doona's finger keyed her microphone, "One from Six. Walk him home, and I'll meet you on the ground. Everybody else, form up again and hold an oval behind the southern ridge at two thousand. Meet me on the encrypted channel. Six out."

Seven minutes later, they flew as though they were on an invisible racetrack stretched out in single file as Doona outlined what she wanted. As the others continued around afterward, Doona broke off and rolled in the other direction.

"Now, Troxi," she said over the internal, "Fade us now. If you pick up their scans, I want you to shut them down. No, check that. I want you to burn them down if we have the juice for it before they get a lock. Jam them so hard their threat processors melt."

Roj," came the laughing reply and right then, Jerrthi's horizon began to tumble as the craft rolled down to smooth out over the valley floor and the scenery shot past them in a blur as they accelerated so hard that Jerrthi's vision began to go gray.

"Mud Six, from Mother. Lost you. Report."

"Recycling transponder," Doona lied, "Wait one."

Xhan was about to reply with more questions, but he turned when he felt a hand on his arm. He saw the face of his master leader -- an older and very savvy Xer, who looked into his young commander's face and shook his head. Xhan got it and held his tongue.

The pilot checked the map which Troxi had provided and she even saw the layout of the command bunkers. She made a minor course adjustment and then she pulled the control stick back and leveled a little higher off the deck as she jammed her throttles forward for the different approach.

"Hide us well, Trox. This is gonna hurt them more than it'll hurt us."

They were in a long turn around the far side of a ridge and Doona held them at a seventy-five percent turn with the throttles back a bit. It made holding her head up difficult for Jerrthi for as long as it lasted. As they came around, Doona added power and they were dropping again to level off screaming across the flats.

"Your turn, Arshan," Doona smiled over and she had just the time to see him grin and nod as he acknowledged.

Air to ground missile racks rotated into view on the underwing monitors that Ronkahh and Jerrthi could see.

"Get ready to evade," the second-pilot said," We're hidden, but they'll know where we are once these are on the way. They'll be busy though, I'll be holding off almost until we're inside the yard. Surely somebody's gonna have the shits."

"I've got searches," Troxi said, quietly, "They're looking for somebody -- us, I guess. No search-to-scan conversions yet."

"That's ok, baby," the pilot purred back, "You see any height-finders up, I want you to smoke them. We'll be in and gone before they can blink."