Flipspace: Jaded Mars Missions 13-15

Chapter 1

The Ramachandra

Sparse cirrus clouds streaked a light blue sky dotted with lighter-than-air monitoring probes. Below lay the Berlin ExpoCenter Airport. A temporary stadium that seated over a hundred thousand encircled a set of runways with a healthy few hundred meters of green between. Millions more watch via M-Cast cameras at ground level and in the floating monitors.

The ILA Berlin Airshow had overtaken Paris in being the world premier aerospace event thirty years ago. On May 20th, 2177 the show would include a demonstration of the ISV-71 Ravens of the 1st Raven Light-Ops, FTL. It would end with a simulated aerial knife-fight for the foremost and longest serving ISV-71 Raven, the ISS-454 Mockingbird, piloted by Colonel Sumitra Ramachandra and Major Lamarr Fitch, against a flight of four OSF 168s.

Standing at a podium near one of the runways was the 1st Ravens Wing Commander, Brigadier General Benjamin Chaffee. The seventy-two-year-old dark brown general in his black uniform narrated the events transpiring far above. The ISV-71 Raven is a lot bigger than a fighter, but don’t be fooled. The Raven has a proven track record in air-to-air knife fights, and has made its name in multi-role deep space operations. NATO’s Aerospace Defense Response now fields sixteen ISV-71s organized into four wings, with another twenty-four Ravens to be added over the next three years.

Taking a pause, General Chaffee turned his gaze skyward right as four Orbital Supremacy Fighters zipped overhead and pitched into a steep climb toward the ISS Mockingbird. The fighters exhibited a blended body-wing design with canards on their nose cones and variable-height stabilizers. In contrast, the ninety-meter long Mockingbird loitered two kilometers up in a straight-wing flight mode. The ISV’s elongated diamond-shaped hull, triangular tail and variable position wings reinforced to viewers below the raven outline for which the ship design was named.

Ladies and gentlemen, you’re in for a treat, General Chaffee promised. "What you’re seeing is a flight of four OSF 168s on their way to start some trouble with the famed ISS Mockingbird, the Raven that found the lost crew of the Astraeus and carried out multiple SETI first contact missions. You’re about to see something we at ADR like to call, ‘doin’ the Ramachandra’."

* * * *

Colonel, Major Fitch addressed Colonel Sumitra Ramachandra, we got some gang activity comin’ our way. Instrumentation has an aggressor flight of OSF 168s inbound and climbing.

Copy that, Colonel Ramachandra responded. Angling wings back and accelerating.

The Mockingbird’s combat information center had no windows, but its interface software linked to ocular augments in both flight officer’s eyes as well as those of three other crewmembers in the compartment. Altogether, there were seven acceleration couches. Four of those were partway recessed into the side walls that narrowed toward the front. Colonel Ramachandra sat in the Operational Command Station, the most central of the three. Major Fitch was strapped into the station at her right.

What’s our weather like? Ramachandra asked, as she focused on the simulation threat display.

Wind speed two point one kilometers an hour at heading one, six, two degrees, Fitch replied.

From Ramachandra’s view, it appeared as if she flew a chair without a ship around it. Her augments granted a full spherical view of the skies over Berlin. However, the peripheries of her visual field were reserved for a display of their instrumentation and a mini-map of the surrounding airspace. Modifying her perspective, Colonel Ramachandra selected for the ship’s exterior to be visible in her display.

The hull wore the blue and white insignia colors of NATO. Looking forward, Ramachandra saw the smooth sloping front with a raised portion resembling a crew cabin. It was, in fact, the forward compartment for primary instrumentation: high-powered radars, long-range telescopes, and the array of Laser Imagine, Detecting, and Ranging systems. A second, identically shaped compartment faced backward on the rear of the central hull, overlooking four Pulse Laser Nitrogen Capture Kinetic Engines atop the tail. No vertical stabilizer was needed in the ISV-71. The ship used internal gyroscopic orientation motors.

The Mockingbird’s liquiplastic armor concealed trillions of molecule-sized chemochromatic sensors, billions of microscopic XD cams and millions of spectroscopes hardly visible to the naked eye. Throughout the interior of the ship, sets of next-generation particle decay clocks were placed at key locations to serve as a simple, yet effective, means of detecting the magnitude and origin of gravitational waves and gravity wells. Collectively, they granted Colonel Ramachandra all-seeing power over the sky.

Ops, give me precise speed and heading of all aggressors, Ramachandra ordered.

Target telemetry to your display, copy, Lieutenant Tyson replied.

In an earlier part of the public demonstration, Ramachandra and her flight operations crew had performed a ripple-fire of Starling air-to-air missiles in sets of three at fixed floating targets, during which General Chaffee below described how the swarm logic of AI guidance created a factorial force multiplier effect, which, simply put, meant that three missiles were three times more likely to hit a target than two and, if need be, four missiles four times more likely than three and so one.

Atmospheric deep space fighters, or the OSF craft currently zeroing in on the Mockingbird, normally loosed their Starlings one at a time. However, this phase of the show called for them to close within a few kilometers to demonstrate a defensive fire technique pioneered by Colonel Ramachandra herself. She checked the wind speed and direction again to ensure a safe repeat of that maneuver.

All Stations, brace for two-g burn on my mark, Ramachandra advised. Mark.

While pitching upward, Ramachandra powered up the Planck engines. After a few seconds she cut the engines down almost completely, so that the ship was committed to a ballistic trajectory. Then, she rolled the Mockingbird, slicing sideways through the air. The OSF attackers closed in and a lock-on warning sounded through the Air Variation Resonance system in CIC. Ramachandra pointed the nose of the ship at the nearest fighter and pressed an icon on her left side arm control labeled S.P.E.C.T.R.

The Mockingbird’s regular crew compliment numbered thirty-five, however for the air show the only personnel aboard were the five in CIC. Otherwise, two techs in the Spectre Facility Bay one floor below CIC would’ve calibrated and monitored the Spectre: their Synthesized Particle Accelerator and Combination Tactical Railgun. It was the Mockingbird’s most versatile and powerful weapon.

At present, the Spectre was set to fire- forty millimeter projectiles in an angry, buzzing roar of up to more than two hundred fifty rounds a second. The slugs contained charges that detonated well short of their targets in order to give an impressive display to the audience without endangering the OSF pilots. To offset the recoil and redirect airflow around the Mockingbird, Colonel Ramachandra used Xenon Ion Pulse Thrusters normally used only in space.

Jesus Christ, lady, Fitch heaved quietly, and white-knuckled his arm controls.

Ramachandra smirked as she pitched, yawed, and rolled toward the other three craft to let loose an all-bark-no-bite rapid discharge of the Spectre. Each time, Ramachandra ensured that the craft was positioned for a sharp leading edge to minimize drag or drift caused by gusting air. According to the war game program, all aircraft had been networked into Ramachandra’s computer-aided whirling, dancing gunfight was aimed with perfect precision so that the conical storm could have shot down the four smaller craft.

Seeing that their velocity was dropping fast, Colonel Ramachandra realigned the Mockingbird to its flight path and dialed up engine power before the craft could stall out. As a cadet in an ADR academy, Sumitra Ramachandra had spent many long nights in a simulator testing the strategy prior to her air combat certification, where she performed the first flight test. She had done it again in live combat.

* * * *

Captain Ramachandra and Lieutenant Garrett to the pilots’ ready room please, a male-sounding AI named Spinner announced over the filament speakers of the intercom.

Cerberus Station was, as its name suggested, multiple commands and sets of modules designated by whichever alliance, federation, league, or treaty organization occupied them. It had been constructed and moved into a geostationary orbit around Mars fifty years ago, and its latest upgrades had been twenty-three years ago, which explained the obsolete sound system and other last generation technologies lingering inside and out. More than ever, Cerberus Station depended on fighter wings to fulfill the orbital installation’s mission of enforcing the aerospace blockade over the Jade Continuum on Mars.

Entering the pilots’ ready room, Captain Sumitra Ramachandra and her copilot joined two other pilots and their commanding officers. Foremost among them was Colonel Ryan Mitchell, who started the briefing by addressing the AI, Spinner, secure the room please.

Yes Colonel, Spinner replied, and the door closed. Room is now secure.

Okay, here’s our situation, Colonel Mitchell announced. Reconnaissance drones have picked up some activity from the Continuum colony in the southern reach of Chryse Planitia. The probe didn’t get much back to us before being disabled by a directed EM pulse, but there was a massive column of vehicles headed for the Simud Vallis. The canyon valleys there are broken and irregular, so that would be an easy place to hide remote stations and surface-to-orbit defense systems. ForCom has asked that we deploy two runner-killers, Colonel Mitchel continued, using the military slang for atmospheric deep space fighters, ...and a Supplemental Tactical Electronic Warfare Interceptor drone to secure the approach for an insertion team to check out the region.

Lieutenant Colonel Michele O’Neill turned on a chromatic wall display that depicted the Martian globe and started drawing lines from the icon for Cerberus Station. This is your orbital tract here. It puts your flight furthest from prior Continuum railgun firing points. You’re to descend to fifty kilometers altitude by the time you reach the Xanthe Terra. STEWI will run instrumentation sweeps over the terrain and pass on threat assessments to you. That region should be weapons-clear, so if you see so much as a slingshot you’re to strike targets as designated. Questions?

Will the insertion team be flying formation with us? Ramachandra asked.

Their means of arrival is classified, Colonel Mitchell said. So no. Your job is to ensure they don’t have to contend with any air defense or substantial ground forces.

Does Intel know why the Jade Continuum went down there? Garrett inquired.

I’m guessing that’s why the mission was ordered, Colonel Mitchell answered. Anything else?

With no further questions, Colonel Mitchell ordered them to their fighters and wished them luck. Captain Ramachandra, Lieutenant Garrett, and the other pair of aircrews departed the station’s rotating habitat cylinder to an airlock prep room leading to the flight bay with large cases. Both removed pressure suits from those cases and put them on, after which they checked each other’s seals.

Once they cycled through the airlock, Ramachandra and Garrett maneuvered over to the cradle of their ADS-155 fighter, as the other two reached an identical craft. Support crews finished loading the two fighters, as technical inspectors and maintenance teams went over a final safety check. Inside, Captain Ramachandra and Lieutenant Garrett ran through the preflight checklist with the aid of a station AI and the ADS-155’s onboard operating systems.

Cerberus Flight Control to 349th Alpha and Bravo, a human tower controller addressed the ADS aircrews. Preflight checklist and flight plan approved. You are clear to detach.

Copy that, Control, Ramachandra answered, and reached for a docking release icon. Standby for separation from launch cradle. Three-Forty-Ninth Alpha detached. Engaging XIP thrust.

In their current configuration, the windowless ADS-155 reminded Ramachandra of a cross between two relics: the SR-72 Son of Blackbird of the mid-twenty-first century and the B-1 Bone from eighty years prior to that. The ADS-155 was big for a fighter, even one tasked to the role of long-range flights between planetary orbits if need be, and agile as a cow.

That was part of the reason why the STEWI drone launched with them, as the two fighters detached from the station’s fighter docking edge. The ten–meter-long autonomous drone followed the two larger fighters to a safe ignition distance from Cerberus Station. Then Ramachandra pitched the ADS-155 up into alignment for a Mars approach deceleration and started the fusion pulse-detonation engine burn.

Due to the high power output and its prolonged duration, the fusion engine was able to bring the fighters and drone into the mission-specific overflight course within a couple of hours. Once Ramachandra got within optimal surveillance range for the drone, she saw a threat warning pop up in her ocular augments. Two flights of TuPAC-43s inbound and pinging us on Lidar.

Eight of the infamous Tupolev Plutonium/Anti-proton Cosmonautical Fighter Model 43s were on direct approach from two different trajectories. The STEWI drone had locked onto them and transmitted the approach data to the fighters along with a countermeasure advisory. Yet the TuPAC-43s were already letting loose with their interceptor missiles.

The ADS-155s carried small electronic countermeasures capable of EMP detonation, if their scrambling emissions managed to lure a missile in close enough. The fighters also bore upper rear and lower front ball turret lasers for short range point defense, but the STEWI provided the first two layers of protection: It attempted to scramble the missiles’ targeting and maneuver software, which neutralized half the self-propelled weapons. After that, the drone employed its Flashpoint Defense System: an array of microwave transmitters that, together, caused wave amplification at the desired three-dimensional point in space and wave cancelation everywhere else. Silent flashes off missile casings flickered several times a second. The eleven-year old STEWIs were the first craft of any design to field the technology.

It didn’t take long for the TuPACs to run dry of missiles and had to close in to make use of their Argon Plasma Coagulators. Ramachandra launched Starling Missiles that Garrett allotted targets for. The Starlings made use of AI guidance and became more difficult to evade when more were fired, but three TuPACs made it through.

Another flight of TuPAC-43s appeared on Ramachandra’s ocular display. She had more missiles ready, but the first three hostiles were already so close that their agility made it too difficult for the larger, sluggish ADS-155 to line up a launch. The new flight forced Ramachandra’s wingman to peel away to deal with them before they could get into gun range. Ramachandra found herself being forced deeper into the Martian atmosphere, where the swift TuPACs held the advantage. It also required that Ramachandra switch over to the fighter’s two Planck engines for better performance in air.

Come on, move! Ramachandra gritted out between clenched teeth, while working the hemispherical control on her right side.

They’re locked on, Rama, Garrett called out. Five seconds before they’re in range.

Ramachandra pitched up and throttled the engines to maximum for a few seconds. It helped her skip off the atmosphere, to where she could freely pitch, yaw, and role to align the fighter’s axial rapid-fire railgun with her targets. Not one of the Jade Continuum pilots seemed to grasp what happened, before Ramachandra shredded the three TuPACs. Then, she reignited the fusion engine and climbed back into orbit to help the other ADS and STEWI drone. One more intermitted blip appeared in her sight.

The unknown ship design was sixty meters long and flashed variations of Mars colors for a second and again after a course correction. One moment it was an equilateral triangle and the next it changed to have wings broad enough to maneuver in thin atmosphere.

Ramachandra didn’t know it at the time, but she had witnessed the ISV-60 Warlock; a forerunner test-bed vessel to the ISV-71 Raven. It conducted a surface landing while Ramachandra and 349th Bravo returned to Cerberus Station minus the STWEI drone. The autonomous vehicle flew itself into a Jade Continuum missile to save 349th Bravo from taking the hit.

Chapter 2

Getting Schooled

The Control Information Center on the Warlock was similar to that of the ISV Ravens but smaller and only had one acceleration couch in the center of four stations. Another difference was that the mission commander wasn’t a pilot, and instead floated in freefall behind one of the four recessed stations along the wall to direct their actions and oversee the success of the mission. Of the five women in the compartment, only two in the front stations wore military uniforms. The side stations were crewed by Juanita, who handled surveillance and threat assessment, while Shelly managed both electronic and computer warfare.

Hey, Sofia, a stations operator called out, take a look at this.

Bring up Juanita’s display, the mission commander, Sofia, ordered.

The result of the Tiger Hawk Project, the Warlock remained in operation for almost twenty years despite being just a prototype for the ISV-71 Ravens. Once the Aerospace Defense Response achieved what they needed with the Warlock, they turned it over to International Services, Clandestine Operations. Over the last thirteen years, ISCO focused its seven-month-long missions exclusively on Mars and the Jade Continuum. Each time, they deployed a new team of nine women or nine men.

We should never have left Cerberus Station behind like that, Juanita said.

Too expensive to dismantle and bring home, Sofia replied. Now it’s called Gates of Heaven. At least the coalition partners stripped out all the important crap from inside.

The Russian