Entries tagged with “Drevin Targe”.


When Rico Montel had first donned the blue and green uniform of the Varilyn Hierarchy’s armed forces, it had been a moment of inexpressible pride.

The burly mouse didn’t think he was unusual in that. He’d come from a humble background, a few steps from the streets, and still been given a chance to succeed; should he not be proud of his nation? And he’d trained and studied for years to pass the bar for a slot at officer’s college, and not only been accepted, but been at the head of his class; should he not be proud of himself?

He’d committed to enlisting in the wake of what had since become known as the Sterley uprising – a gaggle of pirates who’d had the notion to turn conquistador and caused five bloody years of fighting before their base of operations was finally tracked down at the outer limits of the Sterley system. He’d been much too junior to actually take part in the strike on that base – hadn’t even won an ensign’s stripe, still on his midshipman’s cruise, most junior of a wing helping to police the home systems – but he’d been in uniform long enough to feel some common ground with the soldiers who had gone to fight. He’d mourned their losses, cheered their triumph, and been once again proud to wear the same uniform as them. (more…)

Drevin blew out his breath, leaning back in his command chair and gazing into the tactical display. Over to the side, Vree announced the all-clear on the short-range plot, the snow leopard’s voice weary and ragged.

And well it might be. This was the fifth time in as many hours that they’d been stumbled upon by a Sakkarn patrol – and the third time in the last single hour. They were getting closer, their patrols thicker, their response times shorter. There was only so much the Red Valour and her remaining fighters could do to avoid a full-on clash.

But for so long as they could do so, that was what they would do. Again the instructions went out for a gentle course change. The last five times they’d done it, they’d gone in a different direction from the initial strong burn, sometimes a little bit different, sometimes greatly so; this time, the planned change was in the same direction.

At least they’d kept this up for longer than they’d dared hope. There were only two hours left on the minimum-response-time estimate, now.

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Flint remembered the fear.

He was adrift in a dark haze, a flurry of images flickering through his vision, all of them tainted by that sick fear. In time, he focused enough to remember more clearly. The invasion alert. The desperate battle. The lurch of his bomber as it took damage; the blare of alarms as systems failed. Sudden inspiration and one last, desperate plan, keyed into the autopilot. He’d committed the program, hit the eject button, and then…

Then the world had turned to fire.

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It shouldn’t have been so normal.

It was just another carrier flight deck, with fighters clamped into place in their berths, cargo haulers trundling over the plates, techs scurrying about with the various tools of their trade. Just like the one Drevin had launched from, oh, too many hours ago now.

But it wasn’t his flight deck.

Cognitive dissonance could be a strange thing, sometimes.

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