Descent: Aries Wing

There were a number of things that Bryan was afraid of. Being in the dark in an unfamiliar place was one of them. That was all he was able to think about on this mission, and he was almost positive that Jared, his commander and lifelong friend, could sense it. He often imagined seeing cloaked ships against the shadows throughout the room.

It’s wan't that the room was completely dark, though. There was just enough light for one to be able to see his way around, and to properly dogfight an opponent if need be. But the eeriness of the mine was all that he had seen for the past 72 hours. More than once, Bryan just wanted to burn and chord the hell out of there. But he could never abandon a mission, especially one with Jared.

“Bryan,” Jared called over the radio band, “you’re not mad about the promotion, are you?”

Bryan glared at the radio in disgust. This was the last thing he wanted to talk about during a mission. The radio was a device from the twenty-first century that communicated over waves that weren’t monitored anymore, so when the wing needed to maintain radio silence when not in battle, Bryan and Jared would use some old fashioned technology to keep in touch. But sometimes, like this time, he wished they never had it.

“You know better,” he said meekly. “You’ve more experience, the position was yours. I don’t get mad at things out of our control.”

“I’ve always worried about how you were taking this, you know,” Jared confessed. “It’s hard to have to compete for the last spot with your best friend.”

Bryan carefully maneuvered his fully armed Magnum-AHT2 out of hiding, from the back of the room, up toward the left side, being careful not to expose himself to the shaft in the ceiling that led to the outside. Apparition Base used to be a military training ground for pilots, who would use mock weaponry to play war games amongst themselves. He and Jared had participated in a number of such games here, never knowing that it would most likely become war turf. The planet it resided on was a relatively new discovery, with the base having been first built 8 years ago, just after the infamous PTMC incident. Little was known about the planet aside from the fact that most of it was a barren wasteland, barely capable of supporting life.

Bryan sighed. “Yeah, well I got more important things to worry about than a silly promotion.” Bryan never cared what position he held, as long as he was behind the controls of a ship ready for battle. He had been doing this for twelve years for the CED, and had never faced a mission that he didn’t like – until now.

Jared let out a short cackle. “You’re afraid of the dark, aren’t you?”

“No!” lied Bryan. “It’s just that this base isn’t how I remember it. It’s not the same.”

Bryan rested his ship just above the opening in the floor leading to the large room below. Just then, something bright and yellow flew in front of his Magnum. “Shit!” screamed Bryan through the radio.

“Ha ha ha,” laughed Jared. Bryan turned his ship to see a flare in the wall next to him, and then turned to see Jared’s Pyro-GY practically laughing at him. “Afraid, my ass!” giggled Jared.

“You know something?” inquired Bryan sarcastically. “You suck!” Bryan moved his Magnum again to look through the opening. “Uhhh… Jared, we’ve got company.” A group of human operated drillers were tearing into the floor in the opposite corner of the room below. There must have been two dozen of them.

Jared moved his ship next to Bryan’s, and saw the group drilling through the floor. “Let’s do it.”

Bryan hesitated. “Wait, shouldn’t we call the rest of the wing over?”

Jared said confidently, “Nah, these guys are probably unarmed, and I don’t see any guarding ships. We can take ‘em!”

Not considering the consequences of Jared’s decision, Bryan said, “Alright, let’s go!”

The Magnum and the Pyro sped into the lowest room in the base. At first, they went unnoticed. Each ship shot a single impact mortar into the group of ships, and then veered off to avoid the explosion. A couple of seconds later, the missiles exploded, sending at least a dozen ships spiraling off into the surrounding walls to their deaths.

By this time, the entire group of drillers had realized what was going on, and some attempted to fight back with their outdated Vulcan rifles. But their aim was less than acceptable, as Bryan and Jared easily dodged the misaimed rounds. Bryan charged up and then fired his quad-fusion cannon into a small group, disintegrating three ships. Meanwhile, Jared chased after some fleeing ships, taking them out with a well placed frag missile. Within fifteen seconds, Bryan and Jared had taken out the entire group of drillers.

Bryan pivoted his Magnum around, making sure the room was empty, save Jared’s Pyro. “Well, that was less than fun,” he offered.

Jared returned, “Yeah, that was disappointing at best. Let’s get the rest of the team back here and find out what else we might have to deal with.” Jared switched over from the radio to his subspace channels. “Aries Leader to Aries Two and Aries Three. Please return to the Apparition Base. We will meet above ground. Do you copy?”

Bryan listened to the voices of the two pilots, Sidney and Andrew. “Copy that, on my way.” “Roger, Aries Leader.”

Engaging in battle was usually followed by breaking the radio silence and regrouping in order to receive further orders. While this was standard procedure, there was something about this that Bryan didn’t like. “Let’s head to the surface.” Bryan began pitching his Magnum up, and flew out of the room up towards the surface.

“Okay, I’ll be there in a second,” stated Jared. “I think I see something out of the ordinary down here, and I want to check it out.” Jared moved his Pyro towards the bottom of the room, where a light source was shining from underneath the floor where the drillers had broken through. Apparently, one of the explosions caused the floor to give way to an underground cave. Curious, Jared shot out enough of the floor with his vauss cannon to pass through. As he flew into the cave, he noticed that it looked quite man made, and was recently built. The cave was dark, except for a strong light coming from further down. As Jared got closer, he saw that the light was coming from a sphere, about the size of a cantaloupe. It was bright white, and was lit consistently throughout its surface. Unable to immediately tell what the sphere was supposed to be, he used his ship’s extendable arm to grab the sphere and bring it into the ship’s cargo.

Meanwhile, Bryan made it outside, and looked around for his other wingmen. It was pitch black outside, and the stars were clearly visible in the sky. As he looked around, he suddenly had the feeling that he wasn’t alone anymore. And then his focus gazed on an object in the sky that was about 500 yards away, pointing right at him. He maneuvered his Magnum around to face the object, and did an infrared scan of it. At the same time, a signal came through over the unencrypted general use channel of his subspace radio. And through this channel came one of the darkest, most evil voices Bryan had ever heard.

“CED scum, stand aside, you have no place here.” As the transmission subsided, the infrared scan revealed the object in the distance was an old PTMC Black Pyro model.

Bryan tried to contain his fear the best he could. “This is CED Aries One to unidentified Black Pyro. Stand down and surrender. You are under arrest.” Bryan realized he didn’t do a good job. Never had Bryan met a single ship by himself face to face in an actual battle experience. His training kicked in, and made him aware enough to expect incoming fire after making such a demand.

“You do not know what you are interfering with, pilot,” stated the Black Pyro pilot, ever so coldly. “I ask once more, and no more. Back off. Don’t let your CED training get you killed.”

“No, YOU will stand down!” shouted Bryan, rather annoyed at the threats from the pilot. “You are on CED territory. Now surrender!”

“Fine!” yelled the pilot. “Die in your stubbornness AND your fear!”

It was about this time that Jared shouted through the ancient radio, “Hey, Bryan, check out what I found down…”

But Jared’s voice never made it to Bryan’s ears, as his concentration blocked it out. An object was fired from the Black Pyro. Bryan made a frantic move to dodge the projectile, and was barely successful. Bryan couldn’t help but think that had he been in a first edition Magnum, he would have eaten that missile and swallowed it whole. The Black Pyro began to fly away.

The missile exploded, but not like a normal explosion. Instead, intense beams of white lightning shot out from the center of impact. One of the bolts stemmed straight up into the sky as far as the eye could see. And at the center of it all was Jared’s Pyro.

Bryan realized what the missile was, although he had never seen one before. The legendary Black Shark missile was rare, yet one of the most powerful man-made forces in the universe. No one survived the vortex of a Black Shark.

Then the screaming began. Jared screamed for his life through the open channel with a bloodcurdling scream that Bryan had never heard him make before. Seconds seemed like days as Jared’s Pyro was suspended in the vortex.

Then suddenly, the vortex gave way and exploded out of existence. The screaming ended, the lightning was gone, and what was left of Jared’s ship fell as if a giant hand had grabbed it, crushed it into pieces, and let them fall down to the ground.

For minutes, Bryan just stared at the remains of the Pyro-GY that he had flown with for twelve years. His commander, his best friend, was no more. If he had known, he probably would have intercepted the missile himself just to give Jared a chance. There were a lot of “what ifs” going through Bryan’s mind when a Phoenix-SP and a Pyro-GL pulled up onto the battleground. “Aries Two and Three reporting in.”

This snapped Bryan out of his trance, as he replied weakly, “Aries Leader is down.”

Seemingly in synchronization, the two new ships turned to look at the wreckage that was Jared’s ship. “I’m sorry, Bryan,” said Sidney.

Bryan ignored the lone salty tear running down his cheek as he replied, “Me too.”