Read Online SODIUM:3 Fusion by Stephen Arseneault - Free Book Online
Authors: Stephen Arseneault
Tags: Sci Fi & Fantasy
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the day came to an end, Red walked into the crew cabin and put his hand on my shoulder. He told me that if I continued my training with the attitude and yearning for knowledge that I had shown that day, I could easily become one of the top if not "the" top pilot in the Corps.
As I walked back to my personal quarters, I felt a sense of resolve in what I was doing. It was the first time I remember really having pride in who I was or what I might become. I was a fighter pilot, on a mission to save the world. It was an exciting and yet humbling thought.
The following morning I couldn't wait to rejoin the team. I hoped they had each had similar experiences on their free day as it would help tremendously in lifting our spirits. Whip was the first to tell of her day. She had been with the Battle Tacticians and had asked questions about the tactics employed. She wanted to know what other methods or weapons Command might have up their sleeves.
One of the key things she had come back with was that the alien craft had comm systems that functioned similar to ours. In the darkness of space they were limited to the speed of light for their communications just as we were.
We had captured transmissions from their ships. It was heavily encrypted along with being in a language we couldn't understand. Our cryptologists had worked day and night to crack the codes, but had yet to make any headway.
When fighting in space where the distances were potentially huge, communications could take minutes if not much longer to reach their target. Whip discussed this fact with Paige during our entire morning break. Paige was giddy having someone to talk physics with. During their discussion I felt lucky that I was able to understand how to tie my own shoes.
Pop had come back beaming with ideas for reactor upgrades. For now he would be stuck with only modifying his sketches. He had hopes of one day being able to apply those mods to our craft. He was a sharp guy but none of us looked forward to being a guinea pig for his experiments.
Bigg spent the day with his son Chris. They had been going over repair prospects for Defender A3. The damage had been significant enough that it would be permanently grounded and only used for spare parts. The sensor arrays were shot.
It would take more time and expense to remove and repair the damaged rings, sensors and their housings than it would to build a new craft. Besides, parts were in high demand.
I still wondered how they got the craft from the chamber to Regents Field and back. I reasoned that it was possible that Regents was right on top of us. Of course with the speed the Defenders could move at we could also be a thousand kilometers away.
After getting once again connected to the DSim we were ready to start level-two scenarios. Level two would involve more alien fighters and a few out-of-atmosphere runs. The week was spent running through and conquering level-two. My favorite mission was scenario 2.8. After clearing out a pod of drones we were sent to inspect a warehouse.
Upon arrival everything looked peaceful. After flying slowly around the warehouse we were attacked by about a thousand alien tripods and several hundred drones at once. The doors and windows of the warehouse flew open and the alien tripods and drones came out like angry ants from an anthill. They were everywhere and we were taking heavy fire.
The battle lasted an hour before we finally had the alien sims on the defensive. Red then told us that this could possibly be the type of scenario we would be facing when their main fleet arrived.
If the fleet was as big as it appeared, the thousand tripod scenario might have been a minimal effort. Either way, it was more like a video game than a real mission. The one thing that always stuck in the back of my mind was that it still was not live. We would not be at risk of actually dying that day.
The following day a second real mission had been scheduled. We were again invited to sit in on the
As I walked back to my personal quarters, I felt a sense of resolve in what I was doing. It was the first time I remember really having pride in who I was or what I might become. I was a fighter pilot, on a mission to save the world. It was an exciting and yet humbling thought.
The following morning I couldn't wait to rejoin the team. I hoped they had each had similar experiences on their free day as it would help tremendously in lifting our spirits. Whip was the first to tell of her day. She had been with the Battle Tacticians and had asked questions about the tactics employed. She wanted to know what other methods or weapons Command might have up their sleeves.
One of the key things she had come back with was that the alien craft had comm systems that functioned similar to ours. In the darkness of space they were limited to the speed of light for their communications just as we were.
We had captured transmissions from their ships. It was heavily encrypted along with being in a language we couldn't understand. Our cryptologists had worked day and night to crack the codes, but had yet to make any headway.
When fighting in space where the distances were potentially huge, communications could take minutes if not much longer to reach their target. Whip discussed this fact with Paige during our entire morning break. Paige was giddy having someone to talk physics with. During their discussion I felt lucky that I was able to understand how to tie my own shoes.
Pop had come back beaming with ideas for reactor upgrades. For now he would be stuck with only modifying his sketches. He had hopes of one day being able to apply those mods to our craft. He was a sharp guy but none of us looked forward to being a guinea pig for his experiments.
Bigg spent the day with his son Chris. They had been going over repair prospects for Defender A3. The damage had been significant enough that it would be permanently grounded and only used for spare parts. The sensor arrays were shot.
It would take more time and expense to remove and repair the damaged rings, sensors and their housings than it would to build a new craft. Besides, parts were in high demand.
I still wondered how they got the craft from the chamber to Regents Field and back. I reasoned that it was possible that Regents was right on top of us. Of course with the speed the Defenders could move at we could also be a thousand kilometers away.
After getting once again connected to the DSim we were ready to start level-two scenarios. Level two would involve more alien fighters and a few out-of-atmosphere runs. The week was spent running through and conquering level-two. My favorite mission was scenario 2.8. After clearing out a pod of drones we were sent to inspect a warehouse.
Upon arrival everything looked peaceful. After flying slowly around the warehouse we were attacked by about a thousand alien tripods and several hundred drones at once. The doors and windows of the warehouse flew open and the alien tripods and drones came out like angry ants from an anthill. They were everywhere and we were taking heavy fire.
The battle lasted an hour before we finally had the alien sims on the defensive. Red then told us that this could possibly be the type of scenario we would be facing when their main fleet arrived.
If the fleet was as big as it appeared, the thousand tripod scenario might have been a minimal effort. Either way, it was more like a video game than a real mission. The one thing that always stuck in the back of my mind was that it still was not live. We would not be at risk of actually dying that day.
The following day a second real mission had been scheduled. We were again invited to sit in on the
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