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Chapter Twenty-Six


Spin One


“Okay, everyone, stop!” Bowden exclaimed, pausing the combat simulation. As the trainees leaned back from their consoles, he spent a moment composing himself. Stay patient, stay calm. “Lakglurm, I ordered you to move forward to support Burg.”

“But by so doing, you are making me take actions which will almost certainly lead to my annihilation.”

“No, I’m not. You are supporting Burg, and he will be supporting you in turn.” Bowden looked at him without blinking. “I’ve spoken with Murphy about this, and losing people is the absolute last thing we want . . . besides losing the entire battle, that is.”

“I am not about to sacrifice my life for a SpinDog or one of you Los—” He stopped himself.

“I’ll finish that for you. ‘Or one of you Lost Soldiers.’” Bowden nodded. “I understand how you feel. I’ve felt the same way myself, sometimes. I’ve worked with allies in Africa on our world who I would have been just as happy to attack—happier, maybe, in some cases—than our mutual enemies. People who were more worried about personal gain than doing the right thing or helping the team win.

“But going it alone is not how you win battles. We’re not individuals, or even Family loyalists. We are a fleet. We will fly and fight as one. To do otherwise ensures that they will cut us to pieces. There are more of them.”

“I thought your wondrous tech would ensure we prevail.”

“That ‘wondrous tech’ will help us achieve victory, but it can’t do it all by itself. That tech was designed with this kind of discipline and cooperation in mind. Each one of us complements the other, so that we make a whole that is much, much greater than the sum of its parts. And anyone of you who can’t fly that kind of mission—or who won’t fly like that—needs to leave this compartment right now and tell your Family that you are not fit for service with our fleet. Because this commitment to working as a team, as an integrated unit, is the foundation of every other skill you bring with you. Without that foundation, you are not merely useless to the fleet, you will be the weakest link in the chain . . . and far too weak to fly with us.”

Bowden paused and stared at the offender. “So, Lakglurm, what are you? Are you weak, or are you strong enough to do what must be done to protect your family—even if it involves listening to a Lost Soldier or counting on a SpinDog to protect your back?”

Lakglurm—who was a bear of a man—took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I am the strongest one here.” He glanced uncertainly toward the ever-present Kaminski, almost invisible in the shadows of the bulkhead behind Kevin. “I am certainly strong enough to listen to a Lost Soldier.” He nodded, muttered, “And strong enough to come back and kill you if you break that trust.”

Bowden smiled. “Fair enough. That’s a start.” He looked over to Fiezel, who was running the simulator. “Let’s start it from the top.”

* * *

Reetan Taregon’s simulated corvette, along with his two remaining wingmen, sliced out from the formation at full burn.

“What are you doing?” Targ J’axon called. “Get back in formation.”

“Not this time, SpinDog. You’ve stolen all the glory the past two engagements. These are mine.” He flipped off the “radio” button that allowed him to hear and speak to the SpinDog group that was located in a different but nearby compartment.

Reetan’s force advanced on a group of five cargo ships, firing missiles from medium range, and then closing to finish them off with their railguns and lasers. As they got close to the formation, the farthest enemy ship launched six missiles one after the other. The missiles passed between the other cargo ships as they accelerated, then their rocket motors went out.

“Find them!” Reetan said to the other pilots in his formation, who were sitting near him on the simulators. “Find those missiles!” All his pilots zoomed in on the space in front of them, searching.

“Got them!” one of them exclaimed. “They’re coming at me!”

The ship fired its point defense systems, destroying two of the missiles, but the other four closed on it, their motors reigniting for the final burn. The missiles maneuvered wildly as they reached their terminal phase, and all four slammed into the corvette. Its icon dropped out of the link on the simulator.

“More for us!” Reetan yelled, and the remaining ships of his force swooped in on the now-defenseless cargo ships, destroying them without any further losses. “Who’s next?” Reetan asked as he zoomed out his link picture.

“Oh no!” one of the pilots muttered.

“What?” Reetan asked.

“Look at J’axon’s force.”

Bowden smiled grimly. While Reetan had been off killing the mostly unarmed merchants—and, ironically, losing one of his group to them—an enemy task force had attacked. The numbers would have been fairly even if Reetan’s battle group had been there, which would have given the advantage to the Hound-Dog force, but their absence had given the edge to the Kulsians, and they were being ground down by the Kulsians’ superior numbers, even though their technology and coordination was better.

Bowden sighed as the military aphorism was proven yet again. Quantity has a quality all its own.

The RockHound force boosted back toward where the action was taking place, but even they could see they were going to be too late. Both of the Aegis corvettes, including J’axon’s own, had been destroyed, and the others were being methodically cut to pieces. Reetan’s force arrived at the same time as another Kulsian force—probably looking for the glory of being involved in the combat action—also showed up. Once again, the Kulsians had the advantage of numbers and destroyed the RockHound force out of hand.

“Bah!” Reetan exclaimed, pushing back from his console. “That was rigged against us.”

“No,” Targ J’axon said from the doorway, “the battle was ours to win! Only your incompetence and refusal to follow orders allowed—”

“I’ll kill you for that!” Reetan yelled, jumping from his seat. The other RockHounds jumped up to follow their leader, while the rest of the SpinDogs flooded the room to back their leader.

Bowden raced to cut Reetan off and shoved a hand into his chest. “That’s enough!” he roared in a voice that would have made his OCS gunnery sergeant proud. “Get back in your seat, Reetan!”

“No!” the RockHound cried. “He has insulted me. That is a dueling offense.”

“And I say no!” Bowden yelled. “We don’t have time for your macho bullshit.”

“Did you hear what he said to me? He said—”

“I heard what he said,” Bowden replied. “And he was absolutely right! If you had stayed where you were supposed to be, rather than running off in search of personal glory, together, you would probably have beaten the first Kulsian force, and then the one that followed it. Instead, you were defeated in detail.” Bowden shook his head. “All of you Hound-Dogs better get your shit in one sock, or we’re going to get our asses kicked.”

“I do not understand,” J’axon said. “How is putting excrement in a sock—?”

“It’s a Terran saying,” Bowden said with a touch of frustration. “It means to have everything figured out.”

“But excrement—”

“I don’t know why that’s the saying; that’s just the way it is. Don’t dwell on it. The only thing that’s important is that you need put away your fucking egos, or we’re all going to die.”

Reetan held up a hand. “Did you just call us Hound-Dogs?”

Bowden blew out his breath all at once. “Yes, I did.”

“I find that offensive,” Reetan said, “as I’m sure the SpinDogs do as well.”

“Well, honestly, I don’t care that your poor little feelings got hurt,” Bowden said. “You just got your asses kicked, and you’re dead! Dead people don’t get to have feelings. Besides, I said that intentionally to make a point. There isn’t any time left for this whole SpinDogs versus RockHounds thing. Do you think the Kulsians are going to analyze each ship they come to and decide whether to fight it based on who’s crewing it?” So much for remaining calm. Might as well let them have it with both barrels.

Bowden put a whining, childlike pitch into his voice. “Oh, look! It’s a SpinDog crew. We’ll let this one go. Oh, a RockHound? Shoot it!” He glared at Reetan for a second, before resuming in his normal voice. “The Kulsians are coming with one intent, one thought in their minds: to kill everyone who gets in their way of raping R’Bak and destroying everyone they find in space. They don’t care who you are; you are all unworthy in their eyes. RockHounds, SpinDogs, Lost Soldiers: to them we’re all—what’s that phrase you use?—‘lesser beings.’ So they will happily kill you—kill us all—regardless of which little group you belong to.

“The bottom line is that there is no longer time for ‘us’ and ‘them’ among our ranks. We are all Hound-Dogs—yes, even the Lost Soldiers—and if we don’t fight as one, we’ll all die. Separately and without hope. Is that what you want?”

“Well, no. I want—”

“You know what?” Bowden raged. “I don’t give a shit about what you want! Glory, this. Dominion, that. I don’t give a fucking shit! I’m sorry I even asked.” He pointed to the door. “Get out.”

Reetan jerked back as if he’d been slapped. “What?”

“Get out! Get out of my fucking simulator. We don’t need you. I’d rather have twenty-eight or even twenty corvettes flown by people that I trust—people who can act like a team—than have a bunch of prima donnas doing their own thing.” He pointed to the door again. “Just get out.”

“I cannot—”

“Oh, yes, you can. You just stand up and walk across the deck, and boom! Out you go. Easy as that.”

“No, I mean I cannot return to my Family and tell the Legate that I have failed. I just . . . I cannot.”

“If you’re not going to go tell your daddy dearest that you’ve flamed out of flight school, then you have to rise above this SpinDog versus RockHound bullshit. As in, right this second. Because we’re all in this together. Several hundred years ago, when my country was trying to get out from under the thumb of an oppressor, there was a saying: We must hang together, or we will surely hang separately.”

Bowden sighed when he saw the blank faces looking at him. “Sorry, that didn’t translate, but it has to do with two different meanings for the word ‘hang.’ The first involves sticking together; the second involves dying by strangulation. Basically, it means, ‘We need to stick together, or we’ll all die separately,’ with a little play on the words used. That’s basically what just happened here.” He waved at the simulators. “You all just died separately.”

“I understand the meaning, if not the actual saying,” Reetan said. His shoulders slumped. “I also see its applicability here. We need to fight together as a single team.”

Bowden nodded. “We do,” he agreed, his voice losing a little of the steam it’d had. “We are going to be greatly outnumbered, and we’re going to need to fight as one to be successful. More importantly, we need to trust each other to be successful. We need to know that you—or anyone else—isn’t going to go off seeking personal glory at the first opportunity, leaving us in the lurch. We absolutely can beat these assholes, but we can only beat them through the use of the tactics I’m trying to teach you.” Bowden tilted his head and looked penetratingly at Reetan. “Can you do that? Can you put aside all this petty bullshit and be part of the team?”

Reetan swallowed once, then he nodded his head. “I can.”

“Good, because we need you. You’re a great pilot, and we’re going to need all our best pilots when the Kulsians get here.”

“Major Bowden?” Burg called.

“Yeah?”

“We just got a priority message. Colonel Murphy needs you in his office.”

Bowden nodded, then he looked at Reetan and Targ. “Do it again,” he said, “and this time, do it together.” He turned to Fiezel as he made for the exit. “I’ll expect a report afterward, assuming I survive whatever Murphy has in store for me.”


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