Blood Impulse

Part 39.2 - THE DOOR

Cardioid Sector, HR-14 System, Warhawk 785

Task Force Alpha was comprised of nearly two hundred crewmen, including half the Singularity's Marines, and most of the ship's pilots. Together, the Marines and pilots made up most of the attack group, but the rest of the team consisted of a few engineers and support personnel. The support personnel included sensor analysts, armory experts, supply managers and a medical team under the guidance of Nurse Sanchez – a nurse who'd been around the fleet long enough to be a doctor in everything but title.

All of Alpha team wore vacuum suits, a necessity given their target. The added size of the suits and their associated air recycling packs crowded teams aboard the Warhawks. The little recon ships could function as shuttles, but they hadn't been designed as dropships meant to carry large numbers of troops. Given that, it took thirty-two Warhawks to carry Task Force Alpha's personnel and equipment, and that number was escorted by twenty-four fighter-interceptor Arcbird spacecraft.

Sleek, white and deadly looking, Lieutenant Colonel Pflum could not help but admire the fighter escorting his Warhawk. The two heavy blasters under its wings would be more than enough firepower to pound the pirate base into dust, but it was a small lithe craft that could maneuver faster than almost anything else in the worlds, save perhaps racing ships designed for speed. The cockpit of the Arcbird blended smoothly with its body, barely a slight bulge above the gradual thickening of the craft's needle-sharp nose to its fuselage. The material of the cockpit was translucent and photoreactive. From an outside perspective, the material had turned reflective in the light of the system's sun, but the effect was only protective. From inside the cockpit the transparency of the material was clear as crystal, just simply kept pilots from being blinded by the unfiltered sun.

The same photoreactive material made up the front and side windows of the Warhawk, so Plfum could only assume that he looked as much like a hazy shadow as the profile of the pilot sitting in the fighter flying beside them. He could only barely make out the round shape of a helmet beyond the shine of the cockpit, but he knew the woman who sat over there. Captain 'Fireball' Adams had volunteered herself to fly escort for the lead craft of Task Force Alpha.

Pflum had a slight concern that she might be trying to prove herself after what happened with Squadron 26, where she'd been caught in the squadron's strange, simultaneous detonations and had her Arcbird destroyed. Ejecting on a plainly lucky vector, she'd barely been found alive. Pflum supposed that would leave any pilot eager to prove themselves again, but the pressure was surely double for the new leader of the Singularity's support squadrons. Regardless, Fireball was perhaps the most talented Arcbird pilot they had, so Pflum had not objected to her putting herself front and center for the team's insertion.

"We're still looking clear, Fireball," the pilot of Pflum's Warhawk, 'Butterfly' Anasari said. He was a decently talented pilot as well, a man with bronze skin and jet-black hair that never strayed from its part. He wasn't much for the talkative flamboyance the other pilots enjoyed, but he kept a little butterfly decoration hanging from the mirror of his Warhawk. It bobbed and shifted under the craft's slight acceleration, its glittery wings dancing as if it were flying. Pflum wasn't sure if the little charm or the callsign had come first, but most pilots didn't offer that information up. They liked to keep some mystique about their names.

"Understood, Butterfly," their escort replied.

As a larger craft, the Warhawk had a larger sensor array and radar range than Fireball's Arcbird. If surviving pirates or defenses still lingered, the Warhawk would know first. However, as Pflum checked their surroundings, he sincerely doubted there was anything at all left moving in the asteroid belt after the Singularity's temper tantrum. And yes, he was inclined to call it such. A large chunk of the asteroid belt been blasted into oblivion. That hadn't been necessary for the mission, just the result of a beast uncaring of the destruction it wreaked in its surroundings.