CROSSFIRE - Atlantis DSV - New Cape Quest

Now it was Hornsby‟s turn to examine him as she drew up close to the bars, her eyes
narrowing. “But you haven‟t made your decision yet, have you?”
Callaghan‟s PAL chirped from his belt before he could answer. He unclipped it and
keyed the call button. “Callaghan,” he snapped.
“Ryan, it‟s Banick... Bring Captain Hornsby to the wardroom. Ainsley‟s returning...
and he‟s bringing company.”
Callaghan frowned. “Company?”
“Nycarians.”
The XO stopped – a rush mixed of dread and uncertainty flowing through his veins.
For the second time in as many years, it appeared that someone had made the choice for
him, and he sighed. “Sergeant,” he called. “Open the door.”
Hornsby paused to look at him in wonder. “You‟d have done it, wouldn‟t you?”
Callaghan appeared wounded with the presentation of that question. “I‟ve already
been party to the deaths of far too many innocent people, Captain,” he confessed. “I may
have no memory of those actions, but I have no intention of repeating them.”
Callaghan barely registered the small but grateful smile that met his reply as the burly
marine stepped in front of him and released the heavy door locks. The two of them walked
briskly down the cross-corridor, the two marine guards never more than a few feet behind
them as they made their way towards the bridge. All the while, one question burned at
Hornsby‟s mind. “I‟d thank you for releasing me, Callaghan, but you still haven‟t explained
what exactly is going on.”
He grimaced, having already thought of it. “The Admiral asked me to trust him,” he
replied. “I‟m just hoping this is what he meant.”
Dustin Coyle‟s fighter fell in on the wing of Rapier One swiftly and closely, the two
fighters forming the ends of their respective formations. The twenty one fighters of the Dark
Angels and Rapiers had drawn a physical line between the two carriers. Commonwealth and
Aquarius now sat at opposite ends of a killing field that was ten miles wide, nose-to-nose.
The combined hails of the Fall River, Vengeance and Tripoli had gone largely ignored by
both sides, and all of them had uniformly stood down their weapons and signalled their
intentions to take no side in the growing feud.
For Coyle and Roberts, the challenge was trickier as the last of Banick‟s fighters
launched and fell in to formation with the fighters of the VF-173 Griffons. Every attempt the
Dark Angels and Rapiers had made to raise them had been flatly rebuked, and now the
Griffons, too, were forming a long line in front of the Commonwealth.
For the second time in almost as many days, it was Raptor against Raptor, and pilot
against pilot as they spiralled closer and closer to a realm of true stupidity. Roberts thumbed
her radio again desperately. “This is Rapier One to SEWACS Warseer, I say again – we
need instructions.”
Once more, it was silence that met them. It wasn‟t that they weren‟t being ignored,
but the fact that the command sub appeared to have simply disappeared and opted to close
every operating channel. Warseer wasn‟t playing ball, with either group of fighters. It was a
gesture of solidarity that at any other time Roberts might have smiled at. This was not one of
those times as she reminded herself just how many pilots amongst the Griffons she counted
as friends – and how many torpedo tubes the Commonwealth had bearing on each and
every single one of them.
“Rapier One, this is Ghost Leader,” said an unfamiliar voice as cold shadow fell over
her from above. “You are ordered to withdraw to the Aquarius immediately.”
The eerily familiar, yet strangely striking silhouette of a subfighter that blocked out the
sun for just the smallest fraction of a second rattled her cockpit as it pulled ahead and settled
in to the lead position of the staggered line that had been formed by the UEO fighters.
Roberts could scarcely believe her eyes as she checked her sensors and confirmed that
which she already suspected – the fighter didn‟t appear to exist, the pilot‟s chosen callsign
becoming an unsettlingly well-suited identity. The radio IFF returned as „friendly‟ on her
communications monitor, although it possessed no associated squawk ID. Whoever was
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