Unleashed, they are the dogs of war.
HMS Hope of the Dawn - Da Houg System -Taïrian Front
~~*~~
"INN now has independent confirmation that Alliance forced retreated from the Chang Cu system, in the Vega sector at approximately 0600 hours yesterday. This is the fourth system in Vega to be retaken by the Amsus in the last six months. The grim reality seems to be, that Vega sector, site of many major Alliance victories, is now being stolen away by the Amsus, a piece at a time. This is Paul Schofield, signing off for INN."
Masconi stared at the screen and briefly felt a familiar anger. Paul Schofield and every other INN reporter or 'independent source' always seemed to delight in tales of Imperial defeats. That was always hidden behind an air of nonchalance but Masconi could almost feel the sickening satisfaction as Schofield dealt a blow to the morale of the arch enemy of the media.
The Imperial military always tried to clamp down on things that could cause public unrest and hysteria. Things were tense enough at the best of times back on Karin, the last thing anyone needed was panic, rioting and chaos. Yet those INN bastards insisted on trying to create panic, rioting and chaos. Why? Because of ratings.
When a person spent a lifetime fighting for the freedom of a species, they developed contempt for the trivial things they might have worried about before. From where Masconi was sitting, ratings, popularity and career advancement seemed no more trivial then a missing thread from a flight suit. Why these people couldn't see past their own virtually meaningless jobs and think about what was best for the species was beyond her.
Masconi pushed the image from her head and turned her attention back towards her drink. Part of her wanted to wander over to the kill board, but the rest of her knew that doing so would only show far too many names with the words 'deceased' or 'MIA' written next to them. She didn't want to see that, none of them wanted to.
They'd left twenty-three people behind in Chang Cu for the Amsus to do with as they pleased. Another twelve pilots had been blown to pieces by enemy fire. The fact that almost three times as many Amsus Predators, and one cruiser had gone to the great roach motel in the sky was of little consolation.
They'd been told to expect replacement personnel some time this week. That wasn't just fighter pilots either, a stray missile hit on the Hope had taken 53 crewmembers with it, the lucky ones were killed instantly, the less lucky were sucked through the resulting hull breach and left to die slowly in the vacuum of space.
She tried, once again, to banish these thoughts from her head. Her head seemed determined to torment him with images of exploding bodies and pilots, people she knew being sliced to pieces by Inquisition knives while being put to the question.
Death was a part of war. Wherever a person served out there, death haunted them and in all likelihood claimed them. If a person couldn't accept that then they went insane.
Those were the words of Jake Timmons. A man who couldn't live with death all around him when he was serving in the Kardiac Territorial Army back on Tempus, before Taine and the resurrected Empire. He'd been a second lieutenant in the Mech detachment Masconi had been cross-training in and promptly went insane. This wasn't the kind of screaming, demented insanity that was seen so often in Trid-movies. Maybe insane isn't even the right word. The guy was haunted by nightmares and would either faint or break down on the ground whenever he approached a Mech. In the end they carted him off to a mental hospital.
Unwilling to be put out to pasture so early, he became a guest speaker at the academy, (after some psychiatric treatment of course), where he warned young recruits about what to expect on the front so that they were less likely to lose their heads after the first brush with interstellar mortality.
Masconi's train of thought was, thankfully, brought to an abrupt halt by the appearance of Wainstanley. He was wearing the same glum facial expression that he'd been wearing for the last five odd months he'd been assigned to the 242nd. For him the downswing in the war effort was always lurking above him, waiting to cast a shadow over the slightest sliver of happiness. That was Masconi's theory anyway.
Masconi kicked a seat out from under the table as Commander Wainstanley, the senior most Imperial officer of the 242nd Light Cavalry approached. He gave a weary half smile and sat down. His face looked like he'd spent the last two nights living in the cockpit of an F-175. He was also making a conscious effort not to move his head.
By the looks of him, he hadn't recovered from his hangover yet. Most Imperial Officers, Masconi noticed, had chosen to live with the searing pain in their head rather then drink the God forsaken anti-hangover goop, which despite curing hangovers, tasted like crap mixed with reactor fuel. Drinking it was almost as bad as the hangover itself and was known to cause some pilots to spend two or three hours vomiting.
Having said that, three guesses what Masconi did when she woke up with a hangover.
The conversation started with the typical questions and answers that people say again and again so that it seems as if they have something to say. Each of them was careful to avoid unpleasant subjects such as retreating and missing persons.
"So when are you next heading out?" She asked a few minutes in, after downing her second glass of water and signalling to the bartender for a third.
"Fourteen hundred," Wainstanley replied. "The Burnt Umber is getting stuck with patrol duty. Flying around the system looking for Amsus who are still two or three days away at least. Oh be still my beating heart."
"Sounds like a suitable task for that clunker of yours, let's just hope that none of you mistake an asteroid for the enemy."
Wainstanley couldn't let that pass. His right leg shot out and Masconi grunted in pain as it collided with her knee.
Such was the way onboard the Hope, not long after the ship launched, friendly competition between her 'Ice Fox' squadron, (the ships compliment of F-175 pilots), and the fleeters that toiled away on starships broke out. Each branch of the Imperial Navy was constantly trying to outperform the other, in kills, medals, mission ribbons, witty comments and so on.
"What about you?" Wainstanley asked after a few seconds, "Do you know when you're next heading out?"
"No idea. I haven't heard anything. So all there is for me to do is sit here and wait." She made a noise that was a cross between a sigh and a laugh, "There are times when I actually prefer getting shot at then sitting in this farking tub. I mean at least…"
She cut herself off, his last word quickly changed to a hiss of air pushed through clenched teeth. Wainstanley knew how she felt. They were all feeling it, and they had all felt it before. Out there in the cockpit, shame, guilt, despair and all that crap, for the most part, took a back seat. It was replaced by nervousness brought about by the potential for a fire-fight, or the heat of battle itself.
There have been some notable exceptions. During the Hope of the Dawn carrier group's stay in the Gimbie system, two F-150's from 'Blade' squadron had rammed themselves straight into two Amsus Battlecruisers. It was defiantly suicide, the flight recorder data showed that beyond any doubt.
Masconi often wondered if the Amsus ever felt despair. She doubted it.
There was a moment of silence in which Masconi seemed to be resisting the urge to hurl her glass across the room. In the end, she let out a long sigh and pushed herself to her feet.
"I have to take a shower; I'll see you when I see you."
"Okay, see you."
She opened her mouth to say something more, and then she closed it again. With her head hanging down she made her way to the lift.