Rising Tomorrow (Roc de Chere Book 1) by Mariana Morgan (essential reading txt) 📕

‘How about you go back to playing the ancient cowboy with your big guns and let me do what I’m best at,’ she growled, but her attention was already on her wrist-comp. Her fingers flashed with her usual steadiness and focus. Computers weren’t her real forte compared to VR programming, but even there she was better than over ninety-nine per cent of the Afro-European Alliance’s population.

Before Gonzalez had time to stumble back into the cockpit and strap himself into his seat, she spoke again, her voice emotionlessly professional.

‘The jamming is coming from the air,’ she said, sending specific co-ordinates and an algorithm to track them to Gonzalez. ‘It will be faster to—’

‘Blow the fucker up than try to punch through the jamming,’ Atkins finished for her, changing the course of the Hippogryph in yet another random evasion manoeuvre.

‘Target locked,’ Gonzalez replied almost instantly. Now that Eloise had found the source of the jamming he could follow it, even if he still couldn’t see the actual aircraft on the sensors. ‘Missiles ready. Firing… now!’ Two oversized air-to-air missiles soared away, homing in on the target.

Atkins swerved madly, changing direction yet again, and Gonzalez winced as the straps of his harness dug into his ribcage. The earlier encounter with the bulkhead, on top of the blast wave, had done more damage than he had realised. He groped for the medical panel in his armour as an automatic reflex just as the bright flash announced a successful kill.

‘Phantom! This is Hippogryph, are you there?’ Atkins demanded, his hands too busy on the joysticks, levelling the aircraft, to wipe the trickles of sweat from his forehead. It stung his eyes, but he hardly noticed.

‘This is Phantom. Hippo, you’re music to my ears.’ Rivas still couldn’t see exactly where the Hippogryph was, but with an open, though encrypted, comp link, the computer on board his Stealthy was fast acquiring its position.

‘Phantom, could we not tempt fate, please,’ Atkins replied absent-mindedly, his attention on the controls. ‘This pig is sluggish enough on a good day. How about shortening it to Gryph, if we really have to?’

‘Sorry, Sarge.’ Rivas barked a laugh. ‘How about an ice-chilled drink so I can apologise?’

‘I’ll join you as soon as possible,’ Atkins replied.

Their earpieces, linked to their comps, were as secure as possible. Comps had to be properly configured for the wearers to be able to talk to each other, and it was routine practice to reconfigure for each action. While jamming the signal was an effective trick, no one could break into their frequency, decrypt the transmission and listen in without first getting hold of a comp and an earpiece that were already connected to the particular net. Technically. Every lock ever invented had been broken into, and it was only a matter of time until someone found a way to do so in this case.

More importantly, they had left three of their own behind, each with their earpiece-comp already connected to the net, and at least one had been fully functional when they left. It was probably too soon to expect someone to have made any use of it, but old paranoia died hard. MIS operatives routinely preferred to avoid using destinations or co-ordinates when talking via their comps. Ice might not have been the most inventive way to codename mountains, but it did constitute part of the jargon they all found comforting.

‘Phantom’s analysis is still incomplete,’ Rivas continued, ‘but it looks like there are another two or three hostiles in the air, based on the density and origin of the laser fire. I’m ten out of ten, though my wing is singed and a few systems will need a change of pants soon,’ Rivas added.

‘Hippogryph is fully operational, sir,’ Atkins replied, his mouth quivering ever so slightly in amusement at the mental image.

‘Send Phantom’s analysis of the oncoming fire,’ Gonzalez demanded, frowning at the thought of the incomplete data the Hippogryph could provide.

It had been a while since Gonzalez had found himself in a Hippogryph-class aircraft needing data stat. The AI subroutines that processed any incoming information were top-shelf, but they were only as good as the interface between the machine and the human. As always, it took time for an aircraft’s AI to fully integrate with human habits and preferences. Phantom was used to Rivas’ style. It knew how to give him the best performance.

On top of that, the way Stealthies processed information was different. A Stealthy naturally prioritised information that was most likely to be used with the best qualities the nimble craft offered. The sensors were designed to provide the best intel to aid fast manoeuvres and quick hit-and-run approaches. Since a Hippogryph was incapable of such responsiveness, the sensors weren’t primarily calibrated for that.

‘Done!’ Rivas confirmed, tapping the necessary controls without thinking. ‘What are you thinking, sir?’

‘That statistical probability is against us. Atkins is pushing the Hippo—excuse me, he is pushing the Gryph—past the recommended specs, and we are still slow on course changes despite the low load. They will hit us sooner or later. Unless we hit them first. They aren’t idiots, and it looks like they’d like a nicely chilled drink too.’

Lieutenant Rivas forced himself to exhale quietly. He knew where his CO was going. The Hippogryph didn’t have the manoeuvrability to take on the hostiles at short range. She was better armoured and better equipped for self-defence than a Stealthy, but couldn’t dodge with the same efficiency. And they would need to get much closer to the enemy to get the same sensor data that a Stealthy could obtain. Which, of course, they couldn’t do without risking being shot to pieces. But Phantom could.

As long as they couldn’t clearly see where the enemy was, neither the Hippogryph nor the Stealthy had anything concrete to shoot at.

‘Understood, sir. Link to Phantom’s computer now open, and you have access to real-time data.’

Without waiting for an order that could warn the enemy what was about to