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Frescom is very proud to present the new novel from the pen of antipodean wordsmith Chris Masters. Its a corking novel set sometime in the future. Chronicles of the Third Millennium is a page turner with the twists and turns you would expect from the master story teller himself.

You are welcome to read the whole thing here or download, print and read this blockbuster at your leisure. Copyright remains with Chris Masters if you have any queries please feel free to contact sueyourass@frescom.com

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Chronicles of the Third Millennium.

Quest for the Moon.

The dreams started when I was still very young, no more than nine years old. At first they occurred rarely and were difficult to decipher, or to discern from any other kind of dream. Soon they progressed to a kind of vision, a dream that could take hold at any time whether in sleep or awake. Sometimes these were visual, other times like a narration. At first I thought them nothing more than my own imaginings, but over time they grew to a complexity and gained an imperative that seemed to come from beyond anything I could make up myself. By revisiting earlier dreams, always remembered in great detail, I am regularly provided with new insights that increase my understanding of their meaning.
Now that I am getting older I have found these visions too much to store merely in my memory, and so the time has come to write them down. Remember while you read the following that you are seeing through the limited lens of my own writing skills, and I am certain to have made mistakes in translation. I state now that I do not believe these visions to be a prediction of the future or a prophecy of any kind. I speculate that at most they are a view into some form of alternate reality, admittedly one that is very similar in many ways to our own, but in a distinct universe. I do not think I will ever know the truth of it, until perhaps when the dreams stop and this writing is finished. Until then it is for you to decide.

Time line. (Note: for some reason the early period of the next century has yet to be presented clearly to me. However I have been able to discern the important events which lead up to the beginning of the narrative).

1998; Water is discovered on the moon.

2006; The European community commits itself to building a manned lunar base by 2016.

2018; Moon base alpha comes into operation.

2020; First commercial passengers arrive on the moon.

2022; A tourist discovers an 'alien artefact' in a lunar cave. This device represents an advanced technology and functions as a map; pointing out the location of other devices elsewhere on the moon and on the Earth. The objects contain formulas and theories which are rapidly translated into human language and turned into amazing technological advances. Clues to the identity of the builders of these artefacts, simply known as the Precursors, are few. In the euphoria of what seems to be the dawn of a golden age this is not deemed important. Revolutions in health care, education, transport, and of course the military follow. In particular, advances in molecular biology, virology, and genetic manipulation enable the eradication of disease. This roller coaster ride of technical advances is not limited only to machines but mankind itself. With no regulation possible, the populations of various third world countries are used as guinea pigs for scientists racing to out do each other. Cloning, genetic programming; eventually someone hits upon the idea of using viruses as carriers of these genetic improvements. Anti-flu, anti-cold viruses pave the way for anti-cancer and colour blindness cures.

2029; Various groups struggle to control these developments, either for their own profit or nobler reasons. For a time a new cold war rages, with various countries and groups attempting to keep ahead of each other. But the sheer speed of the developments make waging a conventional war unthinkable. In any event the next stage takes place before any side could take control. Religious groups speak out against what they saw as an ungodly attack on the human form, predicting a great calamity if the experiments are not moderated more rationally. Whether the cataclysm that follows truly is of divine origin is now seen as a moot point, obscured from clear analysis by the ensuing chaos of the time. In short, an anti-ageing virus was developed and then released into the general population. At first the effects of this seemed beneficial, but rather than stopping at the target age in the early twenties, subjects continued regressing back into puberty and beyond, only stopping in the pre-teens. All attempts to counter the virus meet with failure. The regression is not merely physical; the subject's memories are also erased back to those of their apparent age, leaving little more cultural and social memory untouched. This makes a cure virtually impossible as even the scientists who produced the disease become infected.

2033; All efforts to save some portion of humanity end in failure; the Affliction, or Plague as it is now known, reaches even as far as the lunar colonies. The disastrous result of the Plague leaves the earth populated by non-ageing, sterile children, with few memories of adulthood.

2034-2051; Billions die in the rampant chaos of the next several decades. Although the surviving humans do not age physically during this period, they are able to grow mentally and eventually some level of maturity is gained. Remnants of the old power structures try to reassert themselves, with religious and ethical groups garnering more success than political ones. Eventually a new governing organisation, based in the former United Nations headquarters on the moon, is able to build itself a power base from its acquisition of Precursor artefacts. Through its powerful military forces, this new UN is able to bring an end to the war and chaos occurring on Earth. This is not universally appreciated. However, with the participation of national governments in a similar manner to the old UN (though more representative), and with devolution of both military and political power, a peace of sorts is achieved.

2051-2060; With the UNM acting as police, old feuds continue to be fought under this new banner of peace, the most notable is that between the sexes. Although aware that such antagonism had risen to unheard of levels after the Plague, the mostly male dominated UN fail to appreciate the depth of these feelings back on Earth. During the early years the two sexes had banded together for protection and comradeship. Now this is taken to another level in order to secure voting rights on the UN council, and command of UNM ships. One sex or the other dominates entire countries and as the balance of power shifts, the minority often simply moves to another country that shares its views or chromosomes. Eventually the council settles into a pattern that everyone can tolerate, without any group or faction able to gain a majority controlling presence.

2066; A Precursor artefact in the form of an organic computer calling itself 'Cybernetica' is discovered by girls in the ruins of Old Moscow, Russia. This artefact is sentient and has a vast knowledge of Precursor technology. With this understanding Russia once again becomes the dominant power in the region.

2068; Cybernetica becomes president of Russia. With a pronounced bias towards girls, its leadership drives most of the remaining boys out of the country.

2071; UN delegates announce the formation of the United Girl Federation, chaired by Cybernetica. Though not all girl nations join in this federation, the combined power of the UGF makes it a dominant player in the UN council. Cybernetica's first act is to deport all boys from Russia; other members of the UGF soon follow her example.

2072; The UGF declares its independence from UN authority, taking with it its UNM vessels. Other than trade embargoes, the remaining members of the UN take no military action against the UGF. The UN removes all girls from its remaining military vessels.

2072-2079; a state of cold war exists between these two main factions with several unaligned nations pulling out of the UN to go it alone.

2079; Now...

Prologue

Council Chambers, Moon base Beta
Moon Luna, Sol System
1200 hours GMT 2079-April-25

Chancellor Everston stepped down from the speaker's chair wearily, another long council session over. He rubbed gently into both his temples as he watched the last counsellor leave the chamber, then raked his hair back several times with his fingers. At least this time we actually made some progress, he mused.
His lips stretched into a wry grin as he acknowledged that weeks had passed since the last time he could say that. The latest business with the UGF was still dominating the council's time. Now the Girls wanted the right to escort designated asteroid belt mining vessels with their military ships. Their ships! Why the previous Chancellor had done so little about the emergence of the UGF still escaped him. Independence is one thing, but the stealing of those ships called for far harsher methods than trade embargoes and sanctions. Back then open conflict could only have gone one way; defeat for the UGF. Now, with their ships out God knows where and being modified and enhanced on an almost daily basis, they were a significant threat.
He shook his head at his bodyguard as he left the Council Chamber. This was both a signal that meant he was not to be disturbed, and a way a admonishing himself against that train of thought he was travelling yet again. Yes, the UNM could have defeated the UGF at its formation, and could probably do so now; but only at the cost everything that prevented mankind from sliding back into the dark ages once again.
His office was only a short walk from the Council Chamber. As he entered he looked up, and sighed. The steelglass ceiling offered a magnificent view of Earth, the moon's orbit making it a constant reminder of what he was working for. His eyes lost their focus for a moment, and he caught a glimpse of his reflection. A powerfully built and charismatic man, Everston had hoped for so much when he accepted the office of Chancellor of the United Nations. Even at the age of one hundred and five, he had been full of idealism. Five years in this office had changed him; his still youthful face held an aura of weariness and, sometimes, defeat. Not today though. Today he had finally wrested an agreement from the organic computer intelligence that ran the UGF, Cybernetica.
The thought set him off pacing irritably. Cybernetica, the Precursor artefact that holds an unholy influence over millions of girls on Earth. Through its power in the UN Council, Everston was sure it represented a threat to all humanity. Yet today the machine had finally agreed to have tracking systems attached to all its warships, in exchange for freedom of movement within the solar system. Even now the first of its ships were docking with Beta Base for the first time since their independence. Nearly all the UNM ships were also docked to have similar systems installed.
He allowed his pacing to bring him around to the side of the desk, where he sat and activated a holo-screen; set to display his most urgent reports. There were many, as usual. One caught his eye, a report from the UN Special Forces. He coughed out a short laugh at this. They hardly belonged to the UN, though they did keep him well informed. Their true loyalty was to their mysterious Leader who in turn had sworn an almost feudal allegiance to the UN Council. Recruited into small units from subjects who displayed special characteristics, these boys, for they had always been boys even before the UGF, were said to possess special powers.
Everston knew these stories were embellishments based on actual facts and the amazing array of hi-tech equipment available to them. Still, some of the missions they had accomplished were truly impressive, and their reports were always entertaining.

Suddenly the ground shook beneath his feet. He dropped to the floor, ready to dive under his desk for cover, thinking for one second that it was an earthquake. He knew that was useless, if the steel glass roof did give way, the desk would provide no protection against the vacuum outside. Looking up again to the crystal clear ceiling his heart nearly stopped, for what he saw there defied anything he could think of or imagine. Outside, he saw the Earth and the surrounding space shimmer, then simply disappear!

1. 'The Approach'

UGF Satellite, Greer 34
Earth Orbit, Sol System
2355 hours GMT 2079-April-22

The spy satellite, one part of a vast web in geostationary orbit above the Earth, stared down impassively. Every minute it collected and processed terabytes of data regarding its designated monitoring area. With its scanning array consisting of visual, thermal, and laser radar it saw everything. One small part of this area was an internment camp in what was once called Northern Afghanistan. This forced labour camp, in the style of old Russian gulags, the satellite knew well. If a machine can be said to know anything.
Every morning at 0600 plus or minus five minutes, groups of prisoners are lead out for the day's work. They return at 1900 plus or minus five minutes, sometimes with fewer prisoners alive. Rarely, an armoured transport leaves the camp and travels Northwest into the Black Hills for approximately ninety-four minutes before leaving visual scanning range. Thermal emissions are inconclusive, but ground-penetrating radar suggests the presence of a hidden facility of some kind. Passive detection of stealth equipped aircraft in the area support this conclusion. Orders from the Hub are to give priority to this region, now designated area Delta, and to report immediately when the next activity is detected.
2079-APR-23; no activity in area Delta
2079-APR-24; no activity in area Delta
2079-APR-25-0345 local; armoured transport detected moving towards area Delta
2079-APR-25-0345 local; malfunction! Encryption system disabled. Directive AO098 disallows transmission of unencrypted data. Restoring encryption system; this will take thirty-two minutes.

Chris had seen mountains that did not reach the heights of these misnamed Brown Hills. Great lopsided heaps of boulders lay half buried in baked earth leaving only narrow, twisting passes and greatly reducing the speed of the armoured transport. A bright half moon partially lit the sky through high wispy clouds, populating the landscape with bizarre shadows. He leaned back into his chair to look at his fellow passengers. Nothing could be done about their speed. Well, not without attracting attention.
Maher was driving, with his face turned away and his blast helmet on it was impossible to tell if he was wearing a stereo plug in his ear. Chris was willing to bet he did though. Boyd was hunched over a comms board, studying its output and preparing his scripts. A slightly furrowed brow showed he was concentrating hard, but Chris knew he had everything under control. Bobby, second in command and without much to do at the moment, was checking for the fifth time that his stunblaster was properly installed into the dummy carbine casing. Kain manned the AT's single turret. His anti-laser reflection armour a bright silver and making him look even taller than normal. Redundant as the armour was compared with their personal shields, it and the blast helmets completed their disguise. Though much thinner, Kain stood several centimeters taller than Chris who was the next tallest of the group by a fair margin. Most of them were taller than average however, except for Maher and Boyd.
Tall for a bunch of kids. Even after all these years he could not forget the physical transformation of the human race that had made them what they were. Scientists across the solar system struggle to find a cure for the Affliction, the capital audible whenever it is discussed, but so far without any success.
Dark skinned Doug completed the group. His seat was opposite Chris, he looked again at his watch and gave his Commander a small smile. It was nearly time.
Chris smiled back, looking over the group again. Although clearly victims of the Affliction, what was not obvious were the other powers it had given them. When these abilities first began to manifest themselves the boys had been secretly recruited into the UN Special Forces. Here they had been trained in all aspects of espionage and counter espionage, as well as more exotic subjects.
The group had served together for many years now and in his opinion they were the best. They were C-Force.

"Okay boys, visors down and activate your voice replicators. Remember to check your targets in there, we're all going to look pretty much the same."
Boyd looked up from his display with a start. "I thought this place was computer controlled; just us and the prisoners, no guards."
Turning in his chair to face the rest of the group, Maher grimaced as he pulled down his visor. "That's the way it's supposed to be alright. If not it's going to get real ugly." He gave his stunblaster on his hip a reassuring pat.
Chris gave him a level stare. "Just keep it on stun Maher. The plan is to leave everything just as we find it." Then his attempt at a stern expression slid into a lopsided grin. "Except for the prisoners that is."
"Just who are these guys anyway? And why are they working for the other side? Prisoners or not." Doug had switched on his voice replicator, changing his usually deep voice to the higher pitch of the girl on his ID tags.
Bobby spoke up. "There's no telling what kind of compulsion they are under Doug. Afghanistan may not be officially part of the UGF, but they're close enough that you can bet Cybernetica is involved. These guys have the brains to make a real difference to the side they work for. And that's going to be our side."
"We're three minutes out from the gate, I'm sending the signal." Boyd announced. Tapping out a command on his small data panel, he activates a relayed signal to the base's computer system, authorising a prisoner transfer. "That's twenty minutes before the local HQCPU figures out what is happening."
By now the armoured transport had travelled far enough for the boy's to see the stretch of mountain within which the base was concealed. Their designated approach was well hidden within a copse of trees. Most of these were natural, but others were actually sensors and security mechanisms; including a battery of particle accelerator beams.
At that moment a freight shuttle lifted off further up the mountain, quickly accelerating away to the east, and clearly visible though the AT's gunports.
Chris inhaled sharply. "What's that shuttle doing there? The next supply run isn't due for four hours."
"Maybe there's some new quartermaster at HQ and she has changed things around." Maher offered.
"Unlikely, but it can't be helped now." Chris gave his a small head a shake, as if he disagreed with his own assessment. He did not like this at all.
Maher nodded as he pulled the AT to stop in the centre of the copse. Barely visible ahead of them was a camouflaged access hatch.
Since the base computer was expecting the vehicle, the particle accelerators hidden within the trees, although charged, did not fire on them immediately. A scanning array checked the transport and its passengers to ensure they were who and what was expected. If the scanning check failed the PA turrets would disintegrate the transport.
"I hate this bit." Kain grumbled softly. Chris did not think he meant it to be heard.

In a moment the scanning stopped and Maher brought the AT up to the first bunker. Maher remained in the transport while the other five stepped out. Doug and Kain moved to positions on the flanks while Chris, Bobby and Boyd approached the entrance hatch.
Chris plugged his ID tag into the lock and tried to trust his voice replicator to ensure his voice matched the tag. "Captain Lyra; code omega delta kappa. Prisoner transfer."
A fraction of a second later a speaker in the door replied in the cool tones of a synthetic voice.
"Voice check confirmed, you may enter Captain Lyra."
The access hatch spiralled open and the three boys entered the bunker. Inside they saw a large hemispherical room. About three-quarters of the floor was actually a lift platform. A guard tower occupied the remainder of the room, empty, as they expected. Climbing a short ladder, the boys entered the tower and activated the control systems.
"I'm logged in okay. The bunker is ours." Boyd started "Let's see, the prisoners are all in the lab on sub level 17."
"Check out what that shuttle was doing here." Chris ordered.
"Sure thing." He jutted his chin forward and lowered his brows. "It's restricted. That's bullshit, it was just a supply shuttle. I'll check the level access logs." He hunched his shoulders slightly while his fingers were a blur over the data board.
Suddenly he looked up at Chris and Bobby. "Sub level 14 was last accessed four minutes ago. It's a storage depot. Which makes sense, but no way should that info be restricted."
Chris drew his stunblaster. "I think we'd better have a look. Bobby, let's go."
The two boys climbed back down the ladder and onto the lift platform. With a nod Chris signalled for Boyd to lower them down. They started counting down the numbers painted onto the side of the lift shaft. In a few moments the platform stopped on sub level 14.

2. 'The Other Mission'

Drawing his own stunblaster, Bobby cycled open the door, revealing a very large storage room. The room was a maze of cargo containers, fuel cells, and storage cases piled almost to the high ceiling. Several conveyer belts were in operation, moving various supplies to different areas and other sub levels automatically.
Affecting to look casual, the boys entered the room.
"Something is not right here," said Bobby.
Responding to his second's telepathic signal, Chris answered in kind.
"I feel it too. We're being watched. Stay here."
Chris made a show of checking a readout on one of the nearby containers, casually putting it between him and any onlookers. Soon he had slipped out of sight and into the maze.
Bobby looked on, pretending to be a bored guard. He hoped he would sense it if he needed to take cover quickly.

High up near one of the loading belts, six figures looked on, four aiming their weapons at Bobby. The figures were dressed in the same combat armour and helmets as C-Force.
One spoke up. A female voice. "Give me the word and the target goes down."
A second figure, short and standing back from the other five replied, "Hold your fire, wait for the other one to come back."
Seconds passed as the group waited for Chris to reappear.
Then the first figure spoke again, "What's going on? Let's take them out!"

"Freeze! Put down your weapons!"
From behind the group Chris had appeared at the top of a conveyer belt platform, standing with his feet astride the belt, supported firmly by the outer rim of the structure's support frame. Both his stunblasters pointed at the figures below him.
The second figure turned to stare up at Chris for a few seconds, then, raising his visor, revealed a freckled and definitely male face.
"Identify yourself please." Chris was glad his voice gave no hint of his surprise.
"I'm Commander Millar of the UN Special Forces group X. Ingo, the rest of you, lower your guns."
Millar stared back at Chris and shook his head slightly. "Surely you sensed our presence, as we sensed yours."
Chris hid another surge of surprise, in no small way thanks to his reflective blast visor. What are the chances of this? He thought to himself. Although nominally on the same side, each unit of the Special Forces nearly always operated independently. Face to face meetings were very rare. Nearly all co-ordination was done via the Leader and his staff. Chris had to admit he had never really worked out why that was the case, or why all Special Forces boys went by a single name for that matter. It was all part of the way the Leader ran things. But that wasn't important right now, the important thing was that two Special Forces groups had apparently run into each other during a mission.
He relaxed his grip on his stunblasters a fraction as he thought. I certainly remember something about a Commander Millar, but how to confirm his story?
He pointed down at the one called Ingo. "You. Turn around."
With a look towards Millar who merely nodded the boy turned to face the other way. Chris thought he noticed the other boy's grip tighten on his weapon.
Holstering one of his stunblasters, Chris held up a hand, showing three fingers. "Tell Ingo over there how many fingers I'm holding up. Without speaking."
Millar nodded but did nothing else as far as Chris could tell.
Ingo shrugged. "Three fingers." He turned back quickly and raising his weapon a fraction. "Now if you want to keep them how about you identify yourself to us?"
Although Special Forces members can communicate using telepathy within their groups they cannot do this between groups without a long adjustment period. Chris holstered his other pistol knowing that only a Special Forces member would know about telepathy, and that Millar had taken his hint to use it.
Chris raised his own visor. "Commander Chris, C-Force. What are you guys doing here?"
"I could ask you the same question." Millar replied calmly, pointedly taking no offensive action, and so confirming Chris's decision to reveal himself.
"We're here to rescue some important scientists."
"We're going to sabotage some prototype fighters. We'll be getting out on the next supply shuttle."
Chris smiled grimly. "Not now you won't. In less than fifteen minutes the local HQCPU will be onto us, and this whole place will lock up tighter than… Something very tight."
Millar smiled back. "Nice plan. I guess we'll have to go along with it."
Chris nodded. "With luck we'll be able to get you out in our transport. We've got a hideout a few miles away; from there we can make our way back to friendly territory once its safe."
He checked his watch, trying to calculate how much time they would need. It was going to be tight.
"Let's move."
The seven of them made their way down to the exit to the lift platform. Millar quickly introduced the rest of X-Force. Along with himself and Ingo, the group consisted of Jack, who was second in command, Mono, Bilby, and Mare. All of them were fairly tall and powerfully built. The boys radiated a professional confidence, plus a certain malevolence. That fits what I've heard of X-Force, Chris thought to himself.
Soon the boys had the lift platform on sublevel 17 at the entrance to the laboratory. Chris moved to open the security door and then stopped. He turned his head to confirm his suspicion and found X-Force fanned out in a group behind him, weapons levelled at the door.
"Remember," he said, pointing back to the door. "Civilian scientists are in there. No shooting," he paused, "please."
Several seconds passed before Millar nodded and the other boys relaxed almost imperceptibly.
"I guess that is as relaxed as they get." He TP'd to Bobby.
After the way the mission had gone so far he had to admit that he was having trouble staying relaxed himself.
The door cycled open to reveal a guardroom with an observation window overlooking the laboratory. A security door filled most of the rest of that wall. Chris could see the three scientists working busily away at computer terminals. They showed no reaction to their presence, confirming his intelligence that the window was made of one way mirror glass. With a quick look at his watch he keyed the opening sequence into a panel and the door slid back into the wall.
Three startled faces turned towards him. The closest scientist stood abruptly. "What are you doing here?"
Chris recognised him as Doctor Nathaniel Wong. He raised his visor and deactivated his voice replicator. He knew that the audio pickups in this section of the base were tuned to expect male voices. "UN Special Forces. We've come to get you out of here."
"Rescue! After all these years," a second scientist said, rising quickly to his feet. Chris recognised this one as Dr John O'Brien.
The third scientist, Dr Marc Bakker, also got to his feet. "Well lets get going then!"
Dr Wong held up a hand to forestall him. "Wait a minute. If you can give us some time we can down load a lot of our work into data pads and take it with us. We only have write access to today's work but we have read access to it all."
John turned to Chris with a start. "Yes. You must understand we've worked for years on this stuff. Please give us a chance to put it to good use."
Chris had originally planned for just that to happen, but with everything else that was going on time was very short.
He turned back to X-Force and faced Commander Millar. "How long will it take you guys to deal with your fighters?"
"Six minutes, forty seconds." The boy replied crisply.
Chris nodded then turned to his second. "Go with X-Force. Help them if you can and keep me informed."
"Yes Sir."
And with that the boys were gone.
Chris turned back to the scientists. "Say about thirty seconds for them to get down there. You've got about seven minutes."
At this the three boys practically jumped back into their chairs and started to download as much data as they could.
After a minute Chris began feeling a bit like a third repulsor generator just standing around watching their efforts.
"Anything I can do?"
Dr Wong snorted. "No. I don't think you would have much luck with this. It's pretty complicated."
"Okay then." Chris noted the comment but let it pass. Then he scanned the area to determine if any alarms had been triggered. As he expected, there were none. He lent back against the bulkhead and looked again at his watch.
"How is it going down there Bobby?"
Soon he heard the voice of his second in command in his head.
"We've just got down here. Everything looks okay so far. Hang on."
There was a few seconds pause.
"No trouble sir. It's just that these ships have been prepped and are ready to fly. X-Force weren't expecting that."
"Commander!" Maher's voice interrupted.
"What is it Maher?"
"We've got company sir. Another AT is just coming into range. It'll be here in just over a minute."
"Shit!" Chris slammed one fist against the bulkhead.
"Are you alright there?" Dr Bakker asked.
"It's nothing, just go on with your downloading."
I'm just going to love writing up this mission, he thought to himself.
"What do you think the chances are of it being another Force Unit?" He added hopefully.
"Not good." Boyd chimed in.
"I'd say it's the pilots for these fighters down here." Bobby answered.
Chris considered this. If they were pilots for the prototype fighters, they would not settle for any of the contingency plans he had made to stall any guard patrols from the gulag. He would have to come up with something on the fly, and fast. "Maher, I'm coming up. Kain, Doug; Captain Lyra is coming up to meet whoever is in the transport. Hold them until Boyd and I get there."
"I've just got to pop out for a minute." He said to the scientists. "You three keep going. I'll be back."
With that he sprinted back out to the lift shaft. The platform seemed to take an eternity to come back up to his level from the fighter bay and then another to get back to the surface.
Boyd was ready at the exit door.

C-Force Armoured Transport
Secret Girl Base, Afghanistan
0410 hours local 2079-April-25

Maher watched with growing alarm as the new AT passed through the checkpoint and approached his position. The vehicle continued toward their bunker and stopped some twenty meters away. From its position on the top of the AT a laser turret pointed back at him. A shaft of moonlight surrounding the firing aperture only enhanced the impression. He hoped that that was just where it happened to be pointing but started readying his turret for a rapid warm up if he needed it.
The port side troop doors opened and a score of girls exited the transport. The girls were wearing flight suits, camouflaged green, and flight helmets open at the face. Maher mentally acknowledged Bobby's guess; they were pilots. All carried side arms, but Maher was relieved to see that they made no indications that they ready going to use them. The disguises C-Force employed, intended more to fool computers than actual people, were working.
One of the girls stalked forward to the bunker entrance, still guarded by Kain and Doug. Maher could not make out her rank insignia, but the way she moved practically screamed officer, possibly nobility. Hands clamped behind her, she came to a halt before the apparent guards. The two boys saluted in the fashion of their enemy. Then their hands returned quickly to the carbine sheaths that hid their stunblasters.
The girl did not bother to return the salute. "What are you doing here?"
"Prisoner transfer to the gulag, s… Lady." Doug's voice replicator functioned perfectly, but for an instant Maher was sure he was going to say 'Sir' and give the game away.
"Lady Walker." Apparently the girl mistook Doug's response. "I wasn't notified, who cleared it?"
"Captain Lyra did, Lady Walker." He made a show of tapping his helmet to indicate he was communicating with his officer.
"She is on her way out to meet you now."
A hiss of atmosphere transfer indicated that the bunker door was about to open.
"Here we go!" Maher TP'd to C-Force.
"Hold on. Maher, stand by on the gun turret. We'll try to capture them. If it doesn't work then use stun guns only." Chris responded.
"He always thinks I'm going to go overboard." Maher grumbled to himself.
The door cycled open and Chris stepped out, followed closely by Boyd. Doug and Kain moved several steps to either side, ostensibly to give their captain room but in reality to give themselves a wider field of fire.
Chris did his best impression of an arrogant girl walk. Maher thought that given the anatomical differences it was not too bad an effort. Chris stepped right up to the girl officer, stamped to a halt, and gave her a precise salute.
Confronting what she believed to be an equal, at least in terms of military rank, the Lady responded with a crisp salute of her own. However, before she could finish Chris drew the stunblaster from his left hip and pointed it at her chest.
The girl's eyes widened and her mouth soundlessly formed the word 'What' before Chris continued. "This is a classified operation. I'm afraid I have no choice but to take you and your squad into custody for its duration."
The girl quickly regained control of herself. She lowered her arm back to her side, her face now composed. Seconds passed as she stood regarding the silver clad figure in front of her with its blast visor down. Maher grinned nervously at the almost comical sound of night insects and nothing else coming through the outside mike. It's a Mexican stand off, and we don't have any Mexicans
Lady Walker did not seem to move a muscle.
"They're boys. Kill them!" she yelled.
The scene in front of Maher erupted into pure chaos. The girl pilots started dropping to the ground, fast. Their leader was the first; stunned by Chris's first shot. He drew his other pistol and began firing both of them into the mass of girls. Some threw themselves down and drew their own pistols; others were knocked down from the combined stunblaster fire of Boyd, Doug and Kain.
Then came the counter fire from the remaining girls. The first beams missed their mark, but soon they corrected and hit the boys in front of them. Or at least they would have hit, if it was not for the personal shields the boys were wearing. Incredibly expensive and top secret technology, the shields would render them invulnerable to such weapons for a time.
The darkness provided no cover from the infrared tracking on the boys weapons. While the girls had but silvery targets to aim for in the silvery light.
This combined with the fact that the girls could not know their companions were not dead but only stunned had a devastating effect on their morale. Almost before the fight had started they were throwing their weapons away and putting their hands in the air.
Only seconds had passed, and the battle was all but finished when Maher gagged in surprise at his console. The girls' transport was powering up. "The transport still has a driver!"
"Try and disable it, but destroy it if you have to. We've got no choice." Chris ordered.
Maher gave himself a mental pat on the back for the precautions he had taken earlier. Thanks to them he would be able to bring his laser turret on-line before the other transport. His hands flew over the console and since his weapons were already in line with those on his target, he fired at them first. Immediately he saw his mistake, the other transport had its shields down, but they were charging up at that same moment. His blast disintegrated the turret but the resulting chain reaction of energies, trapped within the vehicle's raised shields, ripped the transport apart.
It was a freak occurrence but his head dropped at the failure to disable the other AT cleanly. While C-Force had control of the bunker the rest of the base's security systems would have missed something on the scale of their brief small arms fire fight. There was no way those systems would miss this explosion though. The whole base would be locked down and their transport would be captured or destroyed as soon as it left the radius of this bunker's security zone. What felt just as bad was the knowledge that he had killed the driver. He would have sworn the transport was empty.

C-Force Commander
Secret Girl Base, Afghanistan
0415 hours local, 2079-April-25

"Get those girls inside the bunker now!" Chris shouted.
The other boys scrambled to obey, ordering the still standing pilots to carry their fallen comrades and herding them into the bunker.
He could not believe how this mission was turning out. With the base locked down the transport was useless to them. He searched his long memory for some instance that would give him an idea what to do. He had never screwed up a mission like this before. The AT explosion was so big it was probably spotted by the damn satellite! Well at least it won't be telling anyone about it for a while.
They had only one choice now. He closed his eyes and exhaled sharply as he committed himself to the only action that might get them out of this. He had caused a few international incidents in his time, but nothing like what he was now contemplating.
"Bobby, have you relayed what happened to X-Force?"
"Yes, and they're not too happy about it." Bobby replied.
"Well tell them to stop sabotaging those fighters. Get them ready to fly. They're our only way out of here now."
There was a few seconds pause.
"Commander Millar says that the fighters can't be launched without pilot bio-scans. Additionally, with the lockdown in place we can't use the launch bays either."
Chris waved the last of his prisoners through the hatch. "We have the pilots. I'm sending them down now. I'm going to make us another launch bay. Our only chance is to fly out of here and fight our way through the air cover."
"Another launch bay!"
He sensed Bobby's surprise, and if it had been less strong he suspected he would have felt that of the rest of C-Force as well.
But, as usual, his second in command recovered quickly. "Okay but even if we make it, we won't be able to land anywhere on Earth. No one would take us."
Chris had to acknowledge that. "We'll have to go the moon and let the UN handle the political fall out. Maher, I want you to bring the transport into the bunker and wedge it in place with the doors. Then set it to blow with every gram of C8 we brought."
Chris watched as Maher silently drove the transport into the bunker's access way. In moments he had finished placing then setting the explosives. Eyes downcast under his raised blast visor, he stepped out of the transport and walked towards the others.
He's blaming himself for killing the driver, Chris thought. None of the boys liked taking a life, not in times where every death was another step towards a sterile humanity's eventual extinction.
Chris reached out to stop the other boy. "You had to do it," he said gently, "there was no other way. All our lives were at stake."
Maher looked up at his commander and gave a small nod. He understood, but that did not mean he had to like it.
One of the girl pilots, a captain, spat on the ground and stared defiantly at the boys. "What do you care for the life of the driver? Half our number are dead."
Boyd answered. "They're not dead. Our weapons only stunned them; they will be fine."
The girl responded with a dubious look. Boyd lifted his stunblaster meaningfully in her direction then reset the weapon. Then he lined up and fired at one of the prone girls. Immediately she began to stir.
Looking back to the captain, he was rewarded with an expression of awed disbelief.
"We would have killed you." The captain said quietly. Then she lifted her eyes back to Boyd.
"The was no driver in our transport." She pointed at one of the other girls, a corporal. "That's our driver."
The corporal's eyes flashed in defiance, then shifted slowly to something that could have been compassion. Raising her voice she looked towards Maher. "I activated our transport by remote. I knew you'd have to destroy it, thereby alerting the whole base and by now HQCPU."
Maher's face returned to life and lit up with a quick grin. "Nice trick," he snorted, "but we're not finished yet. Are we commander?"
Chris smiled back and activated the lift platform, sending it down once again. "We've still got a few tricks of our own to try."
The group travelled silently down the lift shaft, finally stopping at sublevel 17.
"Boyd, do you know how to disarm the security systems on the fighters using the girls' bio-signatures?"
All of C-Force had their visors raised now, to reduce the chances of any misunderstandings between themselves and X-Force. The boy looked taken aback.
"Of course sir."
"Good. Take the rest of the group down and get it done as quick as you can. I'll be down with the scientists shortly."
Chris stepped through the guardroom and into the laboratory. The chaotic scene before him was a reminder of the brief battle he had just fought. Only he was not sure who was winning this one. The three scientists were running from machine to machine, downloading every piece of information they could cram into their data pads. Soon Chris's own PDA was filled before he could finally get them to begin moving, and even then he nearly had to resort to main force.
He had wanted to delete everything they had write access to but Dr Bakker insisted on loading a virus of his own design into the system that he said would corrupt the data files and render at least some of their work useless to the girls. Exasperated, Chris eventually got the scientists to leave their prison and moving down to the other boys in the fighter bay.
Here at least everything was to his satisfaction. The girls were secured in the pilot ready room, stunned and with the memories of the last few minutes erased. The boys were sitting in their new prototype fighters. These now hovered a meter above the floor moving slightly from side to side as the boys tested the controls.
Having shed their reflective blast helmets for the more conventional pilot's helmets the girls had brought with them, Chris could see only half of their faces; enough to see that to a man they were lit up with excitement. As he took in the sleek lines of the their rides, he decided he could not blame them. It would have been a crime to destroy these fighters, and he could not wait to claim one for his own.
"Bakker go with Bobby there. O'Brien with Boyd. Wong, you're with me. And make sure to stay out of the way once the action starts."
Choosing a fighter emblazoned with the number eight, Chris climbed into the front seat and quickly exchanged his blast helmet for a pilot's one that had been left there for him. Seconds later Dr Wong had settled into the navigator's seat behind him.
He looked around at the complex array of instruments, and marvelled at what they promised about the abilities of this fighter. If the girls could mass-produce these we'd be in big trouble, he thought to himself. No wonder the UGF satellite was taking such an interest in this place. Though it does pose some questions about the real ties between this country and the UGF.
He put that thought aside and hit the ignition panel, then cycled up the repulsors. His ship lifted several feet from the ground as the repulsor power grew to surpass the force of gravity. He pushed the stick forward and glided towards the lift shaft.
He then keyed open the short range ship to ship comms. "Everyone set?"
Receiving a chorus of positive replies, Chris activated the detonator in the AT above. Even twenty levels under the ground the explosive report was like a thunderclap. Through the open door they saw tonnes of debris flash past to the bottom of the lift shaft.
Soon the torrent cleared and Chris manoeuvred his fighter into the battered tunnel, pivoted, and looked up. A clear night sky sparkled ahead of him through a gigantic hole in the wrecked bunker ceiling. His smile oozed satisfaction.
"Lets go!"

3. 'The Get Away'

The fighters launched out of the ruined bunker and accelerated away from the base. The boys spread out in formation, with the unmanned ships at the rear on autopilot. One of the ships had failed to respond to remote control, leaving them with nineteen. That meant they had one less decoy for the most critical part of Chris's plan. He knew that they were all extremely vulnerable until they could get into orbit. Their fighters' defensive shields being less effective in an atmosphere, leaving only hull armour to protect them from a hit. In the chill darkness of night their ships would stand out like beacons against the cooler atmosphere for the enemy's fire control. He just had to hope that they would be very fast beacons and that the unmanned ships would be able to draw most of the enemy fire away from the others.
Then the base's laser batteries opened up with a scattered volley of fire. However, the defence systems on the base were designed to handle an external attack, not an internal security breach of this magnitude. Certainly not one that was accelerating away at over mach three. Most of the laser turrets were not able to adjust before the fighters had evaded their firing arcs. One of the unmanned fighters was hit and badly damaged, but continued following the others.
Now other defensive systems activated. Surface to air missiles shot out from all over the base and raced to intercept the fleeing ships. Monitoring this on his defence scanner, Chris manoeuvred the damaged fighter so that it was between his ships and the oncoming SAMs.
Seeing what Chris was doing, Millar activated the fighter's electronic counter measures system. Rather than attempting to keep the SAMs from obtaining a lock on the fighter, he used the ECM to give out precisely the information the missiles needed for a lock. The majority of the missiles then slammed into the unmanned fighter, destroying it utterly.
Several other missiles bypassed the destruction and continued on. However, the boys dropped enough ECM chaff to prevent them from hitting their targets. Seconds passed before the boys detected a new group of signals representing more SAMs headed in their direction, provoking a lot of radio traffic from them.
Chris recognised Ingo's cool, emotionless voice. "More SAMs, but where are the intercept fighters?"
Kain responded, "Who cares where they are? We're just lucky they're not here. As it is we'll probably have to lose another fighter to beat these SAMs."
"By then we'll be in orbit, and if they have fighters waiting for us we'll be dead meat." The tall X-Force agent, Mono added to the debate.
A detached part of Chris's mind began to examine and evaluate X-Force's reaction to the crisis. He was pleased when Commander Millar interrupted the others. "Cut the chatter X-Force. We'll take care of these missiles and worry about any enemy fighters when we come to them."
Millar activated the ECM system on another unmanned fighter as Chris moved it into position. He grinned as they completed the manoeuvre. We are already working as a team, he thought to himself. The task was easier this time as the SAMs were running out of fuel by the time they reached their altitude. Singly and then in groups they hit the fighter and destroyed it.
Moments later the ships cleared the atmosphere and entered a low Earth orbit. Chris felt much safer behind fully functioning shields, and there were no enemy fighters waiting for them. They drove deeper into the vacuum and began scanning for any sign of orbital pursuit.
"That's odd," said Boyd, "I can't pick up anything. They must be jamming us."
Chris blinked in surprise as his own attempts confirmed Boyd's report literally. Short, medium, and long range scan was completely interdicted. But why? Such a wide area of jamming was pure overkill for this situation. He switched through various scanning systems and tried to pierce the jamming, to no effect. He could see the deceptively peaceful looking blue globe of the Earth, but had no way to tell what was happening down there. Maybe we've upset them more than I thought.
He flicked a helmet switch to transmit. "Seems a bit unnecessary. They only have to chase us down. No need to ruin the TV coverage for hundreds of millions of people at the same time. Still, it can't be helped now. Set a course for..." he paused uncertainly, "where is the moon?"
He heard a higher pitched voice that probably belonged to Bilby. "It's not there!"
Millar countered, "Come on Bilby, sure they can jam us from seeing Beta Base, but they can't jam our eyes from seeing the moon."
Bilby was adamant. "I'm telling you it's just not there. The moon is gone! Look out ahead of us. That's where the moon should be. That's where astrogation says it is. And the jamming couldn't extend half that far."
Millar sounded unsure, "That's crazy. If the moon were somehow destroyed the impact on the Earth would be immediate and catastrophic. We can see from here that everything is fine down there."
In the sudden silence, Jack, the dark skinned second in command of X-Force, could be heard to quote quietly. "It'd take the entire star fleet. With more firepower than..."

X-Force & C-Force fighters
Earth Orbit, Sol System
1210 hours GMT 2079-April-25

Chris concentrated on focusing the scan board instrumentation. It was far in advance of any other such system he had previously encountered in a fighter. The maximum effective range was over four times that of a standard FLI fighter. With that kind of range one of these ships could easily double for a flight command ship.
Focusing long range scan, he soon had the area surrounding the last known position of the moon in front of him. The scan report showed no sign of what happened to the satellite, but did reveal what appeared to be a full scale battle. Without accurate friend or foe data, it was impossible to tell exactly whose vessels were present. However it was clear that several large capital ships were engaged with a vast number of smaller ships.
He began processing the emission data to try and identify the protagonists. The larger ships gave off emissions typical of UN heavy carriers. These indicated powerful engines, launch bays and relatively light offensive weaponry. The smaller ships were harder to identify, but seemed to consist of several distinct types. These were almost certainly fighters. An overwhelming majority of the fighters were of the same type. It seemed likely that the battle was between four UNHCVs and this other fighter group.
He did not need any more details to know that the UN vessels were in big trouble.
Maher spoke up, "This is all a little bit hard to handle, first the moon disappears, and now we find a bunch of unescorted UN carriers under attack by a shit load of unidentified fighters that must have come out of nowhere."
Chris nodded in agreement. "You've got a point there Maher," he paused and considered it again, "I don't think seventeen more fighters, five of them on auto pilot, can make much difference in that battle. Still, it seems like it's the only place we've got to go to. If Beta Base has been destroyed, those carriers might be all that is left of the UN fleet."
Boyd broke in then, "Commander, I'm picking up another vessel, away from the main battle. Its emissions indicate that it's another UNHCV."
Chris sensed the scan co-ordinates Boyd was looking at and was soon studying the quadrant containing the lone carrier. His dark eyebrows rose in surprise at what he saw. The carrier's heading was taking it towards the battle, but it was moving far slower than it needed to if it was going to get there in time to make any kind of difference to the outcome. On top of this the carrier had practically no fighter cover out.
He pondered this for a few moments. The only explanation was that the ship was damaged in some way. Scan gave no clue as to what this damage might be.
Chris tried contacting the UN vessel, "UN carrier, this is UN Special Forces group C approaching you in liberated girl fighters. Please identify yourself and give me a situation report."
Long seconds of silence followed with no reply from the carrier. Then another group of signals brought a warning from the scans' friend-or-foe identification system. Several flights of enemy fighters had broken off from the main group, and were now heading towards the damaged CV. If the ship did not get enough of its own fighters out soon it would be in big trouble.
Here was a situation in which their seventeen stolen fighters could make a difference. He was about to issue orders when he remembered that eight of these ships were not actually under his command.
He sent out a signal to the X-Force Commander, "Millar, I think we can make the best use of our resources by defending that lone carrier from these robot controlled fighters. What do you say?"
"You're right. Let's hit them!" Millar answered without delay.
Jack reacted quickly to his commander's order and said, "Mono, let's show these C-Force boys how it's done."
Banking his ship up and to the right, Jack fired off an after burner blast, leaving an orange streak of glowing engine emissions in his wake.
At the same time Mono turned his ship up and to the left, also with a heavy blast of after burners. The resulting glow of engine emissions left an orange X in his wake. In unison the remaining X-Force ships pulled out of formation and accelerated through the bright signature, closing in on the enemy craft.
Concentrating on scan again, Chris could see that X-Force were heading for the closest flight of approaching ships. The next closest group was several hundred kilometres below the first from his frame of reference, but not much further out from the carrier. He decided to commit C-Force against these fighters.
The C-Force commander ordered the ships on autopilot to wait here, then sent the required navigational information to the other C-Force ships. Then he looked out in the direction X-Force had gone. Observing the fading X pattern he said, "Do you think we can do better than that boys?"
"Yes sir!" Doug answered.
He sent his ship into after burners dive, drifting out to his right, then back to the left. This manoeuvre left and arc of orange fire behind him, but he knew that the X-Force ships in front of him would look back and see a C.
Chris smiled in appreciation at the manoeuvre, and led his other fighters in a repeat of it. His smile then faded as he turned his mind to the fight almost at hand. Seconds passed as he sifted through scan emissions information to get a better idea what they were up against. Again he marvelled at the sophistication of the analysis equipment. He compared what he saw with his own PDA list of recognised ships. Soon he was able to identify the carrier as the UNHCV Comet. It should be carrying a full complement of three hundred FLI fighter modules, and a crew of around three thousand.
Then he turned his attention to the unidentified fighters. Though they were still too far away for him to assess their size and shape his scanner showed him that they had unusually powerful ID generators, and non-standard ion drive engines. Most unusually, there was no indication of life support systems on the fighters.
"No people on board, that's good," he said in a low voice, "I've never seen an AI pilot that was any good in combat."
He passed this information on to the others. Aside from this the enemy fighters seemed to be carrying fairly standard looking external laser generators, shields, and possibly a small complement of missiles. He considered that the fact he could discover so much from this range indicated the lack of a decent ECM system on board the fighters, and trusted that the superior one on his own ships would prevent the enemy from gaining as much useful information about them.

Back on Commander Millar's ship, the same discoveries were being made. Soon the enemy ships were within enhanced visual range. He could see that they were eight meters long and about three meters at their greatest width. The body of the ship consisted of a short, roughly cylindrical section, which tapered off at the rear. Eight 'arms' protruded from the cylinder, six went forward and contained laser emitters. The other two were larger and extended back past the end of the cylinder. They looked like missile racks to Millar.
Keying his intercom he announced, "Right Boys. We've got ten of these things to take out. I'll go in first, Ingo and Jack with me. Bilby, you follow my run with Mono and Andrew."
Receiving a chorus of acknowledgements, Millar began targeting the lead fighter with a missile. The weapon system automatically selected a type IV missile. Not knowing what class of weapon a type IV represented, he accessed the help system and looked it up. The system soon told him that the type IV was a drone missile used in target practise and training missions.
"Good thing I checked," he said to himself and selected another missile. Another type IV was chosen. He selected a third; it too was a type IV.
"I don't like the look of this." He brought up the manifest and sure enough, he was carrying a full compliment of type IV training missiles. "Bugger me!" he announce on an open channel. "We're carrying dummy missiles!"
He squeezed experimentally on the firing trigger for the lasers. There was no response. Detecting his query, a mild voice from the weapon system spoke, "The laser emitters are configured for targeting only. Do you wish to charge them for offensive fire? This process takes approximately one hundred and fifty seconds."
X-Force had practically engaged the enemy fighters, and had no offensive capability at all.
"We've got to have time to charge our guns!" He spat out the command, "Bilby, Break right. Take one of the spare fighters with you. You've got to keep away from them until your guns have charged."
He brought his ship sharply up and to the left. Jack and Ingo did the same, one on each side of their commander's flanks. A fourth ship, on autopilot, followed.
The enemy ships changed formation immediately to pursue the fleeing X-Force fighters, breaking into two squads of five.

Back with C-Force, Chris had more time to recover before the enemy fighters were onto them. He broke his ships up into a textbook evasive manoeuvre, sending each one spiralling off in a different direction. The enemy ships responded decisively, Chris and Bobby were chased by one ship each, the remainder paired up to go after the rest of C-Force. The other boys being further back, the fighter chasing Chris was closest and fired first.
Six beams of laser light streaked through the vacuum towards his ship. Chris gave a quick prayer of thanks that his shields, unlike his weapons, were working at full capacity. The beams were stopped or deflected without further damage. Chris responded by spiralling away with a long after burner burst. At the same time he adjusted his ECM, trying to prevent the enemy getting a lock on him.
The ship chasing Bobby responded in a similar fashion, however it also chanced firing a missile without a lock on. The missile shot wide of his ship and carried on harmlessly out into space. This ship proved a bit more accurate with its cannons however. One beam penetrated the shields and gouged a deep channel in the hull armour. His ship's combat effects system conveyed this to him with the sharp sound of an energy impact. He didn't need to hear it though, he could feel the impact, but fortunately no serious damage had been done.
Bobby punched the after burners to put some distance between him and his pursuer. However the other fighter proved to be very manoeuvrable, and kept well within range of its lasers. The sound of his engines roaring monetarily drowned out the sound of laser fire as Bobby struggled to complete his manoeuvre. He managed to find the time to speculate that without a pilot, a robot fighter could undergo a lot more gee force stress than he probably could.
The rest of C-Force managed to keep away from their opposition for the moment.

X-Force, in their two groups, had the robot fighters swarming all over them. Each squad of five fighters were covering their targets' rear shields with a barrage of criss-crossing laser blasts. Despite this, the X-Force shields held, and by dumping large amounts of ECM chaff they prevented their enemy from obtaining a lock on. However, Bilby's group had already lost their spare fighter. The spare fighter at the back of Millar's formation had also absorbed a lot of damage.
Millar checked the laser charge status. It read thirty-percent capacity. Firing too soon would produce only a low powered beam, and could damage the emitter. Despite this he thought it would be worth the risk once the charger was up to eighty percent, still about forty seconds away.
"Let's make this interesting," he said.
Giving Jack and Ingo some quick instructions, Millar pulled up and out of formation. Two robot fighters followed. Seconds later the laser chargers on Jack in Ingo's ships reached eighty percent. They spun their fighters around on their axis and opened fire on the pursuing ships.
The robot fighters accepted damage to their front shields but were effectively unharmed. The three fighters split up and attempted to surround Ingo. One that tried to go over the top of Ingo only succeeded in bringing itself into line of Millar's guns as he completed his loop. Now fully charged, Millar's lasers spat radiant destruction. The VRF laser blasts caught the robot fighter in its central cylindrical section. They smashed through the vessel's shields and destroyed it completely.
"First blood to us!" yelled Millar in triumph.
He continued past the front of his wingmen, the two robot fighters close behind and placing a considerable strain on his rear shields. This brought them directly into line with Jack and Ingo's sights. The boys opened fire on the closest enemy ship, which exploded in a shower of debris. The other ship pulled away in an attempt to join the two ships trying to flank Ingo. These ships now found themselves faced with all three of the X-Force ships.
"We've got better shields and we out gun them. Let 'em have it boys." Millar called.
Meanwhile, Bilby, Mono, and Andrew had turned on their pursuers and done some damage of their own. Now they faced four fighters and although Andrew had taken a few hits, the tide of the battle was turning their way.

While this was happening, C-Force was still completing their evasive manoeuvring. Blasting repeatedly with lasers and missiles, the enemy did not guess the purpose of all their intricate twists and turns. As Chris's guns reached full charge, he pulled back on his flight stick and soon found himself on the tail of Maher's pursuers. This turn also had the effect of bringing the fighter chasing him right into line with Doug, whose own rapid change of direction left his two chasers in front of Bobby, and so on.
Chris and Doug opened fire simultaneously and smashed their targets. Bobby noted from his targeting system that one of the fighters in front of him had previously been damaged. He waited just a fraction of a second longer before firing through its weakened shield and damaged hull armour. The ship was obliterated, the explosion momentarily brighter than the Sun.
"Good shot Bobby!" Doug yelled.
Maher managed to severely damage one of the ships chasing Boyd, but was unable to destroy it. Although the trap had been sprung successfully, the remaining robot fighters seemed to catch on quickly and pulled away before any more damage could be done. The boys pursued them as they tried to regroup.
"OK boys, send me your damage reports." ordered Chris.
He waited for the reports to come in, at the same time reviewing the fight so far and planning his next attack. The robot fighters responded too quickly and decisively to be under internal control, at least any that he had ever heard of being possible. Remote control was also unlikely given the distance they were from any likely transmission sources, and it would not explain the synchronisation of their movements. Perhaps it was a combination of onboard decision making with overriding control governed from some external source. If so it might be possible to trace this transmission back to its origin. His equipment, advanced though it was, would not be up to such a task, but maybe the systems onboard the Comet would be capable of it.
He brought his thoughts back to the task at hand as the damage reports came in. They had all taken hits, which ranged from scratches to serious structural damage. Kain, who had been hit by a missile, was his biggest problem. Boyd had a damaged targeting system but was otherwise stable. Maher had used too much fuel during his evasive manoeuvres.
"Kain, stay on Bobby's wing, don't take any risks," he began, "Boyd, get on Doug's wing. Maher you'll have to lay off the after burners for a while, stay with me."
More confident now that his ships outclassed the robot fighters, Chris allowed C-Force to re-engage the enemy head on.

With X-Force there had been no break in the fighting; by the time C-Force had regrouped, Millar, Jack, and Ingo had destroyed two more of the enemy. Ignoring the remaining fighter they faced, the three boys changed their heading to where the remainder of X-Force was still engaged with four enemy ships. The single robot fighter seemed reluctant to give chase, and changed course in the direction of the Comet.
"They should be able to handle one fighter," Millar thought out loud.
He could see that things had not been going so well with Bilby, Mono, and Andrew. Bilby had been separated from his wingmen and had two enemy fighters after him. Mono and Andrew weren't making much progress with their targets, the two pairs of fighters chasing each other's tails in a continuing series of loops.
"I could use some help here," Bilby called, his voice calm but edged with fear.
Millar watched the range drop and nodded. "Hold your line Bilby, we'll be there in a second."
He soon had the two enemy fighters in his sights and saw that the their attacks were not doing enough damage to Bilby's shields for him to be in any immediate danger of destruction. He had another few seconds at least. So Millar waited for a few of those seconds until his targeting systems achieved a lock on. Further signals told him that his two wingmen had also locked on.
Unfortunately for him, the robot fighters must have detected this and responded in a way no manned ship could. They span on their axis and reversed direction straight towards their pursuers.
"Evasive action, break formation!" Millar ordered.

Millar pulled up abruptly and Ingo moved to comply, but Jack held steady. He judged that he did not have time to get out of the robot fighters' path. Concentrating on the vectors his targeting computer projected around the oncoming ships, he tried to work out his best angle of attack. Then he fired off a continuous burst of VRF lasers, trusting that he would either destroy the oncoming ships or evade them. An explosion and a report from his targeting system told him he had hit the first ship. An instant later a second explosion signalled that the other ship had been destroyed as well.
It was too close; the debris crashed through Jack's front shields and collided with his fighter. Only good fortune preserved the cockpit, located at the front of his ship. The rear section, comprising engines and flight controls, was seriously damaged. It was the end of the battle for Jack.

"Nice work Jack. Hell of a way to chalk up two kills though." Millar commented.
He examined Jack's damage report and said, "You can make it to the Comet, Bilby cover his retreat."
Bilby had begun to loop back towards his Commander when the enemy ships changed course and was now nearly back to their position.
"Yes sir," Bilby replied.
Millar and his two wingmen now attempted to match vectors with the remaining enemy fighters.

C-Force had used this time to good effect and had destroyed three more enemy ships. The remainder of the flight was proving more difficult to hunt down, but no longer posed a serious threat. Chris and his wingman Maher were chasing down a lone fighter. Their targeting computers displayed vector data and other information that could be used to determine the enemy's possible manoeuvres. The enemy ship dodged and turned but was unable to evade the two C-Force fighters. Finally they achieve a targeting lock.
"Take it out Maher," said Chris.
Maher fired several volleys from his guns, all of which penetrated the fighter's by now weakened shields. The ship lurched violently then disintegrated.
"Yeah!" Maher cheered.
"Good shooting." Chris said.
Turning his attention back to the scanner, Chris then spotted a new group of signals.
"FLI Fighters, about bloody time," he said. Signalling the oncoming ships he announced, "UN FLI Fighters, this is UN special Forces group C, please respond."
He added to the signal his personal identification code. He then waited, knowing that the signal would be relayed from the fighters back to the Comet for verification.
Eventually he received a response, directly from the Comet itself.
"C-Force squadron, UNHCV Comet responding, please stand by while we verify your code."
The speaker sounded uncertain, definitely worried, and possibly panicked.
Chris waited a few seconds and then said, "I haven't got all day, you should have been able to clear that code by now. Who's in command there?"
The voice replied, "Ensign Moore, sir. Captain Morris and most of the rest of the bridge crew have been incapacitated. We've only got a skeleton crew available to run the ship and most of our pilots are out of action as well."
"What happened?" Chris asked.
"It's some kind of side effect of re-entering normal space, err..." Moore trailed off.
"Run that by me again ensign," Chris said.
"Well, err..." Moor offered.
Chris decided that it was going to take too long to sort out the situation like this.
"I'm coming aboard," he announced, forwarding image recognition data to the approaching FLI fighters. Then he added, "That should enable you to get missile locks on these robot fighters."
Ensign Moore's voice came back over the comms, "Sir, I really don't have clearance to let you land. Maybe if…"
"No maybes ensign," Chris interrupted, "we're coming aboard."
He scowled at the receiver before adding in a low voice. "I might even have to take command."
C-Force changed course for the Comet as the flight of FLI fighters started chasing the remaining robot fighters.
Chris updated Commander Millar, "Commander, I'm letting the FLIs take it from here. It sounds like they've got major problems on the Comet so I'm taking C-Force aboard to try and sort it out."
Millar responded, "We've taken some hits here and could use a break. We'll join you on the Comet."
Chris said, "Good, we might have to take command ourselves."
"It's that serious?"
"Yeah, we can handle the robot fighters while they are showing up in small groups. But sooner or later they'll start arriving in hundreds."
"Let's do it then."
Chris was pleased that clearly Millar could easily see the bigger picture.
X-Force disengaged from the remaining robot fighters, allowing FLI fighters to take up the chase, and followed C-Force down to the Comet.
"By the way," Millar started, "when were you first commissioned?"
"2034, June," Chris replied, "and you?"
"2034, October. A close thing, I guess that gives you seniority in this situation."

4. 'The Comet'

The boys received no more communication from the bridge as they approached the UNHCV Comet. Long moments passed as the bulk of the ship blocked out the sky. Doug mentally reviewed what he knew about the layout of these vessels. The carrier's superstructure consisted of a large wedge shaped forward section which protected the launch bays, engines, and the main crew quarters. The superstructure was founded on vast triangular frames, with giant generators known a p-spheres at its core. Attached to this main section were the three carrier decks, and beyond these the main ion and plasma engines.
Although considered to be lightly armed by the standards of capital ships, the Comet still bristled with turrets and larger laser cannons, missile bays and shield extenders. Some of the cannons came to life as they approached, turning from side to side, while others were either off line or simply not working. There was still no further verbal communication from the Comet but they were receiving navigation and landing data. He hoped that Ensign Moore was not planning anything rash.
Finally, they entered one of the three cavernous landing bays. Inertial dampening fields slowed the fighters so their speeds matched that of the Comet, they then settled into landing braces built into a conveyer belt attached to the floor.
Doug looked around cautiously. The belt led to refuelling and rearming stations further down from the landing platform.
Ahead of him Maher immediately popped the hatch, smiled broadly and said, "Fill it up please, and let's have some decent missiles." He finished his statement by jumping from the cockpit onto the landing brace. It was then that Doug noticed that the boys standing around the bay were not the flight crew the other boy had obviously expected. They were marines and they all had carbines (messy slug throwers designed for close quarter shipboard fighting); now pointed at Maher.
"Now wait a minute," he started and moved towards them with one arm raised and palm up as if the fend off and attack.
They responded by snapping into firing positions, their powered armour making a low mechanical hum as the servos moved their heavy limbs into position. One of the marines, clearly the leader in sergeant's livery, ordered in a confident voice. "Drop your weapons and step away from the ship."
Maher's smile faded. He raised his hands above his head, looked back, and let out a worried "Commander?"
"Why is it always Maher?" Doug thought across to Kain. His friend responded with the telepathic equivalent of a shrug.
Addressing the squad's sergeant, Chris announced in a low voice, "Not so fast sergeant. You might think your powered armour gives you the edge in this situation."
"You're damn right it does!" The sergeant was clearly not impressed.
Chris continued calmly. "Scan my emissions and you'll see that I haven't powered down my ship's lasers. With my engines off-line I can't generate more than one volley, but I'm sure you'll agree that one will be enough."
Doug drew his pistol, but carefully kept it low so the marines would not see it. He readied himself to open the hatch and start firing, but hoped he would not have to.
The sergeant checked the scanner built into the wrist section of his armour. He then replied in a less confident voice, "That's not possible, the landing cradle disables all functions when a ship lands."
"See for yourself." Chris said as his quad-guns focused on the marines' position.
This seemed to give the sergeant pause. Even encased in half a tonne of powered armour, the marines would not be able to shrug off a blast from Chris's weapons. His face plate, which in combat would usually be opaque, was transparent and Doug could see the boy's eyes dart from one quad-gun to the next, then with a visible effort he steadied himself.
"Could Chris really have charge in those guns?" Doug thought to himself.
The marine sergeant looked at his scanner again. "There is a power emission, but it doesn't prove you can fire."
"It doesn't prove I can't either sergeant," Chris replied. "Look at it this way. As a Commander in the UN Special Forces I can legally take command of this vessel as your captain is incapacitated. You don't want to get yourself blown away trying to prove I can't."
"Your status has not been confirmed." The sergeant offered.
Chris shrugged. "That's not my problem right now. It's yours. Maher, disable their weapons."
Maher moved cautiously to obey. The sergeant gave one more grim look at Chris's lasers, then signalled for his squad to comply. Doug let out a sigh of relief and popped the hatch. In seconds the remainder of C-Force and X-Force had disembarked and taken up position in the landing bay. The scientists seemed a bit subdued after what must have been quite an ordeal for them. Doug smiled to himself as they followed cautiously in a group behind him.
Chris approached the marine leader. "Sergeant, you'll come with us. The rest of your squad will stay here. Maher, you and Kain keep an eye on them."
As Chris walked past the sergeant the marine moved forward. He muttered through his helmet speakers, "I've got to know, was the gun charged?"
"You won't find out in this life time," replied Chris. He then looked over to Commander Millar. "You coming?"
"Yeah." Millar replied blandly. Something was bothering the X-Force commander.
He quickly issued orders. "Mono, stay here with Andrew and refuel the fighters."
He moved up to Chris and spoke in a low voice, but Doug could still make out his words. "You didn't tell me you were expecting trouble."
Chris shrugged. "I wasn't sure there was going to be any."
"You damn well knew something was up." Millar growled.
"I had it covered."
"You were bluffing. You've had less than an hour in that fighter and you're asking me to believe you were able to bypass such a basic safety procedure. No way. I'll let this go for now. We're in a dodgey position here. But get this. You can grandstand in front of your C-Force boys all you want, but if you ever lead me and my boys into trouble like this again you're history."
He said the last with a mild, calm voice that belied a fire in his eyes that made Doug flinch.
"Tell you what." Chris started in a lighter tone. "I'll forget about the fact that you let us fly into a dog fight completely unarmed and you can forget about this."
Millar glared at Chris. "We were assigned to blow the bloody things up, not steal them, we didn't know much more about flying them than you did."
His expression then changed almost instantly into an impish grin. "OK, you've got a point. We're even."
Briefly returning the grin, then seeing that Millar had finished, Chris led the way out of the landing bay and towards the bridge.
Doug was pleased that the potential argument had ended there. He had no desire to see the outcome of a clash between the two Force Commanders. Already he could tell that in many ways C-Force and X-Force were like chalk and cheese, and he wondered how well they would work together in future.

The group stepped into a large transport car at the far end of the landing bay. These cars functioned as a combination of train and elevator, allowing movement between levels to and from most areas of the carrier. Using his personal code again, Chris ordered the car to proceed to the bridge. The car accepted the code and began to move off. Settling into gravity seats, the boys waited as the car sped past various sub levels of the landing bay, past the launch bays and crew berths, then into the front wedge section of the ship. Finally, after a journey that seemed longer than just a few minutes, the car stopped at the Bridge level. Doug could see from the read out of the car's pressure door that the Bridge door on the other side was already open. This relieved Chris of the task of using his personal code to force them open. Through the glass he could see a single impatient looking figure waiting for them. Chris opened the door, stunblaster ready.
"Okay, okay! You've made your point." Said the boy beyond the door. "I'm Ensign Moore, welcome to the UNHCV Comet, Commander."
"What the hell was all that crap about before ensign?" Chris growled, lowering his weapon only slightly.
The Ensign eyed the weapon. "You were approaching us in girl made fighters Commander. Your IFF transponders contradicted your radio communications."
"Was that all?"
"Those fighters out there blowing the hell out of our carriers are girl made too." Moore finished.
Millar sounded dubious. "They don't look like any girl fighters I've ever seen."
"I'd never seen the girl ships we were just flying until today." Doug offered.
"I think you'll understand if you come and look at this, sirs." Moore replied.
Chris gave a sideways glance at Millar, then he holstered his stunblaster with a shove. "Okay, show us."
The boys entered the bridge of the Comet and Doug looked about in surprise at the lack of personnel. The Command Bridge was a large, oval shaped room about forty meters in diameter. It was filled with terminals and functional command posts. Only a few of these were currently manned.
Ensign Moore led them to the command dais in the centre of the room. Usually the captain and or the executive officer occupied this. Now it was empty. The dais was too small for everyone, so only ensign Moore and the two Commanders climbed the three stairs to its top.
Doug sat down at a vacant command station and waited for Ensign Moore to explain what was going on.
"Now," Moore began. "The Comet and the other four carriers out there have been secretly testing a new propulsion system which makes possible faster-than-light travel." He paused, seemingly expecting to be questioned. But the expressions on the faces of both Millar and Chris plainly said that they either knew of these tests, or were prepared to accept him at his word.
Nathaniel Wong could not keep silent at this though. "Faster than light travel, how? I've done a lot of research on tachyonic fields, but surely a working engine is decades away."
"We'll leave the technical stuff for you to sort out later, Doctor." Chris said. "We need to know what else is going on. Ensign?"
Moore continued, "This wasn't just a test. The Captain knows the full story, but for whatever reason UNMHQ risked refitting our five largest serving carriers with these new drives and sent us out independently, light years away from Earth. The drives are capable of transforming the ship into tachyons for a certain pre-set time period. The tach ship, as it is known, then travels much faster than light from a non-tachyon frame of reference. The drive then turns the tach ship back into a tardyon ship, meaning that it returns to normal space. We had no trouble with the outward journey, in a little under three weeks we reached a star fifteen light years from here. We ran some scans, didn't find much, then set off on the return leg.
"Half an hour ago we arrived back in Earth orbit, but we'd over shot the moon by a long way. This was the least of our problems though, for upon resuming tard most the crew passed into some sort of coma. I don't know what caused this, there does appear to be some damage to the tach drive, but I haven't had time to check it out.
"That's only the start of it of course. Things have got a lot worse. But it's probably easier if you just watch the bridge log record from 2079.25.4.13:20," Moore finished.
Millar and Chris moved over to the command console and keyed in the log for the time Moore suggested. The log recorder skipped back and then focused. Ensign Moore was standing on the command dais giving orders to the remaining crew. The main viewer held a scan of the Moon with the UN Head Quarters at Beta Base clearly in view. Suddenly the image shimmered, and then the entire moon disappeared from view, taking Beta Base with it. Millar checked the sensors at this point. They registered no difference in gravitation force and could only guess that something too small to be visible, but incredibly dense, now orbited the Earth where the moon was previously. Chris quickly replayed the incident.
Moore was right, Doug thought, I wouldn't have believed this if I didn't see it.
Then the log played back a transmission from Earth. The message began with the Circle and Cross symbol of the Girl federation. A voice, familiar to the Doug as the leader, dictator was a more accurate term, of the Girls then spoke. The voice was crisp and precise with undertones of thinly veiled cruel amusement. Yet it was not the voice of a human, for the Girls' leader was Cybernetica, an ancient Precursor artefact unearthed some decades before. Part organic and part machine, Cybernetica's voice seemed completely human, or even more than human, as if it was attempting to communicate in other ways than mere human language. It may have been this factor alone which brought about an instinctive distrust in most boys, who persistently referred to the computer in the third person as 'It'. Girls, particularly those in the UGF, insisted that Cybernetica be referred to as a 'She'.
The transmission continued. "People of Earth, you know me. You know that for years I have sought the betterment of your kind with the knowledge of the Precursors. Many Girls have listened and joined me, but the boys have been stubborn. They wish to hold all the power. Now the time has come for a new order to begin in the world. My forces have destroyed the seat of your corrupt and patriarchal government, Beta Base," It finished this with an audible sneer.
"The bulk of the UNM has been swept away. The pitiful remnant will soon follow. My forces have also undermined your land-based defences. I call upon you all, people of Earth, to surrender. Join me and I shall take your race out to the stars and beyond. Don't make me destroy you."
The message ended abruptly, only to be replaced by the sound of warning klaxons. Defence scanners picked up thousands of fighters suddenly appearing, Ensign Moore advised that they were resuming tard, around the four UNHCVs. The log continued with Moore ordering those who could respond to make the ship ready for combat and accelerate towards the battle.
Millar straightened and turned to Chris. He drew in a breath with teeth slightly bared. "I don't think we need to see any more."
"You're right there," Chris agreed "Ensign Moore, I'm relieving you of command of this vessel. I hope you don't have a problem with that?"
The ensign looked like a man who had just had a large weight removed from his shoulders. "No sir. You have command. Please understand that with all the confusion, I couldn't just trust your personal code alone."
"That's all right ensign. Just make sure you follow my orders from now on."
He paused for a heartbeat and then ordered, "Leave orbit and head towards the asteroid belt at maximum speed. We are withdrawing."

5. 'The Get Away Part II'

Chris looked at the faces of those around him. He could read confusion and disagreement on most of them. He paused to take another look at scan. The slaughter he saw there convinced him he was right. He motioned for Millar to look at it as well.
Chris straightened until he stood almost at attention. His voice carried across the bridge. "All right, I know what you're thinking. But there is no way we can help those other carriers now. We've got to think of the best way to serve Earth."
"By running away!" shouted Mono in disagreement.
"C'mon Commander," Bilby said to Millar. "Now we know Cybernetica's behind this, we can launch our own attack on the Girl Federation's land bases. We can do a lot of damage before they get us all."
Millar stern response was tempered with resignation. "No, Commander Chris is right. The other carriers are lost. We are now the only effective fighting force left in the UNM. So we've got to give ourselves time to come up with a plan, and to sort out what's happened here."
He turned to Moore who was still waiting there. "Relay the order to withdraw Ensign."
"Aye aye sir." He replied formally. He stopped on the last step of the command dais. "Where exactly in the asteroids do you want our heading set Commander?"
Chris tapped in a number of commands into the console in front of him. "I'm entering the co-ordinates into the command console now. Ensure they are followed precisely."
Moore walked over to the engineering console and relayed the order. Soon the Comet began to change its course. The other members of C-Force and X-Force moved to occupy various unmanned bridge stations. They all had additional skills that would help in the running of the ship until a way could be found to revive the other crew members.
In a low voice Millar said to Chris, "I take it we're heading for one of the UNM's secret research bases."
Chris nodded. "It's unmanned but well hidden, going there will buy us some time."
"Are you sure you don't want to head for the Mars colonies? I know they're not up for much, but they'll be more use than asteroids."
"I thought of it, yeah, but I'd say Cybernetica's thought of it as well. We'd just be putting the colonists there in danger. There's been enough loss of life today." Chris said.
"There were fifty million people on Beta Base, boys and girls." Millar agreed.
"Oh, I don't think they're dead. Not yet anyway," said Nathaniel, climbing to the top of the command dais. He seemed completely unaware of the breech in protocol.
"You don't?" Chris and Millar asked in tandem.
"Firstly, we have to ask ourselves what is it more likely that Cybernetica could do; make the moon vanish, or destroy it? As Commander Millar said earlier, if the moon were destroyed, the loss of its gravitation pull on the Earth would be a catastrophe. Yet the Earth is undamaged and our sensors show no change in the gravitational fields around us. So something is there. Could it be the moon is somehow still there, but hidden from us? If so it is likely that the people on Beta Base would be able to let us know of this, or at least launch a few more ships. The power to destroy the moon outright, without vast quantities of matter being thrown out in every direction is so great that it seems the least likely of explanations. And it would not explain the gravity situation. Neither case is supported by the facts. Something more is going on here, and I am going to find out what."
Nathaniel finished and stepped back off the dais and over to the science station.
"He seems pretty sure of himself," said Millar.
"He's a bright guy, a genius according to his file," Chris replied.
Millar cocked an eyebrow. "A genius eh? You don't say."
Chris gave an exaggerated nod. "Well we didn't risk our necks rescuing him for nothing."

Bridge, UNHCV Comet
Beyond Mars, Sol System
1600 hours GMT 2079-April-25

By now the Comet had successfully left Earth's orbit and was no longer being pursued by the robot fighters. Either the enemy could not track them at this range, or it no longer considered them a threat. In this time most of the crew had regained consciousness. They seemed to have no lasting side effects from the coma and were soon able to resume their posts. This allowed the Comet to increase its speed and improved the overall running of the ship.
Eventually Captain Morris awoke. He received a quick summary of the situation from the ship's log, and soon stormed onto the bridge. At his entrance Millar and Chris looked up from the command station. His captain's uniform looked out of place on him. Blonde hair stuck out randomly from under his hat. This combined with a healthy tan made him look as though he would be more at home on the beach than on the bridge of a warship. His gaze swept across the bridge, taking in every detail, then met the return stares of Chris and Millar from atop the command dais. The Captain's blue eyes radiated decades of command experience and, at that moment, anger.
He shot out a finger accusingly and said, "You two, briefing room, now."
Then he walked swiftly over to the briefing room entrance, fifteen paces around the outer walkway of the bridge. Chris and Millar exchanged slightly amused glances at the theatrics, then stepped down from the dais and followed Morris to the briefing room.
On the way Chris stopped by Nathaniel at the science station. He had to tap to the scientist on the shoulder to get his attention. "You'd better come with us."
Wordlessly the scientist keyed in a few commands and then joined him. Soon the four boys were in the briefing room. Designed to accommodate about a dozen officers, the room contained two ranks of six chairs facing each other around a narrow elliptical table. At the head of the table was a small platform with a presentation lectern and holo-projector. Chris, Millar, and Nathaniel sank into gravity chairs while Morris continued to pace. Every few seconds his hand strayed down towards a pistol at his side.
"Why don't you calm down a little," said Millar.
At this Morris stopped and by a visible effort of will assumed a more relaxed stance.
At length he lent forward onto a chair and cleared his throat. "Okay, so it's a bit of a shock to see you Special Forces spooks running my ship. I don't agree with your retreat from Earth but you've probably done the best you could given the situation. However now that I'm back it's time to relinquish command."
"That depends on what you're planning to do captain," Chris said. "We didn't save this ship just so you can throw it away uselessly."
Morris stepped towards the seated C-Force Commander.
"Watch your tone with me commander. You were within your powers when you took control of the Comet. Now that I'm back you're compelled by law to relinquish it."
Chris returned his stare without apparent effort. "Not in this situation. I've invoked emergency protocols to change the command codes on this ship. It's mine until I say so."
Seeing that Morris was about to explode Chris added quickly, "I fully intend to give the ship back to you Captain. But first you'd better listen to what we have to say."
Morris's brows contracted over eyes that locked onto Chris's. "This had better be damn good Commander."
"OK, on the surface we have what looks like the complete destruction of the UNM space fleet minus the Comet. This is Doctor Nathaniel Wong, a scientist we rescued from a Girl base in Afghanistan. I've allocated him an echelon 5 security clearance. We can trust what he says and he thinks there's more to it. Doctor..."
Nathaniel stood and walked over to the presentation stand at the end of the room. He activated the stand's projection field and made a few minor adjustments. "I've forwarded my preliminary findings to this station. If you'll have a seat Captain."
Morris stood there for a moment and then sat and waited for him to continue. Nathaniel keyed the projector to replay the sensor log from earlier, which showed the disappearance of the moon.
"Notice the shimmering around the moon immediately before it vanishes." He began. "I tried all the usual systems to identify this phenomenon and they were of no help. However on this ship gentlemen we have another sensor. One associated with the tachyonic drive. It detects by-products of the tachyisation process. Captain Morris, Ensign Moore suggested that you might be able to give us a more complete picture of why the Comet was out fitted with such devices, and what its mission is."
Morris thought it over for a few seconds, then shrugged. "I can probably tell you this now, but a month ago no one knew of this apart from the Captain's of the five carriers, UNM High Command, and a small scientific team.
"Three months ago a UNM Science division team working on a pre-cursor device discovered that its function was the transformation and detection of tachyon particles. They theorised that with this technology it would be possible for a ship to travel effectively faster than the speed of light. That was the good news. The bad news was that the detector part of the device was showing that this had already been done. Tachyon burst resonance can be detected for some time after the event. Someone had developed ships with FTL capability and had been flying them in and out of our solar system for at least two years. The military implications of this are staggering. We had to find out who owned these ships and what they were doing.
"So Science Division were given the go ahead to produce our own tach drives. The power output required to run the things is immense, and the only ships capable of it were our five heavy carriers. By the time they had been installed, UNM Intelligence had calculated a ninety six percent correlation between tachyonic burst detection incidents and UGF ship movements. As you can imagine, that was our worst nightmare. With all of Cybernetica's rhetoric and threats, who knows what she could have at her disposal with interstellar bases mass producing weapons without interference from UN inspection teams. So we set out with the idea of checking nearby systems for any sign of UGF bases, and the tachyonic burst detectors were designed to track our own movement and search for these other ships. That's it in a nut shell, but what has that got to do with the moon?"
Nathaniel nodded. "I believe the shimmer we can see just before the moon vanishes is the visible manifestation of a tachyon burst. The detectors back this up. That means that the moon has not been destroyed, but rather transported to some other location, probably many light years away."
Morris accessed the information from his chair's data station. His earlier anger had all but disappeared. He was now all business. "It's possible. The detectors register a coherent transfer. An incoherent transfer would mean that the moon would never resume tard. But the power required is just unthinkable. And how could such a field be generated, are we to believe the moon is a starship?"
"It has been suggested before," said Millar with a grin.
"Let's try and stay rational here," Chris replied.
"Actually he could have a point there," Morris said guardedly. "I guess it is possible that the Lunar testing facilities could have been subverted to produce this effect." He turned to Wong, his expression thoughtful. "How would this theory explain the lack of change in gravity Doctor?"
Wong rubbed his chin. "If Cybernetica has the power to send the moon into tach, who knows what she can't do. But maybe a simple explanation is that she transported in something to replace the moon. A proxy if you will. Something with the same mass, but far more dense."
He placed both hands on the table firmly and leant forward towards the other three boys. "Anyway, you see this is all good news. The tachyonic burst detectors don't only tell us that the moon went into tach. They can also tell us where it will resume tard. We can go find it!"
Millar nodded grimly. "Okay, okay, I get it but it also means something else. We won't be the only ones looking..."
"Of course!" Chris interrupted. "We've been wondering why we haven't seen any Girl Capital ships. They have only used fighters so far. We got away from that girl base because the fighters that should have been patrolling its air space were already in orbit. Cybernetica needed them in orbit because she needed her warships somewhere else. They're going after the moon."
"Then we have to get there first," said Morris. His grim expression of determination quickly turned to one of frustration. "But how can we do that with a faulty tach drive? We barely made it back to Earth. Who knows what's going to happen if we try a tach jump again?"
"Leave that to me Captain," said Wong. He stepped down from the presentation stand and walked straight out to the bridge.
"He's a cocky bastard isn't he?" said Morris.
Chris and Millar could only nod in agreement.

6. 'Preparation'

C Force Commander's Log, UNHCV Comet
Inner Asteroid belt, Sol System
2200 hours GMT 2079-April-25

By now the Comet had reached the presumed safety of the asteroid belt. Not much later we reached the UNM outpost hidden within a hollowed out asteroid. Although there were no real shortages, we used the opportunity to take on some fuel and supplies. Something to take the crew's minds off our current predicament, if nothing else. Captain Morris, now back in command, had briefed the crew on the situation. After an initial period of shock the boys had settled down to the task well. They, like we, know that our efforts could yet thwart Cybernetica's plan. A tense but determined atmosphere now pervades the ship.
Morris allocated us and X-Force quarters in the rapid deployment station on the flight deck. These are large, spartan, dormitories that don't offer much in the way of comfort. However they do keep us close to our ships, and isolated from the rest of the crew. The former allows quick access to the fighters in an emergency. The latter was an advantage because of who we are. Regular navy personnel are always full of questions when it came to those in the Special Forces. Questions C-Force and X-Force do not want to answer.
Time for some food now.

End log entry.

Chris and the rest of C-Force had taken some needed rest and were now finishing off a late dinner.
"But what I don't understand is why did they send the moon somewhere else," said Bobby. He leaned forward and rested his chin on his hands. "Surely it would be easier to simply 'send it into tach' as you say and never bring it back."
Chris shrugged. "This is all new science Bobby. We don't know yet whether it's possible to destroy something just by sending it into tach. Maybe it has to come out somewhere. Or maybe it needed to be a coherent transfer so as not to effect the Earth."
Doug was digging through the last of his desert container, but was still paying attention to the discussion. "Maybe Cybernetica needs something from the moon. There are still tonnes of Precursor relics waiting to be examined. I bet she'd like to get a hold of them."
The others considered this truth before Maher added his own thoughts. "She'll have to get past the UNM fleet on Beta Base first. That'll take some firepower. And they're going to be mad as shit when they come out of tach."
Kain was not so positive. "But who knows what shape they'll be in when they do," he said sullenly. "Tachyisation is obviously dangerous enough on a starship, but on a whole planetoid?"
Boyd put aside the personal shield generator he was working on, suddenly eager to voice his own thoughts on the situation. "I was talking to one of the scientists, Dr O'Brien. He tells me that it's not going to be easy to find the moon." The others turned to listen to him as he continued. "It's not just a case of tracking where it went from the tach burst. The detector can only give a probability of where it will resume tard. We'll go to the most likely place, then sift around for a resonance to see if that's where it really is. If not the detector will tell us somewhere else the moon could be and we'll have to go there. Each time it'll take a day or so to recharge our tach drive. It's going to take some time."
"That's not such a bad thing," said Chris, "The more possibilities, the more spread out the UGF fleet is going to have to be to find it. Meaning we'll hopefully encounter less resistance." He drained the last of his coffee and stood. "Anyway, we'll make a start on it tomorrow. Set a wake up call for 0730. I'd like to spend the morning on the fighter flight simulators."

Over in X-Force's quarters the boys where also discussing the day's events, with a slightly different emphasis. Sitting on adjacent bunks Ingo was saying to Bilby, ".. So then the fighter passed right in front of me. Couldn't have missed if I tried. Then boom! There was nothing left of it."
He emphasised his by point smashing his fist into his palm.
"That's my first kill in this war. It sure won't be my last. The only problem is that no one was in it."
Millar was dozing on his bunk, his hat covering his eyes. At Ingo's comment he propped himself up on his elbows and made eye contact from under the brim of his hat. "Nice one Ingo, but don't forget who put you in position for that kill. And remember we don't kill people if we don't have to. There's few enough left in the world."
Ingo turned to face his commander.
"But Cybernetica killed thousands today. Four of our carriers! What I'd give to have a few of her girls in my sights."
Millar knew better than to argue with Ingo in this mood. So he turned to Mono to change the subject. "What's the status of our fighters?"
"Pretty much back to one hundred percent. The boys on the flight deck where happy to lay on some plas-armour and missiles. We're fully refuelled as well. There was a bit of trouble with Jack's engines, but I got some parts from the spare ships C-Force have."
"Do they know about it?" Millar asked mildly.
"No," came the response.
Millar grinned as Mono continued.
"The boys had trouble reconfiguring the IFF transponders on our new prototype fighters. Instead of junking them and installing standard ones I got them to install a switch allowing them to be turned back to their original signal. Not that I can think of a reason why the hell we'd want to do that. It wouldn't fool the girls for more than a few seconds and might get us killed by our own ships