Itineris

[Vogel]

It looked so much like Earth. Like the pictures hed seen of it before it had been burned and scarred by the scourge of war.

Yes, he remembered the standardized Alliance version of events quite clearly.

The Eastern Coalition was a big, bad supergiant that was angry at the Western Alliance over them having sheer monopoly over humanitys space assets. Eventually they came to grips over the issue when the Coalition began a massive space construction program. Somewhere along the line somebody issued an ultimatum, presumably the Coalition, which was flatly refused. In the inevitable clash that came, it was decided by both parties that if they could not have access to Mother Earths resources, neither should the other.

It was bludgeoned by the full weight of mankinds nuclear arsenal.

After that, things seemed to be a perpetual fight with scraps spanning the entire Solar System; it was almost as if there was nothing left to fight for except for the sake of fighting. But that was another story.

This planet was fresh, alive, with sprawling cities clearly seen on the shadowy fringes where their lights shone. It had multiple space stations in orbit, and was bustling even some one hundred thousand kilometers into the vastness of space. For all intents and purposes, for a soldier like Lieutenant James Doyle who was born into and knew nothing but death and struggle, it was Utopia incarnate.

But why was it here?

Doyle mused over several ideas, none of them substantiated. Perhaps this was the future? If so it was clearly devoid of the Coalition, which was good, but it was also devoid of the Alliance; he didnt know what to make of that. Mankind had prospered rather well, and had expanded past Sol. Earth was now the bastion of all that humanity hoped to achieve.

But was this Earth? Its landmasses had changed dramatically; it would have taken millions of years for them to have done that.

Whats more, Earth was destroyed.

It had to have been.

Hed seen the Sun explode.

Hadnt he?

A painful headache once again wrapped itself around his mind like a coiling snake. He knew he couldnt answer these questions himself; it was foolish to even try. He needed input from something or someone else.

He needed to check the surface.

It wasnt hard to see how things worked around here. There was a series of rings in a band around the planet, with vessels going back and forth through them in regular intervals. He knew for a fact that no ship of his era was very well equipped for re-entry into an atmosphere, since all available resources were put towards combat and travel capability. There were dedicated shuttles for such things. But here it seemed that these people had developed a method of piercing the atmosphere with a kind of channel which let ships of all shapes and sizes enter the atmosphere with no trouble. It was also a convenient method of regulation, he realized.

So there was his first objective: sneak through one of those rings. He knew hed have no kind of access, nor could he ask for it, so his only alternative was to try to slip in with another vessel. He could do that.

Flying in the atmosphere was another problem entirely.

Space fighters were by no means exempt from atmospheric duties in his world, but they were duties in atmospheres far less dense than that of an Earth-like planet. As a result, control was mostly reliant on thruster output with minimal correction, meaning the pilot was flying a rocket rather than an aircraft. He had no idea how the ships of this place worked, but in his case hed have a very difficult time of it.

So there was his second objective: fly in there without dying. Easier said than done.

But Doyle was adamant. It was his destiny, after all.

He casually maneuvered his Minuteman towards the rings. Yet again, nobody seemed to take much note of him, not even the patrols of clearly police or military fighters roaming about. Perhaps he was merely lost in the shuffle? In any case, he caught sight of a small freighter that was on its way to the planet and quickly slid his snubfighter behind and slightly below it.

The radio was practically worthless; there was no way to regulate what transmissions he received, so it was a cacophony of sound. Still, he reasoned, somewhere in there he should have heard a request for landing clearance.

On cue, the protective arms of one of the rings, similar to the jump gates, opened up and beckoned the freighter forward.

Taking a deep breath, the Lieutenant followed it through, closing his eyes in case he met a rather dreary high-friction end.



He was through.

He was also falling.

The effect of gravity on his body was as startling as it had been on Thunder Bay, but in that case he was on the floor and was sick out of his mind. In this case he was in a hunk of metal essentially free falling towards a city below.

Biting off a curse, Doyle kicked up the throttle and yanked back on the control column, but found that he had overcompensated, sending his fighter into a backwards loop, still falling. The dampeners working overtime, he tried to angle his fighter towards the ground again and stabilize his fall.

There were wings on his Minuteman, but they were hardly aerodynamic.

Lucky me.

After falling a good ten kilometers, he began slowly pulling back. Thankfully the little fighter responded and began to pull up into a glide. But it was a harrowingly fast glide pointed at the cityscape below.

Trying to bleed off speed by snaking as he went, the Lieutenant was finding himself pouring all the training and experience hed ever received into just flying. Compared to the firefights hed been in before, this was not without a large touch of irony.

The city got much closer. His instruments were not adjusted for this kind of atmosphere, so he had no method of determining speed other than eyesight. It would serve him well enough, although the only times he ever had to do this was when flying in reference to another ship, not an entire horizon.

The ground got much closer. The switch from a maze of buildings to a maze of streets and crisscrossing ships in air streets was very abrupt, and caught him off guard.

Damn! he shouted, mashing the yoke to the side in an effort to dodge some ship or another cruising along. The maneuver upset the delicate balance hed achieved and sent the fighter spiraling down.

Watching the buildings start to rise above him, Doyle felt an icy chill run down his back. After all this, was it really going to end this way? A hard-deck kill?

Hed be damned if that happened.

Fear rapidly turned into anger and resolve, and the throttle found itself mashed into Afterburner. The Minutemans engines screamed and sent it off on a horizontal tangent, though still with some spin to its motion.

Doyle flipped down the landing gear switch; what good it would do him he hadnt the slightest idea, but it was better than bellying in.

The fighter skirted around the corner of a skyscraper and was now perilously close the ground, but the lucky pilot found comfort in the large stretch of elevated walkway that rolled out before him.

The unlucky pilot also found great discomfort in the large number of civilians moving along said walkway.

People started running, some were clearly screaming, as the fighter careened towards them. By some form of miracle the rear end of Doyles ship didnt clip the heads off of people as it came down, and those further along the walkway had time enough to get to the sides.

With a very audible and unsettling bang, the Minuteman hit the ground, bounced up, and hit down again, the metal pads grinding away sparks behind it until the little ship came to a stop.

Doyle was nearly frozen in his seat. Did he just manage to do that?

Suddenly desperate for fresh air, he yanked off his air mask and threw the canopy open, taking a deep breath of rather industrial-smelling oxygen. But it was oxygen nonetheless.

He made it.

A grin cracked along his face for the first time in 24 hours; hed accomplished something. Hed survived.

People began to gather around his ship, pointing, talking to each other, staring, some of them looking exceedingly angry, but the Alliance pilot was in a state of bliss, surveying the cityscape around him.

And then he saw it.

It was painted like the other buildings, a shade of bronze or gold. It towered towards the heavens to the same extent as the highest buildings nearby. Twin searchlights were perched above its curvaceous form, and it was ringed with windows. In the dead center sat an illuminated blue star with blue and red stripes shooting out from the side, and below it in bold yellow letters sat the tell-all moniker.

Liberty.

Doyles jaw dropped, eyes dilated, body rigid.

Thats the

The ASF-1. The Liberty.

Pieces of the massive puzzle began to fall into place, and the realization was so sudden and so wrenching that Doyle entirely forgot about the miracle that had happened just a few seconds prior.

The Liberty

The Liberty

It stood upright, the same way it had launched from Pluto so long ago. Or what felt like so long ago.

What was long ago.

It made sense. This was the ASF-1, there was no doubt about it. It landed here, this New Earth. Its people had grown, prospered, started anew, just like the Alliance had intended.

Earth was dead, but humanity lived on.

This was their legacy. His legacy.

Some one thousand lightyears away.

The Liberty

Tears came to his eyes in spite of himself. The emotional impact was impossible to explain, for never in the history of any mans life had such a series of events taken place, nor was it likely they would ever be repeated.

This was his future. This is what he fought for, what his friends had died for, what his family died trying to get to.

Lieutenant James Doyle of the 92nd International Volunteers Squadron fell back into the ejection seat of his Minuteman, tears streaking down his face.

The crowd got closer.

A miracle just as potent as the last one occurred: he managed to overcome the emotion of the moment and realize what was going on.

Stumbling as he sat up, Doyle yanked the canopy down and slapped the air mask to his face yet again. The people outside started to slow their advance, and the ones in front began to back away.

It was for the best, since he punched the throttle to max power.

The snubfighter left behind a hail of sparks as it rocketed down the walkway scattering people in its wake and then shot towards the heavens.

With tears still blurring his vision, Doyle looked over his shoulder at the ASF-1 as it slid past.

He knew where he was.

He was far from home.



Finding the rings to exit the planets atmosphere wasnt terribly hard; ships swarmed to and from them like a horde of insects. Managing to find an opening behind a small pod-like ship, Doyle followed it up and through the atmosphere at max afterburner. The little fighter and its pilot who had come so far were once again bound for the stars, somewhat reassured but still seeking solace.

But the police were seeking nothing but the ship and its pilot.

Not more than thirty seconds after hed escaped the planets atmosphere, the storm of voices had returned over the radio. But one voice seemed to overpower all the rest, as if the transmission was pointed directly at him with full intensity.

This is Officer Charles of the Liberty Police to unidentified vessel. You are to cut your engines immediately and disengage all weapons systems. Failure to comply will lead to the use of force.

Doyle would have kicked himself had the time or the room in his cockpit. If they hadnt noticed him before, they certainly would now after hed snuck through those regulatory rings and, whats more, nearly crash landed atop the citizenry of this place.

Would they believe him if he told them their story? No, they would most likely call him a madman and apprehend him for that stunt hed pulled.

Would he be able to flee? Unlikely, his ship was nowhere near as capable as theirs.

Would he be able to stand and fight? Against a highly advanced army of fighters in front of what appeared to be their most important planet? Hardly.

He had to try something. Anything.

Biting his lip, the Lieutenant gunned the throttle and gave it every ounce of power the Minuteman could provide. While the scanners were obviously useless, he managed to look over his shoulder and see a pair of small fighters following behind him, flashing blue and red lights. They remained stationary, matching his speed with apparently little effort.

I repeat, the Officer said more forcefully, Cut your engines now, or suffer the consequences.

What more was there to do? If they could match that, what else could he possibly use? His Jump Drive?

He looked down at the button on his console, shielded by a plastic guard.

God help me.

Doyle flicked the guard up and mashed the button, well aware of the fact that with no coordinates locked hed be jumping into open space in front of him.

The EWS on his console blared, indicating the rapid approach of a solid object at his dead six o clock, presumably a missile of some sort. He hit the countermeasure deployment button on the yoke and looked over his shoulder.

The wad of chaff and burning flare spat out the back of his fighter. The bright light of a fast-flying missile came streaking towards him. It reached the chaff, seemed to disappear inside it, and then came barreling out the other end and detonated right on top of him.

His eyes shut tight by reflex; he knew he was a goner.

Nothing happened.

And then Jump Drive fired.