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THE HANGAR.
At last, the hangar.
Cagliari was practically twitching with excitement as she worked to override the security codes and gain access to the large area where her fighters were being kept. At least, where she hoped they were being kept. Her contact had sent photos showing that the Argentavis fighters were there, but Cagliari had no way to know if they’d been relocated in the time between the photos being taken and Cortez triggering the evacuation of Duster’s Range.
She had to believe they were there. If they weren’t, she would have just wasted a substantial amount of time, resources and money on a fool’s errand. But more importantly, she would remain sidelined in the war, and that she simply could not accept. With a degree in aerospace engineering and experience as a test pilot, she should have been at the forefront of the Commonwealth’s attempts to rebuild their fleet and get trained pilots into play. She should have been, but she wasn’t. ATC Castle had become too entrenched in the Commonwealth military machine to involve any but their own people in development or training – and they would certainly not be open to the involvement of a Cagliari. It was Cagliari Aerospace and Trondheim Arms that had prevented them from becoming the sole provider to the Commonwealth Armed Forces.
The control panel for the door hissed and the locking mechanism clanked as it disengaged.
Cagliari grinned.
"We’re in."
"I will lead with my commandos," said Elgrapharr.
There was a protest forming on her lips, but Cagliari managed to swallow it. The icaran troops were better trained to deal with anything that might be waiting for them. She already had few enough pilots, so losing even one would be a huge blow. So instead of arguing, she nodded, and waved over her pilots while the icaran commandos prepared to enter the hanger.
"Stay behind the commandos," she said, drawing her pistol. "But be ready to defend yourself, just in case."
There were nods all around as the other nine pilots drew their weapons as well.
As the door slid open, Cagliari heard a whirring sound that didn't seem to be coming from the door mechanism, and then Elgraphaar fired two rapid shots from his assault rifle into something just inside. The remains of an ASD, still smoking and sparking, dropped across the hatchway and one of the icarans kicked it aside.
"If these automatons are able to communicate with each other," said Elgraphaar. "We can assume others are on their way."
The commandos filed in, weapons ready, and Cagliari gripped her sidearm a little tighter as she followed.
She heard the gunshots before she saw anything. Heard the ping of a projectile ricochet off icaran armour. Then she saw three more ASD units sprinting across the hangar to join the two that had already taken up firing position.
Elgraphaar dropped to one knee, one of his commandos following suit as two others took up standing positions behind them. They fired in pairs and in perfect sequence, one high and one low, taking out the two nearest opponents before the other three could join the fight.
Raising her pistol in unsteady hands, Cagliari fired a shot toward the remaining three robots, who were now close enough to fire back. Her shot went wide—horribly wide—but gained the attention of one of the ASDs. It raised its weapon and fired at her, but suddenly there was an armoured commando between them and a split second after she heard the bullet ping off the icaran's chest plate, she heard the boom of an aoran, followed by several others.
And then everyone seemed to relax.
"Clear," said one of the icarans.
It had all happened very quickly and Cagliari, wiping the sweat off her brow with the back of her hand, couldn’t have been happier to holster her weapon.
"Okay," she said, taking a deep, shaky breath. "Okay... that was interesting."
"These drones have cameras," said Elgrapharr, nudging the remains of an ASD unit with his toe. "Destroy all of them."
He fired three times into the unit’s head, turning it into a smoldering pile of scrap. The rest of his commandos followed suit as Cagliari turned away. And caught sight of her goal.
Sitting in the hangar, bathed in light from the overhead floods, was a line of Argentavis fighters: black hulls gleaming, wings folded at their sides as if they were the great birds after which they’d been named, their flock at rest.
She stepped up to the nearest of the fighters and, pulling off her gloves, gently stroked its nose. A smile spread across her face as she felt the cool composite beneath her fingertips.
"Oh, you pretty bird... you pretty, pretty bird..."
Wiping away the tears forming in her eyes, Cagliari forced herself to turn away from the fighter and address her pilots.
"Check on the status of the other fighters and see how many are still loaded in those cargo haulers," she said. "Gregson and Wade will pilot the haulers, the remaining eight of us will pilot individual fighters."
As the others ran off to follow the order, Cagliari tethered the Argentavis to her tablet and activated the cockpit access. In the fighter's underside, a hatch hissed open, an armature lowering a reclined chair to the hangar bay floor. The armature had barely stopped moving before Cagliari had dropped into the seat and, after donning her helmet, had begun tapping a new sequence of commands into her tablet. The armature retracted, lifting Cagliari into the belly of the Argentavis and plunging her into total blackness.
A second later, the fighter’s holographic screens blinked to life, revealing the view directly in front of it in complete clarity. The armature slid Cagliari forward to the optimum position for her height and weight.
"Well done, pretty bird," she murmured. "Now let’s get a full view."
Hard-docking her tablet to the mount directly above her, Cagliari activated what the design team had officially named the UHUD – short for Universal Heads-Up Display – but which Cagliari had always called world-view. Using advanced camera technology based on a type of icaran sensor array and tying it to the holographic sandbox technology already employed in most Commonwealth Navy ships, the designers had created the UHUD, allowing them to cast aside the old notion of a ‘cockpit’ and thus eliminate a clear weak point in every Starfighter. Instead of seeing space through a clear canopy, the pilot of an Argentavis was completely enveloped by a holographic display of their surroundings. Anywhere they looked, they could see what was happening.
Inside the Argentavis, Cagliari laughed as the entire hangar popped into existence around her.
Before she could request check-in with the rest of the pilots, her external comms crackled to life, the tethering of her tablet automatically routing all communications to the headset in her helmet.
"This is Captain Singh. What is that status of the operation?"
"Captain Singh, this is Cagliari. We have the fighters in our possession – we’re just running tests and getting everything ready."
"We are running out of time," said Singh. "Information has just been passed along that the Adirondack and the HMAS Newcastle left Thor’s Hammer on a direct course for Duster’s Range one hour ago."
"Shit."
"ATC Castle is apparently aware the alert was a ruse," said Elgrapharr.
"All right everyone," said Cagliari. "We need to be airborne ASAP. Elgrapharr, get your team back to the shuttle and make sure you pick up Sigurdsson on the way – we can take this from here."
"Understood."
She watched as Elgrapharr rounded up his commandos and they headed out of the hangar. This was it. This was the moment she’d been living for for the last... well, she supposed she’d been living for this moment since the ril-galas destroyed her concept of a life, but this moment specifically – sitting in the cockpit of an Argentavis – since she’d learned about the treachery of Bianca Upshaw and her cronies.
"Okay Cags, this is it," she said to no one but herself.
"Please repeat," said Daxma, one of the better icaran pilots Cagliari had hired.
"Uh, nothing, just...," she said, stumbling for a moment, and then slowly grinning. "Outlaw Squadron check in."
She almost giggled. That line had been repeating in her head non-stop for months, though it had taken her some time to settle on the simple name of Outlaw Squadron. At times it had been Argentavis Squadron, but that had seemed too cumbersome. Same with Blackguard Squadron – though it was wholly appropriate. Once she'd even considered Salt Squadron, given how downright pissy she'd been about being sidelined. But in the end, Cagliari had settled on Outlaw, because she felt like if they could manage to pull this off, they'd be a little like Robin Hood—robbing from the rich ATC Castle and giving to the poor war effort.
As the remaining nine pilots in Outlaw Squadron, including the two powering up the haulers, checked in, Cagliari took a deep breath.
"Outlaw Squadron, power up engines," she said. "And prepare to take flight."
As her engines cycled up, the wings of Cagliari’s fighter unfolded, stretching out to their full fourteen metre span, and the fighter lifted off the ground.
"Weapons free as soon as we break atmo," she said, maneuvering the fighter toward the now-open hangar doors, her seat armature keeping her seat gyroscopically stabilized. "We have ATC Castle incoming and I want those haulers defended."
Despite how she felt inside, she didn’t smile as her ship slowly glided out of the hangar, the clean lines and metallic edges of the facility giving way to yellowish crags of Duster’s Range. The joy of once again flying an Argentavis – of having Outlaw Squadron a reality rather than a pipe dream – was still there, but it had been pushed down a layer, beneath the knowledge that she was now responsible for not only keeping her squadron alive, but for leading them into battle. For ensuring they could make a difference, just as she’d promised Radko.
"Azrael’s Tear, this is Cags," she said, automatically reverting to the nickname she’d earned as a test pilot. "Outlaw Squadron is taking wing."
And she hammered her thrusters full power, swooping up toward the stars in a double barrel roll, the rest of Outlaw Squadron close behind.