Dione's War Part 1: End of Order

By J.J. Mainor

End of Order documents the final hours of the battle carrier Legacy and her crew as a force of disenfranchised Earth expatriates calling themselves the Vandals wage a final assault to implement their Final Solution on the planet Legacy has sworn to protect.

• Language: English
• Publisher: J.J. Mainor
• Release date: May 29, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310768651

J.J. Mainor

I can talk about my characters and stories far more easily than I can talk about myself. The best way to learn about me is through those stories. Writing primarily science fiction, I enjoy worlds and universes that aren't so black and white. Every story has something to say, and every message is not as straight-forward as it seems. We tend to boil ourselves down and define ourselves according to neat labels, whether by race, gender, political identity, or whatever; and the truth is, we're more complicated than that. I try to write worlds and characters that reflect that complexity and diversity of belief.

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Dione’s War Part 1: End of Order

Copyright 2016 by J.J. Mainor

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Legacy’s Lament

Recriminations

Captain’s Triumph

Legacy’s Lament

Red alert! All hands to stations!

Lieutenant Junior Grade Jack Corbitt dove from his bed, glancing to the chronometer on his nightstand as he slipped his legs through the flight suit and into his shoes waiting on the floor. Ten more minutes and he would have been up anyway. Emergencies never pay mind to the time or to duty shifts. Just like his shower and breakfast, Corbitt had to accept the loss of those ten precious minutes.

A red alert signaled only the most severe emergencies. Every second counted which was why he couldn’t pause to finish dressing. He grabbed a meal bar between his teeth and raced out to the corridor, into a sea of half-dressed officers and crewmen. Each one threw their shirts on or set their belt buckles in a chaotic dance of preparedness.

As a flight officer, Corbitt only had his one-piece flight suit to navigate. His arms entered the sleeves, managing to avoid striking one woman just then darting from her cabin. Then in a smooth movement suggesting plenty of practice in speed dressing, he grasped the zipper and closed the suit.

Reaching the fireman’s pole, he threw his hat onto his head while awaiting his turn. With almost five hundred men and women all rushing off to their duty stations, the lifts were impractical. Ladders at various points throughout the ship made for movement up the decks without waiting for a free car. For downward movement, the fireman’s poles spaced throughout provided the fastest and most thrilling route.

Corbitt wrapped the pole in his elbow and placed it between his feet as he stepped off. It took a bit of skill to stop oneself at the desired deck, but since the flight deck was all the way to the bottom, his only concern was not hitting the floor in a pure free-fall.

The meal bar was consumed on route to the hangar bay, and spying the flight chief, Lieutenant Commander Park, Corbitt raced over with the other flight officers while he stowed the empty wrapper in one of the pockets.

This is it boys and girls, Park boomed out to officers and support staff alike, The Vandals left Mars and are on their way here. You have thirty minutes to get through your pre-flight checks. I want fighter pilots locked in and ready in forty-five. Troop transports, standing by for the Marines in sixty.

Corbitt and his fellow pilots dispersed to their craft. All five of the fleet’s battle carriers carried twenty fighters, five troop transports, a cargo shuttle, the captain’s personal shuttle, and trained pilots for each.

Like the other pilots, Corbitt had his own craft. In a pinch another pilot could take it, but for the most part, each fighter and shuttle had become molded to the specific pilot like a worn glove or a comfortable pair of pants. Officers who never flew never understood how or why, but a pilot could always tell if someone else had been sitting in their cockpit.

A heart split by a lightning bolt with the word hopeless identified Corbitt’s fighter. His aide already had the clipboard, waiting to begin. As the pilot ran through the list of systems, buttons, and displays to check, the lowly Seaman quietly made note on the checklist.

The fighter itself was like a giant dart, long and sleek. The main fuselage was about twelve meters long and only a meter and a half wide. Wings adorned either side, swept back as close as possible to provide stabilization in an atmosphere. It was designed to present as small a face as possible to enemy cannons.

A pair of 50mm lasers adorned the nose, capable of firing short, alternating bursts of superheated light at a rate of two blasts per second each, or a long continuous beam to drill through a difficult target. Beneath each wing hung two high yield missiles. Only a meter long, each one had the punch to destroy a fighter or pierce the hull of the Vandal battleships. The whole package was a smaller, compact version of the carrier’s armory.

Despite being a one-man craft, the fighters carried a second seat behind the pilot. Rarely used, but sometimes a second man would be required on a mission. And since the pilots would suit up into a modified pressure suit prior to launch, the canopy could be opened in space to recover another pilot who had to bail on his or her fighter.

The controls in the cockpit, like those on the bridge, were very tactile. The whole thing could have been a giant touch screen, but the fear of damage to the screen spooked designers into sticking with ancient buttons and levers. The displays though had to stay modern for the sake of practicality. Every read-out projected across the clear canopy so the pilot wouldn’t have to take his eyes from the fight outside to read a warning or line up the sights.

With the pre-flight check finished and everything working perfectly, the Seaman ran off to present the report to his ranking officer, returning moments later with the Lieutenant’s pressure suit.

Think this is it, Sir? his assistant asked, helping Corbitt into his suit. Think the Vandals really mean to strike Earth?

Corbitt knew the man only intended to break the tension between them, but the question was defeatist. No one could afford to think a chance of success stood for those barbarians.

The Vandals are nothing but terrorists, Seaman. We knew it was only a matter of time before they came after Earth, but they haven’t yet encountered the full force of the EDF.

* * *

Commander Sadiq raced onto the bridge fearing the wrath of the Captain. A stop in the armory delayed his coming, but it would not spare him from a dressing down over being the last to report.

In unison, the other officers turned anxiously in his direction, as if they had been trained to fear the sound of the door, but with a collective sigh of relief they returned to their stations. With the red alert, Sadiq would have expected his humiliation to last a mere second before work intruded.

The Legacy, however, seemed to operate like no other ship he had served on before. Never in his years of service had the Commander ever dreaded being on the bridge. He had as much disdain for the Captain as the Captain had for his men. When he brought himself to look on the captain’s chair and face the tongue lashing he expected, his eyes met with neither surprise nor relief – nor did they meet the Captain.

Where is Captain Petron?

A nervous silence hung in the air as each of the officers around him pretended to focus too much on their work to hear his request. In truth, there wasn’t one man or woman on that bridge who wanted the responsibility for calling out their Captain’s fault; and in truth, Sadiq didn’t need anyone to answer him.

He reached across the armrest and punched a direct line to Petron’s cabin on the intercom. Captain Petron, you are needed on the bridge.

* * *

Captain Robin Petron stirred beneath his blanket, trying to