A brilliant flower of crimson energy blossomed outside the window, and the shockwave rocked the cockpit when it hit, slamming its lone occupant violently against her seat restraints. A lightening-quick countermaneuver turned the tables however, and a devastating barrage of tightly-controlled quantum effects reduced yet another opponent to glittering spacedust.
Commander Lee Carter had never felt so alive, and the bruises from being yanked around in her harness were a painful testament. She gave her neurohelmet the mental command to open a broadcast channel and spoke into the voice pickup. "Close, but no cigar. Better luck next time, Max."
Max's unflappable voice came back over the comm-link. "You're assuming I haven't been missing you on purpose, Commander."
Carter chuckled silently to herself. Max was the best marksman among them-now that Carter thought about it, Max probably had been intentionally going easy on her. Even so, the near-misses had been very close indeed, and even though they were only using practice ordinance, the shocks had been enough to rattle her teeth. She clicked her microphone back on and said, "All right, everyone. Target practice is over. Form up and follow me."
A chorus of ayes came across the comm, and five sleek starfighters converged into a standard vic formation, Carter's Griffin Banshee at the apex, flanked by Max and Alex in the Basilisk and Manticore on the left, Sam and Jo in the Wyvern and Chimera on the right. Neuro-circuitry synced and all five planes burned at full impulse toward their next training objective.
After Captain Mallory had reactivated Banshee Squadron a few weeks ago, Carter had lost no time getting her crew back up to fighting trim. This was only the latest exercise intended to shake the bugs out of their atrophied flying skills. Well, everyone's flying skills atrophied except for Max's, that is, thought Carter, wincing as she rubbed the bruises caused by her close encounter with Max's gunnery.
Two short hours later, during which time the team practiced various tight formations and gray mode procedures, the Banshees arrived in the New Canada system's Main Asteroid Belt.
"All right, kids," said Carter over the comm. "Time to play crack-the-whip!" Without further warning, she slammed the throttle all the way forward and rocketed away into the asteroids. The acceleration gauge in her HUD read 25 gees, more than enough to kill, but with the inertial dampers working full power she felt only a mild discomfort. She turned down the AG field a little-it gave her more of a feeling of 'flying by the seat of her pants'.
Behind her, her four wingmates sped after her, and for the next couple of hours they zipped and dodged in and out among the crowded asteroids of the Belt, sometimes with Carter in the lead, sometimes with one of the others else temporarily taking over. It became a game to them to see who could come the closest to the really big ones. Sam, with her cybernetically-enhanced hand-eye coordination, won that contest hands down, actually nicking a pebble off a mountain-sized asteroid with her right wingtip.
Finally, all out of breath from the prolonged exertion, Carter's voice crackled across the comm again. "Hats off to Sam for that last maneuver. And if I ever see you pull a stunt like that again, I'll ground you for a year, Lieutenant!"
"Yes, ma'am," replied Sam timidly, but Carter could hear the triumphant smile in her voice.
"And now for the moment of truth," said Carter, "when we find out if Alex's mechanic lessons have been sinking in."
"We're doomed," commented Jo's voice.
"Bite me!" retorted Alex jokingly. She'd spent the last month learning every microscopic detail of their Banshee fighters under Max's torturous tutelage, and wasn't about to let Jo get away with any wisecracks about her workmanship.
"Everybody quiet and line up," ordered Carter. "On my mark, initiate Warp Burst. Target-sector 2112-warp 30!"
"Uh... Boss...," began Max.
"I know what you're going to say, Max."
Max said it anyway. "If something does go wrong-"
"It won't!" countered Alex resolutely. "I stand by my engines!"
"If something does go wrong with the warp burst," repeated Max, "it'll take us a month to crawl back from Sector 2112 on ordinary engines. You're taking us practically to the borders of the old Cardassian Empire!"
"Cardassia?!? Homesick for your old wartime stomping grounds?" jibed Jo. "Or are you using this as an excuse to drop in at Quark's for a drink..."
"You think we'll have time?" asked Alex, clearly enthusiastic about the idea.
"They make the best Black Holes this side of the Mutara Nebula there," said Sam, joining in the discussion.
"Naw... You're thinking of Snark's Bar on Deep Space 5," corrected Max.
"You sure?" Jo again. "I heard that Snark's closed two years ago when someone actually got sucked into one of their Black Holes."
"Really?" asked Alex incredulously.
"Oh you bet!" replied Jo. "The density of the Antarean malt reached critical mass and imploded, and sucked the poor guy in right through the straw, shoes and all!"
"That's nothing! I heard-"
"Will everyone please shut up!" cried Carter in exasperation. Sometimes these idiotic discussions really drove her nuts, especially since they were doing it on purpose just to bug her. She decided not to give anyone time to come up with yet another irrelevant digression. Slaving the other four fighters' controls to hers, she initiated the warp burst without further warning.
Jo's frantic pleas to wait a sec because she wasn't ready went unheeded, and five silver darts flashed away in a magnificent rainbow explosion of warp particles leaving only the silent rocks of the asteroid belt.
Fifteen seconds later, their quantum capacitors drained, five starfighters blasted back into normal spacetime nearly a hundred lightyears from their previous position. The Briar Patch was far behind them, reduced by incredible distance and intervening dust clouds to a barely-discernable orange shimmer, while before them lay the seething turmoil of the Cardassian Badlands.
Immediately upon emerging from their warp burst, Carter was on the comm. "Sound off by the numbers," she ordered.
"Banshee Two reporting all systems go," replied Max.
"Banshee Three. All green," recited Sam.
"Banshee Four, ready for more!" called Jo.
"Banshee Five still alive," quipped Alex.
Carter rolled her eyes. She'd have to keep a close eye on Alex. The kid was becoming more and more like Jo with the wisecracks, and one Jo was enough! "All right," she said to everyone. Start recharging your capacitors for the return jump. Meanwhile, go to gray mode, just in case. We're next door to the Badlands after all and I don't want to get jumped by leftover Maquis or Cardassian privateers. Jo, start a passive scan of the area. Alex, check our Burst systems. Sam, monitor communications. Max, you're with me."
Another chorus of ayes answered her orders, and she and Max jetted off, securing their perimeter. It took a YF-6100 Banshee starfighter twenty full minutes to recharge its quantum capacitor after a warp burst maneuver, during which time it was relatively helpless, hence all the precautionary measures. And it didn't take more than a few seconds for their scrutiny to uncover a potential threat in the immediate area.
"Commander, I'm picking up a very faint signal," said Sam.
"Anything we need to be interested in?" asked Carter.
"Or anything that looks like it's interested in us?" amended Max.
There was a long pause, until Carter finally prodded for an answer. "Sam, talk to me."
"I... I'm not sure what I have here, Commander. Jo?"
"I'm on it," came back Jo's quick response. The squad's computer genius bent her considerable intellect to the task, but the only thing that came of it was another long pause. After another prodding from Carter and then a less-subtle one from Max, she reported her findings. "It's definitely a Federation communication signal," she said, "but I'm having a hard time untangling it from all the static from the Badlands. I think it's a distress call though."
"Distress call? From who?" asked Carter.
"From whom," corrected Max.
"That's the unbelievable part," answered Jo, ignoring the bad grammar.
"You mean more unbelievable than us just happening to stumble across a Federation distress signal the second we come out of subspace deep in the heart of former enemy territory?" asked Alex.
"Definitely. I've identified the prefix code of the ship that's sending the signal. It was lost in these parts more than ten years ago."
"Well? Who is it?" demanded Carter.
"I...," began Jo, but her voice cracked and faltered. She cleared her throat and delivered her impossible conclusion. "The code belongs to NCC-6100-the Sphinx, piloted by Commander Jazz Phoenix!"
Jazz Phoenix, legendary original commander of Banshee Squadron before Lee Carter had donned the mantle of leadership-lost in a pitched battle with a dozen Jem'Hadar battle bugs and presumed dead these last twelve years. Now found after all this time? What had happened, and where has she been in the intervening decade? These questions and many others raced through Carter's mind on hearing the news.
The four senior Banshee members were all equally stunned by the turn of events. The loss of Jazz ten years ago had been a terrible blow to their team-they had all been fiercely loyal to the dynamic woman. Only Alex, never having met Jazz, remained unaffected. "Uh... Am I missing something?" she asked.
Carter came back on the comm-link. "Sam, get a fix on the signal. Jo, plot us a direct course. On my signal, execute-maximum impulse!"