5th Septermber, 3028
Ariel Spector is a short, bookish looking sort of fellow who seems out of place walking around Fiddler's Green, he looks and acts as if he would be more comfortable buried behind a stack of books in the corner of a research library, but the more you pay attention to him the more things you notice. He is always on the move, his head constantly twitches back and forth, his hands are always manipulating something, usually a kroner coin he flips between his fingers effortlessly. Spector is an aerospace pilot, and the newest officer to the Furious Angels, and when he's not flying his Stingray on orbital patrol he's putting one of the militia airplanes through it's paces. I recently had the opportunity to take a check flight with him, and I have to say it was the most thrilling, dangerous thing I have ever undertaken. And I say that as a person whose been under fire recently.
Brian McEuen: So, can you give me a little background about yourself?
Ariel Spector: I grew up in Novosibirsk, Russia, on Terra. My father was a pilot, he flew for the forestry department, sort of an eye in the sky to keep an eye out for forest fires. He flew everything, VTOL's to Transports, when he wasn't spotting he was flying tanker planes, and a few times he volunteered to fight on the ground as well.
Brian McEuen: Sounds...well, dangerous.
Spector: It takes a special type of person to jump out of an aircraft, but to jump out of an aircraft into a piece of terrain that's on fire? That takes a big pair...
McEuen: And your mother?
Spector: A biologist. She wasn't to fond of what dad did, but she loved him, and me. She was always afraid when dad went up, according to her he strapped my carrier into the seat when I was six months old, in a glider. Nothing to serious or taxing, just floating on the wind. Dad says it was the quietest I'd been since I was born. And when I used to get mad or upset he's pick me up and twirl me around, like we were flying...
McEuen: So it's been in your blood...
Spector <smiling>: Yes
McEuen: So how did you end up where you are today?
Spector: Poor choices and good fortune. <He laughs> Flying was the only think I liked, that I loved. I didn't care about school to much. I was a D Student in most things not related to flying, and the stuff that was necessary to flying just came so easily...I can do differential geometry in my head, but actually proving it on paper? No, I started the hard way, I joined the Forestry Service when I was 16, started flying that year. I was happy, and then a friend of mine at Federated Boeing took me on a check ride in an ASF trainer, and I was stumped. Here was something with wings I couldn't fly as easy as I breathed.
McEuen: Must have been difficult.
Spector: Hell no, it was a great challenge. In some ways what I had done the previous four years helped, your fighting a forest fire flying in a plane so heavy with water it's barely able to stay airborne, and your looking for hotspots, anticipating updrafts, figuring out what the plane is going to do when you dump all those tons of water...flying in space, it was sort of the same thing. In space, it's all relative, and no, that's not a joke.
McEuen: I'll be honest, I have very little experience in space, just interplanetary hops and thew few dropship rides I have.
Spector: That's understandable, and the bigger problem is that society as a whole has done nothing but glamorize what goes on in space. It's cold, its vacuum, it's instant death if you screw something up. You know what bugs me the most when I watch some of the crap they broadcast? Sound. There's no sound in space, you don't hear the explosions, you feel them, you don;t hear the roar of your engines, you feel it beneath your seat. You feel the thud of the autocannon mechanism as it loads, and you can tell whether or not its fired by the way it feels when you squeeze the trigger, the way the airframe shudders when it takes a hit or when the missile launcher freezes. It's all gut feeling and instinct...
McEuen: Sounds hair raising. No pun intended.
Spector: It's the scariest thing I know. We used to mock dogfight all the time, back in Russia, these internal combustion engine monoplanes that were just tough as all get out, pulling 10 and 11g maneuvers without G suits
McEuen: G Suit?
Spector: Its essentially a pair of leggings you wear, that inflate with air, they squeeze your lower extremities during High G maneuvers, force the blood to stay where it's needed, so you don't pass out?
McEuen: And your doing 10G maneuvers without them?
Spector: Well, it's not bragging, but yeah. You develop your core muscles and leg muscles, tense them during the high g maneuvers, and it keeps the blood flowing.
McEuen: Why not wear the G suit?
Spector: Well, two reasons really. Some aircraft the rapid inflation and deflation will screw the stick up, especially if its old school between the knees, as opposed to some of the HOTAS controls you see out there, The other is in soace, the leggings dull what I feel, like they act like a pair of earmuff's as it were. And I hate not knowing whats going on with the plane.
McEuen: That sounds dangerous.
Spector <snorts> Your in a 10 meter long craft armed to the teeth surrounded by armor on top of a nuclear reactor that could go make your life interesting and short in a battle if the magic BB finds you. Trust me, no G suit is somewhere near the bottom on my list of worries. We only pulled 5 or 6g's earlier today, I wanted to go easy on you.
I remember the three vomit bags I filled, and had a fleeting though that I would never like to see what Ariel thought was Hard.
McEuen: So whats on the top of the list?
Spector: The Person on the other stick. You have to assume, all things being equal until you know otherwise, they are at least as good a pilot as you are, that they know what they are doing, but that can be a trap. Combat is already a muddled mess, but when it's happening at 5g's in Near planet orbit in 3 dimensions, if your not ready for it your brain will say Thanks, but no thanks and check out on you...But thats not the hardest part to overcome.
McEuen: What is?
Spector: The hardest part in all of that is anticipating your opponent while not buying into your own skills to much. Whats he going to do, how am I going to counter it, what am I going to do that lets me get a shot...and in space, it's harder, because it can be so much faster. My biggest fear is a good stick who knows what he's doing in a plane that your normally wouldn't consider as big threat. But if your not careful, you can outthink yourself again, as in If he knows that I know that he knows I am going to do this because he;s going to that so He's going to do that instead so I will counter with this... It's like trying to play both sides of the chessboard. At some point you stop acting and start over-thinking, and eventually your brain says thanks, but no thanks, I have a pitcher of Margaritas calling me at Haifa...
McEuen: So, to drag this back on tangent...
Spector: Sorry, I get a little carried away talking about this sort of stuff. If I start doing maneuvers with my hands, stand back <laughs>. Anyways, I spent 18 months at Fed-Boeing, as a test pilot of sorts. Then my friend got an offer from the 12th Vegan, and I went with him.
McEuen: That was when?
Spector: 3020. And it was eye opening. I spent 9 months in flight school, I didn't have a formal military education of any kind, I sort of backdoored my way into a combat slot.
McEuen: Why?
Spector: You know, I've asked myself that a lot. Especially after my first combat...
McEuen: Any ideas?
Spector: Oh, its definitely Hubris of a sort. Pride, and a little bit of smug arrogance...well, maybe a lot of smug arrogance. It's your typical Alpha Male sort of thing, you think you're good, you know you're good, you want to go out and prove it. That's not the measure of what you are though.
McEuen: And what do you think is?
Spector: My first CAP patrol was uneventful, we dodged a couple of wayward satellites. We were on a raiding mission over Yangtze, the dropships were boosting off, and that's when the planetary ASF decides to join the fray. It was totally not what I was expecting. You think your ready for it and your not...
Spector goes silent for a moment. We have been walking through Fiddlers Green, near one of the parks on the fringe, and he stops to look at the pond in the center of the park. It is a quiet, the pond is still, and I notice that Ariel is still as well. I have to admit, it's unnerving.
Spector: When I was 19, it was the driest summer in 20 years, and the forests were tinderboxes, there was a ton of undergrowth as well, and the first summer storm that came through was literally striking a match on a keg of powder. Were talking trees 20 and 30 meters high on fire, flames reaching 30 meters beyond the top, the heat was intense. You know flame moves faster uphill than downhill, and that it will get so hot, so powerful, it will literally pull the air in from around it, create a vacuum so that other air rushes in, and creates a self perpetuating monster, a firestorm of epic proportions sometimes. Fire, it's a living, breathing thing, you watch it long enough, you see how it acts, how it moves, where it want to go. Anyways, I'm circling above it all, watching the guys make their runs, trying to slow this monster down, and Kiril, my dads best friend, I guy I've flown with many times, goes on his run, and he missed something. I saw it from 5 thousand feet, my dad saw it, heck, even Kiril saw it. A line that looked good was now no good, the wind shifted, the fire shifted, all of the sudden Kiril is flying through the flame and exploding trees, but there's a way out. I see it, and I radio to Kiril, but he doesn't answer, maybe the heat has done something to his radio, or to Kiril...anyways, I am circling and I just watch as Kiril's plane flies this slow and low lazy line, and the trees in front of him explode, the flames 40, 50 meters in the sky, and Kiril flies into it, and he doesn't come out. A man who had close to 30 seasons in the service, he just froze, and he didn't recover. We all talked about it afterwards, and we all agreed it was something we never wanted to happen to us. I promised myself it would never happen to me...and a few years later, there I am, in my Centurion, flying on Dmitry's wing, and I get hit. I mean, I not only get hit, this Autocannon round hits my cockpit on the side canopy, travels a foot in front of my nose, and out the other side of the canopy. If that doesn't make you re-prioritize your life, nothing will...but anyhow, I froze, throttle stuck on 80 percent, straight line flying, gaining speed...By the time David's yelling jolted me out of whatever funk I was in the plane was close to falling apart from the acceleration stress, it took quite a bit of nursing to get back to the dropship.
McEuen: Was that the closest you came to...
Spector: Packing it in? No. I actually had to eject at Galtor...that was an interesting time...
McEuen: How so?
Spector: End of September, the campaign was winding down. Everyone new it, the cease fire was coming. Bremond DMM had the snakes on the run, they were fighting a rearguard. We had high level CAP that day, and one minute the sky is clear, the next minute this Leopard shoots by, and were surrounded by Snakes fighters. The battle transitions to space, and it's the most intense 20 minutes I've ever been in. I'm trying to get on this Chippewa's six when all the sudden the Centurion just starts to fall apart around me, alarm lights going off, the frame is literally shaking itself to pieces, I can feel it in my bones, so I reach down and punch out.
McEuen: In the middle of a battle? That had to be interesting.
Spector: To be honest I was undergoing a variety of emotions. One was rage, at getting shot out of the plane. And I was scared, lets be honest in such an environment you didn't want to be in the way. But honestly, after a few minutes, it was just calming.
McEuen: Calming?
Spector: I know, right? Last thing you'd expect...but look, you ever go swimming when you were a kid?"
McEuen: Sure.
Spector: Remember sometimes you'd go to a quiet part of the pool, or wherever, and you would just kind of fall back, and relax, and let yourself float, and after a few, it's like it was just you, floating there, all alone in the world...
McEuen: Yeah, I remember that.
Spector: That's what microgravity is like. If you relax, your body automatically assumes the Dead Mans float posture, and your just there, the only thing you hear is the sound of your voice in the pressure suit and your own thoughts, especially if you don;t have a radio, like I didn't...it was...interesting to try and watch the battle, you couldn't move to much or you risk spinning out of control...I saw that Leopard go streaking by, about 10 clicks away...then maybe half hour after that the rescue shuttle picked me up. That was the best half hour of my life in some ways...
McEuen: So how did you end up here with the Angels?
Spector: There were a few of us, after Galtor, had the bug, was looking for something more, direct I suppose you could say. Garrison is hard for me, especially then, the 12th was rest and refit, and check flights and that was about it. Heard through the grapevine that the Hanseatic League was looking to hire Aerojocks, and there was a unit forming at Galatea that was going to take up a contract with them. Lot of time in space, protecting the convoys as they recharged. So I joined up, became part of Richards Flying Circus...that was interesting.
McEuen: A lot of action?
Spector: Enough, but to be honest, Dave Richards wasn't that great a stick, and whatever he lacked in piloting skills certainly didn't get passed on to his admin and contract skills. It seemed each contract we signed we made less money, paid more for parts, and fell deeper in the hole. We went from 18 pilots and 3 leopards to 12 pilots and 1 Leopard, and we had to "rent" the other ytransport during contract, and we were barely breaking even. I was essentially acting as the de facto CO of the unit, and I was doing OK, but the Flying Circus was becoming....dangerous. So, Etien and a couple of other guys, they come to me and say "We're leaving, come with us." And it wasn't a hard choice.
McEuen: That seems to be a common story these days.
Spector: Nature of the beast I suppose. So anyway, our employer gets mad that were leaving, declares us in breach, seizes our aircraft, and tells us to be on our merry way. Six Months later, we're on Galatea advertising, new unit, no dropship, no MRBC history because everything in Hansa was done through them...and this Louis Berthier guy corners me in a bar one night and talks my ear off about the unit he's part of, and the people he's with, sounded intriguing. Our only other real offer was from Waco, and I'll be damned if I have to swear an oath to hate someone before I sign on. Hell, I'm a Russian Jew, we takes our oaths seriously, that nekulturny fool Waco wouldn't know what hit him if I upheld that oath.....anyways, where was I...yeah, so Spector's Spectres took a vote, we joined the Angels...
McEuen: Wait, you said your craft were taken away while in the Hanseatic?"
Spector: Yes...
McEuen: So, where did you guys get the Stingrays your piloting now?
Spector laughs a little, then looks around a little nervously, the kroner coin flipping between his fingers in a practiced rythym.
Spector: I'll make you a deal, off the record here. You ask me again in 3033, and I'll tell you..."
McEuen: Why 3033?
Spector smiles: Statute of Limitations rules in the Hanseatic League.
Just then the sirens all over Fiddlers Green go off. It's not the General Alarm, or the Weather Alarm, but its going off is enough to send personnel scurrying to the closest buildings. Ariel and I are joined by some of the new vehicle recruits from Dalcour., one of whom mentions somethings going to be announced on the tri-vid. A pool quickly starts on weather or not Hanse Davion was caught partying the night before his wedding. Sergeant Grouchy, walk in just as the story starts
"This is Amanda Reiker with Commonwealth Press, Dateline Terra, August 20th, 3028. Hanse Davion, First Prince of the Federated Suns, married Melissa Steiner, heir the Lyran Commonwealth in a ceremony attended by virtually every major leader and politician in the Inner Sphere. While announcement of this...happy event was certainly shocking, the most shocking event of all came at the reception. Cut to a video of the newly married couple , a sword cutting the cake. Melissa Steiner-Davion holds it up, and speaks "Husband, I give you a regiment of Battlemechs and the means to support them in perpetuity."
She feeds the small piece to her new husband, and he eats it in a few quick bites. Smiling, the First Prince reached for his own piece of cake, but hesitated. In his right hand he held the piece of cake, in the other he had lifted up the plate it was one.
Grouchy, Spector, and Leiutenant Enbo, who apparently had arrived a few moments ago, all said within a second of each other: “I have a bad feeling about this...”
"I thank you for the gift beloved. Wife, in honor of our marriage, in addition to this morsel, I give you a vast prize." With a flick of his wrist the doily on the plate fell off, and he held it up for all present to see. "Here my love, I give you the Draconis Combine!"
Noone can cuss like a soldier whose been surprised, and this was no exception. Only Lieutenant Enbo was silent, the rest of the assembly began chattering all at once. The trid cut back to the news announcer.
Grouchy: PIPE DOWN!
The room falls quiet.
"We can confirm at this time that the Federated Suns and Lyran Commonwealth have each launched what can only be a massive Invasion of a long time enemy. We can confirm that the Federated Suns have landed troops on Alderbaran, Liao, Algol, New Hessen, Pleione, Poznan, St. Andre, Shensi, and Styk. Lyran forces have landed on at least 23 planets, including Buckminster, Hyperion, Marfik, New Caledonia, Orestes, Vega, and Wheel. It would appear that the 4th Succession War has begun."
The sirens went off again, this time it was the Alert Siren. Swearing and cussing, every member of the Furious Angels present hustled out to go to their rally point. I didn't have anything better to do, so I grabbed a drink, sat down, and watched the universe fall apart for a couple of hours. - McEuen
