Orbital by bill zhao copyright 2017 Bill Zhao Table of Contents act one (earth)

Derek looked back down at the display. A trail of red was behind the
dot of white. Another white dot stood parallel to theirs. The Chorus,
only not many red dots plagued that ship. They know which one
Derek’s on.
A Captain stood and called to the Admiral “commencing afterburners
in one minute!” Cheng nodded then turned back to his displays. After
pressing a few keys, all the screens changed to black. But Derek soon

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realised that this wasn’t the cold blackness of turning a monitor off, but
that of space. The stars came into view and there, Derek saw what
seemed to be the outside of the ship.
“
Those are helmet cam feeds of the demoli on soldiers we sent out.
They’re just finishing their job. The le most screen showed a shaky image
of about a dozen soldiers retrea ng back into their airlocks while the
centre monitor showed that all too familiar first person view of some
soldier holding an overly big weapon.
Yeylun commented “Staff Sergeant… Blane here is holding one of our
new additions. The XN-33 MSAM. Pure anti-aircraft plasma weaponry.
I’ve been training to hold one of those properly and lemme tell you, it’s
not the weight you gotta worry about in space. Models like this can
leave plasma discharge. We’ve had dozens of burns in EVA suits
because of this, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t blow the shit out of a
fighter craft.”
Derek turned strangely to the Vice Admiral. It seems like her place is
on the bridge too. Or with weapons.
The third screen’s entertainment was the soldier looking down at his
wrist. A timer showed on the display. 18 Seconds.
“
My men know that in situa ons like these, deadlines have to be met. We
leave with or without them. One life is not worth that of a fleet.