Buzzard

[Buzzard]

[2191]

Rick Mandel is a pilot of a space tug in the Jovian Union, with a man named Yang Chongzhi as his copilot.  Eventually, the Union rebels assassinate the governing body of the Jovian Union, they turn against the POTERRA (Planets of Terra), which governs all colonized bodies in the solar system out to Saturn. They are then conscripted as a fighter pilot.  

 

During training, Rick meets his future flight master, Flight Master Hotchkiss.  Hotchkiss is a tall, lanky old man with toned, veined muscles running down his long extremities.  His sunken-in face and eyes put an air of severity about him, and his height gives him a command of the room not seen often in the general populace.  Said populace grew up on the Tannhauser Ring, a large, ring-shaped space station with artificial gravity created by the rotation of the torus-shaped main hull.  The gravity there is comparable to Earth's.  Hotchkiss, however, grew up on Ganymede, making him a Ganymedi.  The low gravity of Ganymede leads to tall, spindly people with weak muscles, but with acute nerves and a quick mind.

 

During training on the Tannhauser, he gets to know Yang better, and they become greater friends.  The quick, 3-week training regiment is held by Flight Master Hotchkiss, and he is a fierce but fair leader.  After the regiment, they are given their new ships. They are to pilot the Grumman F990F "Buzzard" starfighter.  It is a single-stage-to-orbit craft, which flies on its triangular "lifting wing" design in-atmosphere, and navigates in zero-g by extending eight struts from the top and bottom of the craft, with attitude-adjustment jets on the ends of the struts.  They're all left unpainted, leaving a very utilitarian-looking craft.  

 

He flies two sorties with Yang, and destroys a few POTERRA freighters and several fighters by Hotchkiss' order.  During the destruction of a freighter in a later sortie, he saw men, women, and children flying out of a hole ripped out by one of his ship's guns.  They got ripped to pieces, then froze and drifted off into the cold, airless, endless sky he sails so comfortably in his Buzzard.  This disturbed the simple space-tug pilot, Hotchkiss must have known that it was a space liner.  This disturbing incident gave him an idea that he puts into action once a Hermian dreadnaught comes on the radar.

 

Hermian dreadnaughts are large, bullet-shaped war rockets bristling with magnetic acceleration guns, standard cannons and machine guns, lasers, and a quad-barreled nuclear launcher on the tip.  The launcher can project nuclear warheads out thousands of miles before exploding, destroying everything around them.  

 

Rick and Yang realized that their destruction of the freighters and fighters gave the Hermians a perfect, clean target for their nuclear cannon.  Thinking on their feet, they decide to run into an interception course with the dreadnought.  They put on their thrusters full blast and take off for the ship, 300 miles away.  Once they get visual confirmation of the dreadnought, they are mentally shaken by a nuclear blast behind them, one that undoubtedly destroyed their mothership and fellow pilots.  They see the dreadnought and maneuver closer, and closer, and closer, until they can read the text on the side of the ship. At this point, Rick and Yang act almost as one, and one nods to the other to hail the dreadnaught.  

 

Rick pleads with the ship, pleading to be led on board, and saying how they wish to change sides.  The ship doesn't respond, after hailing over and over again.  A few moments pass before Rick gets an idea.  Him and Yang will depressurize the cabin, and while in their pressure suits, jump from their ship to the dreadnaught.

 

Just as they prepare to jump, the dreadnaught hails back and gives them permission to dock.

 

They dock and leave the Buzzard behind, because they've got to initiate a vicious engine burn to get where they want to go, which is Saturn.  Both Rick and Yang place their hands above their heads, and empty their pockets.

 

The Hermians immediately take them captive at gunpoint, and interrogate them on the spot.

 

They get interrogated, but they don't know anything, so they're thrown the ship's brig and given two guards, one male, one female.  Rick eventually, after several hours of just chatting with the female guard, named Naomi, he breaks down in front of her.  This is after he was acting like a total hard-ass through the whole situation, so she takes this time to really get to know him, since she's fascinated with the other faction in this civil war.  He says some things that she relates to, such as "I studied to be a goddamn marine biologist, then I end up working in a tug building the Tannhauser" and "I should be on Europa looking at fucking fish, not killing people".  She sees good in him, and lets him (and Yang) go and gives them back their gear.

 

Naomi takes them both back to her room in the ship's torus to hide him until she can get his ship primed to depart.  After discussing what they should do, they come to the conclusion that leaving and heading back to the Tannhauser is the best course of action.  They then head out into the torus and try to make it to where the Buzzard is docked, but Yang takes his pistol and blasts at the walls and ceiling in hopes of depressurizing the cabin and ripping the ship apart.

 

 Rick takes his gun and aims it at Yang, and tells him to drop his gun.  Before Rick can say anything, Yang says something along the lines of "They said you wouldn't see the good we're doing.  This confederacy will bring fairness to this fascist system!  Why couldn't you have ju-" Rick shoots Yang, then is caught by the ship's security along with Naomi.  The head of security explains that Naomi, for letting prisoners of war free, is guilty of treason, and that Rick is guilty of being a Confederate.

 

Rick raises his gun again, at the head of security's face, and says that they're both leaving, and they won't cause any more trouble.  Naomi gets grabbed by one of the security guards, and Rick shoots the head of security.

 

He quickly aims his pistol at the guard holding Naomi, which stops him from shooting her. He's persuaded by Naomi to just leave, and let this happen. That there's no way to save her now.  Naomi bursts from out of the guard's grip, Rick shoots the guard, Naomi grabs Rick, and they both head for the airlock where the Buzzard is docked, and she gives him a kiss (either to give him the courage to go on, or out of affection. That is up to the viewer to decide) before throwing him in the Buzzard.  In the background in the ship, we see figures running towards Naomi.

 

Through the open airlock doors, he sees her get shot for treason by the ship's captain, and decides to haul ass away from the dreadnought.  

 

At this point, they're above Saturn's moon Titan.  Rick is quickly shot down by the dreadnaught and crashes on Titan.  He leaves his fatally damaged ship, and as he freezes to death, everything goes white, and through the mists of the afterlife he sees Naomi, who hugs him as Luis Bacalov's Parte Prima plays in synchronization with the whole scene.

 

Last shot is of his near-dead, convulsing body a few feet away from the nose of his ship.