A Pale Dawn
Page 34
“Like I said, you are now provisional members of the Varangian Guard. We’ve just been given our first mission, and you can look at it as a graduation exercise. We’re going to go capture some traitors to the planet. If you do what you’re told and perform well, you will be made full members of the Guard, with all the privileges and benefits thereof. Fail to perform as expected, and you will be sent back to your mommies and daddies. Am I clear?”
“Sir, yes, sir!” the privates thundered, having been well-conditioned to this type of question.
“Good,” Hoke said. “Get your gear together. The mission briefing starts in five minutes.”
* * *
As Hanson walked out the door of the squad bay toward the briefing room, a tall figure detached itself from the building and came to walk alongside her. She suppressed a shudder as she realized it was the man who had made her life a living hell for the last few weeks.
“Staff Sergeant Decker,” she muttered. “Come to yell at me once more for old-time’s sake?”
“Aw c’mon, Kayla,” he replied. “You should know that was all just for show. I’m not really like that.”
She raised an eyebrow at him.
“No, really,” he protested. “I’m a good guy. You heard the captain; we were being especially hard on you because we only wanted the best for this company. I already recommended a meritorious promotion for you to private first class; most of us are veterans and you’ll fit right in.”
“Really?”
“Really. And I want us to get along. Especially since you’ll be in my squad.”
“Your squad?”
“Yeah. I’m First Squad leader for Alpha Company’s First Platoon.” He stopped her with a hand on her shoulder, and she turned to face him. “Continuing to yell at you was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I had to make shit up. You’re a great trooper, and I know we’re going to get along well.”
Oh shit, Hanson thought. I see where this is going. “Apology accepted,” she said, before he could ask her out on a date or something equally awkward. “C’mon,” she added, looking at her chrono. “We’re going to be late.”
* * * * *
Chapter Fifteen
EMS Perseus, Approaching Earth Orbit, Sol System
“We are a go for insertion!” Captain Su said over the laser comm.
“We drop in one minute,” Jim replied. “See you in São Paulo, Hargrave.”
“See you on the ground,” Hargrave answered.
They hadn’t talked in person since the argument, and Jim regretted his harsh words. There hadn’t been time to clear things up between them. The planning session had taken most of a day, and then it had been time to prepare for emergence.
Perseus rocked as the crew maneuvered, fighting to stay behind their screen of two cruisers and a frigate. A dozen other combat transports were diving toward Earth’s atmosphere, making it impossible for the enemy to single Perseus out as a priority target. If they’d known it carried seven Raknar, Jim suspected his ship would be the highest priority target in space.
“Time for
“Yes,” Jim agreed. “Akee!”
“Kick ass time,
Jim felt her hands touch his pinplants and his consciousness expanded to the familiar and intoxicating greater self of Jim/Splunk. His individual self knew that six others were doing the same thing only meters away, their seven Raknar moored evenly around the hull of Perseus’ cylindrical structure. To enemy scanners, it would look like a modified dropship carrier, or even a tanker. In seconds, they’d have that illusion violently dispelled.
One by one, the other six joined them in the Raknar battlespace, called Zha Akee by the Dusman. So much more than the Tri-V battlespace he used in a CASPer, it was a completely immersive experience. When he first felt the Zha Akee back in New Warsaw, he almost lost himself completely. He hadn’t thought it was possible to go deeper than Akee. He’d been wrong.
“We can take the whole planet by ourselves!” exulted Mays/Aura, and the rest cheered as one.
“Let’s start with São Paulo,” Jim/Splunk said. “Raknar Corps, on my mark—detach!”
The seven Raknar released their magnetic grapples. Fusion power surged through their beings as Perseus angled away under cover of the Winged Hussars ships. Instantly, a squadron of enemy drones changed vector and shot at the seven mecha. The Raknar swept the drones from space without giving them a thought.
Several thousand kilometers away, a battle raged around one of the orbital defense platforms still in enemy hands. For a second Jim/Splunk thought about taking the group there. Not group, the Fist. Seven Raknar were called a Fist, and if they had two Fists, that was a Star. The bit which was still Jim wondered why this only came to him now. Then he remembered they already had a mission.
“Prepare to drop from orbit,” he said. The group used their thrusters to maneuver. Five enemy cutters dove through a screen of Winged Hussars frigates, losing three of their number as they moved forward, desperately trying to get within weapons range of the Raknar.
“Curran/Dante,” Jim ordered, “neutralize that threat.”
Their Raknar slid up in the formation to where they had a clear view of the two remaining cutters. Over the massive back of the mecha rotated their main gun—the 10-meter-long barrel of a particle accelerator cannon. The cutters both fired their heaviest weapons, dual forward-mounted 50-megawatt lasers. The weapons scored across Curran/Dante with only dulled flashes of dissipated energy. The Raknar’s one-terawatt particle cannon flashed, and the beam worked across both cutters, tearing them apart.
“Let’s go kick some ass,” Jim/Splunk said. “The fight up here is beneath us.”
All seven Raknar fired the fusion torches built into their legs and began the long fall to Earth.
* * *
EMS Pegasus, Approaching Earth Orbit, Sol System
“Squadron of seven cruisers at one-three-three mark two-two. They are attempting to come between the screen and the battleships!” Xander called in the chaotic CIC.
“We’re being overwhelmed by group,” Paka warned.
Alexis examined the Tri-V. Her second in command was correct, the enemy might lack the throw weight of her Hussars, but with Earth at their backs and that one damned firebase still assisting, she was forced to deal with each of their attacks en masse. And when she did, they fell back. Entropy, their admiral was good.
“Send to all ships,” she said. “Break the fleet. Reform into Squadron Formation Tau!”
Paka’s whiskers quivered in concern as she passed on the order. In space, the Hussars main fleet broke into three formations that would remain to fight. The majority of the cruisers and half the frigates stayed with the two battleships as Squadron One, the Egleesius battlecruisers regrouped as Squadron Two, and the other battlecruisers, cruisers—including the sole heavy cruiser—and frigates became Squadron Three. The carriers were already falling back to the stargate, which the fleet’s original second element had secured as planned with minimal losses. The carriers would join the ships at the stargate and form a reserve Squadron Four.
“Squadron Two, concentrate on those entropy-cursed cruisers,” Alexis ordered as soon as the fleet finished its quick shuffle. It wasn’t as smooth as she would have liked, but how could it be when they’d never had time to practice the maneuver with the addition of the battleships or the Maki prize ships? “Squadron One, keep the pressure on that damned Bakulu battleship, and see if you can force it out of position. Squadron Three, support the landing.”
“The Raknar have been released,” Flipper said. A section of the big Tri-V showed the seven 30-meter-long mecha separating from Perseus like seven frigates, and the transport angling away. The frigates she’d assigned to guard the close approach beachhead landings fell in tightly to protect the vulnerable transport, leaving the Raknar wide open.
“Oh, shit,” Abby Smith, the SitCon said and pointed. A f
ormation of fast Maki cutters lanced though the screen, but they didn’t go for the transport, they went for the Raknar.
Are they vulnerable like that? Alexis wondered as a flight of drones also angled in.
On the screen, the Raknar unfolded into their humanoid forms. Immediately one flew forward of the other six. Pinpoint laser fire lanced out from all the Raknar, and the drones ceased to exist. The formation of cutters was ravaged passing through the Hussars screen; only two survived. Those two opened up with 50-megawatt lasers as they closed, targeting the Raknar flying toward them. The weapons hit and seemed to have no effect.
The Raknar pivoted a shoulder-mounted cannon a third its length and fired. The beam of the weapon dissected the two cutters like a chef slicing carrots.
“That was a one-terawatt particle beam,” Xander announced, analyzing Flipper’s data. “There is no damage evident to the Raknar.”
“They don’t have shields,” Alexis said. “Do they?”
“No shield emanations present,” Flipper confirmed, “but I do detect a few emitters among them. They don’t appear to be using them at this time.”
A 50-megawatt laser at that range would easily carve through anything up to a battlecruiser’s armor. As Alexis watched, the seven Raknar flipped over and accelerated toward Earth. She wondered if the damage they would inflict would be worth any victory they obtained.
“All other advance elements have begun their combat drop,” Abby said. “Main elements are still waiting for that orbital defense station to be neutralized.”
“Contact the SalSha Avenger squadron,” Alexis ordered Hoot. “Get an update. Tell them Squadron Three is closing in to assist if needed.”
* * *
Ferret One, Near ODP Six, Earth Orbit, Sol System
The number of remaining drones continued to fall. The closer they raced toward the orbital defense platform, the more the distance between the defenders’ laser beams shrank. Nine, then seven. Skald jumped involuntarily when it dropped from seven to four, then just as quickly fell to two. Then to zero.
“Wait!” Skald cried as something flashed from the last drone. “What was—”
A small sun blossomed from the direction of ODP 6.
“Nuclear missile,” Thorb said. “The drone must have been armed with one of the ship killers, and the drone controller fired it right before the drone got hit. I think those drones have weapons with two-kiloton warheads.”
“So that should do it?” Skald asked, sounding excited as he worked the sensors to get a clear picture of the target.
“I doubt it,” Thorb said.
“But the platform got hit with a nuclear weapon!” Skald exclaimed. “It must be destroyed.”
“No necessarily,” Thorb replied. “ODP Six is a hollowed out asteroid with interconnected passages blocked off with reinforced doors. When Colonel Sansar builds something, she does it right.”
“But to take a nuke—” Skald stopped in the middle of his sentence as the picture cleared enough for him to assess the damage to the station. “I was wrong. The station appears to still be operational.”
“If it had been in atmosphere, it probably would have been destroyed,” Thorb said. “Unfortunately—”
“—it’s not.” Skald sighed, then asked in a small voice. “So, we go in?”
“We do,” Thorb replied. “Still, all hope may not be lost. The nuclear weapon must have knocked out at least some of the platform’s capabilities. While they can still launch missiles from their other launchers, there may be at least a little bit of a blind spot that its sensors can’t see, and as we get in close, there will be some areas the lasers can’t defend.”
“Regardless, it must be done, right?” Skald asked.
“Correct,” Thorb replied. “It is our duty.” He switched to the squadron net. “Ferret One to all Ferrets. The drones failed and it is up to us to take out that defense platform. If we don’t do it, it will cause the loss of our ally’s ships and hundreds—maybe thousands—of their personnel. We must do this, so do this we shall. Arm both bombs, and set the nuclear bomb for maximum yield. We will attack in a line abreast formation to complicate their targeting, with the rest of you offset five kilometers from the Avengers to either side of you. Everyone should hit the target, or the largest piece remaining, so we are sure we knock it out. Are there any questions?”
There were not, and the rest of the squadron moved to take their positions. Communal beings, the SalSha understood duty and sacrifice for the group, and if this was their turn to go into the light, then they would do so. Not happily, perhaps, but with their chins up, knowing they had done what the community needed them to do.
“Arm them up,” Thorb said. “Max yield on the nuke.”
“Here we go. One’s in hot!” Thorb called on the squadron net. “Brace yourself,” he added to Skald. They both got into a good G position, and he used his pinlinks to jam the throttles to the firewall. They were both pushed back into their seats and pinned there with the rapid onset of Gs. He backed off slightly as the horizon started to creep in on the corners of his vision. “Still with me?” he commed mentally.
“Yeah,” Skald replied. “Does this ever get better or hurt less?”
“No,” Thorb said. “The more times you pull twenty-two Gs, you learn to endure it better, but it still sucks.”
“Then I hope we survive this so I can,” Skald replied, “because this hurts!”
Thorb didn’t reply as he concentrated on staying awake and alive through the bombing run. Although the platform had been nuked once, it still had plenty of weapons available to target the squadron, as it had been developed with overlapping fields of fire. Even with the platform having to split its fire among the twelve craft, there still seemed to be plenty of weapons to go around. It would only get worse as the members of his squadron were whittled down, and the platform’s weapons shifted onto the remaining craft.
He crossed into the platform’s threat zone and immediately became the focus of what seemed like all of the platform’s weapons, and he slammed the craft back and forth, up and down, as unpredictably as he could as he proceeded inbound. The craft was armed with a variety of expendables and he had no intention of dying with any of them still aboard, so he began firing them off—flares that burned hotter than the sun, chaff to make larger returns that would blot out the enemy radars, and radar jammers to blind them completely.
The closer he got to the platform, the less effective they would be as the enemy ramped up the power of their radar, trying to burn through the jamming, but they would at least get him closer. He hoped.
“Three’s down,” Skald said.
“Don’t worry about them,” Thorb replied. “Focus on the target. I’m not going to get us through all of this just to have you miss!”
“I’m not going to miss,” Skald mentally muttered. “It’s a big target.”
Sure, it’s a big target, Thorb thought. We’re also going to go screaming past it faster than any SalSha has ever traveled, with me jinking the craft to keep us alive. Even with guided bombs, we could fling them…who knows where? At least Earth wasn’t on the other side of the target to get hit with their errant nuclear weapon.
Thorb noted in the back of his mind as the members of his squadron perished one by one. Whether it was laser bolts or missiles, it didn’t matter—they were still gone. Soon, the twelve craft were down to nine, then seven, then four…
“Five seconds to release,” Skald said.
This was the part Thorb hated most. The Humans called it “Company Time,” and it was the few seconds of the bombing run where the pilot had to stop jinking so the system could get a last look at the target and update the weapon’s targeting. It also was best for the weapon to separate from the craft without a huge number of lateral Gs, so you didn’t sling it off beyond the weapon’s ability to bring it back toward the target.
Two more of his wingmen were destroyed as the defens
ive weapons focused on the non-maneuvering targets, but then Skald yelled, “Bombs away!” and Thorb put the craft into a twenty-three-G skew turn away. He swore he saw a laser flash past, but it may have been how hard he was squinting to keep from blacking out. A warning light flickered—Skald had lost consciousness. Thorb snapped the bomber back to the other direction and began jinking again, but by then all of the defensive platform’s systems went off line simultaneously as two one-megaton blasts broke the platform in half.
He eased off the Gs, and Skald woke up. “Wha-what happened?” the bombardier asked.
“We won,” Thorb replied, tears weeping from his eyes in the flooded cockpit.
“How many made it?”
“Just us.” Thorb paused to control his emotions. “Eight also released their bombs, but then they flew into the platform, along with their bomb.”
“On purpose?”
“I don’t know,” Thorb replied. “All I know is that we’re the only ones who survived.” He rolled the Avenger over so he could look at the planet below them through his tear-filled eyes. The blue ball reminded him of home, even though it had too much land area. He hoped it was worth his squadron’s sacrifice.
* * * * *
Chapter Sixteen
The Raknar Fist, Approaching São Paulo, Brazil, Earth
The Raknar’s feet heated to many thousands of degrees as they burned through Earth’s dense atmosphere.
“Yeehaa!” Fenn/Peanut exulted as they rode the thrust from their Raknar and burned in like a comet.
Jim watched it all in Zha Akee, the Raknar handling the details of making sure they didn’t plummet into the Atlantic Ocean at thousands of kilometers per hour. All seven stayed in a roughly round formation as they plummeted. Some missiles streaked up from the São Paulo starport and were contemptuously swatted from the sky with laser fire. No energy weapons were fired at them. Lasers would be ineffective due to the plasma shockwave ahead of their reentry, and particle beams didn’t work well in atmosphere beyond a few dozen kilometers. Ones below a terawatt didn’t, anyway.