Venix tried to shut out her cries. He had other lives to worry about. “Engineering, what happened?”
“Reactors One and Two are down. I don’t understand how, but it’s as if someone reached in from the outside and switched them to power down mode.”
“Reactor Three status?”
The engineering officer paused, and Venix gave her a little space to consider her answer. Better to give a considered response than a snap knee-jerk. “Reactor Three has already been shut down under our control. I can’t tell whether it’s been affected by the missile strikes.”
“Then let’s find out. Restart Reactor Three. Helm, get ready to steer us to the planet on my command. The only thing keeping us alive at the moment is that the enemy thinks we won’t regain power before they turn around and board us at leisure. Major Sun, your status?”
“All personnel fit for duty. All twelve Javelin dropships loaded and boarding underway.”
Venix looped in the commander of both dropship flights. “Lieutenant Errih’X, give me the viability of a Javelin making it safely planetside with a lifter tug in its clamps.”
“If we’re not being shot at, no problem,” replied the MinSha pilot officer.
“Understood. Attach Javelins-1 and -7 directly to the tugs containing Raknars Alpha and Beta. Leave Raknar-Gamma in the hangar, and prep for launch.”
Down in the hangar, Errih’X acknowledged without further questions; it was the MinSha officer in CIC who hovered anxiously nearby.
“Flkk’Sss,” said Venix, “you are now acting first officer. Speak!”
“Commander, these Raknar are now more than a rich collector’s items. They’re military assets. Are you proposing we enter the humans’ war?”
“Lieutenant, we already have. Return to your post.”
“Aye, sir.”
“XO to all hands. Mission objectives are unchanged. We’re currently serving a contract to deliver the Raknar to the Scorpions. Combat bonuses have just been triggered and I intend to survive long enough for them to pay out. We shall take the Raknar to planet Rakbutu-Tereus, where we shall keep them out of enemy hands while we await relief. Help will arrive in strength in approximately three weeks. I repeat, lead the Condottieri and their Veetanho advisors in a dance. Make them pay for every step. Make them pray to escape the hell we create for them down on the surface, and eventually, relief will come.”
Venix glanced across at the captain. Would she approve of his lie?
She was in no position to answer. The signal officer was straddling Blue’s cocoon, pushing a flashlight into her mouth for her to bite on, while another crew member injected sedative into her neck.
They weren’t under contract. Not as far as he knew. But the captain had fought on when she could have surrendered, and Gloriana’s funds were inexhaustible when she was feeling grateful. Besides, the Union was flexing into new shapes, and examples had to be made by those who asserted new authority. Death was preferable to capture under these circumstances.
Yes, he decided. The captain would be proud of my lie. “Lieutenant Flkk’Sss,” he announced, “you have command of the ship until the captain recovers. I want you to ditch into the deepest part of the ocean.”
Flkk’Sss went rigid.
“I’m not abandoning you to your doom, Lieutenant. This ship is rated capable of atmospheric entry, and if you run for the escape pods, you’ll likely be shot down.” He hesitated, wondering whether to tell her about the Rietzken mercs on board. No time, he decided. Flkk’Sss already knew Gloriana was on board and would have to figure the rest out for herself. Probably already had.
“Good luck, Lieutenant.”
Flkk’Sss saluted with her right-front foot-leg.
Venix returned the salute, vacated his station, and headed for the dropship bay. He took a last look at the captain. Her screams had ceased, and the thrashing was losing its power.
He was surprised how much he cared. He found he could no longer conceive of a Midnight Sun merc company without this most peculiar specimen of a bewildering race.
“Look after her, Lieutenant,” he said to the MinSha. “I’ll be back for you.”
He raced for the dropships in the main hangar, knowing that even if he did return for the lieutenant and the rest of the crew, there would be a long and arduous trek ahead of him first.
* * * * *
Part 4: THE DARKNESS BEFORE THE LIGHT
Chapter 49
The air-to-air missile detonated against the fake target signature, but the explosion still threw Sun against the harness securing her inside her CASPer, the strap across her forehead biting deeply. Javelin-7 rolled violently, shrapnel rattling against the hull. Inside, the thirteen CASPers stood immobile, unimpressed inside their egress clamps.
“That was close,” said Ensign Connor from the pilot seat.
“Just as well we’re carrying that ballast,” quipped the co-pilot, Flight-Sergeant Angela Jackson, in her Texan drawl that turned irony into an art form. “That weight slung from our belly keeps our path nice and slow. Predictable too.”
“We got a job to do here, people,” Sun reminded everyone. “See that you do it.”
With the hundred-foot Raknar mecha slung beneath inside its lift tug, the Sinobushi Javelin3C-class dropship was cutting through the upper atmosphere of Rakbutu-Tereus with the speed and grace of an overweight manatee. The other five Javelins of Flight Beta were doing their best to escort her down safely, but there was only so much they could do.
Fifty klicks away, Venix and Gold Squad were similarly encumbered, leading Flight Alpha in Javelin-1.
Her sister’s plan to scatter the enemy warships had succeeded brilliantly, though Blue herself would never know, having crashed with Midnight Sun over the horizon. The Condottieri battlecruiser was still flying away, struggling to find the delta-v to intercept the planet’s orbit. The surviving frigates had already come about, and were almost in extreme weapons range, but not before the Javelins would reach the ground.
The enemy fighter-dropships were another matter entirely.
Eighteen of the Veetanho-designed craft were pursuing the survivors of Midnight Sun through the upper atmosphere, deadly eagles compared to the lumbering pigeons of Sun’s two flights. Pigeons they might be, but the Javelins still had claws.
“Bogey 13 destroyed,” reported Jackson, practically yelling with glee. A buffeting shockwave hit their dropship, though from the inside of the CASPer suit, it felt to Sun like a gentle rocking.
“Your tail is clear,” reported Lieutenant Errih’X. The MinSha pilot, known inevitably as Eric, was the tactical commander of the two dropship flights, and was doing his best to protect the two Raknar-carrying craft with an escort of five Javelins apiece.
Eric was a fine pilot, but even she couldn’t work miracles.
“They’re streaming in for an attack on Javelin-1,” reported Javelin-4. “I count twelve bogeys.”
Sun could so very easily succumb to the temptation to listen in on the drama unfolding around her, but she was in charge. Before now, she’d never commanded more than three squads on a single contract. And always there’d been the knowledge that her younger sister was in overall command, though Blue might be in a distant system at the time.
She swiveled her CASPer’s camera feed across the twelve hulking suits that were Shock Squad suited up for battle. The human beings inside had built her up into a badass killing machine, the emotionless cyborg who took throwing knives to a party and left them embedded in gatecrasher necks. Connor, Jackson, and the other dropship crews saw her the same way.
That was who she was, right?
She fought to push back a panic attack. The badass had been an act she’d performed so often it had become a habit, and all for the purpose of protecting her sister.
She’d failed. Her sister was lost.
Now who was she?
“Changing course to intercept their flank,” said Lieutenant Eric.
What would Blue do? Sun’s mind could
n’t go there. All she could hear were her sister’s piercing screams cutting through every speaker on the ship and making the pit of Sun’s stomach churn.
“I’m hit,” reported Javelin-3.
Sun gestured for a tactical map on her suit’s internal display. Flight Alpha was about to be torn to shreds, and all for these damn Raknar that Gloriana had given away.
Given away! That dammed squid bitch.
Anger.
What would Blue do? She’d fuel herself with anger, that’s what. She’d step up to the plate. She’d act, and she’d win. And she wins by being smarter than her opponent.
Sun could feel the anger, all right. All she had to do now was step up and take charge.
“Major Sun to Flight Alpha. Launch all marines immediately.”
The dropships acknowledged and began disgorging both CASPers and drop-capable alien mercs.
On a private channel, Venix said, “You’re in tactical command, Major. But I set the objectives very clearly. We’re to guard the Raknar until we’re relieved. How can we do that with our marines scattered across these swamps?”
“I don’t know, sir, but we’ll figure that out later. We start right here by surviving.”
Without the weight of the marine squads, the escorting Sinubushi dropships transformed from heavy pigeons to agile swifts. Nimble, but still lacking the teeth of the Condottieri craft. They dodged and evaded, throwing chaff, flares, and anti-missile pellets, but they were swept aside by the arrow formation of enemy fighter-dropships, going down in fire, smoke, or fleeing.
With their target stripped of its escort, the victorious enemy circled around the lumbering Javelin-1. The only thing saving Venix and the dropship’s flight crew was the precious relic slung beneath.
“We can’t assist them now,” Sun told Lieutenant Eric, as the HUD tracker of a fourth escort Javelin from Flight Alpha went from blue to flashing red, and then black.
“Agreed,” said the MinSha officer. “Flight Beta, follow the revised course I’m sending. Javelin-1 is on her own.”
“Major,” said Corporal Oranjeklegg on the squad channel. “I see a good defensive position on the ground.”
“Show me.”
Their view of the planet’s surface was a hastily-patched-together amalgam of guesswork, orbital scans, and data picked up as they were pushing through the atmosphere. Rakbutu-Tereus was revealing itself to be a world of immense swamps, bordered by raging seas, and crossed by impenetrable mountains that stretched high into the atmosphere. They saw no sign of habitation, but there had been once. Corporal Oranjeklegg was showing her a cleared area with a grid arrangement of rectangles and circles – a small settlement or terraforming base.
Sun scanned the surrounding area for a landing site.
The dropship lurched violently, but she ignored the violence of their descent and concentrated on her task.
There it was. A cleared area two klicks from the base. It wouldn’t be fit for much – not after being abandoned for decades – but it was the best option she had. She painted the location on the map grid and sent it to all dropships and squads to rendezvous there.
Javelin-1, with Venix on board and the Raknar beneath, banked to change heading for the new LZ. Flight Beta would have to get there first and set up defenses to protect the dropship before it landed.
This was going to be hellishly tight.
* * * * *
Chapter 50
Venix didn’t make it.
A pair of the enemy craft caught Javelin-1 in a chain gun crossfire.
“Engines gone,” reported the stricken craft’s pilot. “Ejecting.”
Venix!
They were just 6000 feet from the ground. The Condottieri must have calculated that Javelin-1’s Raknar would survive that fall – which meant they’d do the same for the Raknar slung beneath Sun.
Let’s hope they’re right.
“Release our Raknar,” she ordered her pilot.
The ship shuddered with the release of the enormous weight, and the nose of their dropship lifted. Even sitting in the back, Sun felt the engines roar with sudden coltish willingness, as if a gallon of Viagra had been added to the fuel mix.
We’ll pick you up later, Venix, she said to herself. I promise.
A siren wailed, and Sun knew that inside the flight cabin, the missile lock light was flashing.
The dropship shook as it ejected countermeasures and rose into a corkscrewing inverted loop.
“We lost them,” reported Jackson, her voice now a high staccato.
Just as the dropship was coming out of its loop, its tail swerved violently, and the craft rang out with the noise of a hundred angry goblins hammering on the tail.
“Engine three down, engine one down,” reported the pilot. “Engines two and four on fire. I don’t know if we can reach your LZ, Major.”
Sun activated the jump initiation control. Exit hatches slid open to either side of the hull, and Sergeant Albali began marshalling his squad out of the doomed craft.
“I’ll hold it steady as long as I can,” said Jackson, “but those bastards are coming ’round for another go at us.”
“Put it on autopilot and eject,” Sun ordered. “Get out of here!”
In her rear camera view through an open hatch she saw a line of tracer rounds leading their dropship. It was joined by another. “Eject!” she screamed.
But Jackson didn’t hit the eject control. Instead, lightning flashed in the clouds. Wreckage from the chasing enemy craft replaced its tracer.
“Whoever the hell that was, that’s fancy shooting,” said Sun. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” replied a man with a Scottish accent.
“Bogey Eight, destroyed,” said Eric. “Bogey Seven, destroyed. The rest are running for it.”
“How the hell are you even here?” Sun asked Sinclair.
“Major,” warned the pilot. “I can’t control the engine fire.”
“Quad laser gimbal turrets in the belly,” said Sinclair. “Atmospheric flight, and the agility of a cat. It’s a smuggler’s ship, Major. It’s the most wondrous thing since the Scotch whiskey industry linked their supply chain to interstellar trade routes. I think I’m in love.”
“Major…” warned the pilot.
“I’ll keep them off your backs,” said Sinclair, unaware of what was being said on the internal dropship channel, “but we’re no match for their frigates, which will be here soon. Besides, I have a date with the stargate transition, and it would be rude to disappoint your squid mistress.”
“Major, I need you to jump,” insisted Jackson.
Sun threw herself out of the craft and dropped through the air.
The moment she left, the flight capsule ejected up and away from Javelin-7.
She quickly stabilized her descent and looked at the planet rushing up toward her, a vibrant green in the sunlight of clear skies. Below her, a rain of blue dots showed Midnighter CASPers making their own descents. There were fires down there too, from downed enemy craft and her own Javelins. The Streak burned a shining ribbon at the edge of space as it circled high above. But unless you were at the equator, keeping station in orbit above a fixed point was very difficult, and consumed a huge quantity of fuel. While the Streak was circling around, there was a window of vulnerability, and through it came three screaming Condottieri fighter craft that looked as if they’d singled her out as their target.
She zoomed the image and saw they were Condottieri dropships ejecting their own CASPers down into the swamps. But she was right that they had her in their sights. They flew straight at her, firing chain guns, the tracer rounds within the stream of fire deadly fingers seeking to lead her descent. They were shooting high above her, but she seized the opportunity of their inaccuracy to kick back her legs and begin a random evasion pattern, knowing full well the cost she was paying in precious jump juice.
Then to her horror, she realized why they were shooting so high. Jackson and Connor in the flight cabin were desce
nding more gently than her, their fall arrested by camo-green parachutes.
A line of tracers zigzagged above the capsule and severed the downed pilots from their chutes. The capsule dropped like a lump of white dwarf metal, picking up speed. They were only 5000 feet high; they might survive.
Her gut lurched when she saw an approaching streak of fire and smoke through the clear air as two missiles headed for the plummeting flight cabin.
One impacted.
The explosion was muted. There was no flame, but the capsule burst apart into three main segments in a cloud of smaller debris. Jackson and Connor were blown free, one in several parts. But incredibly she could tell one was still alive, because the pilot’s limbs flailed hopelessly in the air as she fell. But there were other horrors. The second missile hadn’t missed its target; it was still on course.
Its target was her.
Her HUD automatically focused her attention on the incoming strike, identifying it as a Maki-designed X1B semi-guided rocket. Cheap, light, crude, but effective due to its secondary propulsion unit that would activate just before impact, ensuring its target couldn’t dodge out of the way at the last moment.
A violet warning icon alerted her to the activation of the secondary propulsion as the rocket moved into its final attack run.
The HUD grew crowded as blue dots from Shock Squad converged on her, one firing an anti-missile missile. But was too late. It was her or the rocket.
“Eat lead, fucker!”
Sun pushed up and forward with her jumpjets, attempting to hold position and equalize the enormous recoil kick as she unleashed the 15mm autocannons mounted in each arm.
She jerked in the air like a maltreated puppet in a hailstorm of spent rounds. Her suit hummed as the metallic link belt running to the storage drums on her back fed 500 rounds per second to each weapon – high-explosive incendiary rounds on her left and armor-piercing to the right.
The X1B rocket detonated in a fireball that blew past her, rattling her suit with debris. Her CASPer was undamaged, but inside her haptic suit, she was torn and bruised.
The Midnight Sun (The Omega War Book 2) Page 18
