by Matt Thomas
A pair of red-orange streaks arched towards the ground far in front of them, coming from the other side of the planet. “I bet that’s Anarchy.” Sasha commented.
Flashes outside pulled at Jean’s attention. His sensors told him about the battle in space heated up extremely quickly. That couldn’t distract him. The other squadrons would keep the Hetarek occupied in orbit.
The screen in front of him lit up, showing a firm connection with the team on the ground. He locked in the frequency and made contact. “Beast Two-Two,” Jean called out over the local frequency. “Cobra Three and Four with you, inbound. ETA...” Jean checked the navigation system. “Three mikes. Give us targets.”
*****
The volume of fire rang in his ears. The flashes overhead nearly obscured the sky. The two meters between his element and the next may as well have been two hundred. Most of the Hetarek died the moment they stuck their reptilian heads over the edge of the hill. But not all of them. Slowly, they clawed their way forward. Fighting to remain calm, to remain focused, he fired enough well-aimed rounds to draw attention away from O, who was busy working his radio.
Bryan could barely hear. Only the headset kept his eardrums from rupturing. Beside him, the calls over the radio for someone, anyone who spoke their language, who could hear them, repeated incessantly but steadily, calmly.
“Any station this net, any station this net, this is Beast Two-Two, over.” Siskind intoned.
He turned to O. “Still nothing?”
The radio operator shook his head.
“What about text?” He asked.
O flipped open the screen on his forearm. “Nothing.”
An impact nearby darkened the sky for a moment before all the rock and dirt and debris fell on them. He checked himself to find no wounds serious enough to need attention. To his left, one of his men, he couldn’t tell who, called out for a medic. The enemy responded with even more concentrated fire. He stuck his head around to fire another burst, catching a handful creeping towards his position. Killing two of them sent the rest scurrying for cover.
A new noise caught his ear, a series of short, dry bursts of air from a windpipe. Once again, he checked his radioman, expecting to see O dying.
Instead, Siskind smiled, the noises emerging from his throat laughter.
“What the fuck is funny?” He asked, dropping an empty magazine.
“Dude, I’ve got good two way.”
“With what?”
The JTAC checked the screen in front of him. “Well, for starters, the ships Columbia, Intrepid, Indomitable..., and I think I see half-a-dozen more. Fuckin’ everybody coming through the wormhole.”
A slap on the side of his carbine knocked free some mud. “What assets?”
“I’ve got Cobra, Viper, Asp, Azriel, Bone, Hammer . . . You name it, they’re in our airspace.”
Just as he finished rattling off the names of squadrons full of close air support, the radio crackled.
“Beast Two-Two, Serpent Eight-Two, I read you Lima Charlie, how me? Over.”
“Serpent Eight-Two, Beast Two-Two has you the same.” Bryan shouted into his microphone. “Be advised, we are Troops-In-Contact. We have several hundred Hetarek enemy with heavy weapons to the north and west of us in Drop Zone Alpha. Requesting CAS.”
“Serpent Eight-Two copies all. Be advised Cobra en route your location.
“That’s a good copy, Serpent Eight-Two. Beast Two-Two out.”
Bryan exchanged smiles with Siskind. “Everyone, they’re inbound.” He shouted. Both he and O turned again towards the fight.
No sooner had O turned than an explosive round struck the ground in front of him. Bryan watch the huge man tumble backwards. Howe returned fire before taking another breath.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watch Bridget run under fire towards Siskind. He saw her roll O over, but forced himself to maintain focus.
“Perkins.” He shouted. “I need you to get me some CAS.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Jean didn’t have time to look out the window. If he had, he would have seen the trees flashing by, just feet off the wingtips. Thick, black smoke started to rise around them, each one marking a Komodo destroyed in their last pass. Sasha’s maneuvering around the skyscrapers tossed him about in his harness. He kept his head steady, focusing on his monitors. Dozens of new local sensor contacts appeared eighty thousand feet above them. The drop-ships had broken through the orbital defenses.
From atop two of the buildings in what had once been downtown, heavy laser blasts shot upwards towards the new contacts.
“Costeaux!” Sasha shouted.
“I see them!” Jean said back. “Four, you back there?”
A moment’s hesitation nearly made Jean’s stomach sink, but finally a voice came through tight. “Yeah, Three, we’re still here. Barely.”
“Make a run at those anti-aircraft towers.”
“Roger.”
“Cobra, Beast Two-Two, repeat, repeat repeat!” The Special Forces soldier yelled into the radio, the sound of heavy gunfire spilling through.
“Cobra copies. Repeating attack pattern.”
Sasha banked the craft ferociously, whipping it around until they pointed over the airfield again at the hill now covered in a latticework of laser fire.
“Four, rifle times two!” His wingman called over the ship-to-ship radio. “Splash, good effects.”
Jean tried to lock onto clusters of Hetarek scrambling up the side of the hill. His sensors filled with static, not resolving into pinpoint images. The ship seemed to rock and flicker.
Something exploded outside, large enough that they could feel it in flight. He hazarded a look up.
The roof of one of the buildings, a smaller hanger at the edge of the airfield, burst. Thin plates of metal flew upwards and out, but not in an uncontrolled detonation.
“Guns, guns, guns.” Sasha fired, aiming by eye while the sensors refused to resolve. The cannon roared as it slung solid projectiles at the hillside, sending geysers of rock, dirt, tree, and building into the air with each impact. The pilot pulled back, and Jean now looked behind him at the ground hanging upside-down. At that angle, he saw through the roof. Two capital ship guns, their barrels unmistakable, jutted up from what should have been an abandoned building.
They fired, not at the fighters immediately above, but far above them. Dual blasts of blue-green energy lanced forward, each one sending a pulse of static through the heavy fighter. Jean traced the shots upwards, watching them strike the edge of the atmosphere. They detonated in growing spheres of energy that swept through the tight formations of drop ships.
“Columbia, Columbia, Columbia, Cobra Three: They have EMP weapons on the ground! Repeat: they have EMP weapons on the ground!”
*****
Xander kept switching between the broadcast of the fight on the ground and the sensor readings from the space battle. Everyone else in the operations center remained focused on the intensifying gunfight between Bryan Howe and the Hetarek around the drop zones. Xander kept eying the sensors, counting down the seconds until the drop-ships landed and spilled out their cargo, giving the Hetarek warriors something else to focus on.
Then blooms spread across the sensor readings, dark swaths spreading that wiped out each representative dot.
Xander seized a monitor from Sergeant Tennison, startling her. He zoomed in visually. He could still see the drop ships. He expected to see a debris cloud, but instead he saw the ships filled with infantrymen, not landing, but falling.
“The EMP’s on the ground!” He yelled, diverting everyone’s attention. Without asking, he picked up a direct line to Columbia’s command center. “This is Major Gretter in the JSTF. The EMP isn’t on Nkel’s Pride.” He urged. “It’s on the ground!”
Berne stared at him. “That’s what they were protecting in that building.”
Xander looked back, his eyes wide. “The one we couldn’t get into.
Yeah.”
He spun, and stared at the larger display board, the one showing the ships still coming through the wormhole to join the fight. The Hetarek command ship had begun to maneuver away, putting the Earth between its human pursers and the invasion force.
They watched the flecks of light dance in the air, each representing a fighter, drop ship, or gunboat trying to punch through, and the Hetarek opposition going after them. Lights disappeared by the handful, especially clusters of heading for the surface. The guns on the planet fired, and each light blinking out represented one hundred twenty eight soldiers and a crew of five, now falling out of control before impacting with the planet.
How quickly the focus shifted from getting those boots on the ground to the survival of the fleet.
“They sucked us in.” Tamaka said. “They sucked us in and now they’re going to swat us down.”
*****
Drop ships fell from the sky. They fell sideways. They fell upside down. They fell far too fast.
Each time one struck the ground, chunks of ground, runway, hull, and human flew into the air as ejecta. The impacts resonated through the ground, the echoes bouncing off the surrounding hills they could hear them over the firefight. Bryan learned to discern the impacts from the drop ships and detonating rounds. He forced himself to look down the sights of his rifle, not at the catastrophe raining from the sky. Several of the helpless craft filled with people strayed far from their target, tearing into trees and buildings, some very close.
Killing Hetarek was instinct. He could point and shoot with barely a thought. His brain started processing backup plans. Bryan dodged rounds, shot back, directed his team, and planned for the future simultaneously. He did none of them particularly well while doing all of them. His overwhelmed mind shut out thoughts of failure or death as it devoted energy to the only things that would keep him alive.
A burning tree fell nearby, but was dismissed as not being close enough to fall on him. Radio calls that weren't his name or callsign became a dull hum. Lasers appearing more than an arm's length away may as well have been fired at the moon.
A Hetarek appeared and Bryan fired. The Cobras asked for instructions and he gave them. His team called out wounded and he made note of his depleting resources.
He knew fear and recognized it. He didn't feel panic. Panic required a level of anxiety pushed from his consciousness by more pressing matters.
His rifle barrel began to glow. The impacts of drop ships came more quickly. The Hetarek kept shooting. The team kept fighting.
*****
In the operation center, all eyes stayed on the intensity of the firefight on the ground. They trusted the fleet to handle the unfolding space battle.
Until half of the sensor screen suddenly darkened.
It should have flashed and roiled with the static thrown off by the wormhole. The line of ships pouring into the system should have continued.
Instead, there were only the fighters, landing ships, and only a fraction of the capital ships needed to secure the system.
Xander pointed to the screen. “Lutierez, what just happened?”
Berne and Tamaka looked up, noticing the change.
His NCO stared at the details pouring through his screen, his eyes widening. "Sir, the wormhole just collapsed."
"I need more than that.” Tamaka said. “Where’s the rest of the fleet?"
Lutierez shook his head. “I only see the first wave, ma’am. Everything in front of us made it through, the fighters and drop ships, we made it through, and the carrier Intrepid made it through. I’ve got only one battleship, Indomitable, but no Redoubtable or Colossus. I don’t have Trafalgar. I count four gunboats instead of twelve, and I don’t see any cruisers.”
Berne remained focused on Howe’s firefight, but he drew his attention away for a moment. “Tap into Columbia’s comms and see what you can hear.
The overhead speakers came to life.
“Columbia, this is Redoubtable, do you read?”
“Redoubtable, Columbia copies. What’s your location?”
“Unknown, Columbia. Vagabond closed the wormhole, then reopened it. We passed through but ended up in open space. The fleet was stacked to tightly behind us we couldn’t stop or turn around without colliding. Then the wormhole closed. We’re trying to get a fix on our position now.”
“Redoubtable, do you have the rest of the fleet?”
“Roger, Columbia. We have the second and third waves all accounted for, but we don’t have a single jump ship with us. We’re stuck.”
“Did Vagabond send any transmission, Redoubtable?”
“Negative, Columbia.”
Tamaka interrupted. “Cut it off.” She ordered. “Make sure Two-Two and One-Five know.”
“Ma’am, without the second wave the fleet isn’t going to be able to hold off the Hetarek.” Xander said. “And Columbia’s wormhole generator is way too small to get everyone out.”
“I know.”
Berne stood up suddenly, jabbing a finger towards his logistics officer. “We have any QEC relay satellites in storage?”
Amersvoort nodded. “Yes, sir, but we need to schedule a launch window with Columbia to get them out.”
The Chief of Operations stabbed a finger in the man’s chest. “Like fuck you do. Get two of them out the door. I don’t care if you have to personally shove them out an airlock.”
The logistician hesitated.
“Get the fuck moving!” Berne screamed so loud that even Xander stepped back.
Amersvoort took off in a run. Berne yelled after him. “And don’t forget to get the frequencies!”
“Sergeant Popov.” Tamaka said calmly. “Make sure Howe knows he’ll still have comms with us if we have to leave.”
Carefully, Xander stepped up to Lieutenant Colonel Berne. “Sir,” he said softly so that others around wouldn’t hear. “You know that Columbia has the other end of that entanglement and... well, the only way Bryan can communicate through a QEC relay is if Columbia is still around to receive it.”
After the outburst, Berne’s quiet response seemed nearly out of character. “The rest of the fleet is stranded without a wormhole. Sykora will save Columbia. Even if he has to sacrifice everything else here, he’ll save Columbia so he can save the rest of the fleet.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
His ears ringing and clumps of earth bouncing off his helmet, Bryan remained solely committed to the present. Immediately in front of him, Hetarek charged up the hill, scaling the near-shear route on all six limbs. Komodos in the valley below streamed heavy volumes of fire, covering the warriors. Through his scope, he saw more Hetarek still pouring out if the hangers by both airfields on either side of hill.
Beside him, his soldier held their ground. Perkins, who had taken O’s place next to him, continued to fire, pausing just long enough to tilt his tablet screen in his team leader's direction. From overhead, Loki identified dozens of dots, each representing a Hetarek vehicle, steadily charged down the highway Ava should have destroyed.
"Charlie, Alpha." He shouted into the radio. "SITREP?"
He had to call again before he got an answer he could understand through the noise from the detachment of locals he tasked to support the main airfield.
"Our Metic Ahai just quit.” Lucas MacIntyre shouted through the radio. “Something about a barracks? We're all alone out here but don't have contact. I hear you guys. Over."
Bryan imagined that, at that point, the entire region could hear the gun fight.
"You got incoming Komodos. They’re about five minutes out from your position. I just need you to distract them. There’s too many for you to block but if you can just slow them down it’ll buy us some time."
"Roger. We’ll stop them."
Bryan cursed under his breath. “Lucas, you don’t have Metic Ahai, you don’t have us, and you don’t have Ava’s people. I just need ten, fifteen minutes, then break contact. This’ll all
be over soon.”
“I copy you, Bryan, you can count on us. MacIntyre out.”
O rolled his eyes. “I guess it’s better than no help at all.”
*****
They had to attack it without relying on a missile’s guidance system. Each blast of the heavy EMP weapon sent out a residual pulse that struck anything around it. The slightest interference would send a warhead careening off wherever physics took it. Even the Komodos on the ground moved in fits and spurts while the weapon lanced upwards at an emptying sky. There was a reason the Hetarek kept it on a sole command ship, heavily shielded and guarded.
Sasha kept a death-grip on the yoke. Jean ran the math several times, trying to keep his targeting computer alive while he worked. Finally, it projected a path.
“I got it.” He announced.
“Finally.” Sasha brought the Petrel out of evasive maneuvers, lining it up with the guidance given to him by the targeting computer.
The weapons officer flipped switches. “Bay one open. Torpedo armed and dumb.”
“Let’s hope this works.” Sasha maintained a laser focus, heading straight towards the airfield. The computer tone increased in pitch, and pulsed.
Sasha yanked back on the stick. The screen flashed green rapidly. Jean depressed his trigger. “Torpedo away.”
The spacecraft followed-through, maintaining its upward arc as the munition free-fell along its parabolic trajectory. The heavy cannon pounded orbit until the moment the bomb struck. The first detonation sent plumes of fire and smoke. The second detonated the EMP cannon’s generator, sending waves of uncontrolled electricity into the air and along the ground, taking out swarms of Hetarek still charging across the field to Beast Two-Two’s position.
“Good effects.” Jean announced on the open frequency. Sasha cheered, as did Cobra Four behind them.
Their celebration was cut short by a pair of drop ships plummeting past.
*****
He couldn’t see anything. He sat in darkness after the power finally failed. The Hetarek groaned in annoyance, their eyes even worse in the dark than the human’s. Their binary home system and orbit kept their home planet generally bathed in twilight, or so he had heard.
