by M. R. Forbes
He was riding the lift down to the lobby when the tone alerted him to an incoming message.
Ignore.
The signal came again in a different tone. Military and important.
Ignore.
"You could be court-martialed for refusing a flagged knock," Evan said, his voice ghostlike inside Mitchell's head.
"I think I'm pretty bullet-proof on the court-martial at this point. Besides, I knew it was you. I don't appreciate you bypassing the block, by the way."
Evan laughed. "You know I wouldn't bother you unless it were important. I'm sending you a new itinerary."
"Why?"
Evan was silent.
"Evan?"
"The Governor of Cestus has fallen ill, so we're shifting some of the dates around. No big deal. This is coming right from Command."
Mitchell knew he was lying. A death threat or some intel pointing towards an attempt on his life. He knew the Federation was eager to see him cut down, and he didn't blame them. He was broadcasting their failure across the entire galaxy, helping the Alliance run their propaganda machine day and night. They didn't seem to care if he wound up being martyred, and the enlistment ranks swelled. It was a matter of vengeful pride to them.
So far, the Security Department had done a good job steering him away from potential attacks, so if they were diverting from Cestus he was certain there was something in the works there. He pulled up his new itinerary. They were leaving in two hours. It was going to cut his plans short, but it was still enough time.
"Fine. Got it. Meet me at the hotel."
"Did you know Tamara King is one of the richest and most famous people on Liberty?" Evan was impressed with things like that. Mitchell had been more impressed with her agility.
"No. I didn't know that. I haven't had much time to pay attention to local celebrity gossip, with the war and everything."
In his life before the Shot, he had been stationed on the Greylock, one of the most elite Space Marine units in existence. They were the last line of defense and first line of response in almost every critical conflict that popped up inside Alliance-owned space. In the last five years he'd been to thirty different planets, done over four hundred space sorties, and seen action more times than he could keep track of. Greylock had been his true home, the small jumpship as good as any planet in the galaxy. The members of the company had been his friends, his brothers, his sisters, and his lovers.
Well, only one lover.
He missed her like crazy.
"Yeah, well, she is. Did you... you know?"
"Evan-"
"What? I'm just asking. I'm the one who has to follow you around like a worried mother instead of having a life of my own."
The lift reached the lobby. Mitchell stepped out and started walking. "Yeah," he said. There was no harm in throwing the Corporal a bone once in a while.
"I figured. I was jealous enough of you after that supermodel on Kepler. Was it good?"
"What do you think?"
Evan's laughter was an annoying buzz in his head. "I think you might be the luckiest man alive."
Eight-hundred of his family, dead. The number wasn't an exaggeration. Mitchell held back the choice words that threatened to make their way through the p-rat. Every word that moved through the implant was monitored, and Command wouldn't like him losing his cool.
"Yeah. Sure. I'll see you when you get here. Have someone grab my travel pack from my room, will you?"
"Of course, Captain."
"Good. Now get out of my head."
There was another signal when the connection closed. Mitchell decided he would have to speak with his CO about Evan's level of permissions. If he couldn't block the rep's knocks, he'd like to at least be able to kick him out when the conversation was over.
He pulled his hat down, trying to obscure his face. He exited the hotel and headed up the street. The traffic in the capital was only just starting to get back to some form of normalcy, though the signs of war were still everywhere. Dark scars marred the facades of a number of buildings around town, while countless heavy machines helped clear demolished buildings, and crews worked day and night to put the city back together. The hum of reactors and the heavy vibrations of mech feet were a constant reminder of the activity, even when their presence was obscured by the tall buildings that had managed to escape the bombardment.
He stopped in front of one of the smaller buildings, a thirty-story construction of poly-alloy and carbonate that was untouched by the war. He glanced through the window at the bar inside, an old-fashioned style pub fitted in dark wood and gold accents. He'd seen it when the limo had dropped him at the hotel in the morning, and he'd been anxious to pay it a visit. He stepped forward, and the glass parted at an invisible seam, drawing aside to let him in. He breathed in the heavy scent of oak and booze and licked his lips in anticipation.
Two hours would be plenty of time.
He did his best to go unnoticed, sitting in a dark corner of the bar by himself and taking a regular stream of Liberty's Finest from an overly friendly waitress. She had called him out on his identity the moment he'd walked into the bar, her face lighting up at the chance to meet and serve the hero. He accepted her phone number and transmitted fifty credits and a government approved holograph to her in exchange for her silent service. She was faithful to the deal, dropping off the drinks and retreating without trying to chat him up too much.
On the outside, Mitchell was everything most men dreamed of being. A decorated Space Marine, a starfighter and mech jockey, a war hero, a celebrity, and a fine piece of meat for any forthcoming member of the opposite sex.
On the outside, during most of his waking hours, he forced himself to buy into the hype, to believe what the Alliance marketing team was selling and drink it in with full abandon. It helped him ace his acting lessons and pass through the media circuit without cracking from the pressure. It helped him stay confident and macho when he took a woman like Tamara King to his bed.
He lifted the glass and downed the clear liquid, feeling it burning the back of his throat and warming his gut. He would have loved to be the man that everyone thought he was. He would have loved to be nothing more than the pilot who took the Shot Heard 'Round the Universe.
It would have made his life that much easier to live. It would have made it that much easier for him when he had no one to sit with but himself.
The problem was that he knew the truth.
He picked up the bottle and poured another shot. Then he cradled the drink in his hand, staring through the glass and the clear liquid inside. He watched the other patrons through it, sitting at their tables, drinking and eating and laughing. The refraction of light left the scene bent. Distorted. Like his life.
Ella.
He put the drink to his lips and downed it in one swallow. His head was spinning a little, his heart racing. He drank to forget, but he didn't know why he bothered. All it ever did was make him remember.
3
"Ares, watch yourself," Ella said, her voice stern and sexy in his p-rat.
He turned his head, the HUD behind his eyes sending dots and circles scattering around his field of vision, finding the enemy fighters mixed in among the debris. The Federation dreadnought loomed a few thousand kilometers in front of them - a long distance in atmosphere, no distance at all in space. Sharp blue bolts flared up all around it, and longer streamers of red flame exploded from its batteries, raining hell towards them, and down at the surface of the planet. He knew the cause of the shield explosions was somewhere behind him, the Greylock doing its best with its much more limited missile and laser positions. As a Space Marine jumpship, it was meant to launch fighters and belly-up at low orbits for drops, not go head-to-head against a monster like the one at its stern. Unfortunately, all of the other assets they had jumped into the system with were already part of the debris field.
"I've got him," Mitchell said. He recognized the target of his wingmate's warning, one of the nimble Federation fighte
rs that they had nicknamed a "Kip." It was making a run towards him, angling for a clean shot.
He used his p-rat to place a marker on the target. It made it easier to keep an eye on his enemy through the smaller flashes of blue along the clear carbonate of the cockpit, where the shields vaporized and deflected bits of metal and other junk that had been created by the insanity around them.
"First Squadron," the voice was calm in his head, coming in as a special transmission from the Greylock. "Liberty is taking a pounding. We need to break through their defenses and deliver our payload, and we need to do it now. Mop up your targets and head for the dreadnought."
"Roger that," Ella said. There was a minor tone change, a switch to the team's private channel. "You heard the General."
Mitchell watched her Moray's port vectoring thrusters fire, and her ship rolled and changed course. More of the small thrusters along the fuselage helped to correct the heading, and then the mains burned once to shoot her ahead.
A simple thought sent his ship vectoring after her, the CAP-NN interface responding instantly to his intentions. Inside a mech, the CAP-NN link tended to be a bare plug that went from the back of the head, right into the CPU of the onboard AI. In a starfighter, it connected first to a sleek and frightening helmet, and then from the helmet to the head. It didn't just allow the user to control their shell with their brain. It made them part of the shell. It extended the senses outward to the frame, whether it was a ninety ton mech or a thousand meter battle cruiser, providing a connection that gave the pilot an intimate feel of his ride. It was the only way a human could handle the complexity of the mechanics and steer accurately, especially in space.
A throttle and stick were still standard in the cockpit of the Morays, but it was a backup; a last hope, desperate effort to somehow steer the ship if the CAP-NN was damaged. In truth, it was garbage. Losing the link meant having no feel of the beast you were riding, and even if you could keep the thrusters firing, or the joints moving, your were like a man with no arms in a fistfight.
"You're falling behind, Ares," Ella said.
Mitchell checked the marked Kip, finding it still tracking him, trying to keep up with his evasive maneuvers. An overlay on the outer glass of his helmet kept him apprised of predicted laser fire, right under the shield monitor. He cursed when he saw his integrity was near fifty percent, no thanks to all of the debris that had been generated in the battle. A few quick hits from a pulse laser would knock it to nothing in no time.
"Just getting the monkey off my back, sir," Mitchell replied. The top thrusters fired hard, and he dropped and spun about, rolling and vectoring back in the path of his enemy. The Kip tried to adjust for the maneuver, only to find itself losing composure in the difficulty of the sudden move.
Mitchell opened up on it, firing both forward lasers into and through the enemy ship. There was no sound, no explosion. Not out here. The fighter just stopped. The CAP-NN scanned it, measuring power outputs and life signs. The pilot was alive. His ship wasn't as fortunate.
Mitchell spun his Moray around again and found his squadron making an arcing line towards the dreadnought. The fight still raged around him, the other six squadrons mixing it up with the Kips while missiles arced and exploded across space. They were outnumbered two to one, but the Moray was the best the Marines could provide, and the Federation had put more of their energy into making super destroyers than they had starfighters.
Right now, that seemed to be the better decision.
"What's the plan, sir?" Achilles' voice echoed in his head.
"The Greylock needs a clean shot, which it can't get while that big fat bastard is firing back. We need to get in close and take out some of those batteries."
"Roger."
"First Squadron, form up, stay close. Evasive maneuvers only, don't get dragged into a fight. Keep your focus on the dreadnought."
"Roger," Mitchell said. His rear thrusters burst again, adding enough speed to get him in line close to Ella.
"It sure is messy out here," he said, sending the message over their private channel.
"I don't know about this, Mitch," she replied.
"About what?"
"Surviving. We're completely outmatched here."
"You're killing my morale, El. We've gotten through worse than this."
The squadron swung almost as one, spreading apart to evade an incoming strafing run, and then closing up again as the enemy fighters went past.
"I don't think we've ever been sent out against anything like this."
The dreadnought was drawing closer. It was a behemoth, nearly three kilometers long, sleek and angled, with laser, gun, and missile batteries tracing along almost every flat surface, most of them showing signs of activity. Sensor arrays sprouted at regular intervals, along with shield generators and thruster ports. He could see the light of a hanger bay near the front.
"Remember that time on Avalon?"
"Yeah."
"We got out of that."
She laughed. "Yeah, we did." A pause. "Hey, check your HUD."
Mitchell brought his eyes into the glass of his helmet, the third of his four layers of vision. The CAP-NN was tracking the enemy fighters, highlighting their positions around him. Whether he looked out with his own eyes or glanced at the overlay, it was easy to see that they were in trouble. The single dreadnought carried more firepower and more support fighters than the entire Alliance combat group combined.
"What about my - oh, shit."
The beeping was shrill in his head, the CAP-NN warning him of a new heat signature coming from the base of the dreadnought. It was followed by a dozen more.
"What the hell?" Ella said.
Blooms of flame poured from the enemy warship, hatches popping open across the port side. Larger missiles exploded out of them, high-velocity motors bringing them to speed in a matter of seconds.
"Nukes," Hercules shouted.
The missiles accelerated, their thrusters spewing heat as they powered past the surprised squadron. The dreadnought had already destroyed four Alliance cruisers and a battleship without resorting to nukes. That it was using them now suggested they were sure the fight was just about done, their heavy ordinance no longer needed for new, potentially more dangerous threats.
"They're headed for the Greylock," Ella said. "First Squadron, reverse course to intercept."
The tone changed. An emergency signal from the Greylock.
"Athena, retract that order," General Hill said. "You need to stay on the dreadnought."
"General?" There was obvious panic in her voice. It was a panic they all felt.
"That's an order, Major. Get in close, do what you can. With any luck, we can weaken it for the next attempt at bringing it down."
"The next attempt?"
It was an impossible thought. There were no other Alliance ships remaining in the Delta Quadrant. The next assault on the Federation's latest weapon wouldn't come for weeks. Weeks during which the Federation could put it back together, using resources from the planet they were about to seize.
Time seemed to hold static while Mitchell stared at his HUD. It was tracking the missiles on their arcing path towards the Greylock, adjusting ever so slightly with each refresh, correcting for the jumpship's evasive maneuvers and remaining locked on the target. Fourth and Fifth moved to intercept, firing on the warheads in an effort to stop the inevitable.
The missiles were fast. Faster than anything he had ever seen. Another new technological achievement? The Federation was small, barely a dozen planets, and yet their advancements had stymied the Alliance for years. How did they do it?
"You heard the General," Ella said. She tried to sound strong, but she cracked on the words. It was the same fracture Mitchell was feeling, the sudden and obvious truth of the situation threatening to break their focus and ruin their composure.
First, the Greylock would be destroyed.
Then they would die, too.
Spaceborne nuclear weapons weren't anything
like those designed for atmospheric use. Out here, the warheads were heavy and reinforced, shaped to penetrate the thick armor of a destroyer or a battleship, piercing the hull of the target before detonation. This allowed the exploding warhead to find some measure of atmosphere, which was promptly sucked in and used as fuel for the blast. When the target's shields were still available, the EMP radiation of the warhead's explosion would tax the generation systems, threatening to bring them down.
The Greylock's shields had already been hammered, and her hull was nowhere near as heavy as a battleship's. The first two nukes detonated against them, causing large blue flashes that skittered along the outside of the entire ship and vanished in a flash. Eight more nukes were right behind, dropping quickly in the storm of the jumpship's point defense batteries.
Only two of the warheads made it through.
All it took was one.
Flame burst from the impact point, jetting out into space in a tight line before losing the air to feed it. The Greylock began to break from the inside out. The heat killed the crew first, and then melted through the jumpship's super-structure, compromising hull integrity and pushing against it from the inside out.
The explosion was small and silent.
The end result was the same.
The Greylock was nothing more than another field of debris in a theater already bathed in it.
Their voices were tight whispers over the squadron's comm channel.
"Son of a bitch."
"Frigging bastards."
Mitchell fought against his own desire to cry out, holding back his sudden fury, keeping it in check before he did something stupid. He reached out and clenched the joystick, squeezing it until his hand hurt, needing to direct all of the energy somewhere.
