by Jack Colrain
“Stand by.” Daniel looked at Hope. “We’re ready.”
“So I heard.” She pressed a channel switch. “Flight Control, Hardcases One and Two are green, go no-go for launch.” She turned her attention back to Daniel. “It’s up to the admiral now. We’ve just got to wait until Flight Control gives the word.”
“Hurry up and wait,” he muttered. “Abbott and Costello were right about the Army eighty years ago....” This was always the worst part for Daniel, and he suspected it was the same for most of his soldiers; waiting for the unknown—bored, but unable to commit to doing anything else.
“All hands,” Captain Sheard’s voice came over speakers throughout the Sydney and in the LCM shuttles. “Gateway activation is imminent. I repeat, imminent. T minus five minutes.” There was a pause, to allow people time to pay attention. “The cruiser UES Houston will be the first ship through the gate, followed by the destroyers Islamabad and New Dehli. The Sydney, Shenzhen, and Potomac will go next. They will be followed by support and escort craft.” Hope and Torres began adjusting their controls, spooling the engines up from the power-saving idling they had been engaged in during the irritating wait. “As soon as we’re through the gateway, we’ll drop a fighter screen and launch the LCMs under their protection.”
“You may have heard,” the Sydney’s captain went on after a moment, “that this mission will be a cakewalk, or that it will be fraught with difficulty. The truth is, whatever the knowledge we have, nobody can know which of those it will really be. What we can know is that this mission is of vital importance, and that we have confidence in our troops and our crews, that whether the road is easy or difficult, they will travel it with all speed. This is not just about changing the ownership of one planet; this is about preserving the existence of one very unique planet. It’s about protecting Earth from an existential threat. Protecting the friends and families of everyone you ever knew, in every country and culture on our home planet.”
Sheard paused again. “If the road is difficult, we will overcome. If the road is easy, we will traverse it. Either way, it’s a one-way street, and our world’s safety is at the other end. And that’s why it’s time to take that fight off of our world, and take it to theirs.”
Daniel could hear some muted cheering through the comms, and outside on the Sydney’s flight deck, but he couldn’t bring himself to be in that mood himself. Neither, it seemed, could any of the other Hardcases in the LCM with him, though when he glanced back as the LCM was clamped into place with a clang for the jump, he could see them smiling grimly. Cole was actually grinning, but the expression began fading already as he saw the more experienced faces around him. This wasn’t going to be Daniel’s first battle, nor, unlike Cole and most of the ten thousand troops in the invasion force, his first battle with actual live Gresians. If it was going to be his last, however, he hoped that was because it would be the last.
“Hardcase One, Flight Control. Locking clamps in place for the jump. You are go for launch when released.”
“Roger that,” Hope replied. The LCM quivered slightly as its hatches sealed, and the section of floor to which it was now clamped turned to orient into launch position for lifting out onto the flight deck once it was through the gateway. Hope sat back and folded her arms. “Nothing for me to do,” she told him. “Until we drop, all the launch process is automated. Lizzie can tell you how it works, I imagine.”
Lizzie appeared, making Torres start, as she was projecting into the LCM rather than just into Daniel’s vision. “I’m in full control of the Sydney’s sensors; I can tag you in to the C-In-C’s data reception if you want. If nothing else, you’ll have a better view than looking at the back of a chair.”
Someone like Bailey or Kinsella might have agreed to that because it would look cool, and Wilson would probably have declined because it felt too disturbing for him, but Daniel elected to go with being plugged in because, the more he knew, and the more he could see, the better he could do his job. The jump-seat began to vibrate very slightly against Daniel’s back, betraying a tactile and silent rumble through the Sydney and everything in it as its engines warmed up. He felt a slight pressure pressing him against the seat, and wondered how fast the ship was really going. He knew that the ship, like all Mozari and Mozari-derived vessels, had inertial compensators that dampened the effects and sensation of acceleration, so he knew they must be going pretty hard for him to be able to feel it at all.
“The gateway is opening,” Lizzie said, more for the benefit of Hope and Torres since Daniel could see it for himself in the forward sensor view that Lizzie was projecting into his vision. He felt a sudden nausea, and then, realizing the cause, shifted around in his seat so that the acceleration pressure lined up with the view he was seeing, rather than coming from one side. The nausea dissipated instantly.
Ahead, as far as Daniel could see, was a flickering distortion against the field of stars, making them twinkle in a way that they did from Earth but not when in space. “The Houston has gone through,” Lizzie explained. His view enhanced by the ship’s cameras and sensors, he could see the cylindrical white forms of the Islamabad and New Delhi vanish through the gateway a minute or two apart.
Then the gateway was growing in his vision, expanding around him as the vast bulk of the Sydney hurtled towards it. An instant of grayness covered his vision, and suddenly he was hurtling towards a bloodstained-looking orb swathed in clouds, faint light patches scattered against its darkened side.
Arrow-like fighters swept past, and already there were brief flares and flashes in orbit as defensive weapons platforms either fired or were hit. Daniel could also hear the chatter from the Sydney’s C-In-C thanks to Lizzie, and Captain Sheard and his officers were already giving and receiving orders.
“Signal Destroyers Rutland and Dordogne to concentrate their fire on the Gresian carriers,” the admiral’s voice came over the command network. “Eliminating their ability to project air cover is our utmost priority.”
“Mr. Wells,” Sheard transmitted, “prepare to launch the first wave of landing vessels and second fighter wing.”
“Moving to launch positions,” Andrews reported. Some kind of signal buzzed in his ear, and Daniel felt the LCM begin to move into launch position. In a few seconds, it had slid into place on the Sydney’s flight deck. He had Lizzie cut the sensor view so he could see out the shuttle viewport with his own eyes as the Air Boss, or flight controller, came over the comms to Hope. “Hardcase One, Flight Control. You are go for launch.”
On his last word, the LCM suddenly sprang free of the clamps that held it and plunged forward.
The Mike Boat shot out through the Sydney’s atmosphere field in formation with seven others. As Hope swept it upwards with the others, fighters hove into view around the group of landing craft. Daniel’s eyes were fixed on their destination, which was now settling into view ahead. Somehow, the planet’s reddish land masses looked even more bloody and baleful in his own vision than they had through the image-intensified sensors.
The Houston, Islamabad, and New Delhi had already spread out and were little more than glinting specks against the blackness of space. Daniel glanced at a monitor showing the rear view from the LCM, and saw not just more landing craft and fighters, and the looming form of the Sydney behind them, but also the Shenzen and Potomac beyond that, all moving at speed to positions for the planetary assault. Fighter wings from the two newest arrivals were swooping past the landing craft, some joining in the so-far unnecessary screen to cover them and others going on to seek out assigned targets.
The airwaves—if that was the right word in space—were filled with chatter from fighters, landing craft, and capital ships, all desperate to keep things running according to their plans and timetables. “Greeting cards posted,” someone said from the Houston.
“Moving to attack vector three-niner...”
Daniel figured that last must have come from a fighter flight leader and glanced at Hope, disappointed for her that she
wasn’t the one flying such a mission. ‘You should be doing that,’ he thought, ‘not serving as a cabbie.’
‘To be far, Dan,’ she thought back absently, most of her concentration taken up by flying, ‘I don’t think I’d trust anyone else to land the ship with both you and Wilson aboard in this fashion. And I think that’s why they stuck me with the Mike Boat for the rest of the mission after.’
Ahead, on the night side of the planet, something flashed a red and gold color. The fiery gleam spread for a moment, then grayed over and darkened again. Daniel was momentarily baffled, and then, on the central continent just on the daylight side, there came a second flash and a slow-motion bloom of fire, which darkened to smoke and ash as the LCMs began to drop out of orbit. Daniel realized this must have been the view that Lizzie had had when she’d dropped nickel-iron meteors on the Earth’s cities. Those were surely the impacts of such meteors now being launched by the Houston, Islamabad, and New Delhi against the Gresian spaceports and launch sites below.
When the Mozari ship had hit Earth’s cities this way, millions had died in each city. He found himself wondering how close the Gresians built their habitats to such installations, and whether there even was such a thing as a Gresian civilian. He felt a strange shiver run through him at the thought. “Two greeting cards delivered,” a voice said over the comms. “Card three mailing now.”
“That’s our cue,” Bella Torres said quietly. Hope was already adjusting course, and, through the viewport, Daniel could see their fellow Mike Boats making the same adjustment, all of them keeping in formation within their escorting fighter screen.
“Incoming SAMs,” the fighter wing leader called out. “Intercepting.” There was a bright flash somewhere in the distance, then another. Then, startlingly, a razor-edged Gresian fighter zoomed past from somewhere, almost crashing into the LCM. “Alpha wing, break break.”
“Bogies at two seven zero mark one zero niner,” another fighter reported.
“Vector three seven, enemy splashed.”
The space combat terminology was all Greek to Daniel, and he tuned out, concentrating on the view ahead as the planet grew. The planet ahead had a bloodied tinge. Its land masses were smeared with a range of reddish tones, dotted with white peaks and cracked with silvery lines where the rivers caught the sunlight. The oceans were much darker than Earth’s, being almost black. Daniel supposed they would also shine in the same metallic way as the rivers when the sun came around to the right angle.
“Shuttle descent insertion track confirmed,” the CAG—Commander, Air Group—announced over the comms.
“Gunnery zones black and red have good field of fire on orbital defense platforms,” the Sydney’s gunnery control officer said.
Sheard’s voice was crisp. “Gunnery zone black, open fire”
A third massive rose of fire bloomed below, this one much more obviously an explosion now that Daniel had an ever-closer view. “Third greeting card received,” someone on the New Delhi broadcasted.
“This is where it gets really complicated,” Lizzie said unnecessarily as Hope spun the LCM around a piece of wreckage that had once been part of an orbital defense platform. Suddenly, Lizzie visibly started, and exclaimed, “Wait, what?” As she spoke, a Gresian assault scout whipped past the viewport, its arachnid-like hull detaching from the open petal spread of its mass sled. The petal-shaped structure carried on, careening into the flank of the Potomac. There came a spray of fragments from both vessels, the Earth ship’s side briefly wreathed in dissipating gases.
“Where the hell did that come from?” Torres demanded.
“Gateway opening, five hundred kilometers to starboard beam,” Lizzie said, her tone one of astonishment.
“Sydney, this is Greyhound, do we have ships due?”
“We’ve no more ships due for thirty minutes,” Barnett responded. These have to be Gresian, but I’m damned if I know how—”
“Confirmed. Gresian cruiser,” Andrews called from Hardcase Two. A second signal followed. “Gresian assault carrier!”
“Admiral,” Sheard reported, “another gateway just opened to port, but the original is still open.”
“They must have come from another base,” the admiral’s voice protested from the Houston.
From the Sydney, Wells’ voice was getting a shade nearer panic-stricken, and Daniel could only listen with mounting horror and confusion. “Two more gateways opening… Gresian cruisers and assault carriers.”
“They’ve opened multiple exits from the same gateway,” Hope breathed, as confused as Daniel felt.
“That’s impossible!” Lizzie exclaimed.
“Whether you think it’s possible or not, it’s a fact.”
“How are they doing it?” Daniel asked.
Lizzie, at a complete loss for words, could only shrug expansively. “I have no idea.”
“I can give you one answer to that question,” Wilson said crisply. “They can do it because they have two and a half thousand years’ more study and practical use of the gateway system than you do.”
Daniel needed to regain a measure of control immediately and he knew it. If his mission succeeded, it wouldn’t matter how many ships the Gresians could bring in, or where from. “Lizzie, are you relaying this to the fleet?”
“Well, duh.”
“Could they—or we—open multiple gateway entrances?”
“No,” Lizzie said, regaining her usual, more confident, tone. “The flow through the system is one-way only, like a drainpipe. Any ability to open multiple entrances would risk jamming ships together in transition. In fact, if I had to guess, my supposition would be that the Gresians decided to find a way to split the exits as a safety measure against that kind of problem, maybe to prevent faster ships coming out of a gateway from slamming into the back of slower ones that already went through. Either that, or just for the purposes of having a wider spread of arrival points in military engagements.”
“Somehow, the Gresians must have known we were coming,” Torres muttered darkly.
“All ships,” Sheard’s voice cut through the comms channels, “this isn’t an assault; it’s an ambush.”
Eleven
Gresian Orbit
Ahead and below, just on the night side of the daylight terminator line separating the day and night sides of the planet, there came another sudden and shocking golden flash of light in the darkness of the northern continent. Daniel gasped as the short scar of light ended with a yellow bloom that pushed the visible clouds out of shape as the sunlight reached them. Rather than the streaks of gray or white that they had been before, they were now circular ripples around the impact site.
The LCM was spinning and leaping as Hope threw it around in orbit, dodging ascending missiles and fighters. Daniel was damned glad the Gresians didn’t seem to have anything like the kinetic planetary defense cannons he had used on Lyonesse since they would never have seen a projectile from one of those coming, not even on the most sensitive sensors.
“We’re still on course for our impact zone’s dust plume,” Hope said tightly, her breath coming in short bursts as she fought to keep the Mike Boat spiraling down within the fighter escort’s protective curtain formation—but while still being as evasive as she could without crashing into any of the other seven landing craft.
Daniel had never heard or seen her this stressed, and wanted to say or do or think something to help, and to ease things for her. He didn’t dare, though, because he didn’t want to distract her. Instead, he felt what she felt; the tension in the neck, the churning in the gut, the stress, and the fear. But—and he loved this about her—buried in the heart of those responses was a certain exhilaration. She was one of those people who did her best work when under the most pressure, and he was astonished to feel how that quality remained centered in her. It was subconscious, and she probably didn’t even realize it was the case, but it was there.
“Lizzie, give me a sit-rep.”
“Two Gresian carriers and six
cruisers have jumped in at multiple points through a single gateway. There may be others en route.”
“Tag me in,” he said, and immediately received a visual feed collated from the sensors of various ships in the fleet. The Gresian cruisers and orbital defense platforms were unleashing all kinds of hell at the Earth capital ships. Missiles from the platforms were stabbing at the ships closest to the planet while the Gresian cruisers were slashing at the others with plasma beams.
Closer to the planet’s atmosphere, Gresian fighters swept in, engaging the delta-winged human/Mozari hybrid fighters. KEM bolts flashed past Daniel’s LCM as a human fighter fired into the nose of an ascending Gresian craft before breaking left to intersect more enemies incoming from the carriers. Hope spun the LCM in a barrel-roll to avoid the wreckage of the Gresian fighter and narrowly avoided coming back into the path of some Gresian plasma bolts.
“We have to retreat!” someone called over the comms, but Daniel didn’t recognize the voice or source.
“Hold position and take appropriate evasive measures,” the admiral instructed. “Retreat is not an option.”
“They must be mad,” Wilson muttered behind Daniel.
Lizzie beat Daniel to the response, and was rather more diplomatic than he would have been about it. “Sorry, luv, the Earth ships can’t retreat. There are reinforcements on the way on the other side of the gateway, and no way to tell them to slow down in time. Any of your ships that go back the way they came will go face-first into another one coming this way.”
“Besides,” Daniel yelled over the increasing noise of strained metal and alarms, “we’re committed to the assault now. If we get our job done, the Gresians lose, no matter what. Our cruisers will keep bombarding the ground and landing troops to keep the Gresians occupied. I hate to say it, but it’s kind of what the plan called for.”
He broke off and braced himself as a human fighter exploded ahead and to port. Hope cursed as she instinctively dropped the LCM out from under the speeding shrapnel. A screech tore through the cabin, and Daniel didn’t need to be told that it was a missile lock warning. Hope said something in Chinese that didn’t sound very positive and corkscrewed the Mike Boat to starboard as a golden needle shot between two of the escort fighters and exploded between two of the Marine Corps landing craft in their formation. Both LCMs instantly started venting atmosphere from newly-acquired holes in their hulls, Newton’s laws meaning that the jets of gas pushed them apart and out of balance.
