by Marko Kloos
“That could be a problem,” the administrator says. “You guys are just a squad. They can come down here and haul you off to the brig any time they want, and then take our stuff anyway.”
“We’re a platoon,” Sergeant Fallon says. “The rest of my people are over at the airfield, your hydroponic farm, and the water facility. They’re digging in to defend.”
“How many troops they got up there, in orbit?”
“Most of a regiment of Spaceborne Infantry. Plus the two SI companies up at Camp Frostbite,” I say. “But the fleet isn’t going to be keen on shooting anything into the middle of civvie towns. They’ll have to come and pry us out the hard way.”
“I’m not wild about the idea of a shootout right here in the middle of town,” the administrator says. “There’s over ten thousand people down here, you know. Not a lot of clear space for stray bullets.”
“Yes, but they know that, too,” Sergeant Fallon says.
The administrator looks over to the handful of troops by the entrance to the food storage bunker again.
“You guys are nuts. Not that I don’t appreciate your offer, but what can you do with a platoon against a whole regiment? That’s what, forty against a thousand?”
“Two thousand,” I say.
“Well,” Sergeant Fallon says, and smiles a lopsided little smirk. “We also have two full battalions of my own Homeworld Defense guys sitting all over this rock already. You have a bunch of those atmospheric puddle jumpers at the airfield, don’t you?”
The administrator and the constables stand off to the side for a few minutes, debating the situation in hushed, but animated talk. Then they walk back to where Sergeant Fallon and I are standing.
“Look,” the administrator says. “I don’t relish the thought of you grunts shooting it out with each other right in the middle of my town.”
He looks at the food storage bunker and chews on his lower lip for a moment.
“But I sure as hell didn’t sign up for a military occupation by my own people. Commonwealth Constitution says you serve us, not the other way around.”
“You’re the ranking civilian down here,” Sergeant Fallon says. “Until they open that chute again and send us orders to the contrary, that makes you my boss, not that one-star pencil pusher up there on the carrier.”
She nods at the troops by the bunker entrance.
“You want to keep all that stuff in civilian hands, you say the word. If you want them, I’m putting my whole outfit under your authority. Chances are they won’t want to try and root out fifteen hundred of us. And if they do, they’ll find out that Homeworld Defense is better at this game than they are.”
“How you going to handle those drop ships?” Constable Guest asks. “They can drop on top of us any time they want. You got something here that’ll scare off a flight of those?”
Sergeant Fallon smiles.
“We sort of, ah, borrowed the garrison’s brand-new drop ships. All four of ’em.”
Constable Guest shakes his head with a smile.
“Do it,” the administrator says. “Before they get wind of what you guys are doing down here. I’ll get on the radio with the fleet boss upstairs once you’re set up. See if I can talk some sense into him.”
Constable Guest turns to his fellow cops.
“We’re going to need a shitload of badges. I want to deputize every last one of these guys.”
“Time to pick a side,” Sergeant Fallon says to me a little while later, when the squad is setting up defensive positions at the food bunker. “I could use your help. You’re a pro running the tactical network. I need someone to coordinate the puddle jumpers and drop ships. Let us know when they send us company from orbit. But I’m not going to hold a gun to your head to keep you here. You want no part of this, you can go back to Frostbite, and no hard feelings. We’re probably all going to end up at a court-martial, best-case scenario. I’m not asking you to flush your career down the toilet.”
I don’t like the idea of taking sides against my fellow soldiers and fleet sailors. If I throw in my lot with Sergeant Fallon and her HD battalions, I will be forever persona non grata in any fleet chow hall and ship berth, even if I don’t spend the next twenty years in a military prison for mutiny. Since we’re at war, they probably wouldn’t leave it at that. What we’re doing here could get us all in front of a firing squad.
But to what end are we here? If we exist to defend the colonies, how can siding with the civvies down here be treason?
I remember the oath of service I took at my reenlistment ceremony just a few weeks ago. To bravely defend the laws of the Commonwealth and the freedom of its citizens.
Do we honor our oaths if we try to defend the Commonwealth’s laws by letting our commanders ignore them? Do we defend the freedom of its citizens by taking it away at gunpoint?
I don’t want to shoot at my fellow soldiers. But the thought of shooting at civilians is even more upsetting. I don’t want to pick a side, but now that I am forced to choose, I know which one I have to join.
“Maybe they’ll put us in neighboring cells at Leavenworth,” I say, and Sergeant Fallon smiles.
She pats me on the shoulder, and turns around to address the civvies standing around the ATV. “Can one of you folks give Sergeant Grayson here a ride to the airfield?”
By the time I get to the civilian airfield on the outskirts of the town, the administrator has passed the word down to all the colony facilities already. I pair my control deck with the main console of the local ATC system, and do a quick scan of the air and orbital space above New Longyearbyen.
“Sarge, this is Grayson,” I send to Sergeant Fallon. She has turned the platoon channel into our new top-level command circuit. The encryption isn’t completely bulletproof, especially not against our own people, but even with the hardware they have on the Midway, it will take the fleet a while to break into our renegade comms network.
“Go ahead,” she replies.
“I’m plugged in. Nothing at all in the air between us and the task force. Looks like they haven’t caught on yet.”
“Oh, they’re getting a good idea. The base has been pinging me with comms for the last fifteen minutes. Something about the whole drop-ship flight being off the air.”
I grin and look outside. On the drop-ship pad below the ATC tower, all four of Camp Frostbite’s Dragonflies are lined up on the concrete, with running engines and hot-refueling probes in their fuel ports. Without any air mobility, the two SI companies back at Frostbite don’t have a prayer at getting their main airborne firepower back, and if the task force in orbit sends a strike team down to the airfield, the Dragonflies can be in the air and on the move before the carrier’s Wasps are within five hundred miles.
“See if you can get me a comlink to the fleet units upstairs. I want to have a private tight-beam chat with those ship captains individually without any noise from our esteemed leadership.”
“I’ll see what I can do with the local gear,” I say.
“Good enough. Let me know right away if we get any visitors, air or ground. Fallon out.”
The hardware in the civvie ATC center is so good that keeping tabs on everything is ludicrously easy. The main ATC console is a three-dimensional projection that makes the holotables in our warships look like outdated junk. It presents unified sensor data from dozens of different sources—ground, air, and weather radar, environmental data from all the terraforming stations, satellite sensors. Everything is cross-linked with the comms network. It takes me just a few moments to tie the Dragonflies outside into my list of available assets, check the status of the airfield’s puddle jumpers, and assign them into separate flights to start ferrying HD troops from the terraforming stations. I assign the Dragonflies their own encrypted data and comlinks, and upload the mission data to their onboard computers.
“Gentlemen, this is Tailpipe One. I will be your combat controller today. Comms check, please.”
“Copy, Tailpipe One,” one of th
e pilots sends back. “Are we recycling call signs, or what?”
“Check your TacLink screens. You gentlemen are henceforth Rogue One through Four.”
“Copy that,” another pilot says with an audible chuckle. “Rogue Two copies five by five.”
“TacLink complete. So far, the coast is clear. I’ll call out inbound traffic once we get company from above, so keep your birds ready for immediate dustoff.”
“Understood,” Rogue One sends. The other pilots append their acknowledgments.
If the units up in orbit were Chinese or Russian, we’d be in a lousy tactical position. The civvie sensor network covers the entire moon, so sneak attacks with drop ships won’t be easy to pull off against us, but all that shiny sensor gear sits right out in the open, vulnerable to kinetic or guided munitions attack from orbit. Still, we’re holed up in a settlement of ten thousand, and even the clueless reservist at the stick up there probably won’t be eager to order an orbital bombardment of one of our own colony towns. If they decide to squash our little mutiny with a regiment-strength assault from orbit, we’ll see them coming from a long way out.
“Grayson, this is Fallon.”
“Go ahead, Sarge.”
“The civvie admin is gathering all the pilots for those puddle jumpers. Send them out as they get ready, please, and have them start picking up our guys. I want to have as many troops as I can back here before I get on the comms with the fleet.”
“Understood. I’ll send them out to the closest terraformers first.”
“You do that. Also, the constable is sending a bunch of his guys over to the airfield. I want you to have someone issue them some guns from the drop-ship armories. None of the heavy weapons, but something with a little more pop than those antiques they carry around right now.”
“Copy that. I’ll let them draw some rifles and armor.”
The idea of arming civilian cops with military-grade weapons makes me feel like we’re crossing a line, but we’re preparing to defend this place against battle-tested soldiers. With our limited strength, I have to admit that it makes sense to upgrade the capabilities of the cops that are responsible for the town’s safety in the first place. It’s not like we’re opening the armories and throwing missile launchers out for the farmers and ice miners to use. When we all end up at a court-martial, I doubt that violating weapons regulations will make our trouble any deeper in the end.
On the tarmac in front of the tower, the four Dragonflies are sitting with idling engines. They’re the entire armed component of our rebellious little air-and-space force, waiting for my word to intercept whatever the fleet will send our way to yank us back to the doghouse by our collars. We’re outnumbered in the air, vastly outgunned, and in a ludicrously exposed and predictable position. For some reason, however, I’m more at ease than I have been in months—or perhaps years.
CHAPTER 18
For the next two hours, I coordinate the shuttle flights between the base and the atmospheric-processor stations. The civvie shuttles are slow and ponderous compared to our stolen drop ships, but we can’t spare any of our sparse airmobile firepower for taxi duties. The civvie shuttles start bringing back the exiled HD battalions, one platoon at a time. On my fleet comms, the urgent traffic from our old command goes unanswered. Sergeant Fallon has instructed us to ignore fleet messages until she can make her broadcast to the rest of the NAC units on New Svalbard. Outside, the new Dragonfly jocks are killing time by practicing dry attack runs at the end of the runway between puddle-jumper arrivals.
Finally, the people in charge over at Camp Frostbite are tired of leaving messages. One of the ground sensors at the outskirts of town picks up vehicle traffic coming down the road from the camp. I paint it with active ground radar, and use the optical sensors on the array to get a fix on what’s coming our way. A pair of the camp’s armored personnel carriers come down the gravel road at a cautious pace. Their modular weapon mounts are fitted with autocannons.
“Fallon, this is Grayson,” I send on our encrypted command circuit.
“Go ahead.”
“We have incoming, ground. Two mules with cannons. They’re coming down the road from Frostbite. Figure ten minutes to contact at their current pace.”
“Understood.” She pauses for a few moments. “Send one of the Dragonflies to intercept. Shots across the bow first. Give ’em fair warning.”
“Copy that. Grayson out.”
I relay Sergeant Fallon’s instructions to the flight of Dragonflies currently swarming the far end of the airfield.
“Rogue One, move to grid Delta Seven and play goalie. When they get in range, sweep them with the fire-control radar. Let’s hope they get the message before we have to trade shots.”
“Rogue One copies,” the pilot sends back. “We’re on our way.”
The Dragonfly breaks off its mock attack run, pulls up, and accelerates across the airfield at full throttle. When the seventy-ton war machine passes overhead, the sealed windows of the control tower rattle in their reinforced frames.
“Time to go public, I suppose,” Sergeant Fallon says. “Andrew, patch me into the fleet channel. Make sure they can pick me up down at Frostbite, too.”
I fire up the civvie comms, which have about a hundred times more output than the radio suite in my armor. Then I open a link to the fleet emergency channel, and route Sergeant Fallon’s comlink through it.
“You’re on,” I tell her. “Until they jam us.”
There’s a moment of static on the channel, and then Sergeant Fallon’s voice comes on again, this time in her Squad Leader Lecture cadence.
“All Commonwealth units, all Commonwealth units. This is Master Sergeant Briana Fallon, 330th Autonomous Infantry Battalion, Homeworld Defense.
“I have taken charge of all Commonwealth units in the city of New Longyearbyen. Three hours ago, we received an order to seize the civilian food storage and production facilities in the city. I refuse to execute that order. I will not be part of a military dictatorship on this moon. The troops under my command are now under control of the civilian administration.
“All Commonwealth units outside of the city: Do not approach the town under arms, or you will be fired upon. We may be outgunned, but we are not defenseless. Any assault on the civilian assets we’re defending will be considered a military coup attempt, and answered accordingly.
“All fleet units in orbit: We’re sitting on most of the food, fuel, and water in the system. If you attempt an orbital assault or bombardment, you will endanger thousands of civilians and destroy vital supplies. All you grunts and space jockeys: The choice is yours now. You can choose to follow orders without question, or you can choose to follow the law. Keep in mind that without the law, we’re not a military, just an armed gang that dresses alike.
“Make your choice wisely, but don’t think for a second that we won’t shoot back. Fallon out.”
There’s a brief and total silence on the emergency channel. Then my comms suite starts lighting up with dozens of incoming comms requests from all levels of our command hierarchy. I block all requests for now and shut down the open link.
“Well, I’d say that got their attention,” I tell Sergeant Fallon.
“They think we’re bluffing,” Rogue One says on the combat-control channel. “Dumb SI fucks.”
I check the display to see that the two armored personnel carriers from Frostbite have resumed their slow and cautious course toward New Longyearbyen. I tap into the ground comms, but they have switched to their own encrypted private network, taking a page out of our playbook.
“Rogue One, they’re not talking. Paint ’em with the fire-control radar. See if they get the message.”
Rogue One fires up his radar dome and zaps the two mules coming down the road with short sweeps of focused millimeter-wave radar. If their threat detectors are working, the tactical consoles of those vehicle commanders are lighting up like pachinko parlors right about now. I check the video feed from the Dragonfly’s for
ward sensor array to get a view of the drop ship’s quarry.
The two mules stop by the side of the road, halfway between Camp Frostbite and New Longyearbyen. Then one of them activates its remote weapons mount. The autocannon on top of the mule turns toward the drop ship’s targeting camera. I see the muzzle flashes before I can hear the rumbling staccato of the cannon all the way from the other side of town. The targeting image skews as the pilot takes evasive action.
“I’d say they got the message loud and clear,” the pilot sends.
“Weapons free,” I reply. “Try for mobility kills. Don’t want to shed blood unless we have to.”
“Copy that.”
The view from the targeting camera flashes, and the bottom of the display shows “MANUAL OVERRIDE.” Then the reticle slews to cover the ground just in front of the belligerent mule.
The drop ship’s nose turret hammers out a short, rasping burst. A second later, the view from the targeting camera is obscured as the chin cannon’s high-velocity rounds kick up the frozen dirt and gravel in front of the mule. From half a mile away, the cannon sounds like the distant thunder of a far-off summer storm. I watch the camera feed from the drop ship’s turret as the two mules come to a stop. The lead mule swivels its weapons mount as the gunner looks for a target. Over the audio feed, I can hear the threat detectors in the cockpit of our drop ship warbling a harsh alert.
“What a dipshit,” the pilot says almost conversationally. The chin turret thunders again. This time, the grenades hit even closer to the mule. The pilot walks his reticle from the front of the vehicle over to a corner. One shell strikes the bow armor at a sharp angle and glances off in a shower of sparks and laminate armor shards. Another hits the front-left road wheel of the mule dead-on and blows it into tiny little pieces. The mule heaves to one side as the combined force of the grenade and the exploding tire rock the vehicle.
“Slave your cannon to the rear and turn off your targeting radar, or I’ll put the next burst right down your centerline,” the pilot instructs the mule’s crew over the emergency channel. “I’m not in the mood to play tag here.”
