by P. R. Adams
“Colonel, you should be getting imagery now,” Ensign Ribery said.
“Looking at it.” Rimes blinked away sweat.
The first wash of the long-range scan showed a force orbiting Plymouth that failed to match what Rimes had imagined based off what he’d seen on Sahara. There were a dozen capital ships, but Brigston now had a measure of their capabilities and tactics. There were six frigates, but they weren’t a real match for Brigston’s frigates. And there were twenty gunships, but they were hewing close to the capital ships rather than patrolling, and thus much less of a threat than they might otherwise be.
In addition to being smaller than expected, the metacorporate force was broken into three distinct groups, each group traveling in a geosynchronous orbit. They were separated by tens of thousands of kilometers. This implied separate commands and the potential for inefficiencies and even conflict between commanders.
To Rimes’s surprise, the scan didn’t reveal a fleet mobilizing to protect the planet below or even to maximize its own defensive posture. There was no maneuvering underway to concentrate forces or even to engage and delay Brigston’s task force. The ships didn’t adjust course. On the contrary. They appeared unaware of the approaching threat, even when the long-range scanners’ second wash hit them.
As Brigston’s task force neared the orbital plane it began to decelerate and alter its vector, assuming an approach that would put it thousands of kilometers below the closest of the three groups. Only when the Valdez neared twenty thousand kilometers out from the target group did the metacorporate ships react. Signals ships relayed message traffic over the command and control feed Rimes was listening into.
Two weeks into the trip back to Plymouth, the intelligence team had cracked the metacorporations’ encryption. It was based on well-established, free, open protocols the military had broken years before.
The metacorporate communications were wide open.
Rimes smiled hopefully. There were indeed three commanders in the enemy task force, and it was apparent that each enjoyed complete autonomy that was diminishing effectiveness and leading to confusion. Several seconds into the communications, though, the smile faded from Rimes’s face as a fourth commander joined the chatter and confirmed she was en route from her patrol position, less than ten minutes out.
A fourth group, this one fully alert and capable of moving straight into the battle once it returned.
The numbers had just become impossible.
Brigston showed no sign of backing off. He ordered the entire task force to open fire, sweeping across the nearest enemy frigate first with rail guns, then with a barrage of missiles. When the frigate split in half Rimes shouted in the solitude of his sealed suit, a quick fist pump the only outward sign of his exuberance. He imagined the same reaction playing out through much of the task force as another barrage of missiles crippled a second enemy frigate. The missile barrage was replaced for several seconds by another volley of rail gun fire, silenced only long enough for Cooper’s missiles to launch.
Blinking anxiously, Rimes tracked the missiles, hoping they might by a continuation of impossibly good fortune slip through unnoticed. A third missile barrage—this one aimed at the nearest capital ship—took flight. The gunships, finally active, moved into place, most setting down an impenetrable defensive screen of rail gun fire. Two split off from the others to pursue Cooper’s missiles.
Rimes’s heart sank when the first missile disintegrated beneath a sustained burst of fire. The gunships accelerated, trying to match the other two missiles’ velocity and vector.
To Rimes’s surprise the missiles split off, one veering toward the capital ship, the other toward Plymouth.
Coop, what are you up to?
The gunship pilots had a moment to decide, a moment that may have been diminished by the lag required by their remote piloting. In that moment, both missiles escaped the gunships’ targeting, and once again Rimes felt hope. It was slim hope, but it was magnified by the realization that the next closest task force had sent its entire gunship group speeding toward the threatened capital ship. The gunships were bearing down on the missile, angling to get the best shot at it before it could strike the threatened capital ship. When the missiles detonated—the first in Plymouth’s thermosphere, the second in the middle of the tight-packed ship groups—it was with optimal positioning.
Rimes watched in disbelief as the gunships accelerated forward for a moment before their propulsion systems simply winked out.
Everyone—Rimes, Brigston, Coop, Meyers—had been so sure the larger metacorporate ships would have shielding to rival Earth’s ships, even though Meyers hadn’t seen anything to support that idea. As expensive as it was to build in the heavy shielding and system redundancies, it was ultimately much more cost effective than not doing so. And when Brigston’s frigates fired a volley of missiles into the midst of the crippled ships, the cost became abundantly clear. In the span of a few minutes, more than a quarter of the metacorporate fleet was out of action.
“We’ve got a go,” Ensign Ribery said over the open channel.
Headey and the other pilots confirmed, and Rimes heard the automated hangar systems sounding through the comms. The shuttles shifted as they were lowered on arms until they were beneath the Valdez’s belly. A lurch, and then the rockets fired, and the shuttles were away, hugging the rears of two of the task force’s scout ships, angling away from the electromagnetic storm expanding over Plymouth’s northern hemisphere. They wouldn’t have time to skirt the storm completely, but the shuttles were built to handle the worst of the radiation and disruptive pulse.
The shuttles hit the storm’s outer edge, and despite the shielding Rimes’s suit registered a blip in radiation. The scout ships peeled off, returning to the Valdez, and the shuttles continued on, accelerating, the pilots giving control over to the computer systems.
Rimes leaned back in his harness, eyes glued to the display. An overlay that mixed their trajectory with a live video feed filled most of his viewing area. They were on course, flashing through midnight skies. Scans showed aircraft—gunships—in the air, but they were plunging uncontrolled to the ground below.
Could they have been so greedy? Could they have been so short-sighted and foolish? They had veterans available to them. Someone had to have spoken up! War is expensive. You can’t run it as a business. You can’t cut corners.
The gunships, possibly filled with live human mercenaries aboard, fell from the heavens. Above Plymouth, the Valdez and its frigates fired upon the weakened metacorporate fleet, a fleet that should have by all rights driven Brigston back almost immediately. Despite what they’d seen over Sahara, the ERF task force still had a chance.
Rimes’s shuttle began to decelerate, and the computer angled the shuttles one last time before turning control back to the pilots. Chatter choked the communication channel again. They were on approach, ten minutes out.
Rimes clenched his fists, fought against the inevitable onset of nerves. Normally he could push worries out of his head for a mission, but this was personal.
We’re coming home, baby. Just hang on.
“Five minutes.” Ribery’s voice sounded strained. “There’s a shitload of light and heat sources down there.”
“Fires.” Rimes blinked slowly at the realization. They were passing over a mining site. What should have been a sprawl of habitats and mining shacks were glowing infrared signatures. The temperatures were consistent with embers rather than roaring flames. Whatever had set the fires off was nearly burned out now. “Dying fires.”
“Yeah.” Ribery’s voice was even more strained. “Four minutes.”
With each passing second, Rimes became more convinced his heart would burst. At a minute out they were flying nap-of-earth over the heavy forest that covered so much of the land around the battalion post. Where the post’s glow of lights should have glowed on the horizon, it was now dark. Rimes could make out the same sort of heat signatures in small pockets as they appro
ached.
“Thirty seconds, Colonel.”
“Thirty seconds,” Rimes repeated to the open channel.
The squad leaders ordered their teams to prepare to exit the shuttles. Rimes monitored his clock. At fifteen seconds, there would be another—
“We’ve got SAMs.” Ribery’s voice drowned out everything else on the channel except the whine of alarms. “SAMS! SAMS! Locked on! I—”
The shuttle shook and rattled and bucked, and for a heartbeat Rimes thought he was dead. He looked around, saw the same frozen disbelief gripping each soldier’s body.
They’d been hit, but they were still airborne.
“Lieutenant Ribery, what’s our status?” Rimes waited a heartbeat, then he repeated the question.
Rimes checked the systems’ readouts. Several pieces of data were missing from the flow, but he could see they were still moving at a thousand kilometers per hour and descending. Even if the ship’s auto-piloting system had survived the weapon strike, it wouldn’t have been enough to handle the sort of maneuvers they were facing.
“Colonel?” Headey’s voice was choppy and distorted. “Your cockpit’s gone. I have your ship slaved to mine now. Change to your deployment plans, sir.”
“Copy that, Lieutenant.” Rimes didn’t need to ask if Ribery had survived. Rimes opened a private channel to Morant. “Sergeant Morant, we’ll be setting down with Sergeant Honig’s squad. We’ll need to change our objective slightly. Stand by for update.”
A sudden jerk rattled Rimes in his harness, and with an abrupt slam, the shuttle settled to the ground. Morant barked orders, and his team scrambled out of their harnesses. They cleared the shuttle with impressive efficiency. Rimes trailed, struggling to get a clear signal through to Meyers. Finally, he managed to establish a good connection.
“Colonel, where the—”
“We’re about—“ Rimes checked his readouts. “We’re about one hundred meters from Honig’s position .” He watched the shuttles lift off and accelerate into the night sky, the pilotless one trailing gloomily. “We lost Ensign Ribery. I need one of the potential C&C targets.”
“Remember the briefing.” Meyers sounded like a schoolteacher. “No sustained engagements.”
“Give me a target.” Rimes felt an unfathomable calm. “We need some answers.” He looked around, his bearings coming to him now. They were at the post’s southern edge, nearly a half-klick from a path that would take them to the post’s center. To the west, the airfield. To the east, the administrative buildings. To the north…
Even in the dark of night Rimes could see it: the quadrangle, the barracks complex, the officer and senior enlisted living quarters, all burning. The fires were little more than random sputtering flames now, but they were enough to silhouette a column of smoke rising into the night sky. The column’s center twisted sinuously in the shuttles’ wake. Through the BAS’ optics, the smoke was a glowing apparition climbing heavenward. Beneath it, looming angrily, the black tower he, Molly, Jared, and Calvin called home, glowered redly.
Without thinking, Rimes jogged toward the tower. Morant’s voice—a shout of warning over the communications channel—didn’t fully register. Images birthed of an imagination untethered by inhuman sights flashed through Rimes’s brain. The tower beckoned him, promising answers to questions that bubbled to the front of his thoughts despite years of training and rigid self-discipline. Even Kwon’s animalistic urges were silent for just that moment as Rimes shifted from jog to sprint.
Somewhere behind him, Rimes sensed someone approaching, chasing. He felt a body strike him, taking him low, desperately clinging to a calf, then a foot. As he fell, Rimes realized it was Morant—a full head shorter and a dozen kilograms lighter—hanging on for dear life.
And then the gunfire erupted, striking the ground around them and clipping Morant in the chest. Rimes froze.
“The barracks.” Morant grunted and pointed toward the skeletal remains of what had once been home to many of the younger soldiers. Morant rubbed at his armor, and his hand came away with a smear of blood. He cursed. “They’re embedded in the upper floors. We need to get the hell out of here, Colonel.”
Rimes scanned the barracks building. It was a scorched ruin, cratered and cracked by explosions. Gunfire erupted again, and Rimes spotted the weapons teams firing at them. His heart sank as he realized the hopelessness of assaulting or even attempting to sneak into the compound.
“Colonel, we have to retreat.”
Rimes ducked as rounds chewed up the charred grass next to his right arm. He risked another glance at the tower and nodded. It would be suicide to continue on, and Molly and the boys needed him alive. After the next volley of gunfire he helped Morant to his feet, and they fled.
13
13 December, 2173. Plymouth Colony.
* * *
Gunfire filled the night with distant staccato pops, and bullets chewed up the ground around Rimes and his squad. They sprinted for the wall that surrounded the installation, a wall that was a ghostly shape rising from the dark ground. When Sergeant Morant stumbled, Rimes was there, lifting and encouraging. Their faceplates were up now, and the thick, hot air of Plymouth was a refreshing reminder of home. Its earthy smell—what Rimes had always imagined was like a glimpse into prehistoric Earth—clung to them, suppressing their own smells of panic and fear.
“Perimeter wall,” Rimes shouted, even though he didn’t need to. Morant’s squad was running as hard as it could.
The squad juked left and right, just as they’d been taught, making it harder for the gunners to get clean locks. Rimes knew they had one chance to get outside the post, and that was through a breach in the wall.
In the years since its inception, Fort Concord had expanded beyond its original boundaries twice. Each time, the work started only after the new land had been surrounded by three meters of sturdy, electrified fence topped with concertina wire. The concern had never been over soldiers trying to escape. Life in the ERF was too prestigious for anything like that. Along with the prestige there was the pay, which, combined with free room and board, was enough for even a corporal to live in relative comfort.
The perimeter fences were a necessity to keep out Plymouth’s indigenous life.
It made no sense for the post to be dark because the metacorporate forces had hoped to ambush Rimes’s people. The lack of light had to be caused by the damage the metacorporate forces had done during their attack. There was absolutely no sign of power anywhere.
Still, it made little sense to waste time scaling the fence, especially when they could blast through it. Once Rimes reached cover from the gun positions, he signaled for Corporal Dunne to blast a section of fence. After a few seconds, a ring of heat flared on Rimes’s BAS display, and he ordered the squad forward. The entire time Rimes kept his grip on Morant, who had fallen quiet.
The gunfire intensified as the squad sprinted through the breach and gained the clearing that separated the fence and the dense forest beyond. Halfway across that fifty-meter stretch more gunfire joined the ongoing fire, and a hail of bullets crashed around them. One of Morant’s men fell to the ground, his vitals flatlining on Rimes’s BAS display. Two others were struck but largely unharmed.
“Keep moving!” Rimes hooked an arm around Morant’s waist and pointed to the forest edge a few meters ahead.
Morant tried to shrug off Rimes’s grip. “Go on, Colonel. I’m just—”
More gunfire, and Morant grunted, then went limp; his vitals flatlined.
Rimes pulled Morant’s body into the forest cover. Bullets had punched through his face and throat.
Corporal Dunne squatted at Rimes’s side, looking away from Morant’s ruined face. Dunne’s visor was up, and his green eyes were squinted so that wrinkles bunched over the bridge of his long nose. He sniffled and brushed strands of pale-brown hair off his eyebrows.
“Your squad now, Dunne.” Rimes set Morant to the ground and sealed his helmet. “Get them to the designated rendezvous poin
t.”
“Yes, sir.” Dunne got to his feet and waved the squad forward. Dunne’s squad disappeared into the near-impenetrable underbrush. They were soon moving away at a solid clip on Rimes’s BAS.
Rimes stripped Morant’s corpse of weapons, ammunition, and food, all the while watching the vague shape of the fence for any sign of the pursuing mercenaries. Rimes had just strung two mines near Morant’s body when the mercenaries finally started gathering just inside the fence. Their silhouettes were surprisingly bulky. They wore armor with plates and molded support pieces rather than the sleeker, lighter armor Rimes’s unit wore. The bulkier armor offered only slightly better protection against some ammunition at the expense of significant weight.
Definitely cheaper.
He dropped low and sealed his helmet, using its optics to get a better look at the metacorporate force. As far as he could tell they were all mercenaries. They wore open-faced helmets with what appeared to be a partial visor. He counted their numbers: easily fifty at first sight. Within seconds that number doubled.
Rimes risked an encoded message to his on-planet force, which included numbers, imagery, and situation update. It looked grim, but intelligence mattered more than morale.
“Rest well.” Rimes patted Morant’s dead shoulder, then dashed deeper into the dark, primeval forest.
The explosions, when they came, barely reached Rimes.
As he ran through the forest, he noticed the going was familiar, even in the black of midnight. Rimes sensed a transformation coming over him. Kwon’s voice, relatively quiet for so long, was returning, and the soldier inside Rimes’s head was replacing the concerned father.
It’s survival, not abandonment. We’re outnumbered. We have to be focused, effective, deadly. Sentimentality’s a luxury.
Five minutes into the run Rimes caught Dunne’s squad. They were hunkered down in position to lay down a crossfire.
