by Ryk Brown
“Red……for pain,” the sergeant gasped.
Jessica took the small, red cylinder out and stuffed the med-kit back in her vest pocket. Then she pulled the tip cover off the cylinder and jammed the tip into the sergeant’s uninjured arm. Within moments, his breathing had begun to slow, although he was still breathing faster than normal. He was also still in considerable pain.
“Guess……I should……have ducked,” he said in between breaths.
“Yeah, didn’t they teach you anything in sergeants school?” Jessica said. “Are you still in the fight, Sarge?”
“No, sir…… Can’t see……straight. Slow……you down.”
“Fuck, Sarge.”
“Call me……Tunni.” The sergeant tried to smile, lopsided as it was. “Prop……me……up.”
Jessica moved to the sergeant’s uninjured side and put her left arm under his right arm. She lifted up and pulled him back one meter. The sergeant winced in pain, trying his best not to cry out as she leaned him against the tree. After nearly a minute of panting and concentration, the sergeant spoke again. “My……gun……sir.” He held out his right hand.
Jessica picked the sergeant’s energy rifle up and handed it to him, making sure it was ready to fire.
“Grenade……put it……behind my……back.”
Jessica looked at the sergeant. “You planning on being a hero, Tunni?”
“I was a hero……the day I joined……the Corinari.”
“Damn right,” she agreed. She pulled two of the sergeant’s four grenades, placing them in her own pockets. Then she pulled the last two from his combat vest, flipped up the safeties with her thumbs, and carefully wedged them under the sergeant’s butt. “Don’t move too much,” she warned him.
The sergeant winced in pain again. “I’ll try,” he responded, a slight smile showing through his pain. “You had better……get moving……Jess.”
Jessica looked in the sergeant’s uninjured eye. “I’ll stand up for you on the walk of heroes, Tunni.”
The sergeant’s good eye began to well up. He tried not to break down at the thought of his own demise. Finally, he proudly uttered a single word. “Corinari.”
She put her hand on the sergeant’s cheek, holding it there for several seconds and finally whispering, “Hup, hup, hup.”
Jessica looked around, stood up in a low crouch, and ran off into the woods. She moved along as quickly as she could, not looking back, staying low, and moving from tree to tree, cover to cover, as much as possible. For several minutes, she continued to run, pain shooting through her shoulder with every footfall. She thought about the sergeant. She thought about Mechky and Nutara. She thought about Major Waddell. She wondered how far away the other Jung squads were. Surely they had heard the weapons fire. Surely the men they had killed had reported contact before they had died. How long would it take for the other squads to reach them?
A few minutes later, she had her answer. She dropped to the ground at the sound of distant energy weapons fire coming from behind her. She spun around on one knee, bringing her weapon up and ready. The weapons fire continued, the piercing sounds of the Jung needle-beam weapons and the sharp crack of the more powerful Corinari energy rifle. Suddenly, the weapons fire stopped. A minute later, she heard two more shots, both from Jung weapons, and her heart sank.
Her head fell as her eyes welled up. She reached up and wiped them with her left hand as she stood and continued on her way, running low through the forest toward the distant river as she heard two more explosions from behind her.
* * *
“Contact!” Mister Navashee announced. “Jump flash.”
Nathan turned aft to look at his comm officer.
“Incoming transmission from the Falcon,” Naralena announced. “Mister Sheehan is asking to speak with you, sir.”
“Put him on,” Nathan ordered as he tapped his comm-set. “Falcon, Aurora Actual. Go ahead.”
“Sir, she’s alive. Jess is alive. I spoke with her myself,” Loki said over the comms.
“How many survivors are there?” Nathan asked.
“I don’t know. She was very brief. She said something in code. She said, ‘Local low band, delta ground, two bravos opposed, in motion, rotating comm frequencies, algo one Charlie, encrypt.’ I have no idea what it means, sir.”
“Neither do I,” Nathan admitted.
“I think I do, sir,” Sergeant Weatherly said from his customary position at the entrance to the captain’s ready room. “It’s spec-ops lingo. Enrique taught it to me. There are four survivors. They split into two pairs and are on the move in opposite directions. She wants us to use the comm-sets to contact her and rotate the frequencies using algorithm Charlie one. She also wants us to encrypt all comms.”
“Comm-sets only have about a twenty-kilometer range,” Nathan said as he moved toward the back of the bridge, closer to the sergeant. “Falcon, Actual. How did you make contact?”
“Uh…” There was a pause. “We jumped down and overflew the crash site, sir. Sorry.”
“How was the area?”
“Hot, sir. At least a dozen fighters in the area.”
“What about troops on the ground?”
“I don’t know, sir. I didn’t get a chance to look at the scans. We got jumped as soon as we arrived. We barely got out alive. I recorded all sensor data however. Lieutenant Telles will want to take a look at it.”
Nathan looked at Naralena.
“I’ll transfer a copy directly to the lieutenant, sir,” she told Nathan.
“There’s one other thing, Captain,” Loki said. “Just before we jumped out, I picked up a huge energy spike on the horizon, due west. I’m pretty sure it was a nuclear detonation. A big one.”
“Where? Did you get a location fix?”
“No, sir. It was below the horizon. We just picked up the thermal and radiation signatures as they rose.”
Nathan sighed. A cold chill washed over him. “Falcon, Actual. Do you think you can make contact with Lieutenant Commander Nash again?”
“We can do it,” Josh chimed in before Loki could say otherwise. “I have an idea.”
“Are you sure?” Nathan asked. “We can’t afford to lose the Falcon; you both know that.”
“Josh is sure,” Loki said. “Me, not so much. But we’d like to try, sir. What’s the message?”
Nathan looked at Sergeant Weatherly. “I need her to find a place to hide and wait until we can figure out how to extract her. She needs to keep her comm-set on but not transmit unless she has no other choice, just in case the Jung can track her transmissions. She needs to disappear.”
Sergeant Weatherly nodded. “Deep down, eyes shut, ears up, saw wood.”
“Seriously?” Nathan asked.
“Hide, disappear, listen but don’t transmit, wait for now,” the sergeant explained.
“Very well,” Nathan said as he keyed his comm-set. “Message reads, ‘Deep down, eyes shut, ears up, saw wood.’ Understood?”
“Got it, sir.”
“Remember: do not engage. Someone gets weapons on you, you jump. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” Loki answered.
“Good luck, gentlemen. Actual out.”
“Falcon out.”
“Mister Navashee, take a look at their sensor logs, specifically that energy spike at the end,” Nathan ordered. “Tell me what you think.”
“Yes, sir,” Mister Navashee answered.
Nathan tapped his comm-set again. “Telles, Captain.”
“This is Telles. Go ahead, Captain,” the lieutenant answered over Nathan’s comm-set.
“There are four survivors on the surface. They are currently split up into two pairs, traveling in opposite directions.”
“Undoub
tedly in the hopes of pulling limited enemy forces in opposite directions. It is often easier to evade or overpower a smaller force, even if the odds are unchanged.”
“Any chance we can get them out of there?”
“I am examining the data collected by the Falcon. There appear to be twenty-four enemy soldiers on the ground. They have split into six teams of four. One of them is tracking what appear to be two of our people. I cannot tell which ones. However, I do not see the other two of our people. They may have already been killed or captured.”
Nathan hung his head down. Not knowing who had died was worse than not knowing if anyone had survived in the first place.
“At present, while the Jung ground forces are not significant, their air cover presents a problem. Without a jump shuttle, we would need a fighter escort, and I am not sure you have the fighters to spare at the moment. In addition, we do not know how many more fighters could be called into the area, nor how quickly they could arrive. I’m sorry, Captain, but the situation does not look promising at the moment. If the Falcon returns and makes contact once again, they should urge our people to seek shelter, to hide until the situation improves or until we have a more complete understanding of the tactical requirements for extraction.”
“Understood,” Nathan answered, tapping his comm-set again to disconnect the call.
“Captain, Loki was correct; it’s a nuclear detonation,” Mister Navashee said.
“Any idea where?” Nathan asked.
“That would be difficult to say without knowing the yield of the weapon. Based on what we’ve seen the Jung use thus far, it could be as close as Madagascar, or it could be as far away as the east coast of South America. All I can tell you is that it appears to be along the same general latitude as the crash site.”
“Incoming message,” Naralena reported.
Nathan turned around, putting his hands on the edge of the main comm station. “From whom?”
“It’s from Jung command, General Bacca. Text only. Message reads, ‘Perth no longer exists. Your move, Captain.’” Naralena looked up from her console at the captain, realizing the impact of the words she had just spoken.
Nathan looked pale. “How many people lived in Perth?” he wondered.
Mister Navashee turned to his console and entered a command. A moment later, he turned back toward the captain. “One point five million,” he reported solemnly.
The bridge became silent. Nathan’s eyes went from crewman to crewman as if looking for answers, but there were none. He walked slowly forward, past the tactical station. He paused for a moment, turning toward his tactical officer. “Load all tubes with nukes, full yields rigged for snapshot,” he said as he continued forward. “Make ready on tubes one and three. Make ready all rail guns and the missile launcher.”
“Loading all tubes, full yields, snapshot. Readying plasma torpedoes and all rail guns. Missile launcher is already loaded and ready, sir.”
“Very well,” Nathan said, still walking and talking as if in a trance. “Mister Riley, new jump, high Earth orbit.”
“Aye, sir,” Mister Riley answered.
Nathan moved next to his command chair. “Maintain constant readiness for quick micro-jumps along our flight path at my command.”
“Understood, sir.”
Nathan sat down. “Comms, ship-wide.”
“Ship-wide open,” Naralena answered.
Nathan thought for a moment. “Attention all hands. This is your captain. The Jung have called for our surrender, threatening the destruction of major population centers on Earth if we do not comply. I have just received word that they have nuked the city of Perth, killing over a million innocent people. They will continue to punish the innocent until we give in to their demands. This we cannot do. If the Jung are allowed to possess the jump drive technology, they will become unstoppable. Today it will be Earth, tomorrow the Pentaurus cluster.” Nathan paused, looking at his helmsman who sat in the very same chair Nathan had sat in when the Aurora had first left port. “No, we shall not surrender. We shall fight. We shall drive the Jung from the Earth, or we shall die trying. That is all.”
“Ship-wide closed,” Naralena reported.
“Jump plotted and ready, sir,” Mister Riley reported from the navigator’s station.
“Jump.”
“Jumping in three……two……one……jump.”
Nathan closed his eyes as the blue-white jump flash washed over the bridge. He was taking his ship, his crew, into what could very well be their final battle, and he knew it.
“Jump complete. We’re in high Earth orbit. Altitude of three hundred thousand kilometers.”
“Comms, message to Jung command. Message reads, ‘Time’s up. My turn.’”
“Find me a target, Mister Randeen,” Nathan stated calmly.
“Nearest target is a frigate, designated as contact one. She’s coming around the near side, counter orbit. Range: three hundred thirty-eight thousand and closing.”
“Message sent,” Naralena reported.
“Any response?”
“Were you expecting one?”
Nathan smiled. It wasn’t often that his comm officer displayed her sarcastic nature, and he knew she was doing so for his benefit.
“We’ve been swept,” Mister Navashee reported. “She sees us. Contact one is breaking her orbit and turning toward us.”
“Helm, come to port one hundred twenty degrees and maintain current speed.”
“Turning one-twenty to port and maintaining speed,” Mister Riley acknowledged as he started his turn.
“New jump. Put us abeam of that frigate, two light minutes out so she doesn’t have time to see where we’re coming from.”
“Aye, sir,” the navigator responded.
“We’ll be firing a full spread, Mister Randeen,” Nathan explained. “Missiles, then nukes, then plasma. Pound them with the quads as we pass under her, then hit them with the stern tubes from the other side just before we jump.”
“Isn’t that overkill for a frigate, sir?” Mister Randeen questioned.
“Let’s just say I’m sending another message to General Bacca.”
“Yes, sir,” Mister Randeen answered, his own smile forming.
“Turn complete,” Mister Chiles reported.
“Jump plotted and ready,” Mister Riley added.
“Jump.”
“Jumping in three……two……one……jump.”
Nathan closed his eyes again, opening them after the jump flash had subsided.
“Hard to starboard, Mister Chiles,”
“Hard to starboard, aye.”
“Plotting attack jump,” Mister Riley announced.
“I’ll need at least fifty kilometers at our current speed,” Mister Randeen told the Aurora’s navigator.
“You got it,” Mister Riley answered.
“Turn complete,” the helmsman answered.
“Jump plotted and ready.”
“Jump,” Nathan ordered.
“Jumping in three……two……one……jump.”
This time, Nathan’s eyes remained open, his gaze fixed on the view screen ahead of him and his concentration steadfast, the same as his resolve. The jump flash came and went, and he did not so much as blink.
“Jump complete,” Mister Riley reported.
“Contact one! Dead ahead! Fifty meters and closing!”
“Fire.” Nathan’s voice was calm, his emotions cold and even.
“Missiles away!” Mister Randeen reported.
Nathan looked up without tilting his head as the missiles streaked away across the top of the view screen, headed toward the distant target that they could not yet see.
“Firing tubes two and four!” Mister Randeen added. “Torpedoe
s away. Time on target is ten seconds.”
Nathan held up his right hand, telling his tactical officer to wait a moment.
“She’s firing point-defenses,” Mister Randeen reported as he waited for his captain’s order to fire.
Nathan watched the forward view screen for several seconds. Then he saw it, a small dot in the center, barely visible.
“One missile down,” Mister Randeen reported.
The dot grew rapidly in size until it took on an oblong shape and began to show wide, red stripes that wrapped around its long, dark-gray hull. What was only a small dot a moment ago now filled half the forward view screen and was getting larger.
“Two missiles down,” Mister Randeen reported.
Nathan extended one finger on his right hand and pointed forward.
“Firing plasma torpedoes,” Mister Randeen reported.
Nathan kept his eyes straight ahead as the two red bolts of plasma energy traversed the diminishing distance between the two ships in the blink of an eye. The bolts of energy struck the frigate’s starboard shields, causing them to glow an intense reddish orange.
“Direct hits,” Mister Randeen reported.
“Her shields are buckling,” Mister Navashee added.
Two blinding flashes of white light engulfed the frigate, blocking their view and flooding the bridge with brilliance. The frigate was now too big to fit in the view screen and was about to move over them.
“Her shields are gone!” Mister Navashee reported with controlled exuberance.
Two more yellow-orange explosions erupted against the frigate’s starboard side as the Aurora dove under her.
“Direct hits!” Mister Navashee reported, this time unable to control his excitement. “Multiple secondaries!”
