Eye of the Storm

by John Ringo

  "Ondun, Othelululi, Avakog, Baglitua, Rinarint, Savatulaulalo and Elondeg, are all damaged and out of the battle," the maneuvering officer said. "Bango, Ingona, Lirulimoru, Mirornc and Otha are still in the fight. The rest are . . . gone."

  "We may be 'in the fight,' " the Ingona's commander said. "But our meson cannons and a good bit of our secondary weapons are out. We've not much to fight with."

  "All remaining ships, skew turn, engage with secondaries," Ularn said.

  "Fighters incoming at kang tai delta eight," the fleet combat officer said.

  "Ships maneuver for fighter engage—"

  The Kotha didn't manage to get the word "engagement" out before the second barrage hit the task force.

  "Their last two battleships just went up, sir," the Lex's tactical officer said. "One cruiser's still limping along and a couple of the others are sort of alive but drifting. One battleship drifting."

  "Away boarding forces," McNair said. "Grab whatever intel and prisoners they can. Tell them to be careful; those ships are right on the edge of being bright flashes in the night sky. Task force break up and move to designated targets. Rendezvous at Karum ley point in no more than twenty hours. Send a message on the Himmit frequency and ask them to report that initial space forces in the Daga system have been reduced. Maneuvering, move us over to cover the retreat of the invasion fleet. And we might need to give the SS a little cover fire."

  "Do we have an ID on those vehicles?"

  Group General Gweldund knew to his shame that this planet was lost. He had been left on the planet with little but construction and consolidation forces, so given the scale of the attack it was going to be hard to blame him. However, it was his duty to complete the transmitter and then hold it. There was no avoiding that truth.

  But there were other forces on the surface as well as those in space. From the size of this task force that had appeared out of nowhere they were not enough ships to hold the system. Which meant that, eventually, the remaining forces would be reinforced both by the transmitter and from space. So, the more damage he did to the incoming forces the better.

  "Sensors do not recognize most of them," Commander Savanass, the Marro chief of intelligence and sensors said. "Some of them are shuttles. The rest . . . Ah, I have a visual from Ingia Station." The Marro considered the image and then shook his head slowly back and forth. "These appear to be ground combat vehicles. But . . . they are not designed for orbital insertion. They are just . . . ground combat vehicles on platforms."

  "Some sort of feint?" General Gweldund asked. "We do not have enough power to stop both the bombardment and the vehicles. I'm not sure we have the power to stop either. But if we concentrate on one, we cannot interdict the other."

  "They appear to have some sort of shielding that prevents the worst effects of reentry," the Marro said, examining the sensor readings closely. "If they also have some way of slowing . . . they could be a ground threat."

  "Shift fire to the vehicles," General Gweldund ordered. "There is no way to fully stop the bombardment. The transmitter will be destroyed. But we must make it possible to retake the surface."

  "We will do our best," the Glandri officer in charge of defenses said. "But with all the metal that thing is throwing out in the way, there is no way we will get most of them."

  "I must contact the Imeg for support," General Gweldund said, his tentacles wrippling. "They will not be pleased."

  "Mein Gott," Frederick shouted as a Marder in front of him exploded in fire. He couldn't even tell what had hit it, just that it was destroyed.

  "They're starting to get through the kinetics," Harz said blandly. "This should get interesting."

  Frederick could only see it because the Leopard had, for some reason, turned over on its side and half upside down. There was no way to control the tank. All they could do was fall on the preselected routes. Two vehicles, a Leopard and an armored support vehicle, bumped, tangled, exploded into fire and pieces. Their Leopard dropped through the debris, a chunk of armor plating flashed out of the fire, slammed the vehicle and suddenly one of Frederick's vision blocks blanked. The system quickly spread the load but the view was slightly grainier. He wished he could just turn them off. The tank was now spinning and it was getting very disorienting. They also were starting to build up G forces and he was being pulled forward in his combat harness. He grabbed a sickness bag and was noisy with it.

  "Ribbon chute coming out," Harz said. "Let's hope it doesn't tangle."

  There was a thump, and the tank swung back and forth for a moment then ended up in a nose-down configuration. The KEWs were beginning to slam into the ground below them, bursts like nuclear weapons in a ripple across the ground, growing and swelling, thousands of them.

  "We can't survive that!" Adler shouted.

  "Most of it will be gone by the time we land," Harz said, yawning. "Most of it."

  Sun-bright flashes, roiling mushroom clouds, and the panzer dropped straight into the heart of them. Frederick was momentarily glad. The view was, at least, cut off. All he could see was blackness shot with lightning as the clouds rearranged the massive energy released by the orbital kinetic weapons.

  "How long until we hit?" Adler shouted.

  "Coming up in four . . . three . . . two . . ."

  The sensation of falling abruptly stopped with barely a bump. The Leopard seemed to pause for a moment, then dropped downwards, hard, slamming to the ground.

  "Blowing bolts," Harz said to an almost unnoticed additional thump. "Forward, Schutze! Follow the icon on your blocks."

  A karat had appeared, off-center to the right, and Frederick revved the engine of the Leopard then started towards it. He was still driving in utter blackness lit only by occasional flashes of lightning. And the ground was beyond rough, the panzer repeatedly dropping into craters that were, fortunately, easy enough to drive out of.

  "Slow, here, Schutze," Harz said as additional icons started popping up. "We're reaching the assembly point."

  The karat began to shift to the left and Frederick followed it slavishly. He realized after a moment that it was taking him down some sort of path. The path seemed to have nothing to do with the ground but as the other icons moved it occurred to him that the unit was being arrayed.

  He considered the icons for a moment then then shook his head. Several panzers were missing, including that of the company commander.

  "Stop," Harz said. "And now, we wait."

  "For what?" Adler asked.

  "To see who else made it."

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  "We made it," Daisy said.

  From the outside there was little to see. Space was immense and even the best visual tracking systems had a hard time noting the brief flicker of starlight.

  And just in case, the Des Moines had emerged in the visual shadow of a Jovian.

  "Range to normal warp insertion for the Imeg ship is at nine light-seconds," the navigational officer said. "Recommend seven grav acceleration at 218 mark neg 12. That will put us in a swing around the sub-polar region of the jovian and on line to intercept. If they're on time. If not, we can park in a Lagrange orbit and wait."

  "Do it," Captain McNair said. He'd been studying his ass off on this space shit but it still didn't come naturally. And he didn't like that. He knew, as a captain, he had to understand every nuance of the environment. Unfortunately, he was still at heart a wet sailor. Three dimensions still sort of screwed with him. Fortunately, it didn't screw with Daisy. "I'm moving to the Battle Room. Inform me if there's any change."

  "Coming with you," Daisy said.

  "Absolutely," Jeff replied, grinning.

  Technically, the compartment two decks below the bridge was called CIC, Combat Information Center. But Jeff had grown up in the days when it was simply called "The Battle Room." It was where the guns were controlled from and the radar and lookout information was received. He supposed "Combat Information Center" made sense but just as he damned well had called the crew to "Battle S
tations," not "Condition One," he called it "The Battle Room." His new crew was just going to have to adjust.

  "Any indications of cloaked ships?" he asked as he entered the compartment.

  At the center of the compartment was a large holographic display of the immediate area. It could be zoomed in and out but generally was held as a bubble ranging out from the ship's location to ten light-seconds in every direction.

  "Negative, sir," the tactical officer replied.

  "And our friend?" Jeff asked, taking his seat and strapping in. The flex helmet for his suit was compressed into a small ball at the back of his neck. In the event of loss of air it would automatically deploy.

  "Right on time," the TACO replied, using a light-wand to indicate the approaching ship.

  "You know, I had a buddy back in the war," Jeff said. "That would be World War Two for you youngsters. He somehow got shanghaied into the commandoes that went over to mess with the Jerries. He said that one reason the Jerry sentries were so easy to kill was that they were just so damned regular. You could time their sentry beat to the second. Take that as a lesson, Lieutenant. Being absolutely regular in your actions is not a good thing in war."

  "Yes, sir," the TACO said, trying not to shake his head.

  "Daisy, connect me to the mentats, please."

  "On line," Daisy said.

  "Mentat Kang," Jeff said. "Imeg ship is on course and we're about to enter detection range. One hour to intercept. Time for you to work your magic."

  Can you sense the ship? Mentat Shaina asked.

  There are several, Sissy replied. But that must be the one.

  Powerful, Kang thought. Very powerful Sohon.

  Note the particles, Shaina thought. Note the build-up of energy associated with their acceleration, the flex of the universe at their increase in mass. Even with our cloak, we give off traces. We must eliminate every trace. And we must do it invisibly. We do not want the Imeg sensing us as we sense it.

  I must go ready my team, Kang thought. Ensure no trace.

  We will do our very best, Shaina replied.

  "You up for this, Skank?" Redman asked as he strapped into his seat.

  The three Banshee shuttles were lined up and prepared for launch. As the teams approached they spread out, distributing themselves so that if one of the shuttles was destroyed on approach, at least some of the teams would make it to the ship. The mission was still a go if they lost one shuttle. Two was an abort.

  The interior of the shuttles was tight. Four ranks of seats ran down its interior, two outboard and two inboard. The boarders faced each other, knees interlocked. What with body armor, suits, battle-rattle and weapons, there wasn't enough room to swing a mouse much less a cat.

  "I'm beginning to wonder," Adept Pawle replied calmly. "I can sense the power of the Imeg even here. It is powerful. Very powerful. And that is not the only problem . . ."

  "There are two Imeg on the ship," Kang said, his eyes closed and apparently meditating. "One is a mentat in truth. Very powerful. The other . . . barely an adept. But he will still be a problem."

  "We've got, what? Fourteen Sohon adepts and mentats?" Jake replied, his eyes closed as well. "Surely you guys can keep two under control."

  "Colonel Mosovich," Kang replied. "Were I using Sohon, and I assuredly am not, I'm not sure that the Imeg would notice me from this distance. However, it is impossible to miss them. I do not want to reduce your confidence, but the relative disparity of force is that of, say, a battlecruiser to a battleship. We have two battlecruisers, a couple of cruisers and ten destroyers."

  "Well, you guys better think about what it takes to become battleships, then," Jake replied. "It'll work out. And if it don't, we'll hardly know it."

  Mentat Shaina and two of the lower level Indowy had taken up positions in the Battle Room.

  Jeff was keeping one eye on the battle holo and one on the Indowy. But there wasn't much to see in the latter case. The Indowy didn't do a lotus when they were meditating; they knelt with their hands crossed, palms upwards and eyes closed. They'd been that way for the last forty-five minutes with no real change.

  "We are detected," Shaina said. "Mentat Harris is closing down their communications. I shall be busy. Tuthiri will communicate."

  "Close the target," Jeff snapped. "Prepare to launch shuttles. Open fire all secondary weapons."

  "What class of ship is that?" Cruiser Master Goglugot said. "And where did it come from?"

  Goglugot was a Kotha, as were most ship masters, the commander of the Gorongur. He had made this same run a dozen times so far and was less than pleased. He knew well the axiom of war that one should never develop a pattern. But the Imeg were less than interested in input from a lowly cruiser master. The Imeg loved order. Order was the way of the Hedren. So over and over again he had left on the identical schedule and entered warp at the identical point and now he was about to be fucked for it.

  And would the Imeg take the blame? Unlikely. Not that he was probably going to face an Inquisition. Given the power of the ship he was up against, he was unlikely to face anything but death.

  "A similar vessel was reported by scouts," the Marro combat officer replied. "It appears to be a new class. Capabilities are unknown. It was under cloak and apparently was enhancing with kratki. Thus we only detected it at less than a li. Neither the cloak capability nor the kratki enhancements were known to our intelligence. But the prominences forward are believed to be aesthetic."

  "The prominences forward bother me less than the heavy weapons on its side!"

  "Colonel," the shuttle pilot said. "We've been made. Launching in three . . . two . . . one."

  There was a slight sideways acceleration and then gravity dropped away. The shuttles had anti-grav systems but most of their power was being devoted to maneuvering and inertial dampening.

  Trained human pilots, given the right sort of seats and G suits, could sustain upwards of sixteen gravities of acceleration for brief periods. Maneuvers in Banshees in space could generate up to a hundred gravities. A hundred gravs would turn any human body into red mush.

  To avoid being turned into red mush, all space combat vessels as well as ACS used inertial dampeners. The dampeners could reduce the acceleration gradient to nearly Earth normal. But they used a lot of power doing it. Using more power to create a notional "down" meant less maneuverability. And the pilots of the shuttles wanted all the maneuverablity they could get.

  The space between the two ships was a cauldron of fire. Mass-drivers, grasers and plasma cannons filled the intervening space to the point the pilot wasn't sure that any of the shuttles would survive.

  The Hedren ship used primarily grasers, gamma ray frequency lasers, while the human ship mounted mass-drivers and plasma cannons. The latter two were visible while the grasers were, unfortunately, invisible. They did, however, show up on sensors. And her sensors were showing no way through the fire.

  "I thought the mentats were going to shut down the enemy fire!" her co-pilot snapped.

  "Guess that plan is out the window," the pilot replied as the shields shuddered from a direct graser hit.

  "The ship has launched small-craft," the combat officer said as the Gorongur shuddered under the power of the Des Moines' secondaries. "Shuttles or space fighters."

  "Then engage and destroy them," Goglugot snapped, then grabbed his head.

  The enemy is attempting to board.

  The Imeg's thoughts lashed the Cruiser Master's brain with fire. And it wasn't like he needed the distraction.

  "Only one thing on this ship worth boarding for, my lord," Goglugot replied, tightly. "I suggest you prepare to defend yourself. The Glandri are yours to command."

  I will order them to deploy. If I or my apprentice is lost, it will go hard upon you, Cruiser Master.

  "I doubt any of us will survive to face the Inquisition, my lord," Goglugot said. "For that reason, if no other, we will fight hard."

  As the Imeg released him, Goglugot rubbed his cranium with
a hand-tentacle.

  "You know," he said, looking at the combat officer. "There are times I wish I was a lowly Marro."

  "Too many arms, Cruiser Master," the Marro replied. "We're attempting to engage the shuttles but much of our fire is being diverted. I assume by kratki. Grasers are bending in space and splashing off their shields."

  "I think I'll leave that for our Lord Imeg to deal with."

  "Adept Tuthiri?" Jeff said, calmly. "The shuttles are taking fire."