I shoulda been there, man, Lee thought, feeling his guts twist around his spine. It shoulda never gone down like this. If I’d have just…
The door behind him swooshed open, and Lee turned to see Mac enter the room.
“How’s it going?” she asked, descending the steps to meet him. She’d just come back from changing into her flight suit, and Lee felt a surge of mixed emotions upon seeing her in it.
“I’m all right,” he said after a pause. “How ’bout you? You holdin’ up okay?”
Mac took the seat beside him and pointed to her cheek. “Proud as hell of my skills with a makeup kit, that much I can tell you.”
Lee managed a weak smile then returned to his thoughts.
Mac studied him. “You’re doing it again, aren’t you?”
“Doin’ what?”
“The guilt-trip thing you always seem to put on yourself when stuff goes wrong. It’s not your fault, Lee. I know that’s where your head is right now, and I’m telling you…you can’t let it go there. Not today.”
“I know it ain’t my fault, Mac. I mean, we were on our damn honeymoon, for cryin’ out loud. If there was ever a time when I get a pass for not bein’ around, that’s kinda it. But…that still doesn’t stop me from wishin’ like hell I had been, ya know?” Lee turned to face her. “I can’t remember a time when Danny wasn’t there, watchin’ my back. And yet the one time he needed me, I was nowhere to be found.”
Lee felt Mac’s neck, warm and comforting, press to his face as she pulled his head to her shoulder. She didn’t say anything at first. But then again, she didn’t have to. He knew she missed Danny as much as he did—as much as any of them did. When it came to their relationship, however, Mac had always been Lee’s stabilizing force when he’d needed it, just as he’d been for her. In effect, one kept the other grounded when he or she couldn’t do it alone, and it was that sort of mutual, “I’m strong for you, you’re strong for me” dynamic that had always defined their friendship.
“I know how you feel, Lee. Believe me, I get it. Me, Link, Hamish, Wyatt—we all do. But you don’t have time for this right now. In the next minute or so, eight squadrons of pilots are gonna come walking through that door, and they’re gonna expect you—not their buddy from the bar but their commanding officer—to be cool, even-keeled, and ready with a plan, just like any other LP. That sucks, I know, but it’s who you’ve gotta be right now. There’ll be plenty of time to grieve for Danny and Madisyn later, if it comes to that.” Mac leaned back to look him in the eye. “Because the search is still ongoing, you know. For today, though, it’s eyes on the prize, all right?”
Lee forced an exhale, sat up in his seat, and took her hand as the first of his pilots began to file in toward their seats. “I love you, Mac.”
She smiled back at him. “I know you do, and I love you, too. But for now, let’s just knuckle down and get this done.”
* * *
“All right everybody, let’s get started,” Lee ordered from the podium, and the final few whisperers in back surrendered their attention. “I know there’ve been a lot of rumors and chatter floatin’ around the fleet lately about what Command’s been cookin’ up, and we’re gonna get to all of that. But first, I’m sure some of you have questions about why I’m leadin’ this mission instead of Captain Mann—”
“They know, Commander,” said the bald goliath, Victor Mann, in his deep baritone from the back of the room. Apparently he’d come to sit in on Lee’s first briefing as LP before shipping out to the Gordon. “Word was already out about the Larrin by the time you came aboard, so I took the liberty of filling them in on Sergeant Tucker.”
Lee nodded his gratitude to the former LP, and one of his original flight instructors on the Mimic Project.
“We were sorry to hear about Sergeant Tucker, sir,” Lt. Jaysen Hicks said from mid-level on the room’s right side. “Even aside from his skills in a Kachuro triangle, he was a good guy, and we always liked it when he came around.”
“He still is.” Lee glanced at Mac down front. “But I appreciate the sentiment.”
Everyone settled in after that, and Lee cued the projection screen behind the podium to the same gridded star chart he’d seen the day before with Katahl. “Okay, as everybody in here knows, we’ve managed to beat the grays back a fairly decent way into their own space over the last year. True, they’re still holdin’ strong in most of the core regions like the Santee, Thilmore, and the inner provinces. But they’re losin’ ground in the rim because, in most instances, their reinforcement ships can’t beat our C-100s to the line. With that in mind, the brass has spent the better part of the last year cherry-pickin’ targets around the rim systems—mostly those in Krenza and Zyana provinces—in an effort to weaken their overall defensive front for an eventual, all-out invasion by our own forces.”
Lee saw several sets of bug-eyes gawk back at him. “Yep, that’s right. Welcome to Operation Naildriver, and believe me when I tell ya, people, this is the big one. ‘The Granddaddy of ‘em all,’ as we say where I come from. In twelve hours’ time when this ship drops out of hyperspace, it, along with numerous others, will set out as part of the largest offensive this fleet has ever attempted…and Lord willing, it’ll be the last.”
Lieutenant Hicks raised his hand again. “Sir, does this have anything to do with all of those troop movements we’ve been seeing in the Thaylon and Fyndahl systems?”
“Yes and no,” Lee said. “It’s true that Thaylon and Fyndahl are a part of this, hence all of the pieces Command has in play there of late. But the actual invasion won’t take place anywhere near there. Rather, those two systems are part of Operation Guardian, a deception to divert Alystier’s focus from the real staging point and then delay a vast chunk of the empire’s reinforcements once operations do commence.”
Hicks’s mahogany-brown eyebrows knit as he stared at the chart. “Okay. Where, then, is the actual invasion going down?”
Lee zoomed the regional image in on a single system. “Here—a nine-planet cluster around an N-class yellow star located roughly three terasecs inside of Revlin Province, the third and final slice of the Alystierian rim and the deepest target to date from Auran space. The invasion will take place here, in the Kyma System.”
“Excuse me, sir?” asked a pilot from three rows back. He looked to be somewhere in his late twenties with a headful of blond peach fuzz. He was new enough that Lee didn’t recognize him. “That system—specifically the planet Kyma 4—is home to one of Alystier’s eight deep-space supply hubs. That installation alone serves more than 20 percent of their operations from the Revlinian border to Ledington Province, which means it’ll be beyond fortified, in orbit and on the surface. Are we really prepared for a strike that hard, and that far out from our own people?”
Lee scanned his roster. “Good question, Lieutenant…?”
“Jones, sir. Most people just call me Jonesy, though. Probably why they made it my call sign.”
“Good to meetcha, Jonesy.” Lee adjusted the image to a panoramic view of Kyma and its three neighboring systems. “To answer your question: yes, Command is prepared for this. The thing you’ve gotta remember, though, is that this offensive ain’t about a strike on a single system or facility—not by a long shot. It’s about destabilizin’ the region. Kyma is just the lynchpin to kick-start the process. After that, it’s on to the Iglyah System, then to Luzon, then to Faralyn. Then before you know it, boom, we’re all the way through Revlin Province, halfway into Ledington, and knocking on the door of Rondow Province with one tour-stop to go…Alystier itself. Granted, a lot of stuff has to fall into place between now and then for all of this to happen, but that’s the plan.”
Jones sat back and whistled in astonishment.
“Yeah, that was our response, too,” Lee said. “It’s crazy to think about, I know, especially when you consider that even as recently as two years ago an op like this would’ve been deemed insane—A, because we lacked the manpower to hit this deep into
Alystierian territory and B, because even if by some miracle we had reached Kyma, it would’ve taken us a week to do so with conventional ships. That would’ve given Masterson more than enough time to set his defense. But, fast-forward to now with the advent of C-100 drives and Mimic troops, and not only is it doable, but it’s doable in a fraction of the time as long as we keep the element of surprise.”
Lieutenant Dana Lindsay ruffled her short, copper-red hair then lifted a hand. “About that, sir. C-100 ships or not, you’ve gotta know we’re gonna ping the hell out of their defense buoys on our way through their security net. Best guess, that’ll still give the grays a three to six-hour heads-up on our course, and regardless of the help we’re getting from Operation Guardian, that’s a fair bit of time to re-task a defense.”
“And then there’s our march through the region if we do take Kyma,” Jones added. “We’d better be loading for some serious bear to pull this off.”
Lee regarded the screen behind him, imagining how it would look in a day’s time. “Oh you can rest assured, Lieutenant, that is not gonna be a problem.”
“Can you give us a ship count?” Hicks asked.
Lee pulled up the numbers. “Tax, title, and all: eighteen heavy carriers, the Harkens included, fourteen light carriers, twenty-four outcutters, thirty-two battleships, thirty-five cruisers, eighty-six destroyers, and somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen-hundred fighters, Mako and Thresher, plus Tuskans.”
“Ruah!” someone murmured in awe down front.
“Have no illusions, people,” Lee said. “This mission is all about the long game, and the admiral and President Wylon know that, which is why they’ve committed this much of our own fleet to ensurin’ its success.”
“How about ground support?” Lindsay asked. “Most of Kyma 4’s resistance will come in the form of its orbital defenses, but the hub itself is located on the actual planet. That means a surface attack, and given the status of some of these other worlds, it also won’t be the only one we’ll be asked to make during our march through the region. I’m guessing that means boots on the ground, right?”
“The Seventh and Ninth Infantry Divisions along with the Seventy-Second Airborne and Second Armored Brigade will all be locked and loaded for drop as soon as our ships hit the system,” Lee said. “They’ll be followed after that by the Twelfth, Forty-Third, and the 102nd Infantries, with the Forty-Eighth, Fifty-Second and Sixty-First all hanging back in reserve alongside the Twenty-Second and Twenty-Third Armored Divisions.”
“Good night!” Hicks gasped. “That’s gotta be, what? Ninety, ninety-five thousand guys?”
“It’s 111,346, actually,” Lee said, his thoughts resting briefly on the 102nd, which included Danny’s unit.
“So where do we fit into all of this, sir?” Jones asked. “Are we looking at a full-green pylon as soon as we exit hyperspace or what?”
Lee cleared his throat. “The Kennox will deploy in the opening wave with the Deckler, the Bortles, and the Brindamore. And just so we’re clear, I expect every one of you to be on your A game when we do. This is a major op, folks, far bigger than anything we’ve ever seen, and it’s gotta run like clockwork if it’s to succeed. That means each of us, me included, has to be ready to hit the ground runnin’ as soon as they call our number. Now, I ain’t sayin’ there won’t be nerves, for all of us. But you either find a way to get ’em out of your system beforehand or you tuck ’em away till this thing is over, because there won’t be room for ’em once we’re airborne.” Lee’s expression lowered a bit. “I’ll be straight with you guys. I may’ve just lost my oldest friend in the world on the Larrin, and if it’s all the same with y’all, I’d just as soon not add to the tally tomorrow. As the LP, I know it’s naive of me to think that way, and I also know it probably won’t happen. But damn it all if that ain’t my goal, understood? I want every one of you back on my flight deck when this thing ends. So hit your marks, stay frosty, watch each other’s backs, and do what you’ve gotta do to make that happen.”
Each head in the room nodded, and Lee deactivated the viewscreen. “Good. Now, if y’all don’t have any more questions, I want everybody in here to clear out and go find chow, then hit the rack early. Pre-drop check-on is slated for 0600—actual drop’s at 0630—and I want everybody runnin’ on a full night’s sleep when we get there. Ruah?”
“Ruah,” the group said in unison.
“All right then,” Lee concluded. “Dismissed.”
* * * * *
Chapter 26: Grapevine
Watching the blue haze of hyperspace subside to black in the bridge’s main viewer, Masterson shifted in the Kamuir’s command chair and returned his attention to the intel report on his tablet. According to DSR from the warship Lancetor, which was now re-stationed on the outer edge of Krenza Province, the ASC had added eighteen more ships to its growing force in the Thaylon System, along with fifteen-thousand additional troops. That was the second such surge Masterson had seen this week, and when combined with the similar reports he’d gotten from the Fyndahl System, it all added up to one conclusion.
“Tully was right,” Masterson murmured to himself. “They are indeed planning to invade.”
Having seen all he needed to see and having finished thinking things over, Masterson rose from his seat. “Comm, get me the chancellor at once. Helm, lay in a course for—”
“Commandant, sir?” the Kamuir’s comm officer said. “You have a priority message incoming on your personal channel. It’s marked urgent.”
Masterson cocked his head. “Source?”
The comm officer stared at his screen, bewildered. “Unknown, sir. The only information provided, oddly enough, is in the subject bar.”
“Which reads?”
The young man blinked. “Freight fire, sir? That’s it, that’s all it says.”
Masterson whirled to face him. “Freight Fire” was the emergency code phrase that Daryn Reese had given only to his most trusted intelligence contacts in Detron City. Someone needed to talk, and now.
“Route the message to my ready room.” Masterson bounded down the steps toward his office. Moments later, his eyes narrowed to slits when a round moon-face appeared in his terminal.
“Oh my gods, Daryn, you’re never gonna believe what’s happening!” Kimi shrieked in delight to open her recording. “I’m sooo sorry to call you at work like this, much less with your emergency term thing, but I just had to tell you…I’m moving to Retaun! Isn’t that fantastic!”
Masterson slumped down into his chair and snorted. He didn’t have time for this, though in light of the fact that she had proved useful on occasion, he kept watching anyway.
“So, remember I’ve been jockeying for that promotion for, like, ever? The one my boss has been promising to give me for months, but always managed to somehow find a reason why he couldn’t? Well, I guess someone in our rinky-dink little office finally told that chauvinistic jerk who’s been doing all of the heavy lifting, because I’ll be damned if he didn’t stump up in yesterday morning’s setup meeting and come through! About time, right?”
Masterson’s gaze rolled skyward.
“Yeah, so I apparently turned some major heads with a bunch of the CIB higher-ups over the analytics I did on this last project.” Kimi stopped there, as if catching herself. “Oh, that’s right. I forgot you’ve been out of the loop the last few weeks on business, so I haven’t had the chance yet to bring you up to speed on everything that’s happening.”
This is absurd. Masterson reached for the disconnect key.
“Okay, so check this out…Remember that meeting I had after breakfast on our last morning together? The big one I totally wasn’t prepped for with Admiral Katahl and all of Wylon’s defense guys?”
Masterson froze in mid-reach.
“As it turns out, there’s this huge fleet thing that’s been in the works for months…”
* * * * *
Chapter 27: Distracted
Rounding out the last of his inst
ructions at pre-drop, Lee held a moment for any lingering questions before releasing his pilots into the capable hands of their squadron leaders for final rundowns. They’re nervous, he thought, having seen a fair amount of jitters on many of their youthful faces. Still, he’d spent the last eight months flying with this crew, so he knew what they were made of. They’d be fine.
Navigating the swarm of pilots, deckhands, and engineers—all scurrying about the flight deck amid last-minute assignments—Lee halted under his Mako in drop-chute six and gave Mac a final kiss before climbing into his cockpit. Once inside, he slid his spear-streaked gold helmet over his head and started his pre-flight, all the while dreading the static drop that awaited him in less than ten minutes. Lee hated them, even though he understood why they were necessary. The tactical advantages of being able to push out multiple fighters at once notwithstanding, most ships of the Kennox’s size and configuration were simply too small for a carrier-style runway system. That still didn’t mean he had to like them. In Lee’s mind, as was typical of most pilots who’d been trained on a catapult, those precious few seconds leading up to, then immediately following a rolling launch were sacred—rituals, even. First there was the stand: that long, silent moment of focus when a pilot would stare down the nose of his machine, as if steeling himself for what came next. Then was the wave, otherwise known as the thunderbolt of force that would blast a twenty-ton craft from zero to 266 kph in less than two seconds. Then, finally, came the ride: the exhilarating burst of speed that effectively dropped an anvil onto the pilot’s chest—stick rattling like a jackhammer in his grip—as the scene beyond the canopy tore by in a blur, only to suddenly give way to the silky-smooth glide of zero G. It was sweet, it was fluid, and it was perfect. Take all of that away, and you risked screwing with a pilot’s entire sense of rhythm coming off the line—a potentially fatal thing, under the wrong circumstances.
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