The Silent Planet: A Space Opera (Cosmic Cyclone Series, Book 1)

by G. H. Holmes

  "No," somebody said.

  "Not me," somebody else added.

  When nobody else volunteered an answer, Gruzka said, "All right, I'll give you another five minutes. After that everybody from heavy weapons goes to an elevator and gets his behind into his assigned battle station. Remember, that's what we came for."

  A frantic voice asked, "What about that red apparition, Sir?"

  "If you meet another one, don't look at it," Gruzka counseled. "Close your eyes and get away. But I assume that you'll be safe in your battle stations. Now, don't fall asleep on me again. The general told me that an attack by an outside force may be imminent. He depends on us to get to our stations right now!"

  When his troops barely moved, he boomed, "Get a move on! On the double!"

  The dazed troops shuffled off and got in line to be transported to their battle pods. They went in pairs with their fire team buddies.

  Pretty much at the same time, two platoons from Aleph and Berlin Company were leaving the concourse and the hangar respectively and entered the maze of Kasa Station in search for battle stations to man. Captains Anderson and Wakka Wakka, who was doing fine again after his troops had ministered to him, led the effort by employing holograph maps. Far away from one another, they nevertheless did the same thing, which was to move quickly and to check on modules and hallways and quarters on the way, making sure there were no surprises waiting.

  It would take them at least an hour to man a few battle stations. Especially Joel Anderson regretted not being able to talk to Gruzka of Chaos Company. But that man and his troops couldn't be reached. All he knew was that they weren't where they were supposed to be.

  "This is one large installation, Sir", a private complained to Joel as they crossed through another deserted concourse.

  "You got that right," Joel replied as he craned his neck and looked around.

  Chapter 20

  A yellow cloud icon was entering Ben's target screen, but almost immediately changed to a red diamond.

  "Bandit inbound!" he said.

  After a few seconds the icon changed again and turned into a rectangle containing a flying-wings silhouette, signifying a hostile USV or Unmanned Space Vehicle.

  Ben kept staring at his target screen. The flying wings silhouette disappeared and was replaced by an air screw. What was coming at them was not an unmanned, but a manned spacecraft.

  "Get your shields up, guys."

  "We won't be able to communicate, Sir," Gargoyle argued.

  "You want to talk," Ben asked, "or do you want to live?"

  "Of course, Sir," Gargoyle said.

  "Commence shielding," the general ordered. "Godspeed, guys. Harrow out."

  Ben activated his own shield and his world turned yellow again.

  The first fighter from Kasaganaan approached and flew a wide arc around them.

  "Hold your fire," Ben said, momentarily forgetting that they could no longer hear him.

  The x-jet from Kasa hadn't fired on them! It hadn't come in with guns blasting.

  Perhaps the leadership down on the planet only wanted to explore what was going on up in the station.

  But Ben doubted his own reasoning.

  Two, three other fighters rushed up and circled the station. They, too, did not fire on Ben or his wing mates.

  Perhaps they could be talked to.

  Perhaps this was all just a big misunderstanding.

  Suddenly a bright red star rose from top of the station. Ben realized that it came from the direction of the Armory.

  Pere Gruzka had fired on the interceptors!

  Ben immediately switched his shield off and dialed himself into the Chaos Company command frequency. "Captain Gruzka, this is the general speaking. Do you read me? Over."

  Outside, the bright red star was now pursuing a Kasa fighter, which jinked to evade the charge coming after him.

  Ben kicked his x-jet into hyper-thrust and darted off towards the threatened interceptor without activating his shield. Quickly he came up behind the star that was chasing the plane from Kasa. On his target display he selected not the bandit but the bomb. The green brackets around it turned red and Ben heard a ping in his headset that told him his weapons computer had locked onto the torpedo.

  "Captain Gruzka of Chaos Company," Ben said. "General Harrow speaking. Do you hear me? Answer me if you do."

  Ben's thumb settled on the fire button topping his HOTAS-stick. When the Kasa interceptor broke away at an almost 90 degree angle and the glowing torpedo flew straight for another second, Ben depressed the fire button. A series of high-powered energy pulses flowed from the tip of Ben's craft towards the bomb and on impact tore it apart. A bright red sun flared and winked out within a few seconds.

  Ben had just saved one Kasa fighter from certain destruction.

  Atop the station, more red stars rose from the dome of the Armory.

  "Gruzka! Cease fire! This is the general speaking!"

  Static hissed in Ben's ear. He checked if he was dialed into the correct frequency and found that he was, but Gruzka's voice never broke through.

  More Kasa interceptors had arrived and were maneuvering in the space around the station. They, too, seemed to check things out first.

  But suddenly the dark void around Ben turned into a heap of Mikado sticks of laser light. The interceptors from the planet had begun to make war on Ben and his team.

  Harrow immediately activated his shield, and when it got cold again in his cockpit, Ben felt it more acutely than before. He wondered what would have happened if Gruzka hadn't opened fire on the arrivals.

  A screech tore Ben out of all musings. An enemy target system had locked onto his craft.

  He immediately pulled on his stick and tried to fly a looping, so he'd get behind his pursuer. But his hunter was fast. He followed Ben's every maneuver and couldn't be shaken off. Racing away from Kasa Station out into space, Ben tried to isolate his pursuer. But from his three o'clock position, bright lines of light crossed his flight path.

  Another interceptor had taken up the chase.

  Ben evaded the laser impulses by diving under them, but kept on flying out into space at breakneck speed. His HUD told him that at least two Kasa interceptors were on his tail. They were even flying at an almost equal distance behind him.

  Ben briefly pulled up on his stick and immediately killed his engines.

  Both crafts quickly overtook him.

  Ben's eyes were faster than his target computer. As soon as it flagged the two bandits as hostiles, he selected them and fired two morning stars after them. The bright white energy charges left the tip of his craft in fast succession and raced after the startled bandits. The charges were faster than lightning and the Kasa bandits had no time to avoid them. They exploded almost at the same time, hurling their debris all the way back to Ben, whose thruster pods were glowing again. The craft's shield deflected the debris when it arrived and Ben saw the sparks when it burned up.

  Grim-faced, Ben Harrow stared out into the sparkling night. For the first time in more than seventy years he had once again killed enemies on a battlefield.

  But the general had no time to grow sentimental. Troops under his command were being attacked and he had to do something about it. Ben sped his x-jet up, slewed it around and flew back.

  The space around Kasa Station was the stage of quite a light show. Colorful beams constantly cut through the darkness, disappearing and reappearing in other places. Ben saw that now not just the big gun on the Armory was sending up red stars, but impulse waves came from other places on the station, too.

  Somebody had managed to get into some of the battle pods and was shooting back. Now the interceptors were not just chasing Rambler and Gargoyle around the house, but had begun to attack the station itself.

  Ben frowned.

  Whatever the original intention of those pilots had been, Gruzka's red stars had brought out the wolves in them. This was a fight that the defenders could only lose—unless a majority of battle st
ations were manned by able troops. But so far, Ben saw that only three or four other guns besides the one in the Armory were active.

  Well, it was a beginning.

  Ben had his computer do a quick search for his wing mates. When he found them, he saw that both were pursued by several enemy fighters. The guys were hopelessly outgunned. At least they were smart enough to stay in the environment of the station, where the guns of Chaos, Aleph and Berlin could assist them in losing their pursuers.

  Ben raced up behind Rambler's hunters and quickly loosened volleys of morning stars at them. They exploded and threw two pursuers off the trail. Those interceptors spun away uncontrollably. Ben flew after the one on his five o'clock position and raked it with green laser fire. The bandits shield floundered, turned into a net of currents crawling over the craft's fuselage, and winked out. Ben's incoming laser fire sheared off one reactor, which exploded, damaging the Kasa interceptor beyond repair.

  Ben raced past the wreck and flew a wide arc—when he found himself suddenly pounded by enemy laser lances. His shield absorbed the hits and turned orange before shifting back to yellow. Ben yanked his craft around with such force that it was still sliding away when it was already pointing its nose at his attackers. A flow of red light pulses was streaming towards him. Ben quickly selected the repeller beam he'd used to derail the river of drones that had come up earlier and aimed it at the incoming pulse lights. He pulled the trigger and his sturdy repeller deflected them and even pushed some of them into the flight path of his pursuers, which promptly got knocked off on impact.

  A quick glance at Kasa showed Ben that more battle stations had found a crew. Lances of incredibly bright light pierced the darkness and sometimes hit home. Every few minutes another bandit exploded and turned into a short-lived sun. The interceptors were now down to six working craft. They flew away from the station, apparently in retreat, and Ben saw how Rambler and Gargoyle pursued them.

  "Guys, why are you doing this?" Ben said.

  Maybe they'd caught battle fever, living on a high that made them invincible in their eyes. However, once they were away from the space station, they no longer had its guns to help them ward the attackers off.

  Ben decided to fly after them, to see whether he could nudge them back to relative safety. What they were doing was reckless and not in keeping with their training. But real combat was always a completely different animal from the theory and practice in the safety of the simulator.

  Ben came up behind an enemy craft and fired a morning star at one of its four engines. But before the munition hit it, the craft swerved away to Ben's nine o'clock and two other fighters immediately disengaged from their pursuit of Rambler and Gargoyle and turned towards Ben.

  Harrow pulled up on his stick and shot straight up. But all three craft copied his maneuver and stayed with him. Looking out through his canopy, he could see the Kasa interceptors to his left and right. The third one was flying below and behind him.

  Ben did a quick calculation and immediately reversed thrust—and was violently thrown forward. Any other human, even one in a properly prepared G-suit, would not have survived this maneuver. But Ben now turned his craft around and sped back towards the station. He was outgunned and admitted it.

  Why die here?

  Nobody was served by his death, should he find it during a melee out here in the dark. Harrow knew that he needed the safety of the space station. Its guns would keep him from getting obliterated. He had to leave his foolish wing mates to their fate.

  Once again bright lines of light were fired at him, this time from three different directions, lances that stabbed at him from behind and overtook his craft. Several of them hit his x-jet and rocked it and turned his energy shield red. But Ben zigzagged on. Soon Kasa Station became visible above the planet once again and Ben knew that he was approaching safety.

  But all three bandits just wouldn't leave him alone. Ben wondered how those pilots could be so stupid.

  When he flew past the space station, its guns were blasting away full force and his headstrong pursuers soon turned into glowing debris. The general wondered what kind of people they were, what philosophy they'd been following.

  Ben yanked his fighter around once again to look in the direction of a furball of light, far away. He stared at his target console, where several red diamonds surrounded two green squares. Ben regretted that his craft was not equipped with torpedoes or missiles. He only had energy weapons at his disposal. Their reach was limited, but missiles or torpedoes would have been too heavy and too fragile for a high-speed craft like this x-jet. This was an ultrafast fighter, not a fighter-bomber, which had to operate at much slower speeds.

  Suddenly one of the green rectangles on his target screen disappeared. Ben looked out through his canopy into space and saw a bright flare, like that of a comet entering the atmosphere of a Terra. Then another lightning flashed and the second green rectangle on Ben's target screen vanished. Four red diamonds, indicating Kasa interceptors, remained behind.

  For a second the general hung his head. Rambler and Gargoyle were the first true casualties on this expedition.

  Ben hoped that the two young pilots had been able to yank on their ejection seat handles before their jets blew up. But that was unlikely. Nevertheless, his fingers worked the glass panel of his nav-system and he fixed their approximate location in space. Once the air was clear, he'd fly over and search for their bubbles. Their ejection seats had a limited range and by themselves they would never make it all the way to Kasa Station. He'd need to check on them. They probably hadn't made it, but if for no other reason than his own peace of mind, Ben was going to check on them.

  But not now.

  Harrow was brave, but he was not a fool. His craft was no match for four others of the same build. Plus, he hadn't flown in seventy years and it was a wonder that he was still alive.

  Ben had his target computer do a quick analysis of the area surrounding the space station. There were no more attackers. The guns of Kasa had fallen silent.

  The planetary forces had lost eight interceptors by Ben's count. He had lost two and there was damage to the station. If it was leaking air, his troops might fall asleep from lack of oxygen. Ben knew, they'd never wake up again.

  They needed to leave Kasa.

  But how?

  The transport ships from Terra Gemina were scheduled to come back in about two days. And calling home wasn't possible, because the communications tunnel across the galaxies wouldn't open up, his comm sarge and informed him earlier. Ben hadn't really cared, because he hadn't foreseen any need to talk to Terra Gemina. He had expected this to be an easy exercise of Search and Hold. He had not expected actually having to fight. Ben realized now how naïve he'd been, imagining himself to sit by a campfire, surrounded by his troops, telling stories. Instead, this expedition had kept him on his toes from the first.

  His mind returned to the black pyramid on the planet's surface. He was convinced that the twelve jets that had come up so far were only the vanguard. There were more to come. Perhaps even true battleships.

  Then what?

  He was down to exactly one fighter craft and was operating from a space station that had no protective energy shield. If a battleship came up and decided to bust Kasa Station, it would succeed in time, if it played it right.

  And who knew if there wasn't an entire fleet somewhere, just waiting for the order to pay him a visit?

  Going through his options, Ben remembered the tugboat, which he'd seen on the footage of Captain Wakka Wakka, when that man was sitting tied to a pillar down in the hangar bay. The tugboat was not big. Ben calculated whether he could fit five hundred people into its narrow confines. He'd have to squeeze them in, positively shoehorn them; there'd be standing room only. It would turn into a cattle car.

  And then he had to take them on the pylon road.

  A shiver crept down Ben's spine and he suppressed a panic attack when he thought of the fact that he'd be the pilot, guiding the tug bac
k to Terra Gemina.

  Ben kept his eye on the red diamonds on his target display. But the interceptors stayed far away from him and the station. They looped down towards the planet. It seemed that they were retreating for the moment.

  That gives us time!

  Ben deactivated his energy shield and immediately dialed himself into the battalion command channel. "Mr. LeBlanc, are you there? This is General Harrow."

  "I hear you, Sir," the voice of Colonel LeBlanc said in Ben's headphones.

  "Piero, we have to evacuate the station," Ben said. "Get everybody to go down to the transport bay right now. I repeat: right now. Abandon battle stations and go down to Berlin Company's original destination. There's a tugboat which we will man, and then we'll fly back to Terra Gemina still today."

  LeBlanc took a moment to digest the information. Then he said, "I may not reach all companies, Sir. Captain Gruzka for instance is still off-line."

  "He's following orders, Piero," Ben said, without mentioning that Gruzka had fired without being fired upon, against the general's intention. "He's been working the big gun in the Armory. If you can't reach him via radio, send somebody in an FAV and pick him up. If his troops happen to be unconscious, leave them."

  "Pardon me, Sir," LeBlanc said. "Why should they be unconscious?"

  "Just saying. But the main bulk of our expeditionary force needs to go down to the hangar for evacuation."

  "Sir, are you saying that we'll leave Gruzka behind if we don't reach him?"

  "What is better, Mr. LeBlanc," Ben replied, "lose one company and save two, or lose all five hundred?"

  "Of course, Sir."

  "I'll stay out here for a few more minutes to check on the station, because it looks like it has sustained some damage. That's another reason why we'll have to leave as soon as we can."

  "I'll convey the order, Sir," the XO said, suddenly eager.

  Chapter 21

  Joel Anderson and his troops had just reached the entrance to a battle station when the order to retreat to the transport bay came.