Admiral Fawks played with his beard as he thought.“They’re clearly in violation of the treaty. I don’t believe we left out the‘don’t murder our leaders’clause. Still, the Commodore is correct in that we can’t simply switch allegiances without proof.”
“We have the pilot’s testimony,”Ray said.
Fawks shook his head.“Lieutenant—excuse me, Captain Davis has been through more than a little in the past few months. Hell, he’s been through more than most pilots see in their entire careers. And even if he were fit to stand as the sole evidence in this great crime, we have a much larger problem.”
“Where to even bring it up,”Hiro said.“With the Council mostly gone, there is no place for us to even have this discussion in an official capacity.”
Admiral Walker scoffed.“Do you really expect us to wait until after an election of a new Council? Until we can bring this horrible truth to the Terran people. And then let a bunch of green politicians handle the biggest decision of their careers in their first day in office?”He shook his head.“We can’t wait.”
“Then why wait?”
All eyes turned toward the speaker. Ray winced. He hadn’t even realized his mouth was opening until the words were already out. It was becoming a rather nasty habit of his.
“Speak up,”Hiro said. Admiral Walker ceded the floor.
Ray sighed meekly.“Why do we have to wait? We’re in a war, one which I can’t pretend to think we’re winning. Why should we waste any time when we are in dire lack of it? This room has the most intelligent and senior members of the military ready to act, held back by a technicality. Let’s just call it martial law and make a decision. Isn’t that what they train you officers to do?”
For a moment no one spoke. Ray was sure he was simply going to be shot, but one by one the officers began to nod. On the monitor, Commodore Osaka smiled slightly.
“Well then,”Hiro said.“I guess we put it to a vote. Do we stay with the Empire until these accusations can be validated, or do we join with the Nangolani rebels?”
The captains and commodores and admirals each had a moment to think, and then they cast their votes. The decision, not surprisingly, was unanimous. It wasn’t hard to see why they went the way they did. Humanity, as always, loved the underdog.
“Well, Mr. Lee,”Walker said.“You’d better get on the line with your friend. It’s about to get serious around here.”
- VIII -
Kaileen and Dax arrived at the camp with little fanfare. The Archangels were busy repairing panels on the crashed shuttle and preparing for a hasty evac. The pilot stared in wonder at the strangely-armored soldiers.
“Where did you get all this?”she asked Dax.
He shrugged.“Classified, little lady.”
She looked around the camp.“Where’s Josh?”
Dax’s face dropped and he sat down on a boulder. He couldn’t speak, just pointed to a small patch of ground where Alexa sat with their friend’s body. Josh was covered with a blanket up to the neck. Strangely, even with all his gear, he looked smaller in death. Kaileen shook her head.
“God, I’m so sorry, Dax.”
Fares came running over, rifle at the ready. He barely acknowledged Kaileen’s presence.“We just have the worst luck today.”
“What is it?”Dax asked.
“Enemy armor inbound,”Fares said.
The heavy gunner stood quickly, ignoring the pain in his chest, and donned his helmet. He found a loose barrel of linked ammunition for his HMG and picked it up.“Kail, you’d better get inside the Valkyrie. Help us get that thing off the ground.”
“Got it,”she said. She took off running, calling into her radio for more air support.
Dax grumbled.“What do we have to take on tanks?”
“Me,”a voice said. Dax looked over and saw a tall, skinny officer wearing armored coveralls and carrying a vehicle helmet. The man’s face was marked black with smoke and mud, but his clear blue eyes commanded the field.“Captain Grahams, Charlie Company.”
Dax fell back on routine, snapping to attention. He didn’t salute, as they were on the battlefield and such a gesture simply invited sniper fire. He must have looked like a Greek god in his armor, a mountain at nearly seven feet tall. The captain didn’t seem fazed. Dax figured the man had survived this long against monsters, so a giant armored grunt was merely ho hum.
“Who the hell are you guys?”Grahams asked.
“Special Forces, with Hercules 7,”Cho said quickly.“How many are you?”
Grahams nodded, but Dax could tell he didn’t buy the Hercules line.“Three tanks still operational. We managed to get the main gun up on one of our sister company’s Shivas, but she can’t move.”
“We’re working some repairs now, should be airborne in ten minutes or less.”
The captain shook his head.“That won’t help. You’ll be shot down before you get a hundred feet up. You need to clear out their armor before trying an evac.”
“Our Val’s pretty well armored,”Dax said.
“You’ve never seen their anti-air, have you?”Grahams sighed.“Like the hand of God, just swats you right down. Their weapons are super-powered. We’ve been able to hold them off, but just barely. One direct hit from their armor and we lose a tank. The odds are stacked pretty heavily against us.”
Cho nodded.“It’s been that kind of day for us too.”
“Really just the last few hours,”Pierre said.“Up until then I was feeling pretty good. Kind of bored, actually.”
A young sergeant ran over, sweat pouring down his chubby face.“Captain.”Grahams turned to acknowledge the soldier.“They’re here. ETA five minutes to engagement area.”
The captain turned to the Archangels, his face bleak.“I found an APC full of shoulder-mounted rockets a few days back, but they were more of a last-ditch thing. We don’t have a great plan, but with your help we can make them pay for every inch they take.”
Dax pounded an armored fist into his hand.“With our help, they don’t stand a chance.”
- IX -
Captain DeHart woke on the floor of his ship. His head ached something awful, and the air stank of blood and burning metal. All around, the cries of wounded melted into the general roar of flames and groans of the fractured hull. Hands grabbed at his body, pulling and pinching until finally he was standing. The room spun, whipping in front of his face with dizzying speed.
“What’s happening?”he asked groggily.
A warm voice spoke from his left.“We got bit. Bulkhead nearly took your head off.”
DeHart’s vision slowly cleared, and he found himself being carried down a smoke-filled corridor in the middle of Valley Forge. Bodies filled the hall, covered in blankets or jackets or not at all. The sickly sweet smell of scorched flesh filled his nostrils as they turned each corner, closing in on the infirmary. DeHart snapped out a hand and grabbed a door frame, halting the procession.
“Sir,”the voice said.“We need to get you to the doctor.”
DeHart growled.“I’m fine. Get me to the bridge. I need to be on the bridge. We’ve got to stop that monster.”
Hands gently but firmly unlatched his fingers from the door and continued moving him toward the medical bay. The air cleared immediately when they passed the hermetically-sealed lock. DeHart could see he was being manhandled by a group of junior officers; they were young and covered in dirt and blood. The ensigns and lieutenants put the commander on a bed and held him in place until the doctor arrived.
“Christ, Hawthorne,”DeHart said.“I’m fine. A little roughed up, but nothing to fret over.”
Doc Hawthorne, a gritty old physician with a voice like wet gravel, hobbled over to the exam table. His weathered face was warped in a permanent frown, curtesy of a mild stroke years before. Not that he’d ever smiled much, to DeHart’s knowledge. The old doctor pulled a penlight from his coat pocket and shone it in the commander’s eyes.
“You look worse than I do, Captain.”The doctor’s breath smelled l
ike cigarettes as he leaned in toward DeHart’s face. He turned toward the young officers.“Where did you find him?”
A tall ensign stepped forward. DeHart swore he couldn’t be older than nineteen.“That last shot took out block one-eight. We found him on the far side of the hall, underneath most of the ceiling.”
“Captain, you know better than to catch a bulkhead with your skull.”The doctor reached over to a nearby tray and picked up a syringe filled with pink liquid. He uncapped the needled and tapped the sides, bringing the bubbles to the top.“This will help with the pain. You should be safe to evac.”
Now DeHart was angry. It was one thing for his officers to worry about his health. It was another to talk about shipping him off his own boat. He pushed the hands off of his chest, grunting with pain as he sat up straight. Something hot and sharp pinched his gut, and his hip felt wet. He gritted his teeth and ignored the fire in his belly.“Goddammit, I am still commander of this ship. We aren’t out of this fight yet.”
Hawthorne sighed, grumbling as he set the syringe back down on the tray.“Captain, do you remember what happened before you came here?”
DeHart nearly snapped, but a nagging thought stopped him. How had he ended up buried in metal and wires? It was all a blur. His head hurt as he struggled to remember. An ensign brought a cup of water to his lips and DeHart drank eagerly. The memories came rushing in like a tide.
The juggernaut had finished opening its dozen arms just as the order to attack came down. Admiral Walker, already wary of the Boxti’s tactics, devoted every heavy assault craft to the fight. Valley Forgeled the way, PACs firing as fast as they could be loaded. DeHart felt bile rise in his throat. It had been short skirmish, and completely one-sided. The massive alien ship was armed to the teeth, and each weapon system was a technological marvel. Frigates were cut in half by some sort of ion beam, while cannons punched holes in the Terran battleships and cruisers. It took less than a minute for the Boxti warship to wreck ten destroyers. This wasn’t a war between equals, just lambs to the slaughter.
DeHart remembered running out of the bridge, the heat on his back unbearable. Then there was a terrible bang and he woke up on the floor, a group of young men and women gingerly digging him out from the rubble. There was something else, he remembered. His second-in-command, Fuller, had been beside him the whole time. Looking around the infirmary, DeHart realized he didn’t recognize any faces from the bridge.
“Where’s John?”he asked warily.
The officers all looked away, their faces masked with pain or guilt or shame. Only Doc Hawthorne maintained composed, sighing with characteristic impatience.“Captain, the bridge was hit by a penetrating round. You and John barely made it out in time. When the hull collapsed from the breach, John strapped you to a tether before trying to connect his own.”His brown eyes betrayed a hint of emotion.“He was lost, sir.”
The young lieutenant stepped closer to the commander, placing a hand on DeHart’s shoulder.“He saved your life. He saved all of us, sir. Before the bridge went, he turned the engines to full reverse and brought us out of the fight. The juggernaut’s leaving us alone for now.”
DeHart couldn’t hear any of it. In his mind he replayed his last seconds of consciousness. Something large had knocked him flat, forcing the wind out of him. In the brief moments before he passed out, he had felt someone connect his belt to a line, then a horrific rushing of wind. The last thing he could remember, or maybe his imagination was pretending he remembered, was John’s bright blue eyes fading into the endless black.
“God save us,”he whispered.“God save us all.”
- X -
Cameron breathed a sigh of relief. Kaileen had survived her trip to the Valkyrie, and better yet, she’d found some backup. It was good to know Josh’s team had made it through the war thus far. There had been something in Kaileen’s voice that put Cameron on edge, but he didn’t have time to badger her with questions. He’d talk to Josh once they had that shuttle back in the air and were headed to Primus.
The Boxti squadron had all but vanished; they’d left a few Wasps while the rest ran up to the fight in space. Ground forces continued to fire harassing shots, but without the help of their Hornets they were sitting ducks. Torch group bore down on the Scorpions and Pills, peppering the armored vehicles with Gauss fire. After the sortie an hour before, most of the Phoenixes were completely spent for missiles. It was a problem Cameron didn’t need at the moment.
“I want another run on that armor,”Cameron called out.“Who still has some teeth?”
A gruff voice came back on the radio.“This is Torch five. I’m fangs out, on approach to your ten.”
Cameron look to his left, spotting his wingman closing in low over the terrain. As it neared the enemy formation, the pilot opened up with his Krakens. Each round tore a chunk off the Scorpion tanks, but didn’t score a kill. Cameron was about to order another run when he saw a rocket shoot up from a small crop of trees. Before he could react, the warhead found the attacking Phoenix and connected, tearing the wings off the craft and sending it into a hillside. It was all over in a matter of seconds.
“Goddamnit!”Cameron pulled his fighter higher, putting distance between himself and the anti-air troops.“Torch, we need to pull back. We aren’t having any effect.”He looked over his shoulder at the remaining enemy tracks. Damnit, I have to buy Kaileen more time.The Phoenix pulled left as he banked out of the climb. An alarm chirped, alerting Cameron to a sudden movement off to the side.“What in the hell?”
“Torch one,”a pilot came on.“I’ve got bandits on an intercept course.”
Cameron could see the same red dots appear on his screen. It seemed the Boxti weren’t done yet. A familiar shape began to grow on his port side, morphing into the Ace. Cameron’s heart beat a little faster.“Torch, we’ve got to buy that shuttle more time. Give it everything you’ve got.”He reversed direction, charging headlong into the fray with guns blazing. He wasn’t going to let them gain a single inch.
* * * * *
Eruk stood on top of the Scorpion tank, staring out at the wood line ahead. Somewhere in that dense forest lurked the enemy. If nothing else, it would provide him with a nice distraction until it came time to leave. The cycle would be up in an hour, which would leave just enough room for a quick fight. Overhead, the clash of the Hornets and the humans echoed down. The pulsating murmur of the Druuma let him know that an Ace was among the flight group. That was good; the enemy wouldn’t stand a chance.
“What is the delay?”Eruk asked.“Why are we not engaging the enemy?”
“Warlord, another group of humans crashed in that area not too long ago.”The Boun commander looked more at peace around his own soldiers.“Our scouts report that they were responsible for destroying the Druumatan birthing pools.”
This made Eruk smile, a hideous expression for a Cthanul.“Then we will get the honor of being heroes as well as victors, and avenge our fallen Flek.”He hopped to the ground, grabbing a pair of rifles off the side of the tank and striding forward toward the front.“I’ll take two squads of your best to flank the enemy.”
“Sir, don’t you want to let our tanks lead the charge?”
The Warlord growled and bared his teeth.“A Cthanul never lets a lesser-being steal the glory, and a Ruall always fights first.”He tore off toward the trees, two weapons held in his lower arms. Five of the rock soldiers joined him, eager to please their leader and be rid of this world once and for all.
- XI -
Hiro read the latest report with a pained expression. The death toll continued to climb, and thus far only a few Arks had managed to clear the gravity well and jump clear of the system. Admiral Walker had wanted to stall the evacuation longer, until Fleet could better protect the fleeing civilians, but now it seemed they had waited too long. The unfathomably large Boxti vessel had fully opened its many arms and loomed like a spider over the planet. Every Terran in the system held their breath and waited for the final blow.
“Dubaijust lost primary engines, Commodore!”
Hiro snapped back to reality. He was in charge of the combined might of humanity; there was no time for regrets while so many still needed protecting. He put down the tablet and looked at his digital display of the fight. Dozens of human ships drifted aimlessly, completely shattered by enemy fire. Valley Forge was on its last legs as it went toe-to-toe against the Boxti giant. Even with the support of every missile frigate in the armada, the Terrans were barely making a dent.
On the bridge, the temperature rose toward sweltering. A rocket attack had crippled the oxygen filters, and power had to be rerouted from the support systems. Another blast could easily turn Midwayinto so much scrap, but they had no choice but to fight on. Every Ark that made it out alive was a victory unto itself. Hiro would gladly die to see humanity survive this encounter. A loud scream jerked his attention to the door, where the Admirals stood and watched the battle unfold. Perhaps he was willing to go down with the ship, but he couldn’t allow the best military minds to fall as well.
“Get me Valley Forgeon a secure line.”Another explosion turned the bridge on its side. Hiro’s tether bit into the meaty flesh of his hand as a suicide attack blew out the port-side hangar. He didn’t have the luxury of time to waste mourning. Not yet, he prayed. I need more time. The line connected as the ship righted itself.“Sam, it’s Hiro.”
Captain DeHart’s voice was unusually high as he answered. A screeching alarm nearly drowned out the commander’s voice as he hollered into the radio.“Hiro, Valley Forgeis lost. Reactor’s just about had it.”
“How long?”
“Maybe ten minutes.”DeHart paused.“John’s dead.”
When the Stars Fade (The Gray Wars) Page 60
