by Richard Fox
“Some, but it’s gone,” Elias answered. “I’ll come out when this is over. Can’t risk losing resonance with my armor.”
“You’re going to get wither if you’re in there for much longer. You know the risks.”
Elias’s armor rocked slightly.
“You see that? I’m fine. Just because you got through phase three of selection doesn’t mean you earned your plugs. Now piss off,” Elias killed the channel.
The Ubi on Hale’s forearm vibrated, a call from Captain Valdar. Hale put his helmet back on as Valdar’s holo image appeared to Hale. “Yes, sir,” Hale said.
“Status report,” Valdar said.
“Nineteen confirmed dead, twelve missing in action, five wounded. The enemy is some sort of drone that Ibarra calls the Xaros. Ibarra, Marc Ibarra is somehow—” Valdar raised a hand.
“We’ve spoken with it. Admiral Garrett sent the drop ship with both Ibarras on to the America.” Valdar shifted his head from side to side, examining Hale. “You look like hell, Kenny. Ibarra said you saved their bacon down there.”
“I lost Marines, sir. I should have done more. I should have done better.”
“This is war, son. You can do everything perfect and still lose good men and women. You’re the Marine commander until Acera is out of his medically induced coma and back in the fight. Understand?”
Hale nodded. His first command beyond his team wouldn’t be that large.
“Admiral Garrett has the fleet—” Warning lights flared behind Valdar. He stepped away from the camera and returned a moment later, his face pale.
“Hale, you’ve got incoming on fast approach from Luna.” Valdar looked aside. “At least fifty contacts. The destroyers Tucson and Salzburg are screening between the moon and Breitenfeld. Get within their anti-aircraft range and they’ll cover you the rest of the way home. I can’t get fighters to you before the drones catch up, but we’ll try.”
“Suit up! We’ve got incoming!” Hale shouted. Marines scrambled to put their helmets back on and reseal their suits for void operations.
“Wish us luck,” Hale said to Valdar.
“Breitenfeld, out.”
Hale stood up and helped a wounded Marine, his abdominal armor scorched and cracked, from his chair.
“Pilot, I’ve got one Marine without suit integrity. Once I get him in a pod, go zero atmosphere and lower the rear hatch,” Hale said through the IR net. Hale half dragged, half pushed the protesting Marine into a life pod the size of a coffin and sealed the pod shut. The Marine banged against the pod’s door feebly, demanding he be allowed to come out and fight.
Cortaro pulled his Marines to their feet and pushed them toward their assignments. “Standish, top gun. Torni, bottom. Franklin, get your Gustav on a pintle.”
Standish and Torni climbed into the turret pods. Standish flashed a double thumb and pinky “hakka” sign as his pod swung into the lower gun.
Whirling red lights gave Hale two seconds’ warning before the atmosphere in the drop ship was sucked into holding tanks. His armor shifted and popped as it adjusted to void conditions.
The rear hatch descended without a sound, the Earth and the moon hanging in the space beyond, pristine and calm as ever.
Cortaro took careful mag-locked steps out onto the hatch. One wrong step or a sudden maneuver would send him into the void, and it was a long way down. Cortaro lifted a metal hinge from the hatch and set it upright. Franklin locked his Gustav onto the rod and dialed in left, right, up and down limits for his weapon—firing a weapon into the ship carrying you was discouraged.
Cortaro ran a lifeline from Franklin’s armor to the deck and did the same for Hale, who knelt beside Franklin’s weapon position and mag-locked his knee and shin to the hatch.
Hale checked his rifle’s batteries. He had enough charge left for four shots on high power.
Yellow light swept over the hatch as the drop ship’s afterburners flared. The acceleration tugged Hale to the abyss but his mag locks held him in place. An ammo canister flew past him and tumbled into nothingness.
The glow from the afterburners subsided.
“That’s all the burn we’ve got left. We’re about to have company,” Durand said over the IR.
Stars wavered as the Xaros drones cut between them and Hale. Moments later, Hale could pick out the gray-black dots of the drones moving against the backdrop of space. Target icons popped onto his visor.
“Standish, Torni, this is no time to save ammo,” Hale said.
The turret gunners answered with bursts from their twin gauss cannons. Yellow tracers streaked across the void and into the mass of drones. The turrets on the drop ship carrying the Acera and the remainder of their company joined the fusillade.
The drones jinxed away from the gauss rounds, shunting from side to side with more g-forces than any human pilot could tolerate. Target icons winked out as the converging gauss fire found targets—no satisfying bursts of fire or sympathetic detonations from whatever powered the drones. They evaporated from existence with each solid hit.
“Damn things are quick!” Standish shouted.
Franklin’s pintle-mounted cannon peeled off a trio of rounds. Hale’s visor darkened in response to the blasts a mere meter from his head.
The drones were close enough that Hale could see their stalks, tips glowing with foul intent.
“Targets are four hundred and fifty—”
A red star came to life against the darkness and a crimson beam burst forth. Light the color of hell’s mouth filled the drop ship and a flash blinded Hale. He blinked hard, the afterglow of the passing Xaros blast still burning against his retinas.
“Report!” Hale shouted.
“I got it! Everyone OK in there?” Torni asked.
Voices crowded the IR net and Hale’s vision returned. The beam had cut through the deck between him and Franklin. A red-hot metal trough cut from the edge of the hatch and descended into Standish’s turret.
“Standish? Answer me,” Hale said. The Marine’s team icon held firm but there was no answer.
Another burst from Franklin’s cannon brought Hale’s attention back to the battle. He aimed his rifle at a drone building up a blast and fired a high-powered shot. The recoil rocked him against his magnetic hold on the deck. He required his target and watched it spin against the backdrop of space. A second round cracked it in half and it dissipated.
Two Xaros blasts cut past Hale’s drop ship.
“Hit! We’re hit!” yelled the other drop ship pilot.
The Xaros pursuit slowed and the cloud of enemy icons contracted. The drones swarmed together, a murmuration crackling with electricity.
A burning yellow needle of light penetrated the mass of drones and burst. Yellow slivers flew out of the new explosion and terminated where they impacted with a drone, wayward bolts accelerating beyond the swarm.
“This is Commander Rikon of the Tucson. We’ll keep up the anti-aircraft fire. You get your ass back to Breitenfeld,” came over the IR net.
The drop ship sped past the Tucson, a destroyer. The fleet’s destroyers were nimble ships designed to destroy hostile fighters and torpedoes. The “hedgehog” shells fired by its turrets managed to have some effect on the swarm. As the Tucson sent another shell into the swarm, threat icons blinked away, but the contraction of drones continued.
The other drop ship dropped behind Hale, one of its engines a burning ruin. Explosive bolts cut the engine off and the engine flew away, severing the limb to save the body.
“Tucson, we can’t make it to the Breitenfeld. We’ll need a tug from you.” The other drop ship slowed and drifted toward the destroyer.
“What the hell?” Franklin said.
The target icons on the drones now read as an error and all the icons massed into a single point. Hale looked through his rifle’s scope and zoomed in. The individual drones were gone. They’d fused into a single entity that looked like a hollowed-out log, long stalks whipping through space around it.
&
nbsp; A red ember grew within the center of the Xaros construct.
“Tucson, you need to—” Hale never had a chance to finish his warning.
A laser pulse tore through the Tucson like it wasn’t even there, cutting it in half. The Tucson languished for a moment, then both halves exploded. Debris pelted Hale’s armor hard enough to sting. Instinct brought his hand up in front of his face so he didn’t see the lump of twisted metal that struck his forearm.
A jagged bolt of pain tore up his arm, joined by an acid bite of freezing cold. A hunk of metal was stuck in his arm. White geysers of air tinged with the red of his evaporating blood spat from where his suit’s integrity was compromised. His visor flashed a red and black PRESSURE warning.
Hale pawed at his belt, struggling to find the canister he needed to save his life. Breathing became harder as his air became thinner with each passing moment.
His injured arm jerked away from him. Cortaro yanked the shrapnel from Hale’s arm, the final two inches covered in blood that crystalized in the void instantly. Blobs of blood spurt from the wound. Cortaro put a nozzle against the suit’s breach and sprayed a milky white foam into it, finally separating Hale from space. Cortaro squeezed the canister and a separate nozzle popped out of the other end.
The team sergeant stabbed the air canister into a plug on Hale’s chest and a wave of pressure flooded Hale’s suit. He gasped a full breath of air and struggled to get back to his knees.
The Xaros ship rotated and brought its cannon to bear on Hale’s drop ship.
“Gall. Do something,” Hale said.
A hedgehog shell exploded on top of the alien ship, the spikes ricocheting off its hull.
“This is the Salzburg. No effect from our cannons. Switching to torpedoes,” came over the IR.
The Xaros ship froze and shifted toward the Salzburg. The remaining destroyer ejected three torpedoes from its external launchers. The torpedoes hung in space for a moment, then their engines flared to life. But instead of rocketing toward the Xaros ship, they looped around and made straight for the Salzburg.
The drop ship’s top turret fired, smashing one of the torpedoes to pieces. The Salzburg’s point defense crew, caught flat-footed by the sudden attack from their own weapons, struggled to engage the second and third torpedoes.
Durand banked their drop ship hard and put the Salzburg between them and the torpedoes.
Cannon fire blossomed along the Salzburg as it tried to defend itself. The cannons cut off and a blast of light and flame erupted from destroyer’s hull. A torpedo had found its way home.
The airless void extinguished the flames, leaving a burning light racing toward the drop ship. The third torpedo bore down on the drop ship like a wolf chasing down a rabbit.
“Shoot it!” Durand said over and over again.
Every weapon left to Hale and his team cut loose on the torpedo, which danced around their shots with preternatural grace. Hale switched his rifle to low power and fired from the hip. He fought against the recoil that pulled his shots higher with each blast. Hale yelled as the torpedo came so close he could almost read the words stenciled on it.
The rear of the torpedo kicked up and it exploded in a flash of red and yellow.
Hale ejected the spent battery on his rifle and slammed a fresh charge.
The Xaros ship was still there, a baleful eye of red energy growing within it.
“Sir, it was an honor,” Franklin said.
Hale swallowed hard and got to his feet. No way would he die on his knees.
The red lightning leapt from the center of the Xaros cannon and caressed its inner hull.
The Xaros ship crumpled, struck by a hammer blow that could have cracked a planet’s shell. A gray flash of light struck the ship, sending it pin wheeling through space. A third strike split the ship like a log beneath a woodsman’s axe. Embers spread across its surface and it disintegrated into nothing.
“Drop ship One-Zero, this is Breitenfeld. You can thank our rail gun crews later. Make a manual landing. We can’t risk any automation, not after seeing those torpedoes compromised,” Captain Valdar said.
“The scope is clear, grace a Dieu. Buckle up for landing,” Durand said.
****
Hale jumped off the drop ship ramp and stumbled against the deck, his one good arm ill positioned to stop his fall. A crewman helped Hale to his feet and pointed to the turret beneath the drop ship. Sparks flew from the ring mount as engineers tried to cut Standish free. The Xaros laser had fused the turret’s mechanics into a lump of slag and there hadn’t been a word from him since the hit.
“We’ve almost got it open,” the crewman said.
Hale pushed his way into the scrum around the turret. The graphene-doped glass of the turret was cracked and cloudy with damage, no way to see inside.
“Has he said anything? How is he?” Hale asked.
The turret broke free and fell to the deck with a metallic snap. Standish rolled out of the turret and lay limp as a rag doll.
Hale ran to his Marine, hesitant to touch him.
“Standish?”
Standish’s armor shook with a sudden palsy, then the Marine sat up.
“Wow! That sucked. Suit went into low-energy survival mode and left me twisted like a pretzel for….” Standish stood and tried to scratch between his shoulder blades, then pointed at Hale’s injured arm. “Damn, sir. Again?”
Standish looked around the flight deck. Crewmen rushed to extract the two armor suits and ready Eagles for their next sortie. Their banged-up Mule was the only drop ship on deck.
“Where’s Major Acera and the rest of the company?” Standish asked.
“They didn’t make it. Their ship went up with the Tucson,” Cortaro said.
Standish’s shoulders slumped and he nodded slowly. His dejection spread to what remained of Hale’s team. Acera had been Hale’s mentor and everything Hale thought a Marine should be. Now he was gone. Along with Walsh. And Vincenti. And every single person he’d left on Earth when he joined this fleet. But this wasn’t the time for sorrow. Hale felt the weight of his rank on his shoulders and knew what he had to do.
“Sergeant Cortaro.” Hale slapped his good fist against his chest armor with a clang. The sound jolted those around him. “Gather up every able-bodied Marine and get them to the armory. Do a post-combat inspection of every suit and weapon and get ready to launch again. Cycle platoons through for rest and food then get me a roster of who’s left. We’ll reorganize the company once I’ve got my arm taken care of,” Hale said. A mission to focus on would better serve the Marines than idle time that would only let their collective losses overwhelm them.
The foam on his forearm had collapsed in the atmosphere of the flight deck and blood seeped from the wound.
“I’ll take him to sick bay,” Durand said. She jogged his good elbow toward sick bay and took him away from his Marines without further discussion. Sergeant Cortaro gave him a quick salute.
“You alright?” he asked Durand.
“No, I’m pretty shit right now, and so are you. Don’t say another word. If you fall on your face, I’m not sure I can drag you the rest of the way in that armor,” she said.
Hale’s arm throbbed, bolts of pain sending spasms through his bicep as they walked. For all the pain in his arm, it was nothing next to the emptiness of sorrow spreading through his chest.
CHAPTER 6
Admiral Garrett paced behind the chair at the head of a long table. His wardroom could host almost two dozen guests for formal dinners or staff meetings. For extreme circumstances such as this, it could accommodate many more with some technological trickery.
“Done yet?” Garrett asked the petty officer working on the holo emitter in the center of the desk.
“Almost, sir. The IR repeaters on each ship have to compensate for lag every time it—”
“Soon?”
“Two minutes,” the petty officer mumbled.
Garrett turned to the other two people in the room, St
acey Ibarra and Theo Lawrence. Stacey stood against the bulkhead with her head down, like a scolded child. Lawrence shifted his weight from foot to foot and tugged at his collar.
“We are going to stay here until every single question is answered, and if I catch a whiff of bullshit from either of you, I will rip your face off in front of a live studio audience,” Garrett said. “Get me?”
Lawrence brought his hands up in surrender and nodded quickly.
Stacey brought her head up, her lip quivering.
“Sir, I don’t really know much,” she said.
“Not you, ensign. That thing you’re carrying,” Garrett said.
Stacey turned her palm up and a pale blue light shown from her hand.
Marc Ibarra’s face coalesced in the light and looked at Garrett with contempt.
“You could rip my face off now if that will make you feel better,” Ibarra said.
Garrett swiped through Ibarra’s projection with no effect. Garrett grumbled and turned back to the conference table.
The holo emitter in the middle of the table clicked on and translucent projections of captains from across the fleet filled the seats. The projections changed to a captain whenever he spoke and side conversations rumbled through the room.
“All right,” Garrett said, and the conversations died away. The captains turned their attention to Garrett, who sat down and motioned to Stacey to approach.
“Captains of the Saturn Colonial Mission, we have some answers. Finally. I’ll turn this over to the one responsible for all of this.”
Stacey held her palm toward the table and light swirled in the air in front of Garrett. A perfect 3-D image of Marc Ibarra made of blue and white light came into being.
“I am not Marc Ibarra. I am an artificial intelligence formatted with his memories and personality to aid in communication. The Marc Ibarra you know is dead. He chose to die with your species rather than join this fleet.
“I represent an alien confederation fighting against the Xaros, the drones that wiped out Earth and threaten all intelligent life in this galaxy. If we’re lucky, in the next few days we can save what remains of your people and strike a blow in this war.”
