Ted nodded. Was it a warning – the other stations might be rigged to blow too – an accident or an attempt to deny the stations to humanity? Moments later, he had his answer as the other orbital installations started, one by one, to disintegrate. He cursed out loud as he realised that the debris would cause very real problems for his landing craft, as well as threatening the planet with nuclear winter. Billions of tons of dust entering the planetary atmosphere would do it no good at all.
“They blew all the civilian stations,” Lopez said. She sounded utterly shocked. “Sir, they just blew them all!”
“Probably didn’t want us getting a look at them,” Ted said. He wasn't too surprised, even though he had a feeling the alien leaders had just sacrificed thousands of their own people just to hide their secrets. “They know what we did with the last ship we captured, after all.”
He took a breath. The remaining orbital battlestations were fighting savagely, but there was no longer any doubt about the outcome. If only they would surrender! Ted had strict orders concerning alien POWs, orders he agreed with wholeheartedly. They certainly wouldn't be mistreated in human custody. But then, now they had proof that some aliens understood English, they might well be turned into a source of intelligence for the human race.
“Reassign the Marines who would have boarded the stations,” he ordered, flatly. “There's no point in trying to take them any longer.”
“Aye, sir,” Lopez said.
“Then redirect the bombers to take out the last battlestations,” Ted added. “Then we can put an end to this.”
***
Kurt stared down the roster as the bombers hastily returned to Ark Royal and the two makeshift carriers. All four bomber squadrons had taken a beating, forcing him to reconfigure them on the fly. Worse, two of them had lost their commanding officers, which meant he would have to promote one of the rooks to CO, transfer a more experienced officer or concentrate the four squadrons into two. Any of the options would cause real problems as exhausted pilots took their craft out once again to engage the enemy. But there was no choice.
At least the experienced officers would know how to handle newcomers, he thought, but I hate doing it when we’re in the middle of a battle.
He sighed, rubbing his eyes. It was hard to really feel the battle deep within Ark Royal’s armoured superstructure. He wasn't outside in space, with only his skill and daring keeping him safe and well in the face of concentrated enemy attempts to kill him, but inside a starship that had, so far, proved invincible. But the enemy had already managed to damage the carrier once on the mission ... they’d certainly know how to try again.
And Rose was out there, risking her life. So was the Prince and all the other rooks.
Kurt cursed under his breath. Molly had tried to nag him into getting a nice safe job flying a desk, but reservist pilots never really had much choice about their assignments. Indeed, he knew he’d been lucky to draw assignment to Ark Royal, even though no one had expected the Old Lady to become the effective flagship of the navy and the linchpin of humanity’s defence. But he would never have been happy flying a desk ... and this, no matter what gloss he tried to put on it, was flying a desk. The only real danger was the very real prospect of being killed by the aliens.
I need to get back out there, he thought, sourly. Being CAG as well as a Wing Commander was stressful, but it wasn't as shameful as being a desk jockey. Whatever it takes, I need to get back out there.
“All right,” he said, keying his console. “The following pilots are assigned to Bomber Squadron Two ...”
He sighed at the explosion of protests from the remainder of Squadron Four. It was hard to blame them. The Royal Navy worked hard to create a sense of unity in squadrons, a sense of belonging ... a sense that would make it hard to fit pilots from one squadron into another. No doubt a few of the rooks had assumed they would have their chance to take command of the squadron, at least for a few glorious hours. It would have looked very good on their service records when the Admiralty started handing out medals ...
“Do as I fucking tell you,” he ordered, feeling his temper snap. “I know you didn't goddamn train together, but you’ll goddamn fight together because if you don't you’ll wind up fucking dead, all right?”
There was silence. He forced himself to calm down. Swearing like one of Percy’s friends who’d come home once – Molly had banished him almost at once and forbade Percy from speaking to him again – wouldn't help calm nervous young men and women.
“This is too important for you to be distracted,” he said, quietly. There was really no time for a long debate. “Slot into the combined squadrons and do your best. And remember, your new comrades are not the enemy. It’s the aliens who are the enemy.”
He closed the channel, then rested his head in his hands. The rooks had taken far too much of a beating, he knew, and they simply didn't have the experience to come to grips with it. At least the other powers had sent veteran pilots, thankfully. The Americans, Japanese and French had done very well. And the Americans ... he made a mental note to make sure that accommodations were prepared for the surviving pilots from Roosevelt. The other American carriers were already crammed with pilots and starfighters.
“I’ll get back out there somehow,” he muttered. “Somehow ...”
***
The final alien battlestation exploded violently, adding yet more debris to the clouds drifting in orbit around the planet. Ted watched, grimly, as pieces of space junk plummeted into the planet’s atmosphere, hopefully distracting the alien defenders on the ground from monitoring the human ships. If there was one advantage to the whole sorry affair, he decided, it was that it was forcing the aliens to reveal the location of their ground-based planetary defence systems. The plasma cannons would have done some real damage if the humans had tried to land without a clear idea of their location.
“Add them to the lists for targeting,” he ordered, calmly. “I want them all hammered as soon as we commence the assault.”
“Yes, sir,” Lopez said.
Ted remembered the old arguments about ships versus forts and realised the aliens had written a new chapter. The ground-based systems were far more powerful than anything they'd seen before, save perhaps for the plasma guns a handful of alien frigates mounted. A single shot could do real damage to Ark Royal and probably blow a modern carrier into little pieces. He didn't dare enter orbit until the ground-based weapons were suppressed.
He glanced down at the update from the analysts. With the battlestations gone, their discussions had devolved into an argument about if the aliens really understood English or if it was just a wild coincidence. After all, as one analyst was arguing, the aliens were perfectly capable of seeing a vast fleet bearing down on them. Evacuating the stations might have seemed a sensible idea, all the more so as alien installations across the system were going dark, one by one. The aliens might not understand English at all!
We’ll see, soon enough, he promised himself. But how much time do we have?
On the display, the retreating enemy carriers had reached the tramline and vanished. It was hard to be sure they’d jumped out of the system – in their place, Ted would have left behind a number of watching eyes – but they were definitely well out of engagement range. They’d be in position, ready and waiting, until alien reinforcements arrived. At that point, Ted knew, they’d link up with the newcomers and proceed towards the planet. The humans might not have very long at all.
“Lieutenant,” he said. “What is the Marine ETA?”
“Twenty-one minutes,” Lopez said. “General Ross has confirmed that his forces are ready to enter the atmosphere; Major Parnell and his men will be part of the charge.”
“Good,” Ted said. “Tell him he will have tactical ground and near-space command as soon as he enters deployment range. The frigates will provide fire support, if necessary.”
“Aye, sir,” Lopez said.
Ted shivered. They were about to see something new, so
mething unique, unless one counted the alien invasion of New Russia. But then, the aliens had largely stayed away from human settlements, preferring to establish their own bases on the surface. Now ... Ted’s forces didn't have that luxury. They had to investigate the alien cities, just to try to pull what intelligence they could from them. There were just too many opportunities for disaster for Ted to be entirely comfortable with it. But there was no choice.
He settled back in his chair and watched, resting his hands on his lap, as the Marine transports slipped into high orbit and started to launch their shuttles. No matter what happened next, Ted knew, they were committed.
But then, he reminded himself, that had always been true.
Chapter Twenty-Three
When he’d been a child, Major Charles Parnell had read Starship Troopers and fallen in love with the idea of wearing a suit of powered combat armour on the battlefield. It had been a disappointment, when he'd finally joined the Royal Marines, to discover that battlesuits were so expensive and finicky that they were rarely allowed to use them in combat. Even the Americans, who had done more research into the concept than anyone else, had their doubts about the value of the suits. But they did serve well for plunging from orbit and landing on a hostile planet.
He sucked in his breath sharply as the Royal Marines – and American Force Recon Marines – plummeted towards Target One. Space seemed to be sparkling with light, either from chunks of debris falling into the planet’s atmosphere or enemy fire from the planet below. Bright warnings flared up in his HUD, only for him to banish them in irritation. There was no point in tormenting himself with the prospect of being targeted by the enemy. The suits were tough, tough enough to survive a nuke if there was some distance between them and Ground Zero, but if the aliens zapped him with a plasma cannon designed to take out an orbiting spacecraft he was dead. None of the Marines had any illusions on that score.
Missiles plummeted past him, wrapped in showers of decoys that would – that should – make it harder for the aliens to pick out the Marines with their sensors. They’d have to go after the missiles anyway, Charles knew, although no alien cities were being targeted directly. The planetary defence complexes could be hammered from orbit, if they didn't shoot down the missiles before they reached their targets. And, once the fleet entered orbit, kinetic strikes would be added to the human arsenal.
He felt a shiver running through the suit as he entered the planet’s atmosphere. Target One seemed to shift in front of him, moving from a orb hanging in space to something that dominated the horizon ... and then a world falling towards him. His head spun for a long moment, then he gathered himself. It had been years since he’d taken his first jump out of an aircraft and parachuted down to Earth, but it still managed to scare him on a very basic level.
It’s all perfectly safe, he reminded himself. He knew that some of his men had the same fears, even though none of them would ever admit it out loud. The Royal Marines didn't react well to weakness, particularly ones that might be common. We’ll hit the ground before we know it.
He saw a missile go screeching past him, followed by sparks of purple light that seemed to dance up from the planet and reach out towards low orbit. The aliens were firing on the incoming Marines ... he hesitated, then looked back down towards the surface of the planet. Their colossal planetary defence centre was coming into view, far larger than anything humanity had ever built to protect their world. It looked as though the aliens had hollowed out a mountain and converted it into a fortress. The rocky mass surrounding it would give them some extra protection, although it wouldn't be enough to protect the plasma cannons, not when they had to be exposed to open fire ...
The suit blinked up another warning. Charles closed his eyes as the parachute activated, cutting his speed sharply. Moments later, he crashed down on the ground and looked around, activating his suit’s active sensors. The remainder of his unit fell around him, hastily dragging themselves into combat formation. It wouldn’t be long before the aliens realised they’d actually managed to land on the planet.
Scratch that, he thought, as he saw a line of aliens appear from the direction of the fortress. They’re already here.
The aliens opened fire with handheld plasma weapons; the humans returned fire with suit-mounted machine guns. Charles felt a stab of envy as he saw the alien weapons – he wanted something like that, even though they posed an unanticipated threat to his suit – and then concentrated on fighting, leading his men forward against the aliens. They fought back savagely, but they had clearly been caught by surprise. The theory that most of the planet’s defenders were actually reservists seemed to hold water.
A brilliant flash of light distracted him for a long second, then he resumed the attack on the fortress, moving towards the main doors with terrifying speed. The aliens fell back in disarray, slamming their gates closed and sealing the mountain. Charles checked the live feed from the orbital monitors – the plasma cannons had been taken out by a direct hit – and then ordered his men to fall back. There was no need to force their way into the fortress if it was no longer capable of interfering with the landing operations.
The Rhino’s face blinked up in his HUD. “Congratulations, Major,” he said. “The enemy fortress has been neutralised.”
Charles nodded, considering the situation. “They may be impregnable deeper inside the fortress,” he said. “We can't break through without nukes.”
“Then don’t worry about them,” the Rhino said. “Concentrate on securing the planned landing sites.”
Charles nodded, signalled his men to leave a detachment monitoring the mountain and then led the remaining forces towards the LZ. The aliens hadn't built a convenient spaceport, unfortunately, but there was enough flat ground inland to serve as a landing zone for assault shuttles. Dozens of warnings blinked up in his display as the aliens continued to fight, yet no one troubled his Marines as they swept through the landing zone, looking for unexpected surprises. Nothing revealed itself.
“The zone is clear,” he said. “You can start unloading your troops at once.”
The American Marine Corps might not, in his considered opinion, be as tactically flexible as the Royal Marines, but they did bring a vast amount of resources to the party. Hundreds of shuttles dropped through the atmosphere, a couple falling to alien weapons that had held their fire, waiting for the chance to take a proper shot, and landed in front of Charles and his men. Moments later, thousands of American Marines had spilled out of their shuttles and started expanding the secure perimeter, followed by tanks and self-propelled guns. The Americans had planned to secure a landing zone and then expand as quickly as possible. Charles had to admit that the plan had worked perfectly.
“We have alien detachments moving out of City One,” an American voice said. “I think they’re soldiers, sir.”
“Good,” the Rhino grunted. “We’ll meet them outside their city.”
Charles briefly accessed the live feed for himself. It was clear the aliens were ... uncomfortable away from the water, although they didn't seem as badly impeded as he’d hoped. Maybe they could endure uncomfortable conditions for quite some time, just like humans. They didn't seem to have any heavy weapons, although with alien plasma cannons involved it was hard to be sure just what counted as a heavy weapon. He'd seen them wielding handheld pistols that could burn through a tank’s armour.
He ducked instinctively as something flew overhead, then realised to his embarrassment that it was a pair of American helicopters. A troop of tanks roared past the Royal Marines, heading towards the alien forces, followed by a line of armoured Marines. Charles smiled, switched the suit to full power and gave chase. In the suits, infantry could move fast enough to catch their enemy on the hop.
“They seem to be evacuating the city,” the analyst added. “They’re sending everyone into the water.”
“Even better,” the Rhino insisted. “No civilians to get in the way.”
Charles wondered, absently,
just how far underwater the aliens could go safely. There were very definite limits for unprotected humans, even with a portable oxygen supply. The aliens might be able to swim down to the bottom of the oceans or they might only be able to go a few hundred metres below the surface. No one knew for sure, if only because no one had managed to get a probe near an underwater city. It was one of the minor objectives for the entire deployment.
He pushed the thought aside as an explosion billowed up in front of him. Cursing, he ducked as streaks of light flared out towards the human forces, one of them striking a tank and blasting it into very little pieces. The humans fell back and waited; moments later, a volley of shells fell from the sky, smashing the alien position. Charles led the charge forward, only to discover that most of the aliens were dead or retreating in a hurry. They didn't seem inclined to stand and fight.
Makes sense, he told himself. They can delay us indefinitely through a series of ambushes, while we have to take the time to clear them, one by one. It buys time for them to evacuate the city.
Ark Royal 2: The Nelson Touch Page 23
