MissionSRX: Ephemeral Solace

by Matthew D. White

  “We’ve rehearsed invasions of up to eight capital ships without assistance from the mobilized fleet with moderate success. Cutting off communications could change our luck, but not overwhelmingly. How many have we lost?”

  Scott switched screens. “No major vessels. Five gunboats, two destroyers, and some fighters are gone though.”

  “That sounds about right. If we’d have gotten the call yesterday it would be even closer. Just the same as the attack on Mars, I think they’re testing our response.”

  “It’s an invasion! Look!” Scott exclaimed, and twisted his arm’s screen around. The radar map picked up a number of shuttles making straight for the Earth’s surface.

  “That’s not enough to mount an invasion,” Mason countered. “I’d still say they want to test our response.”

  “You’re saying they’re planning to sacrifice the entire force?” Othello asked. “That’s a high price to pay.”

  Mason shrugged. “You know as much as I do. They could try to cut and run when it goes south. Maybe they’re reporting everything in real time. Or maybe they’ve got a billion more in reserve and don’t really care about losing an entire regiment.”

  Another battery of shots lit up the upper decks, kicking the entire ship backward. The three defenders stood in silence, considering the options. Grant jogged back from the hangar across from them. “What was that you said?” he heaved over the radio.

  “Their actions?” Mason replied, “They could cut and run, report it all along, or just be sacrificed. Any ideas?”

  “Do you still have the radar map up?” Grant asked Scott as he looked over his shoulder.

  Scott tried to guess what the more experienced leader was looking for, but only had a second before the soldier tapped the screen.

  “That’s it,” he announced, highlighting a small signature near the edge of the screen. It was only a few pixels across, but still looked unique among the others. “The Aquillians had one of those during the last siege of Earth. I met some analysts working at B-3 the other day who thought it might be an advanced communication platform. We have to destroy it.”

  Grant brought up the radio link to the bridge. “Commander Fox, I’ve got a target for us. We need to engage in AWS-927, Alpha-Whiskey-Sierra-Nine-Two-Seven.”

  “There’s no way we can break lock right now,” Fox responded while shaking his head, staring at the holographic map before him. “That’s clear on the other side of Earth and halfway to the moon. Our orders are to protect the Lexington. Once these are done I’ll move to intercept.”

  Grant’s voice rose in frustration. “I think if you do that we’ll be too late.”

  “Right now that thing’s not a threat. The two next to us are. Hold on”

  In a coincidental response, another round slammed into the Flagstaff’s energy shields, exploding harmlessly outside the bay in a massive ball of fire. The soldier hated the feeling of helplessness. “I’ll go myself. Can you get me any support?”

  The line went silent as Grant imagined the commander considering his options. He had had enough of the indecision and would just as soon prefer going alone.

  “It appears you’ve gained the general’s favor. He’s deploying two destroyers to intercept the ship. Get your fighter and get off my ship.” Fox exchanged a glance with his XO. “I really hope he knows what he’s doing.”

  “Good luck,” Grant offered the other soldiers around him. “I’ll be back soon. Don’t give those freaks a chance.” Without another word, he rushed back down the passage to his waiting ship. He fired up the engines and waited impatiently for the systems to load.

  The deck crews had already evacuated the bay, leaving no one to service the ships in lockdown. Grant felt resistance as he lifted off, ripping the holds clear out of the floor. Combat damage. Could be worse, he thought in his own defense while he backed out, watching the nylon straps unravel beneath the wings of his fighter.

  Grant’s navigation system loaded the battle and began to render the collections of ships in every direction.

  “Fox, if you can hear me, I’ve got the destroyers on my display. My waypoint is set.” He watched as the alien ship across from him spit out another group of smaller ships. They were instantly identified and added to his target list. “Craniums up. You’ve got a couple more incoming. I’ll take one shot, but I can’t stay.”

  Cycling through the menus, Grant loaded up his six main cannons with hardened anti-armor rounds. Each one launched, tracked its target instantaneously, and struck with the force of a freight train. Four hit home, punching through the vessels and barely slowing down, while two trailing shuttles successfully evaded.

  “Two made it through. You might have some company,” he warned before breaking lock and gunning the engines to catch up to his destroyers. He left the Flagstaff and obscuring alien ships behind and launched into the relative calm between skirmishes.

  The Earth hung in space far beyond, with the Lexington, a relatively tiny command station, rotating like a miniscule model only a few tens of thousands of kilometers away. Explosions no more than specks of light illuminated its skin, and Grant steadily made out more details as he approached.

  Two more alien battleships were flanking the human position, with a third floating dead in the void. There wasn’t much hope for a clean death this far out, Grant thought as he passed by, watching fires spread among its decks and plumes of smoke and air expelling from the various breaches.

  Grant tightened his course and came within double-digit meters of the battleships’ skins, not even slowing as he strafed across two more boarding shuttles that glided by in front of him. The burst of shots caught both crafts as they passed, and Grant dodged to the right to avoid the aftermath, moving dangerously close to the alien battleship.

  “Danger. Countermeasure overload. Attack imminent.” The voice from the console proved the pilot’s concerns correct. At this range, he could only scramble their targeting systems so much. Fortunately, Grant’s fighter had a miniscule signature and was far quicker than anything they were designed to engage.

  Guns along the ship’s surface flashed with each round and threw them with all the precision they could calculate. Grant rocked his ship every direction he could to throw them off. It was effort well spent; by the time he left the battle behind him, the aliens had barely come within fifty meters of a kill.

  He approached the pair of destroyers pursuing his target and opened his radio. “This is Grant. I don’t know what Command told you about this, but I’m expecting them to transmit in a high-power burst to the rest of their friends. We can’t let them pull it off or this will only be the beginning. Target power generation – anything you can ID as communication – as soon as you’re in range.”

  “Copy all. Assessing targets.” The stoic response came from the command center of the first destroyer.

  “Good. I’ll intercept whatever I can, but no matter what they launch, don’t deploy fighters.” Grant thought of his actions during the last battle in the same sky. “They have ways to gain control of them. Stick to your ship defenses.”

  The strike group was still at a significant distance away when the alien ship began to turn. “They’re gonna run. Hit their engines!” Grant commanded. “We need to drop them NOW!”

  The destroyers were of similar design to the gunboats but multiple times their mass, and were built around the trio of massive cannons jutting off their leading edges. They were controlled from low bridges only a few meters off the surface to reduce the possibility of attracting attention, and although they were not particularly imposing in stature, they nevertheless brought massive firepower to bear.

  “Sir, we have a solution,” the gunnery officer announced to his captain.

  “You heard the escort,” the captain responded, “Everything you’ve got. Make it stop.”

  The guns rocked outside the meters-thick window with each volley. Inside, three screens followed their status and showed each round cycle through.

 
; A thousand klicks away, the strange alien ship gave its shields to absorb the first shot, but succumbed to the second. Succeeding rounds tore into the engines and aft decks as plumes of gas, fire, and smoke erupted out.

  Grant watched as the ship slowed to a limp and started to tumble under the force of its damaged, unbalanced engines. He didn’t track any fighters deploying for a rescue. “They’re not going anywhere,” he said as he looked down at his map. “I’m reading a dorsal communication array. Not transmitting yet, but moving to intercept.”

  He pushed the fighter in a tight arc and ate the last few meters in seconds. The ship filled Grant’s windshield as he lined up for a run. With the destroyers on the far side savaging the massive ship’s hull, Grant homed in on his target, a network of small, antenna-covered outcroppings leading from one end of the ship to the other.

  The pilot pulled back on both leading triggers on each hand, running multiple shots per second through all six heavy cannons. With each impact, another site disintegrated in a brilliant flash, showing all the integrity of a plastic model versus a sledgehammer. He reached the front of the ship and pulled back around for a second pass.

  “First pass down. Looks like I’ve got one site left—” Grant reported, just as his radio filled with the screech of a massive electrical overload loud enough to make his ears bleed. The shock to his sensory systems was debilitating, but not enough to break his concentration. They’re transmitting. We’re out of time! Were the only words that came to mind.

  Fighting though the pain, he lined up and put the last of his heavy rounds down on the transmitter array before it could get another burst off. The line instantly cleared, and Grant felt a wave of relief as he pulled back, skirted the edge of the ship, and came back into sight of the destroyers.

  “Grant! Get the hell away from that thing! It’s going to blow!” The captain’s voice rang clear as he cleared the obstruction. Grant looked back only to catch a rising wall of fire being expelled from the surface beside him.

  Jerking the controls hard to the right, he skirted the edge of the blast before throwing himself straight into the darkness above. In the cockpit, Grant caught the explosion filling his rear sensors while he struggled to outrun it. The detonation prompted a cheer from the destroyer crews.

  “We got ‘em!” he exhaled, “Thanks for the assist. I need to get back to the Flagstaff. I’m Winchester on ammunition over here.”

  “Copy that,” the leading captain responded, “Flagstaff is still engaged. Recommend you use caution on your approach. Breaking positions to assist station defense.”

  Far to the side, the two destroyers were already turning to reengage the battleship nearest to the command station. Grant avoided their engagement on the return since he was out of any ammunition that could have been of use. He instead punched the SR-X straight at the Flagstaff and quickly ate the empty space in between.

  29

  “We’ve got another shuttle incoming!” Mason shouted over the roaring echo of gunfire on all sides. Once the first Aquillian transport got on the ground, they had at least thirty soldiers pour into the bay.

  Othello took a chance and glanced around his barricade to confirm it for himself. As Mason said, another ship was hovering above the platform’s deck. As the previous one had done before, it began launching smoke canisters down the hall to mask the aliens’ approach.

  He didn’t see how it provided any greater advantage than they already had. The aliens weren’t Aquillian. They were larger, dressed in a dark camouflage that was masked by the endless smoke that they seemingly emitted. He must have killed four that made it within two meters of his position before he saw even them.

  “You need to keep them busy.” Captain Clark’s voice was curt over the radio. “Quick reaction teams above and below you are still engaged. We’ll move them as soon as we can but you can’t let those things get access to the bridge.”

  “They’re already well past the stairwell.”

  “It’s sealed but won’t hold forever.”

  Mason swore as he rounded his barrier and put a 20mm slug straight through the skull of a charging alien only a few meters away. It collapsed and hit the ground right beside his feet. “Tell them to hurry up. We’re not outfitted to deal with this bullshit!”

  Fifteen meters to his rear and against the wall, Scott shared a blockade with one of Mason’s soldiers who seemed far more willing to stick his head out than he was. The engineer kept his movements low and quick, darting out and back to check the right side for attackers, but he was in the same shape as the rest. He couldn’t see a thing through the fog, not even a set of feet.

  Scott heard a faint crack in the radio apart from the clamor around him.

  “Commander Fox, can you drop every barricade forward of their position?” Scott looked around for their wayward private, half expecting him to burst in from a side entrance, with guns blazing.

  “Yes. Standby. Ground teams: hold your positions.”

  Without warning, Grant’s SR-X fighter roared into the landing bay, hovering directly above the twin alien shuttles. The screaming engines now feeding on the atmosphere drowned out the small arms.

  “For the love of God, GET DOWN!” Grant ordered as he targeted the area for suppression.

  With all the subtlety of a chainsaw, minigun, and train horn inside a metal radiator, the trio of leading guns on the fighter tore through the entire area at twenty shots per linear meter.

  The influx of pressure knocked Scott off his feet along with the soldier beside him and he curled into a ball, praying that he didn’t take a stray shot.

  Grant watched the waves of rounds rip through the smoke and the aliens it concealed. Once the haze hit the far wall, he drove the targeting reticle back below his ship and soundly disabled the remains of both shuttles. “We’re clear on the main deck. Any make it to the bridge?”

  “Yes. We’ve got five trying to hack the console outside,” the XO responded.

  “Be right there. Mason, get your men over here,” Grant ordered while he dropped his ship to the ground and popped the hatch. He grabbed the rifle beside him and slid down the leading edge of the fuselage, tumbling to the ground with the weapon raised.

  Still prone, he trained the rifle on the staircase while the team of soldiers approached from the far side. “Clear. Moving,” he announced as he got to his feet and sprinted to the wall.

  Both Grant and Mason rounded their corners at once and moved up the stairwell two-by-two along with the rest of their company. They got to the top before Grant raised his hand to stop.

  “Five of them are at the doors on the left side, about forty meters down. What’s the plan?”

  Mason held up a silver grenade. “Flash and clear; six men up. We’ll go first, drop to prone two meters in.”

  “Got it,” Grant replied as the next four soldiers in line stacked up behind them.

  “Five seconds,” Mason announced as he pulled the pin and pitched the metal cylinder around the corner. The blast instantly made Grant’s ears ring, but he charged out in unison with the rest and dropped to the ground on cue.

  The wave of automatic fire caught the alien breaching team by surprise as much as the flash had. They were still clutching their faces when the first one dropped.

  “Clear,” Mason announced. “Move up. Secure the bridge,” he added and got to his feet. The six of them with the rest of the squad behind quickly ran to the secure doors to the bridge. The console had been tampered with, but Mason didn’t feel they’d make any headway on cracking it.

  At the same time, Grant checked the fallen aliens for vital signs. Smoke still rose from the vents in their armor as much as from the bullet holes sprinkled throughout their bodies.

  Grasping one by the face, he pulled upward on the helmet to release it and revealed the twisted remains of a face. The alien was at a glance far more imposing than any Aquillian he had seen before.

  The skull was hard and bony with only a thin layer of skin stretched ove
r the outside, thin enough to be mistaken for an exoskeleton. Five eyes were placed across the front in a line beneath a heavy set brow, likely giving the creature the ability to see over 200 degrees without movement. A wide ridge below the eyes took the place of the nose, with light feathered skin to suggesting breathing mechanism.

  The jaws were built of four large, muscular appendages with teeth set to the front and center. Each one appeared to have the ability to independently move, and Grant guessed the aliens might be even more formidable on the battlefield without their armor. He looked back up as he heard a heavy latch click open and the door to the bridge swing aside.

  Most members of the crew on the far side had taken cover behind their workstations, were armed with rifles, and had them trained on the entrance. Commander Fox stood at the center, a full-size service pistol held in his leading hand, which he relaxed when he saw the other humans approach. “Friendly. Stand down,” he ordered.

  Grant entered while the crew got back to work to join the gunner who had never left his post, still directing fire against the enemy ship across from them.

  “Opportune timing!” Fox replied, unable to hide the signs in his face that he was happy to see them.

  “Don’t mention it,” Mason responded as he followed Grant inside. “How are the other decks?”

  “I wouldn’t call them secure, but the landings are under control. Each other one only got a single shuttle and really didn’t have a plan of attack once our reactionary forces pinned them down. They were probably trying to find the bridge.”

  Grant nodded. “I don’t think we’ll get much better than that.” He looked to the side through the port window and was greeted by a massive flash of light from the opposing ship. Already smoking from multiple impacts, the last one breached the hull in a cataclysmic blast. Shielding his eyes for a moment, he smiled as the ship began to break apart and float away.

  “What’s left?”

  The commander consulted the holographic map before him. “I think that’s it for the big stuff. The battleships went one-on-one and we came out on top. The Lexington, along with a dozen destroyers and gunboats, got two more. We got the last.”