“Seems a weird way to do business,” Repeth said as she finally reached the entrance to the deep shaft. “I’d have thought they would have brought in the digger first and made some holes, then rushed us through all the breaches. Instead, with clear numerical superiority, they charged us like…”
“Like bugs. Don’t try to figure it out. Just be happy. Alien minds are alien.”
“I’m not happy, ma’am,” she replied as she shoved the two grounders through the massive hatch and watched them descend the sloping tunnel. At that moment it appeared as if Miller and she were the only two remaining outside. “We lost a lot of good people. Sergeant Dasko asked me, ‘for what’? And I really didn’t have an answer to give him.”
In response, Miller pushed a display to her HUD. “For this, First Sergeant.”
Jerky video from a helmet-cam showed the inside of an Aardvark maintenance hangar, a long Pilum missile resting on a loader. One suited figure had the warhead hatch open while the owner of the camera assisted. No audio came through.
“Two of the ordnance techs are trying to rig a fusion warhead to detonate,” Miller explained. “We’ve been trying to buy them time.”
“Holy shit. But why didn’t anyone have this set up already?”
“I guess no one thought it was a good idea to have live fusion warheads inside the base, what with the problems we had with the criminal element.”
“Yeah, I know something about that. So where did they get that one?”
“These guys hopped it back from one of the ordnance loading stations into the maintenance hangar.”
Repeth’s eyes narrowed. “How are they going to get to a bunker?”
“They might not.”
“Shit.”
“Agreed.”
“Do we have any idea why the Meme are trying to take the base instead of just smashing it? I mean, the whole attack will be over within, what, a day maybe?”
Miller nodded. “Colonel Ruchek thinks they are so confident they are trying to preserve assets, but I have another theory.”
“I’m all ears.”
“What if they wipe out all human life on Earth? What’s left?”
Repeth’s blood ran cold. “Just what’s on bases here and there…like, thirty thousand civilians here in the bunkers.”
“And the Meme want slaves, and bodies to take. It’s what they live for.”
“Oh, crap. You see this?” Repeth’s video feed from the one bomb tech, looking over the other one’s suited shoulder, showed monsters charging up behind. Like an old horror movie, she wanted to scream at the victim, but exactly the same way, there was nothing she could do. Alien swords swung and cut one tech down, then the camera jerked and rolled over to show a piece of the floor and scurrying legs.
“Any chance they set the bomb?”
Repeth shook her head. “I don’t think so. They were concentrating on it to the end.”
“Shit. It was a good try.” Miller saluted in the general direction of the fallen techs. “I’m making sure that video gets retransmitted and saved. They deserve medals.”
“And more.” Repeth turned to Miller. “After you, ma’am.”
“Right.” Captain Miller strode through the opened tunnel door, watching as Repeth slammed it shut and then spun the dogging wheel.
Once the meter-thick door was tight, they bounded as fast as they could down the wide ramp, heading deep into the moon’s crust. When they reached the first dogleg, Miller yelled into the open channel, “Initiate collapse protocol!”
Behind her, charges in the ceiling exploded one by one in a carefully-timed sequence to collapse the entrance shaft. The two Marines sped up, using their stabilization jets in zero-gravity mode to fly faster and faster down the tunnel as the blasts came closer and closer. Repeth told herself they should have no problems, as the explosives only reached to the dogleg. In fact, the whole point of the sharp corner was to limit any overspill from rockfall.
Her surprise was therefore all the greater when she felt the enormous shock. The last thing she remembered was the tunnel writhing like a snake, and the loudest gong she had ever heard bloodied her eardrums and blinded her eyeballs before she blacked out.
Chapter 72
Shan appreciated his friend Huen’s message, but decided to reply would merely add to the admiral’s pain. Better his last missive serve as goodbye than perpetuate some kind of agonizing exchange.
What shall be, shall be.
So Shan put Artemis deliberately out of his mind and sat watching on his HUD as the enemy landed on the base and fought their way in. Species 331, he thought to himself. Vicious, able to operate in vacuum, willing to sacrifice themselves for any objectives…the perfect Pureling. Perhaps I should have provided anonymous tips about what the Marines would be facing, but the risk of discovery far outweighed any potential benefit. Physics is physics, and weapons are weapons.
Then he considered attempting to interfere, to assist the defense. Certainly I could kill many of them. With the number of landing craft, at least four thousand Purelings against at most two thousand Marines. I might be able to destroy several hundred. Would that be enough to tip the scale? But if I do that, I cannot manually detonate this device, and I cannot risk setting a timer on it. What if I were killed and yet we won – and then the bomb went off? Irony indeed.
So instead, Shan waited in the cold vacuum, with just the low lights of the bordello to keep him company. He looked idly around the room, his eyes resting on a magnificent grand piano. Regretfully, he considered, then discarded the notion of playing it for a time. He did enjoy music. He had for his entire life, ever since he had landed on the blue planet and blended with a Chinese farmer. Unfortunately, with no atmosphere, the best he could do would be to sense the vibrations through his fingers.
Then again…what else is there to do? Perhaps I should clench a conductive rod in my teeth and press it against the piano’s soundboard, as the deaf Ludwig Van Beethoven did.
Shan stripped off his suit, hardening and sealing his skin and eyes as he did so, until the lack of air did not bother him. He shut the doors of this room and with delight found that he could seal them against air loss, apparently a safety feature that the owners had built into it.
Soon, he had allowed the air from his suit’s reservoir to fill the chamber, creating a thin but usable atmosphere. Sitting down at the piano, he first ran his hands over the yellow silk he wore, taking pleasure once again in the material’s marvelous texture.
I have loved many women, and a handful of men, he thought to himself, sampling all the pleasures of the flesh. I have eaten the finest foods, tasted the finest wine, and listened to the finest music. Then, at the last, I experienced the greatest pleasure of all: friendship, and comradeship, loyalty and betrayal. The joy of killing, and of refraining. The honor and privilege of passing on my genes to my wife, who will bear my child, if she survives.
I am ready.
Slowly he caressed the keyboard, and then, though saddened that the thin air did not do justice to the sound, began to work his way through Beethoven’s Ninth, without a doubt one of the greatest pieces of human music ever created. The notes swelled as he lost himself in their embrace.
When he finished the movement, he slipped his helmet on and checked the HUD. No live Marines remained above ground, according to either network. The last two had entered the bunker tunnel less than a minute ago, and according to the data recording, the final two civilians had died in the attack ship maintenance hangar just moments before that.
It is time.
Without further contemplation, knowing delay would help not at all, he folded his hands in his lap and sent the command, and Grissom Base dissolved into fire.
Chapter 73
Second Forward Fusor trium, all three Meme, jerked in shock as their feeds went violently dead. Electromagnetic feedback whipped through the network, as well as emotional resonance from so many of the crew watching the battle on the base.
A moment
later, Observation trium provided an alternative view, from the closest Sentry drone to the enemy moon. A dirty fission-fusion explosion, primitive but powerful, had scoured the base from its surface, leaving a deep crater. A storm of interacting gases, heat and ice roiled the area before slowly dissipating, leaving nothing of use.
“What happened?” Three asked.
“I suspect they self-destructed,” Two answered.
“Obviously,” chimed in One. “Close Combat should have anticipated such a tactic,” he said with righteous indignation.
“You didn’t,” Three replied, and then suddenly withdrew his eyeball below the rim of his tank.
One controlled his response with difficulty. “I did, actually, but I did not wish to embarrass Close Combat trium by pointing it out.”
Three, whatever he thought about this explanation, apparently decided not to argue, and only slowly extended his optical stalk again, inserting it into his screen socket and avoiding eye contact with his superior.
“It is unimportant in any case,” Two said. “We lost some Purelings, and they have lost a valuable base, which cannot now be used against us. Once we have conquered this system, we can examine it at our leisure.”
“And,” One interjected, “there are plenty of Humans to serve us as Underlings on their home planet. Billions, if the reports are correct. At least a few million will survive our attack.”
Three made a gesture of acknowledgement. “Perhaps…perhaps Close Combat will be censured, even demoted for their lapse.”
“That would be agreeable,” Two said.
“Most agreeable,” said One. “My plans continue to improve our opportunities.”
Two rolled his eyeball in Three’s direction, thinking One would not notice. One noticed, but chose not to say anything.
He would remember that slight, however, as he ascended.
Chapter 74
Admiral Huen jerked involuntarily as the processor shut down the optics focused on Grissom Base – or what used to be the base. Bridge control boards flickered and some of the crew cursed, tapping at their consoles.
“I thought I said to make sure we were out of range of EMP,” Huen said mildly. He was not the type to raise his voice, which made his admonition all the more embarrassing.
“Sorry, sir,” the helmsman replied. “The explosion was much stronger than predicted for those weapons. Our hardening should have been enough.”
“Maybe the enemy forces contained something that created the spike,” mused the weapons officer. “Extra fissionables, or deuterium-tritium fuel.”
“Or even antimatter,” Sensors chimed in.
“In any case, in the future I expect more care,” Huen said. “Are we functional?”
“Yes, sir. Backups are effective.”
“Bring us in slowly over the…crater.”
Hovering ten kilometers up in the slight gravity, the large but fragile ship floated into position only a short distance off to one side of the hole in the ground that had replaced the center of the base. Some outlying buildings, and a lot of the Aardvark pads, had survived, but everything that had made Grissom base itself was gone. The central park, the Quarter, the Marine and Aerospace barracks, the family housing units and recreation spaces: annihilated. The heavy weapons emplacements in a ring around the base were twisted and melted, though their control centers beneath might have survived.
“Find a place to set us down, helm. Make sure it’s firm. That heat and shock might have destabilized the ground.”
“Aye aye, sir. I’ll be ready to lift us if we settle too much.”
“Perhaps the Aardvark pads would make for a firmer landing…at your discretion.” Huen knew he was micromanaging, but his confidence in his helmsman had been rattled, and he found it difficult not to.
“Aye aye, sir.”
Almost half an hour of careful hunting went by before they settled slowly onto Callisto near the most intact piece of the base. Guns had enjoyed a small workout as scattered enemies popped out from behind cover or dug themselves out of holes and fired at Artemis. While her lasers were small for a warship, they still outranged and overpowered the hand weapons or even the beetle turrets of the handful of survivors, and so quickly fried every one of them.
“Stay vigilant, Guns. We can’t be sure there aren’t more of them.” Huen sat back in the Chair and thought. “Get our Marines out there for a recon in force. I want every one of those things dead. And get me the XO.”
“Auxiliary control here,” the executive officer answered over the comm a moment later.
“Ms. Rikard, stand down auxcon and get a team together to plan and execute actions to restore as much function to whatever’s left of this base you can, and start figuring out how we’ll safely open up those bunkers. Artemis will have to do some heavy lifting again, and they’ll be depending on us.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“Now Sensors,” Huen went on, “see what you can get us off the EarthFleet net and check the battle status. And Schaeffer, now that we’re down, go to my quarters and brew the bridge some tea and some coffee. I suspect we are in for a long day.”
Schaeffer pressed his lips together. “What about Shan, sir?”
Huen held his steward’s eyes for a moment. “We will mourn our dead later. For now, do your duty.”
Chapter 75
Vango lined his maser up on an oncoming rock, visible only in the VR world he inhabited, and fired again. The energy seemed to have no effect, even though he had tuned it to heat silicates. Even thousands of shots from the Aardvarks had only knocked a few of them out. The masers were just not big enough for this kind of work.
If we could turn and chase them, we could maybe kill off the guidance packages, he thought, but the ops planners had vetoed that idea. As fast as the rocks were going it would be very difficult to catch them even with missiles, and if they did, all those Aardvarks would be out of the fight with the Destroyer.
No, his fight was with the big ship. The fortresses, cruisers and their escorts would have to fend off the rocks.
Lark occupied a position to the upper left, as one looked at the force of attack ships from above. In three dimensions, they actually formed an enormous thickened lozenge, constantly adjusting to keep itself between the Destroyer and the Earth.
The Meme ship had stayed behind its rocks for the first hour or so, then had changed course and blasted to its right, Vango’s left, and “upward” in the plane of the solar system, using the third dimension to separate itself from the mass of asteroids it had launched. He wondered if that was part of its plan all along. Did it send the rocks as a distraction, a second attack, or had the enemy commander simply changed its mind after seeing EarthFleet’s deployment?
He projected the Destroyer’s track and known acceleration parameters, and determined that it could not dodge completely around the cloud of attack ships. However, it could cut through them where only a small fraction could engage, like a footballer racing down the edge of the field to avoid most of the defenders.
General Hyser, the A-24 fleet commander, apparently could see this as well as Vango, for the lozenge of ships constantly adjusted to try to keep within their engagement envelopes. That’s why this formation, unlike last time, had some depth.
Also, the Pilum IIs they carried were smarter, with software that made better decisions. Sometimes the missiles would explode, and sometimes they would just slam into the enemy, with calculations based on the intelligence gathered from the first fight. And, although the kamikaze bombs were still aboard, their use had been tightened and limited to only the best, most damaging parameters.
Or the pilot’s decision.
“What do you think, Token?” he asked his wingman. “Looks like we’re near the front this time.”
“Looks like,” came Token’s even voice. “Why, you scared?”
“Hell, no,” Vango replied, but deep inside he wasn’t so sure. The first battle had been the culmination of training, like a fireman fin
ally getting to go into a burning building for the first time. In a way, it was now harder, a kind of stress fatigue, as he knew what to expect, and remembered how many friends and comrades had died that day.
And what about Stevie? Is she better off now, or should I have never said or done anything? He forced those thoughts away. Keep your focus, Vango.
“It’s turning,” Token noted, and Vango turned his attention back to the big picture.
“Turning outward…” He ran the projections. “It’s gaining on us.”
Orders soon came to turn inward, using their interior lines to cut across the chord of the enemy’s turn, staying always between the Destroyer and Earth.
An hour later they continued in this position, except… “We’re heading for Mars,” Token pointed out.
“Why?” Vango asked. “There’s nothing there. Just a few defense installations. We’re way off the direct path, a long ways from the incoming rocks. What’s it doing?”
“Beats me. I’m just a fighter pilot,” his wingman replied.
Vango racked his brains, looking at the plots, the cloud of Aardvarks falling slowly back and sideways, preventing the Destroyer from getting around them. “If we keep doing this, eventually we’ll be pressed back into Earth’s defensive zone. Maybe it’s trying to make its move at the same time as the rocks hit, slashing through us while the planetary defenses have their hands full.”
“Or maybe it’s heading here.” Token threw up a very speculative track that showed the Destroyer passing behind Mars and swinging around toward the Orion station parked ten million klicks behind Earth. “All Orion has is point defenses – pretty good ones, I hear, and new armor bolted on, but nothing to beat a Destroyer with. Losing Absen and all the HQ staff would seriously cripple our war effort.”
“In the long term, maybe, but for today, for now…everyone knows their jobs. No, that doesn’t make sense. But…” Vango looked at Token’s plot. Something about it…he froze it in place for a moment. “Let me know if anything happens, all right? I’m going to do some 4D predictive modeling.”
Plague Wars 06: Comes the Destroyer Page 34
