by Marko Kloos
“Lima-20 will turn to relative one-seven-five in ninety seconds. Lima-21 will turn to relative three-zero-zero five or six seconds later. Watch.”
I divide my attention between the plot and the chronometer readout on the CIC bulkhead. Sure enough, a minute and a half after the XO’s prediction, the icons change direction on the plot again, exactly the way she predicted. Major Renner picks up the marker pen from the holotable and clicks a trajectory onto the plot.
“There’s the patrol pattern, and it’s entirely predictable, down to five seconds and a kilometer or two.”
“That’s weapons-grade stupid,” the tactical officer says.
“By our standards, sure.” Colonel Campbell pans the map around and changes the scale to get a better spatial sense of the Lanky patrol pattern relative to our position. “But they’re not human. We don’t have a clue how they think. If they think. They could be acting on instinct alone. Think of the shark analogy. Does a shark have to care whether it’s predictable or not?”
“Maybe they know as little about us as we do about them,” I say.
“Maybe. Problem is, they don’t have to give a shit about figuring us out. Sharks and minnows and all that.”
Colonel Campbell taps the plot again to reset the range scale. “We’ll observe their pattern for a little while, make sure it stays constant. I want a best-time trajectory to the transition point, calculated for the precise moment when both those ships are as far away from the node as their pattern takes them. We’re going to have to loop around and burn for speed.”
“What about creating a little diversion?” the XO asks. “Just to be on the safe side.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Well, we can use the parasite fighter we have left. Load it with tactical nukes, coast it in from the far side, and stick a few megatons into the nearest Lanky.”
“We can launch, then have the bird drop stealth and run the opposite way,” the tactical officer suggests. “Maybe the Lanky will give chase. But even if not, we’ll have the background noise from a few nukes to keep their eyes off us. It’ll at least get their attention.”
“We’d be giving up the rest of our offensive fighter power to do the space-warfare equivalent of throwing a rock down an alley.” Colonel Campbell chews on his lower lip in thought. “That’s a mighty expensive distraction.”
“May be worth it just to increase the margin of error.”
The colonel mulls the idea for a few moments and then shrugs. “Let’s do it. Cheaper than losing the ship because we made the node three seconds too late.”
It takes another hour to prep and load Indy’s remaining parasite fighter. They are small and stealthy, and like the drones, the parasite fighters are remote-controlled from the weapons station in Indy’s CIC. Unlike the drones, however, they are designed for combat, to give Indy stealthy standoff capabilities for sneak attacks. They have ordnance bays for missiles, and while the weapons officer is prepping the ship’s guidance and targeting systems for launch, the flight deck crew loads four tactical nuclear antiship missiles onto the hardpoints.
“Bird’s prepped and ready for launch. Nuke yield is dialed in at five hundred kilotons per.”
“They’ll make a pretty light show at least,” the XO says.
“Next burn window for max clearance transition is coming up in seven minutes.” The tactical officer puts the corresponding countdown marker on the holotable display.
“Launch the fighter,” Colonel Campbell orders. “Prepare for acceleration burn and Alcubierre transition. We have one shot at this. Let’s not fuck it up.”
Indy does a sequence of short burns to extend the parabolic curve of her path and swing her around to gain speed for the transition. Then we reach the apex of our path and swing around in a wide arc to aim straight for the node, which means we are also aiming right for the spot between the two Lanky ships. The detached stealth fighter is five thousand kilometers off our starboard bow and heading straight for the closest Lanky seed ship, a mosquito taking on an elephant.
“Fifteen seconds on the burn, five-g sustained,” Major Renner announces.
“Thirty seconds to weapon release. Requesting authorization for nuclear fire mission.”
“Authorize nuclear release, commanding officer, 0437 Zulu shipboard time,” Colonel Campbell replies.
“Confirm authorization for nuclear release,” the weapons officer says. Everything we say and do in CIC gets recorded by the computer and logged in the ship’s data banks. If we live through this and the crew gets hauled in front of a court-martial tribunal, the log will undoubtedly serve as evidence.
“Two minutes and forty-five seconds to transition,” the XO says. I look at Dmitry, who watches the proceedings with his usual stoic expression, but I know him well enough by now to tell that he is as anxious as any of us.
“Ten seconds to weapons release. Five seconds. Three. Two. One. Birds away, birds away.”
On the plot, four little inverted V shapes pop into existence just ahead of the icon for the stealth fighter and shoot toward the nearest Lanky ship at an acceleration that would turn us all into pudding if Indy could pull it.
“All four birds tracking optically. Time to impact: forty-five seconds.”
The combined destructive power of two million tons of conventional explosives is hurtling toward the Lanky ship. For even our biggest warships, a two-megaton direct hit would mean catastrophic damage if not outright destruction, but after seeing an entire task force launch hundreds of megatons against a lone seed ship without effect, I have no hope of seeing the Lanky blotted from the plot by our missile fire.
“Thirty seconds to impact. One minute forty-five seconds to transition.”
“Sergeant Chistyakov,” Colonel Campbell says. “Stand by to transmit access code at the thirty-second mark.”
“Thirty-second mark,” Dmitry confirms. He walks over to the comms officer and brings up a holoscreen on the console. “Standing by for transmit.”
“Twenty seconds to missile impact.”
The gap between the two Lanky ships is close to a hundred kilometers, as wide as it will get on their predicted patrol pattern. Both are moving away from the transition point. I know that their ship-to-ship penetrators are strictly a short-range affair and that the seed ships are too massive to just turn on a dime to get into our path if they detect us at the last minute, but intentionally racing Indy between two of those monster ships is still the scariest, dumbest thing I’ve been a part of in my life. So much is riding on a second or two and the fraction of a kilometer. We are not just tickling the dragon’s tail; we are timing a flyby through its open jaws while it is yawning.
“Ten seconds to missile impact. Five seconds. Three . . . two . . . one . . . impact. We have nuclear impacts on bogey Lima-21.”
The optical feed shows the blindingly bright miniature suns of four atomic detonations in vacuum, perfect spheres of light and heat and deadly radiation. Then the Lanky seed ship bulls its way through the nuclear fire, trailing superheated particles behind it as it shrugs off the hits.
“Turn the fighter around and go active on the decoy transmitters,” Major Renner orders. “Give the son of a bitch something to chase.”
The unmanned stealth fighter makes a brutally sharp twenty-gturn under full acceleration and races back the way it came, toward the section of space where Indy started her run for the transition point. On the plot, the icon for the fighter changes in size as the electronic-warfare decoy module on the little ship pumps out megawatts of radio energy to match the ELINT signature of a frigate. To an SRA unit, the fleeing fighter would look like a much bigger ship, and hopefully the Lanky will find it worthy of pursuit.
“Lima-21 is changing course to twenty degrees starboard relative. Son of a bitch took the bait.” The tactical officer sounds almost jubilant.
“One minute to transition. Stand by, Sergeant Chistyakov.”
“Standing,” Dmitry says.
“Lima-20 i
s coming about! Course change for Lima-20, turning through two-seven-zero relative. He is accelerating. Ten meters per second. Thirty. Fifty.”
“Not fast enough,” Colonel Campbell says. He is staring grimly at the plot, where the second seed ship has started a ponderous 180-degree turn toward our trajectory. “Looks like size isn’t everything, huh?”
Off in the distance to our starboard, the stealth fighter is racing into the black, flashing its fake ID card, with seed ship Lima-20 in pursuit. We are racing for the doorway at top speed, sixty humans in a little alloy shell against two almost-invulnerable planet destroyers.
“Lima-20 is going for the bait, too. I don’t think he spotted us, sir.”
“Works for me,” the colonel says, jaw muscles flexing.
“Transition in thirty seconds.”
“Sergeant Chistyakov,” the XO says, just a few decibels below a shout. “Now, if you please.”
Dmitry’s fingers fly across the display in front of him. He’s using Indy’s comms suite as an amplifier for his own suit’s communications gear, sending the SRA access code with the ship’s transmitting power instead of that of his armor. Still, at this speed we will be in transmission range for only a few seconds, and if we miss our window, we’ll just coast right through the Alcubierre point and remain in local space instead of shooting off toward Fomalhaut at superluminal speed.
“Is done,” he says.
“I show positive lock on the beam,” the helmsman confirms. “Automatic transit lock enabled. Transition in fifteen seconds.”
The XO picks up the handset for the 1MC. “All hands, prepare for Alcubierre transition in minus-ten. Hang on, people.”
“Distance to Lima-20 now ninety thousand. Eighty thousand. Seventy thousand and closing.”
“Three, two, one. Engage.”
The icons on the plot wink out of existence. I feel the familiar low-level ache in my bones that sets in whenever I enter an Alcubierre transit bubble, and I’ve never welcomed the feeling until this very moment.
CHAPTER 19
NACS Indianapolis coasts back into orbit around Fomalhaut c’s moon, the colony called New Svalbard, twenty-nine days after our departure. We arrive with almost-empty deuterium tanks, 25 percent of drinking water remaining, and most of our food stores gone except for the truly unpalatable SRA rations we held back for eat-or-starve emergency chow. On the personal side of the ledger, I arrive without my fiancée, and I am missing two fingers on my left hand. I’ve also lost whatever idealism I may have had left after five years of getting fucked by the brass, and any desire to stick my neck out for anyone above the rank of colonel ever again.
“Look at this, sir,” the XO says from the holotable. Colonel Campbell walks up from the CIC hatch, where he just had a conversation with the commanding officer of the embarked SI squad, Lieutenant Shirley.
“What is it?”
Major Renner points at the plot and highlights a few of the ship icons that have popped up on our radar since we turned the bend for our orbital capture. She points out a small cluster of blue icons slightly away from the main task force.
Colonel Campbell laughs out loud. “Well, I’ll be dipped in shit. The wayward carrier has returned to the fold.”
I walk over to the pit and look at the plot. The ships Major Renner pointed out are labeled “CV-233 MIDWAY,” “FF-471 TRIPOLI,” and “CG-97 LONG BEACH,” our wayward carrier task force 230.7, which tucked tail and ran when the Lankies came calling a little over two months ago.
“Amazing what empty freshwater tanks can do for one’s memory,” Major Renner says wryly. “The general remembered there was a colony moon to defend out here in the sticks.”
We’ve been in radio contact with the combined SRA/NAC task force since shortly after we shot out of the Alcubierre chute and back into the Fomalhaut system, but the presence of the Midway is a major surprise. I see it as a good sign that we are in touch with the same command crew that was in charge when we left—an ad hoc council of senior SRA and NAC commanders—which means that the wayward general in command of TF230.7 did not manage to claim authority over the entire fleet by virtue of rank.
“Regulus, Indy Actual. Request permission to come alongside one of the supply ships as soon as we’ve completed our orbital capture. We are out of everything, and Indy’s full of holes.”
“Indy Actual, this is Regulus. Permission granted. Complete orbital capture and contact Portsmouth for approach vectors. You guys look like you’ve had a journey.”
“Regulus, you have absolutely no idea,” Colonel Campbell sends back.
We burn to enter the orbital trajectory that will get Indy into New Svalbard orbit in just one pass, using the top layers of the moon’s atmosphere to slow the ship down to orbital maneuvering speeds. Someone in CIC put a large window with the external planetside camera feed onto the holotable next to the tactical orb, and I get to see the ice moon and the massive gas giant behind it in ultrahigh resolution at this range. New Svalbard’s cloud cover is almost complete as usual, but there are stretches of clear skies along the temperate belt around the moon’s equator. It’s a harsh world, but a beautiful one, clean and cold and unspoiled.
“Weather report for New Longyearbyen says they’re go for flight ops as long as we don’t mind a bit of chop,” Colonel Campbell says to me. “I’m pretty sure that you’re good and ready to get down to the surface. Stretch your legs after almost a month in this little barge.”
“Colonel,” I say, “I think that this ship is the finest unit in the fleet, and I would gladly go into battle with this crew again any time, against anyone. But don’t take it personally when I tell you that I’ve never wanted to get off a spaceship as much as I want to get off this one right now.”
Major Renner chuckles, and Colonel Campbell smiles curtly and shakes his head.
“God knows you’ve earned yourself a bit of fresh air,” the colonel says. He glances at my still-bandaged hand. “They’ll want you around for the debriefing, but you can join that from down there. And I wouldn’t wait too long to have that looked at by a surgeon.”
Dmitry and I are alone again for the ride in the drop ship. He sits across the aisle from me, his gear bag between his feet and strapped to the cargo eyelets that are recessed into the floor in regular intervals. The other personnel on Indy will transfer to other ships in the task force directly if needed, but Dmitry needs to switch rides on the surface because the SRA drop ships don’t fit into NAC docking clamps. If this shaky new alliance of necessity is going to continue, we will need a whole new level of standardization across both fleets—or what’s left of them at this point.
The drop ship detaches from the docking clamp, and I turn on the networked feed in my suit and tap into the outside cameras the way I like to do whenever I am along as a passenger and not doing a combat drop. We drop free from Indy, and the pilot takes us into a gentle descending turn to port.
“Holy hell,” I say out loud when I see the battle damage on Indy’s hull with my own eyes for the first time. The holes in the forward port section are each at least two meters across, and the exit hole closest to the bow section caused a lot of ancillary damage. Two of Indy’s missile-launch-tube covers are gone, and several square meters of hull plating around the open tubes are torn and buckled from the sudden high-velocity passage of the Lanky penetrators. Such a simple weapon, and so effective against a species that needs to ride in air-filled shells to survive out in space.
I watch Indy recede on my helmet display until all I can see of the stealthy OCS is a cluster of flashing navigation lights approaching the much bigger bulk of the fleet supply ship Portsmouth. Her streamlined little hull looks tiny against the backdrop of the gas giant behind New Svalbard and the vastness of the space beyond.
The atmospheric part of the ride is less serene than the space phase. We get bumped around a bit as the shearing winds in New Svalbard’s atmosphere buffet the drop ship left and right, up and down. After a month of smooth zero-gravity ops,
it’s a little jarring to get tossed around again like a pebble in a can. I keep my helmet display active and do my usual all-aspect feed from every camera at once, which cuts down on the motion sickness.
Twenty thousand feet above New Longyearbyen and fifteen kilometers away, the cloud cover breaks and gives way to a pale blue sky. Below us, the white expanses of the snow-covered tundra belt stretch as far as I can see, all the way to the distant mountain ranges to our north and south. To our starboard, a white exhaust plume rising from a large flat building marks the location of one of the moon’s sixty-four terraforming stations, which are strung along the tundra belt like a girdle, one every hundred and fifty kilometers.
The drop-ship pilot makes a low pass over the town as we come in for a landing at the airfield. I look down at the bunker-like colony housing, each a windowless ferroconcrete dome thick enough to withstand two-hundred-kilometer winds and several meters of snow load. The streets down here are laid out in a way that minimizes alleys for the driving winter winds to funnel through, so New Longyearbyen looks a little bit like a fractal pattern from above. I see several of the colony’s tracked snow-movers out on the streets, and even a few people bundled up in hostile environment garb. I know the outside temperature is low enough to shock-freeze exposed flesh in just a few seconds, but after a month in a tiny OCS, I am looking forward to walking in a continuous straight line for a few minutes without having to step across bulkhead thresholds or change directions at gangway intersections every twenty-five meters.
The drop ship touches down on the airfield’s vertical landing pad a few minutes later. The tail ramp lowers to reveal a busy stretch of tarmac. There are several rows of drop ships parked in front of the nearby hangars, NAC Wasps and Dragonflies shoulder to shoulder with SRA Akulas. A Dragonfly and an Akula are standing nearby on the VSTOL pad, with the engines running and navigation lights blinking.
