by Blaze Ward
“Roger that,” Granville said, opening the accompanying file.
“Bring it,” Spier growled over the common line.
Someone else laughed. Probably Bardeen, from the tone.
Huh. Sure enough, someone actually launched missiles into an atmosphere. Against a moving target with sensors on. It was almost an impossible shot, but he could see them perhaps trying to catch him on the ground later. It was likely that at least one or two stations would be able to either see him or guess where he was close enough to launch something and let it guide itself when it was low enough.
Still, he had maneuverability and guns. And two gunners with a point to prove, from the grumbling back there.
Granville opened the map and looked for the kremlin defending the landing zone. Kosnett and Brinich would keep anyone from getting above him. He had the interesting job, now.
There.
Almost in the middle of a large prairie, on the south bank of a relatively large river. From thirty thousand meters, it looked almost idyllic, but Kosnett had assumed some level of orbital defenses on the ground, just exactly in case someone snuck close.
Rather than find out, he banked away and went to full power on the engines. It had been all of seventeen minutes since he had come out of Jump and lit the station on fire.
If CS-405 was still overhead, he had succeeded.
By now the folks on the ground were probably awake, too.
Overwatch (February 17, 403)
“Persephone, this is CS-405,” Phil heard Evan say. “Missile launch signals detected, transmitting flight coordinates now. Looks like someone wants to try to shoot you down. Be advised when landing.”
Phil double-checked his boards. Eleven missiles had been launched at him from orbital stations earlier. Five more were currently joining them, but aimed down rather than across. Tricky shot from here, but not impossible.
He bracketed one of the stations on his screen and sent the note to both Evan and West.
“Let’s get closer to this guy,” Phil ordered. “He seems to be the most interested in doing something, having fired the most missiles. Take me deeper into the atmosphere so we can try to pick off the two he just sent after Granville. Plus get the four arcing across the sky above us.”
“Yes, sir,” the pilot chirped.
West seemed to have settled himself well. You never knew until people had been through the fire, what kind of individual would emerge, but Weston Lovisone had passed with flying colors.
Even the crazy stuff, like executing a skid on the gyros at the edge of the atmosphere.
Phil called up the view from a rear camera, currently centered and tracking on the remains of the station. One of those secondary explosions had turned into tertiaries. All weapons fire had ceased like a light switch had been thrown. Power absorber panels had failed, unleashing a whole other rime of explosions and destruction to top what Granville had unleashed.
They were picking up lifepods now, as folks decided maybe they wanted to be safe on the ground, rather than dead in low orbit.
“Gun captains,” Phil called out. “Six targets identified on two paths. Kill them.”
He cut the channel and went back to his boards. Moving this direction, two of the stations vanished beneath the horizon, and there did not appear to be anything but tiny communication relay satellites up here. Certainly nothing to guide them if they wanted to keep firing missiles.
He couldn’t get close enough to any other station to do anything constructive. Or destructive, for that matter, but if this fool kept launching missiles, Phil was tempted to let Galin and the engineers kill him with rocks before anybody else was ordered to surrender.
Outbound fire as the various guns began to track and zero down for kills. Launching missiles over the horizon at a ship this deep in the atmosphere was laughable. They might actually get so hot from the friction that they set themselves off, but he had four guns happy to assist. And the air slowed the missiles, not the beams.
Good enough.
Phil went back to Fleet Centurion mode and studied the planet. Kremlin there. Not below him directly, but probably enough to take a shot at the ships overhead.
Again, part of the reason CS-405 was here. Keep the bad guys occupied, while Persephone went for the kill. Phil had the shields and armor to resist something like that, although the lower he went, the cleaner a beam would be from the ground.
Still, in for a penny. In for a pound.
“Pilot, come starboard at this altitude and begin to put us overhead of the kremlin on the ground, but closer to the station we’ve been poking than to the others.”
Here. Let me entice you to fire more missiles this way. And maybe get the guy on the ground to try a shot at us. A Type-4 would hurt, but he can’t have that many, and we’re moving and jamming.
Phil checked. Yes, Evan had the rear sensor array blasting the ground with what looked to be old television sitcoms, with enough power behind them that the wires of the buildings below might be playing the theme song all by themselves.
Phil wondered if that constituted a war crime, and laughed to himself. He had done meaner things to less deserving people in his time.
One shot of lightning flashed through the atmosphere as he watched.
Sure enough, ground fire, but damn, that was barely close enough to even count.
Still, that meant he had their attention.
“West, begin evasive maneuvering,” Phil ordered. “Stay over this guy and within a big box as we circle overhead. At least until Veitengruber reports in.”
“Aye aye, sir,” the pilot replied.
Phil checked all his screens, but everything was within the range of outcomes they had gamed out. Not perfectly good, but not perfectly bad, either.
Now they just had to shut up the loudmouth on the ground.
The Rescue (February 17, 403)
Granville watched as Admiral Kosnett’s guns cleared the skies overhead of threats. At least any that seemed to have a chance of getting close.
“Stand by for maneuvering,” he said, pitching the ship’s nose down and pushing more power to the engines.
Time to play a game of tag.
Shields had been rebuilt from the glancing blow. All the paint was probably scorched off a rear quarter of the ship, but it hadn’t penetrated. And the fuses had blown before it could overload everything.
He could live without life support right now. And the grav-plates were normally a heavy load on the generators, so he had extra power for shields and guns with them off, this deep in the atmosphere.
The ground kremlin vanished below the horizon as the altitude indicator decreased at almost the same rate as the airspeed indicator climbed. They surely knew he was there, but Persephone was moving at several times the speed of sound, right now.
“Overwatch, please provide a scan of the defensive arrays,” Granville said into the radio.
Evan was watching the ground below for him. Granville needed to know what their capabilities were.
A file appeared in the inbox. Granville opened it as the autopilot took over. They were headed almost due west, relative, on this planet, and low enough that the sun would rise in another hour, if they maintained this course and heading.
Stupid, bordering on suicidal, but something he had always wanted to do, from low enough that you had a reverse sunrise. From orbit didn’t count, when you might have one every couple of hours.
The fortress was laid out in a hexagon. Six walls protecting six towers, with a moat all the way around. From the looks of it, someone had turned a peninsula into an island by trenching a canal across the base. Radar scan said the depth of the water was five meters all the way around, so Granville assumed the whole thing was artificial. Maybe they built the island and then opened a channel to the river nearby, once all the concrete had hardened and started to cure.
Certainly, men on the ground with iron age technology were not going to be a threat.
Granville flashed back to
the video he had watched. The interview with Lan and Kiel, when the man had first mentioned this planet.
What had he said?
Twenty-five years ago, give or take, Lan had been part of a crew that delivered tractor parts, because the original load from a generation earlier had finally worn out, and there were no factories allowed here to make new parts.
So at best an early industrial civilization probably was allowed to exist, and nothing better. Certainly nothing high enough to threaten fifteen-meter-tall walls that looked eight meters thick at the base.
Each tower had a weapon mount, but the only fire directed at CS-405 had come from inside the walls.
There. That looked like a gun battery on one side of a quad, with a landing field, a barracks, and probably the main building for the camp commandant and his staff. Buildings around the inside of the walls suggested the wall itself was solid, and those six turrets were probably anti-tank weapons designed to kill anything that a prisoner revolt might cook up.
He wasn’t sure if they could knock down a police cutter or not, but the big gun certainly could, and the landing field had a couple of what looked like armed repulsor transports.
Just the sort of thing to go raid a prisoner’s camp or city outside the walls, if you wanted to. Again, probably a threat to Persephone, if he decided to let them engage.
Quickly, he sent the map to the three gun stations, and programmed the course he wanted and locked it in. Rather than give too much away, he could come in at fifteen hundred meters, and then start to drop down when he was one hundred kilometers out. At this speed, the fortress would be four seconds away.
“Bow gun, concentrate on the orbital battery,” he said. “Morgan and Spier, you have the landing field. We will overfly the fortress at transonic speed, at a very low altitude, so program your guns and let them handle the timing. We will be at Mach Two and nine hundred meters at the end, passing just right of center so that our centerline hits the landers. Questions?”
“What do you want killed after the primary targets?” Spier fired back.
He laughed out loud. Another one who understood audacity.
“Anything that moves, Gunner,” Granville said. “The six turrets might be able to hurt us, so pour fire into them if you can.”
“Splatter city, coming up,” she laughed back.
Yes, he had the crew he needed to do this.
Granville looked down as he engaged the final pass in the autopilot and marveled. His hands were completely steady. He listened to his heart. All the mad adrenaline was burned out, leaving only a hard, steady beat.
He had been into the fire. Fought the dragon. Emerged successful.
“All hands, prepare to unleash hell,” he said in a cheerful voice. “Four seconds to contact.”
He held his hands over the controls, in case something went wrong, but Granville wasn’t sure what he might do. At this speed, he would hit the ground before he even knew anything was wrong.
And today was not allowed to be his day to die.
The Type-3 in the bow opened up at fifty kilometers. Long, but just right to recycle for a second shot at close enough to pee on them as he flew by. Morgan and Spier waited, and then fired within a sixteenth note of each other, just before the bow gun fired a second round.
Persephone blasted through a cloud of smoke and fire, probably snuffing some fires like birthday candles. Granville watched more explosions in his rear cameras for a second, before he was too far away to make out details.
“CS-405, this is Persephone,” he said in a calm voice. “First strafing run complete. Could we get a damage report, please?”
Chuckles came over the radio as Evan opened a line.
“Stand by,” the Science Officer said.
Images from orbit appeared on Granville’s screen. At least one of the two transports had been shattered, like an apple hit with a pulse pistol. The building housing the orbital gun had apparently also taken damage.
Good enough.
Granville brought the nose of his stallion around so he could line up a second shot. He could do this all day.
“Persephone, this is Kosnett,” the Admiral’s voice suddenly filled his ears. “Defending forces have surrendered. Repeat, defenders have struck their colors. Cease all combat operations while we sort out terms.”
“Roger that,” Granville replied.
Rather than just orbit, he looked for a spot where he could land. Someplace with good fields of fire and sky so nobody could sneak up on him. Preferably close to one of the villages he had seen on Evan’s maps.
There. Low, rolling hill with nothing on top of it, overlooking a village on a tributary creek to the big river.
He dialed back the engines and slowed with a few hard waggles to bleed off speed. As he went overhead on a downwind, Persephone was only one hundred meters up and flying no faster than a skycar.
The hill he wanted didn’t have any buildings on it, but it did have a small herd of cattle milling about.
He laughed over the intercom as he buzzed them, using sound and size to drive them off to the right, so he had a clear zone at the peak.
“What’s so funny, top?” Spier asked over the line.
“It’s a cattle ranch, Sailor,” he chuckled some more as the landing skids deployed and he began to hover down to earth. “I’ve come home.”
Fairy Godmother (February 19, 403)
“Technically, you are supposed to stay on the ship, Sam,” Andre groused, watching the various panels he had insisted that the engineers add to the command centurion’s station.
To hell with sitting around, just looking pretty, while the others did the work.
“Ah, but I’m only the Chief Medical Officer, Director,” she smiled sweetly back at him, just to rub it in. “My place is down on the ground, tending to the injured and helping organize the evacuation.”
Andre scowled at her, but the woman was immune. Worse, she had already reminded him twice that the Hippocratic Oath was on her side here.
Grumble.
“And being close to Trinidad has nothing to do with it, right?” Andre fired the last arrow in his quiver.
It was a solid hit. She blushed to the tips of her ears and the edge of her tunic.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Director Gave,” she said awkwardly after a moment.
Uh huh. Want to sell me a bridge, while we’re at it?
Fine.
“Permission granted,” Andre finally said.
He did have the legal authority to order the woman to remain aboard Forgotten Mercy, while her doctors went down in the hospital ship and treated the prisoners Veitengruber and his crew had rescued.
He would, however, lose all moral authority the moment he did so.
And she knew it.
Damn it.
“Stunt Dude, this is the bridge,” Andre grumbled into the ship’s comm. Somewhere aft, the monstrous LanderShip-sized beast was preparing to undock and begin the leisurely descent to the surface.
This war was over. For today.
“Stunt Dude here,” Trinidad replied a moment later.
“Stand by for one additional passenger,” Andre said, turning a sour scowl on one Dr. Sam Au, medical professional with the charming smile.
“Roger that,” Stunt Dude said. “Who’s coming?”
“Sam’s joining you,” Andre said, trying to sound professional and all that.
“Really?” the Dragoon said in a voice of barely-disguised glee. “Not a problem.”
Andre hadn’t thought it would be.
Those two had kept everything above-board for the entire mission. She was still technically a prisoner and he was her jailer. Those dinners together had been surrounded by significant numbers of salacious crew with watching eyes.
Hell, if anything, all the gossiping back and forth had done more to weld the two sides into a single, working whole than anything anybody might have recommended.
And Trinidad and Sam had never even
so much as held hands. Someone would have noticed.
Still, everyone had noticed.
Sam’s blush doubled again as Andre turned his attention to her.
“Godspeed, Doctor,” he said drolly, but she was already headed to the hatch at a speed somewhere between a skip and a sprint.
Andre looked down from his momentous throne and found Ross smiling up at him. Andre was pretty sure that the woman who had accompanied them to the surface back at Lighthouse Station had been replaced by a doppelgänger version of his Flight Deck Advocate. Maybe yet another fairy godmother watching over star-crossed lovers.
Or something like that.
“Make sure they hold until their passenger is aboard,” Andre ordered in an off-hand voice. “And then notify the flagship.”
“Yes, Director Gave,” she grinned.
Andre leaned back in his chair and considered things. They were just about six weeks out from the first anniversary of the meltdown on CS-405 that had set this adventure in motion. If his CMO and her staff spent a week on the surface tending to serious cases, and then then squadron made good time home, they could probably make it to Osynth B'Udan in that time.
Give it another four to six weeks, depending on the speed of bureaucracy, and the romance on the medical deck would either turn bittersweet, or completely insane.
“What’s the betting on the outcome?” he asked her.
Andre found it telling that she raised one hand, palm down, and waggled it from side to side.
Fifty/fifty, but hey, look at the odds these crews had overcome so far.
Acting Fleet Centurion (February 20, 403)
Heather and Siobhan had both nearly pitched a fit, but in the end, Phil was the commander around here, and he was allowed to pull rank. Even on Lady Blackbeard and Ground Control. And three days had been long enough for the various teams on the ground to sort things out.
