Zero Hour (Expeditionary Force Book 5)

by Craig Alanson

  “This is interesting,” Sami said quietly as her full concentration was used on the unfamiliar and to her knowledge, unprecedented maneuver she was flying. In the US Air Force, she had been trained to use the terms Weeds, Low, Medium, High, and Very High to describe target altitudes ranging anywhere from scraping treetops to above forty thousand feet. Because those terms were utterly meaningless in airspace combat, pilots serving with the Merry Band of Pirates had come up with their own terminology. Dust, Air, Thin, Orbit, and Beyond, with ‘Thin’ being anywhere technically still within an atmosphere but high enough that aerodynamic controls were inoperative in the thin air.

  When Lt. Samantha Reed thought of the term ‘Dust’, she used to consider that to mean flying close to the surface of any world, whether it had an atmosphere or not, and whether the surface below was dust, trees or water. With the surface of Barsoom consisting of fine red dust, grainy pebbles of red sand, and dust-coated rocks, the term ‘Dust’ was entirely appropriate. On Barsoom, the combination of dust and an atmosphere caused trouble for Sami, because it limited her options.

  When the lone Wurgalan fighter had, to Sami’s relief, been destroyed by one of her missiles before the enemy got within range to fire masers at the pair of Condors, she had switched her attention to the three enemy dropships racing in from the airbase. The Condors had dropped off Major Smythe’s team and were free to maneuver defensively for a few minutes, so they were proceeding directly away at high speed while calling out a warning that they needed to return to the dome very soon.

  In a chaotic yet brief air battle, Sami had destroyed one of the three enemy with a missile, then to her surprise had shot down a second with a snap shot maser cannon blast. That had been a momentarily satisfying victory Sami had not been able to acknowledge with even a smile, before her copilot warned their own defensive shield and stealth field had been seriously degraded during the encounter, as the shields had deflected multiple maser bolts and two exploding warheads of near-miss enemy missiles. The shield emitters needed over a minute to recharge before they could protect Sami’s Falcon from even a single maser bolt shot by the two Wurgalan fighters hunting her, as another lone enemy aircraft had joined the fight.

  With her shields weakened and stealth compromised, Sami had considered her options in a flash. Streaking along close to the deck was no good; the turbulence of her high-speed passage through even the thin atmosphere would stir up dust on the ground below like a fingernail scraping the red soil, leaving reddish clouds pointing the enemy directly at her.

  What she decided to do, she considered as she allowed herself a tight smile, was worthy of a Bishop Award for ‘Craziest Idea Dreamed Up Out Of Nothing’. The air of Barsoom, while thin, was still sufficiently dense to stir up the surface dust when winds blew hard. Dust storms on the planet could spring up and disappear quickly, or they could last for days and build so strong they created dust devils; the local equivalent of tornados.

  Sami was hovering her Falcon inside the tightly swirling cone of a dust devil, while outside the pair of Wurgalan fighters grew increasingly frustrated trying to find her. To the Wurgalan, the Falcon they were chasing dove to the deck then behind a ridge, but when the Wurgalan craft followed, their enemy was nowhere to be seen. “They won’t orbit this area forever,” Sami said unnecessarily to her copilot, who could see the situation on her own display.

  “No they won’t. Forty two seconds to recharge shield emitters,” Wu added, knowing that information was on the display in front of Sami but that the pilot was busy keeping their Falcon inside the rapidly-changing dust devil. A moment before, Wu had feared the dust devil would dissipate, then it found new strength and must have flown over an area of particularly fine dust particles because the air outside was instantly obscured to a pink haze. “Turbines are heating up,” she warned. “This dust may be melting onto the fan blades.” That was a problem they had limited ability to deal with; polarizing the fan blades to repel dust might be detected by enemy sensors. “We’ll deal with it,” she decided, considering they would only remain inside the dust devil until their shields were fully recovered.

  “Where are the bandits?” Sami asked.

  “Still no joy on the passive gear,” Wu said tersely. “We’re picking up intermittent blips from their taclink signals but not strong enough to get a firing solution on their location. They’re still searching for us.” With the enemy dropships in stealth, and the Falcon’s sensors obscured by the magnetically-charged dust surrounding them, they could not detect the enemy’s presence other than through brief backscatter of signals the Wurgalan shared with each other over their tactical data link. “We can’t launch without-”

  Her problem was solved by the enemy’s impatience; the Falcon’s threat console lit up as the Thuranin dropship was swept by an active sensor pulse. “Eighty seven,” Wu warned, indicating that enemy sensor pulse was eighty seven percent of the power needed to pinpoint the Falcon’s location.

  While the enemy’s initial sensor pulse was thirteen percent too weak to give away the Falcon’s position, it was a million percent stronger than Wu needed to determine exactly where the transmitting aircraft was. “Tracking one!” She announced. “Solid lock!”

  Sami glanced away from the cockpit navigation display to check the condition of the shield emitters; they still had twelve seconds remaining until they regained full capacity. Close enough, Sami decided. Plus, the Condors had turned and were on their way back to the dome to retrieve Major Smythe’s team. It was time to stop delaying and distracting the enemy, and start killing them. “Launch two birds at that bandit,” she ordered, not needing to specify whether to fire heat-seeking or radar-guided missiles, as the deadly Thuranin weapons were multipurpose killers; capable of homing in on a target using active and passive sensors covering the entire electromagnetic spectrum.

  “Birds affirm,” Wu confirmed targeting sensors had a lock on the enemy’s location and the two missiles had received the data, “birds away.”

  “Here we go,” Sami advanced the throttles and stood the Falcon on its tail, flying straight up and quickly clearing the dust devil. Enemy sensor pulses were now both fully able to detect the Falcon and fully unnecessary, because the energy radiating from the Thuranin craft’s engines left a thermal trail its stealth field could not conceal. “Switching to guns.”

  The Condors came in low and fast over a ridge to the north; Smythe had been tracking them in his helmet visor through the encrypted tactical datalink but seeing them was still startling. One moment, the horizon was clear and the next moment two large shapes loomed in front of him. With both air-space craft in stealth, Smythe knew his helmet was filling in the image for him; without visual enhancement all he would have seen is a very faint ripple of dust particles in the thin air.

  The pilots were showing off, Smythe thought as one side of his mouth curled up in an admiring smile; he couldn’t fault the pilots for wishing to arrive in style. As the Condors cleared the ridge, they flared in a synchronized maneuver, main turbines howling in reverse and thruster jets on belly and nose firing to slow the craft for landing. At the last second, as it appeared the two big dropships would fulfill their names and drop to crash into the red-gray dusty ground, they straightened out and made a final correction for landing, setting down exactly on the markers laid down by Smythe’s team.

  “Hurry,” the lead pilot urged, “multiple bandits inbound.”

  Perhaps the pilots had not been showing off after all, Smythe reflected as he waited impatiently for the rear ramp to open. Knowing the ground team would be anxious to get aboard, both ships had cracked their ramps open as they flared for landing, and the crew chiefs used the emergency procedure of allowing the big ramps to slam down against their stops rather than the leisurely process of cycling them down used for cargo loading. Smythe and his team chafed at the delay anyway; it pleased Smythe that no one broke procedure by rushing up the ramp until the crew chiefs reported they were fully down and locked. First aboard were t
he two soldiers carrying the precious-but-awkward-to-handle Elder conduit device, while everyone else had their rifles ready to provide cover. Both Condors had their chin and side maser turrets pointed at the dome, prepared to rain blistering hellfire on anyone who threatened the band of pirates. No threat emerged, Smythe saw with great satisfaction and, if he were completely honest with himself, a tiny bit of disappointment. He was last aboard; no sooner were his boots halfway up the ramp, racing forward in the hastened pace of powered armor, when the ramp began cycling closed and he felt the big Condor lift off. That rapid dust-off maneuver was reserved for combat emergencies because of the danger it posed to unsecured personnel. As Smythe raced forward and was caught by the restraining net, he knew the danger was less than it seemed. His Kristang suit would stabilize his movement and prevent him from falling out the sides of the half-open ramp, and the pilots took off in a nose-down position. The worst that could have happened to Smythe was bruising his dignity and he cared nothing about that. “Clear!” He shouted as the nanofiber netting held him securely upright.

  Just in time. The pilot stood the big Thuranin dropship on its tail and fired the main jets hard, surging for the safety of orbit.

  Sami’s fingers moved to turn the Falcon to deal with a new threat, then she heard a voice in her earpiece just as Wu launched another missile. “This is Raptor Lead, all ships, knock it off. Repeat, knock it off,” he issued the order to disengage from air combat. “Bingo to home plate.” Then he added, “Good shooting, people.”

  Sami’s reaction was to pull backward on the touchscreen controls with one finger, pulling the Falcon’s nose up, and the flick of another finger advanced the throttles. “Oops,” she shot a guilty smile at her copilot. “Raptor Lead, we have a bird in the air. Should we abort?”

  The reply was delayed for a moment while the lead pilot checked his own display, Sami hoped he noticed that she had launched the missile before he gave the order to disengage. “That’s a negative, Fireball. We could use the cover. All ships, conserve your missiles, we never know when we’ll need them.”

  Wu grinned and gave Sami a thumbs up as the pilot pushed the dropship to full power, and it climbed toward their precisely scheduled rendezvous with ‘home plate’; their star carrier. Both women kept one eye on the display tracking the lone missile as it pursued the limping enemy aircraft. The Wurgalan dropship dove for the deck, then the alien pilots must have realized they had no chance to escape, for the dropship’s nose pulled up and two crew ejected. The ejection seats carried the octopussies up and away; the Thuranin missile bored in toward the easy target of the unguided dropship, punching halfway through before exploding.

  “Congrats, people, I believe that is a grand slam,” Raptor Lead said with satisfaction. All hostile aircraft engaged had been destroyed, with only minor damage to the pirates’ ships. Perhaps it had never been a fair fight, pitting Thuranin technology against the Wurgalan and highly-trained, determined and focused pirates against bored alien garrison pilots. Yet, it was the first time the Merry Band of Pirates had been in air-to-air combat, and they had triumphed. Raptor Lead smiled broadly as he added “Monkeys kicked ass today.”

  The ass kicking was not exactly complete when the six dropships cleared the atmosphere. They still had to rendezvous with and be taken aboard the star carrier, which was nowhere in sight, and completely out of communications range. While that was not unexpected because it was part of the plan, it was unnerving.

  After soaring above the last wisps of Barsoom’s thin atmosphere, the two Condors went to full power, with the smaller and more nimble Falcons throttling back, hanging behind to protect against any last-minute enemy attempts to intercept. In formation, they raced straight away from the planet, aiming at nothing more than an invisible point in space. When they reached that imaginary point, they needed to be traveling at a precise speed, on a very exact course, then follow an invisible line through space. Thanks to exhaustive practice and the processing power of the Thuranin flight control computers, all six ships hit the mark exactly, and cut thrust. “Head’s up, people. Shields on double aft, prepare for radiation event.” The other five ships acknowledged well ahead of the deadline, and the computer counted down the time.

  Exactly on schedule, the star carrier appeared behind them in a gamma ray burst, flying in the same direction and slightly slower. When they received the All Clear from Skippy, all six ships decelerated at full power to allow the invisible star carrier to catch them. The Dutchman transmitted an extremely faint navigation beacon to avoid the stealthed dropships from crashing into the stealthed ship. Within seven minutes of the pirate ship jumping in, the dropships were securely clamped into their docking cradles, and the Flying Dutchman jumped away.

  Chapter Four

  I could not wait to congratulate Major Smythe, so I called him from the command chair. “Major, that was outstanding! That was a textbook operation, please convey my congratulations to your team.”

  “Thank you, Colonel,” replied, a bit less happily than I had hoped. This wasn’t just his British reserve, he was bothered about something. “That may have gone a bit too perfectly.”

  “What?” I asked in alarm, glancing at the main bridge display. The Flying Dutchman had sustained nothing worse than four maser cannon hits, which our shields had dealt with. There was no sign of pursuit, so- “Oh, shit,” my face fell along with my spirits. “You think that was too easy because it was a setup?” My mind raced through terrifying scenarios. Had the Elder device Smythe brought on board been replaced with an explosive that could soon tear our ship apart? How? For that to happen, the Wurgalan must have known we were coming, but how could- The worm! Had the worm somehow communicated with the outside universe without Skippy’s knowledge? If so, then the secret of humans flying around in a pirate ship and manipulating wormholes was out, and humanity on Earth and Paradise were screwed without-

  Smythe blessedly interrupted my racing thoughts. “Setup? No, Sir. I only meant this is the first major combat operation we’ve been involved with that went almost exactly according to plan. I keep thinking Lady Fortune will get us back for that favor someday.”

  “Oh,” I slumped in my chair with relief. Crisis averted for the moment. Although my panic had brought up an issue I needed to discuss with Skippy. “Major, bring the conduit, uh, thing up here.”

  “I don’t know if it will fit through some of the passageways, Sir,” Smythe warned. “It’s rather long; there are some pieces attached to it that I am afraid to remove.”

  “Understood, good point. Keep it in the docking bay, then. I will bring Skippy down there. He says he needs to be close to the thing for it to work.” Leaving the bridge, I saw Chang step from the CIC to replace me in the command chair. When I got to Skippy’s escape pod mancave, he was chilling as usual. “Hey, Skippy.”

  “Hey, Joe,” he also was not as happy as I expected him to be.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked as I unstrapped him and picked up the satchel we used for carrying him around, because he didn’t like being touched by filthy monkeys. “I thought you would be thrilled that we recovered a conduit thingy for you, and none of us got killed.” Down the passageway I walked quickly, almost jogging. There was no sign of any ships pursuing us, but if we got into trouble, I did not want to waste any time bringing Skippy back to his full awesome Skippyness.

  “I am very happy that no monkeys were harmed in this operation, Joe. My enthusiasm is on hold right now, because I don’t want to get my hopes up.”

  “Ok, I can understand that, because you never know what could go wrong. Hey, on the subject of things that can go wrong, how much do you know about what the worm is doing in there?”

  “Hmm. Let me check. It has just finished binge-watching ‘Downton Abbey’ and now it is on season one of ‘Breaking Bad’.”

  “What?”

  “It’s bored, so it- Oh for crying out loud, Joe, I was screwing with you.”

  “Oh, yeah. That’s what I thought.” Mentally,
I had been picturing a worm sprawled on a couch, empty beer cans and potato chip bags littering the floor, as it chilled watching TV.

  “How the hell should I know what it is doing? Trying to kill me is all I know, duh. I can tell it is attempting to get past the barrier I constructed.”

  “That’s not good, Skippy. How do you know the worm isn’t doing something bad like calling for help?”

  “Calling for help? What?”

  “I was thinking, that worm could be monitoring us. It could know we are humans, that our being out here is a secret. So, it could be calling in reinforcements.”

  “Reinforc- No, you dumdum. You think other worms are going to crawl across space to the ship and attack us?” He scoffed.

  “Not other worms, Skippy. The worm could let, like, the Maxolhx know where we are and where we’re going, so they can intercept us. All the worm cares about is that it kills you, right? If the Maxolhx destroy this ship, it makes the worm’s job a lot easier, because you will never find one of these conduit things.”

  “Shit. Damn it, Joe. I hadn’t thought about that,” his voice was shaky. "Crap. You dumdum, you should have mentioned this earlier."

  “I just thought of it. So it could happen?” Hearing that brought me to a halt in the passageway.

  “Hmm, let me think. No, no, I don’t think so. I don’t see how that could happen. The worm so far as I know has never accessed my systems. It destroys, Joe. It doesn’t take control of anything. I do not think it would, or could, call the Maxolhx.”

  “You telling me you don’t think it could happen, without having any way for you to know, does not reassure me, Skippy.”

  “I am not bursting with confidence either, Joe. Crap. Well, thanks a lot. You really ruined my freakin’ day, Mister Buzzkill.”

  “Yes, that is the important thing here, Skippy. Not that aliens could arrive at any moment, tear this ship apart, and destroy my home planet. What is truly important is that you are having a pleasant day.”