"The debris," answered Grace. "It'll show exactly where we are, and they'll hit us with everything they have anyway."
"So we should put everything into shields instead?" George asked.
"I would," said Grace.
"I would too," I said. "Jane, the moment we hit the atmosphere, drop the cloaks, and let's light up the sky."
"Bloody Oath we will."
Amy and Melissa looked at Jane like they'd never seen her before, while the three of us laughed.
We hit the atmosphere, and did what no sane person in so large a ship would ever contemplate. We went in. At fifty thousand meters above the city, we spread out to provide the maximum umbrella, with the three ships firing at everything that moved.
"Umbrella in place," I said.
Vonda ordered her people back to ground defense mode. Another popup showed us a third detonated kill zone. And a few minutes later, a fourth. Then a fifth.
The aliens massed this time, extending around the whole city, beyond the kill zone where they were safe from all but the long range fire from within the walls.
The other popups showed the same in five other locations.
"Jon?"
I looked at Jane. She nodded to another screen.
"Fuck," exclaimed George.
One of the huge masses of ships was heading directly for the planet. It must have assembled in response to us destroying the disk. It certainly hadn't been there before.
"How many?" I asked Jane.
"Hundred and fifty thou? Hard to tell really. Its mass suggests that anyway."
"Generals," I said in a command voice. "Time to leave."
"What?" said Patton. "We have them contained."
"Why Jon?" asked Vonda.
"As far as I can see, you’re on the brink of being overrun with what's either on the ground now, or will be in the next five minutes. You might hold them for a while, but unless you can do that detonation thing again, they are going to grind you down."
"But not immediately," said Patton.
"We have a half hour window to get out of here, before a hundred and fifty thousand ships get here all at once. When that happens, none of us will be safe, anywhere."
The vid of the alien mass appeared next to both Vonda and Patton at the same time, together with a navmap showing its exact location in the system, and it's time to arrive at the planet.
"Can you…"
He stopped, as the mass started firing in all directions at once. They knew we could cloak now, and were taking all diligence to ensure we didn’t sneak up on them again. They were firing enough at a time, to see any impact on a shield or ship.
"No," I said. "I'm sorry Generals, but it's time to go."
"You're call General Wellington," said Patton. "You're on the spot."
She hesitated, looking from him, to the vid, to me, and back to the vid.
"Phase one withdrawal, go."
She looked at me, and nodded.
I rose, and climbed down. I stopped next to George's chair and looked from him to Grace.
"One of you needs to stay. I'll need a pilot with me. You choose who."
"Random number choice?" George asked Grace.
"Sure."
"Jane," said George, "start generating random numbers under one thousand to two decimal places. When I say stop, tell me what it is. Keep generating them until Grace says stop, and tell her what hers is. Low number stays."
Grace nodded. So did Jane. George gave it nearly a minute before he said stop.
"Forty two."
Grace let her go another fifteen seconds before she also said stop.
"One thousand, six hundred and five point zero eight."
Grace whooped, and headed for the door. George looked sour, but didn’t comment.
"The generation of random numbers is far too important to be left to chance," said Jane, through my PC.
I choked, but quickly recovered, walked out, and poked my head in the Marine CCC.
"Saddle up," I said.
Thirty Nine
By the time we reached Gunbus, the walls had already been overrun. Jane's avatar popped up the same views I’d been watching, and by the time I was seated, I knew we'd left it too late already.
The center of the city had disintegrated, revealing the Battleship part of Gatherer underneath. The guns were all firing in all directions.
The walls had big holes in them now, where tanks had extended a ramp, driven forward and down to the ground, formed up into an armoured brigade, and were attempting to use massed movement and heavy guns to keep the aliens away from the remainder of the wall. I wasn’t sure I saw the logic in driving around the wall on the outside as fast as you could. But I guess if you were a tank commander, you wanted to drive somewhere as fast as possible while firing your guns. It's what tank people did. And to a certain extent, it did slow down the aliens, since they ran a lot of them over.
I knew why those tanks were there. Patton had believed they could beat the aliens in the first wave, and the tanks would go on the offensive to roll back what remained of them, destroying their ships to prevent them leaving, and thinning them out so the combat suits could deal with the rest. Against humans, it would have worked. Against unlimited numbers of aliens who just kept coming? Sigh-worthy. I wondered why just about everyone couldn’t see the reality of the situation. But then, we did have to try. Military people didn’t like running away from a fight. I just didn't want to see us slaughtered proving running away was the better option.
The standard combat suits were retreating to entrances to underground passageways, the giant suits acting as a rearguard. The new guns were effective, but as more and more aliens arrived, kill percentages started going down, even though kills continued to go up.
Combat suits went down. Some were saved, some were not. A few managed to get out of their suits, and run, but most of them didn’t get very far before another alien put them down. Belt suits saved a few when someone killed the alien on top of them, but most were already gone when someone pulled them out. And often the people pulling others out, themselves went down shortly after, or even while they were trying.
I sat there, eyes moving from screen to screen, waiting for a reason to launch. The city was my main focus, but it wasn’t where I expected to be needed.
"Jon?" asked Amanda, from the Cargo Bay. "What's the hold up? Why haven’t we launched yet?"
"And do what?"
"What do you mean what?" asked BA.
"They're getting creamed down there," said Aline.
"And we'll make a difference, how?"
They didn’t have an answer. There wasn’t one, because one more team down there at the moment, wouldn’t really change anything.
The first tank section ran straight into a concentration of the aliens, and stopped dead, although there was no indication of why. The ones behind either ran into them, or managed to go around them. Within minutes, the ones stopped vanished, as the aliens ate them. Soldiers bailed out and tried to run for it, but were easily run down.
"Phase two withdrawal," ordered Vonda, and things on the ground sped up, as soldiers now started running, the giant suits backing away as fast as they could. Tanks reentered the remains of the city, and took up covering fire positions.
"Generals, I recommend you use Zulu protocols at the entrances."
Vonda looked confused for a moment, and then nodded to me. She started giving orders for battalions to form up into firing lines, like we'd used on Last Hope.
One screen was following a specific alien, as it dropped from the sky, landed lightly, and immediately took off after the nearest combat suit. It sparked an idea, and for a few minutes I took my eye off the ball while I set up something I thought might help.
I pulsed the result off to Jane, and told her to send it on to everyone below.
The call I was waiting for finally arrived.
"We're cut off," said a voice I recognized as Mills. "Can anyone get a bulldozer to us? We need a passageway cu
t to get to the entrance for Homer."
"Homer's down there?" asked Grace.
"Fearless and Bonko as well," I said. "Jane, get us there."
"Confirmed."
I opened a channel to Mills.
"On our way Colonel. Hold on."
"Hurry. We bit off more than we can chew."
"Hurrying. Jane, don’t spare the booms."
"Booming."
Another screen opened up, showing us streaking across the sky faster than anything ever had, on this planet at least.
"Suit up Jon," said Jane, and I rose and ran down to the Cargo Bay.
The ranks of suits stood there motionless, and I weaved my way between them, to the smallest one in the front. Its back was open waiting for me, and I stepped in, closed up, and quickly checked systems.
"Ready Jane."
The inner airlock doors opened. I accessed the first belt on the suit's left arm, and shifted.
"Holy Fuck!" said BA.
"That’s Holy Fuck Sir, BA," I responded with a laugh. "Everyone shift to the new suit shape, and bring your thrusters online ready to jump out of here. We're going down looking like aliens. We'll need to clear the immediate area where we land, and then move to the troops. BA has point, I'm bringing up the rear, and don’t anyone argue about it. If I stop, you keep moving. I may need some space to work in."
"Slowing," said Jane. "Prepare to drop."
"Mills."
"Sir?"
"Don’t shoot anything coming down from above you."
"Sir?"
"You're not going to like what's coming down, but it's us. Don’t shoot us."
I could tell she didn’t understand, but she gave orders to her people to not shoot upwards.
I moved into the airlock proper, just as Jane opened the outer doors and extended the ramp. The team moved up behind me. I leaned out, and looked down. It was a sea of black down there. And the light was vanishing quickly again.
"Jump."
I jumped, and let myself drop as fast as I dared, the grav-thrusters being built into these new suits, where the old ones had been add-ons. The team followed me out as fast as they could. Several of them swore as they bashed giant suit heads on the top of the airlock. A screen popped up, coming from the ground below us.
Twenty five cockroach-spider shapes were descending not far from the cam.
One of my suit cams was showing me what was underneath me, and I watched as a large section of ground cleared, as the aliens made room for more of them to land. I’d take any luck I could get. I tweaked my thrusters to make sure I came down on the outer side of the space, away from where the troops were desperately trying not to be overrun. Another few minutes and they would have been.
I touched down with a solid thump, and immediately shifted back to a combat suit. The others landed at my back, shifted, and began firing in all directions but mine.
My sword appeared on my back, and I drew it. I didn’t have time for anything fancy, and cut through the first alien to leap at me.
"Maul," I said, and the sword became double bladed, and substantially longer on each end.
I waded out into the mass and started carving my way through them, using the same infinity shaped dance I’d used the last time I’d done this. It gave me some space, and suddenly I had nothing to kill. The aliens had recognized me it seemed, and were now keeping their distance.
I stood there, aliens on three sides of me. There was the sound of heavy equipment behind me, and earth being moved.
"Sword," I said, and it returned to its normal shape.
I brandished it high over my shoulder, and reached forward with my left hand.
"Power," I said, and a ball of white fire began to glow in my open fist.
The white in my hand lit up the immediate area, showing me aliens standing there, as if transfixed by the glow.
"Ball fire," I said, changing from a fist to a palm held out in a stop signal, and balls of white energy shot out from my hand to strike every alien for ten meters around me.
"Fall back Jon," said Amanda.
I cast a quick glance behind me, and could see I was now a fair way away from the team, who were now rear-guarding the escape of Mill's teams.
I backed in their direction, and my movement set off an alien charge towards me.
"Staff," I commanded, and the sword changed into a long walking stick shape, with a round white crystal on top.
The crystal glowed, emphasizing it was near dark again. I brought it down in front of me.
"Longer."
It doubled in size.
"You shall not pass!" I yelled, the sound being amplified through the suit's external speakers, at the same time I slammed the base of the staff into the ground.
Everything for five hundred meters in all directions except behind me, went down, and stayed down.
I staggered, feeling completely drained, and oh so tired all of a sudden.
We need to work on that.
I was suddenly seized from behind, and carried off by a giant suit. It said nothing, but it had to be Aline.
"Admiral," said Mills, "we're on board. Get your team in here so we can lift."
"Aline, put me down."
She didn’t do so until we were with the rest of the team.
"Mills, we have our own transport, but hold for a moment. Grace, put Gunbus down in front of us please. Stay cloaked."
It hardly seemed like seconds later, when the open Cargo Bay of Gunbus was thumping down in front of us. That's all we could see, just the inside of the ship. I sprinted in, the rest following me. The last in was Amanda, who'd had to change back into a giant suit from a bulldozer first.
I ran into the Armoury, parked in a charge slot, stepped out the back, and ran for the Bridge.
"Take us up Grace," I yelled while running upwards. "Jane, put us over Homer, prepare to attach using a grav, and extend the cloak around her."
"Confirmed."
I threw myself into my chair, and checked where we were.
"Homer, time to leave. We are above you, come up so we can grab on, and we'll cloak you as well."
"Roger that," said a voice I didn’t know.
Homer rose up, the dirt covering her streaming off. We joined, the cloak covered both of us, except for engines, and Jane took control of both ships.
"Where to?" she asked me.
"Get Homer under Hammer, and dock her. Then we'll go do the same for Fearless and Bonko."
"Confirmed."
Forty
The battle still raged. It takes time to evac two divisions of troops. We collected Fearless and Bonko, and they docked in their Titan. We did the same thing for three other troop transports, docking them each in a Titan as well. This cleared away the outer defense sites, several of which were on different continents, although their missile launchers were still operating. At least for now.
The city looked like no such thing anymore. Gunbus was hovering several hundred meters up, and the team sat on the Bridge and watched.
What did I do wrong?
You forgot to draw energy from behind you.
Who's behind me?
Duh!
So when I use the Sceptre for real power, I need to draw it from you?
Now you're getting it.
Can you re-energize me? I think I need to go down there again.
The twins locked their eyes on me, but said nothing. I felt a hand on my left shoulder, and my fatigue dropped away.
Thanks.
I rose, and looked around the Bridge.
"None of you can help with what I have to do now. Stay here. After, someone come get me."
I didn’t wait, but ran out, and down to my combat suit again. I walked it back to the airlock, which was already open waiting for me, and simply stepped off.
I landed in classic pose, one leg outstretched, the other bent, fist in the dirt. I rose and looked around.
"Sword."
I cut the three aliens near me in half, and stood there
looking around again.
"Staff."
The sword changed back into the staff I’d had before. I planted it in the dirt again. Aliens noticed me, but none of them moved in my direction.
"Power the staff with the energy of Kali," I muttered.
Power flowed from behind me, through me, and into the staff. I opened the general troop channel.
"This is Admiral Hunter to all troops who are still out in the open. Drop to the ground right now. You have five seconds."
I counted them down. Combat suits dived for the ground, being urged by Vonda Wellington.
"No more," I shouted, and a wave of pure power moved out from me in every direction, flattening everything it touched, until it either ran out of power, or bounced off a really solid object, such as Gatherer. A screen popped up showing me the view from above, where the walls were now gone, and every alien for half a kilometer was down. The ones on the outside edge began to rise.
"All troops bug out now. Move it people!"
Vonda sounded anxious.
"Jon," said Jane. "Gunbus is coming down next to you. We need to move. The mass is here, and the next wave of ships will be upon us in minutes now."
"No, go dock on Sceptre. I'm heading for the nearest airlock, and will evac on Gatherer. Move the remaining ships as soon as the troops clear the airlocks. Dock them under the Titans as quickly as you can, cloak, and go."
"Confirmed."
"Jon!" exclaimed Aline.
"I'll see you soon," I said, breaking into a run towards the nearest spot where troops were vanishing underground.
When I arrived there, I stood at the entrance, observing the whole area on the overview screen. Tanks, which interestingly hadn't been affected by what I'd done, were vanishing into several places, and troops were streaming into dozens of holes. I waited until I was the last one on the surface of the planet. There were aliens a hundred meters from me again, I took one last look at them advancing, seemingly a lot more cautiously now, and strode inside. The boarding tube led me upwards and into the ship. The airlock closed behind me.
"Jane, are we all clear?"
"You're the last Jon."
"Go. Send me a trolley, and get me to the CCC the fastest way possible."
Hero to the End (The Hunter Legacy Book 13) Page 19
