Joe monitored his squadron’s progress. Their primary targets were the seven rails that currently had clear lines of sight on their carrier. Once those were disabled, they would loop around both sides of the planet and disable the rest.
Drew commented on the squadron’s tactical net.
Joe replied.
Crassus said,
Joe swore, though he knew this would probably happen.
Grapeshot was better at destroying capital ships than fighters. In space, the spread was wide enough that a fighter could slip between the pellets undamaged. But if just one sand-sized grain hit a wasp head on, it was likely to be game over.
Lieutenant Saren announced.
A few other pilots reported hits, and then scan registered two explosions. Two wasps were gone in a flash.
The update flashed across his virtual console. Tiny Sue and Saren were gone, but not from the grapeshot, several of the destroyers behind them had taken advantage of his squadron’s lowered rear shields.
Joe called out to his squadron. They may be destroyed by a kinetic strike, but those were random. Those destroyers were targeting.
The squadron weathered the grapeshot with only a few more glancing impacts. Following those tense minutes, they closed to within a few thousand kilometers of the rails and the fighters were able to out-maneuver the rail platform’s targeting with ease.
Joe gave the order and the leading edges of the two groups peppered the platforms with beams, jinking wildly to avoid anti-fighter chaff and beams, and to reach past the refractive clouds that the platforms were throwing into the space around them.
He was in the second wave of his group and let fly with two Hellseeker missiles, as did a dozen other ships.
The missiles snaked across the space between the ships and the rail platform, careening wildly to avoid defensive fire. Several were destroyed, punctuated by small explosions blooming between the fighters and the platform. He counted the missiles that failed to reach their target.
Two, three, five, nine, eleven, twelve…
Then the first missile hit its target, flame and plasma splashing across the rail platform’s shield, which wavered, and then winked out. Two more explosions followed closely and scan confirmed direct hits. The muzzle end of the rail platform was a twisted wreck.
The necessary damage was done. The remaining missiles spun off into space, detonating harmlessly away from the rail platforms.
Joe checked the other half of his squadron, operating under the guidance of Lieutenant Drew. They had met with similar success. Two rails down, ten to go.
Joe asked Crassus.
Joe sent an acknowledgement to the AI, and confirmed that the TSF repeater satellites in orbit around Makemake were functional. Once the two groups of fighters were on opposite sides of the planet, Crassus would need those repeaters to maintain his distributed network. He would slow a touch, but still be faster than even the most augmented of Joe’s pilots.
The wings drew near to the next platform, and Joe returned his attention to the attack run, which was as successful as the first. Before they reached the third, he spared a moment’s attention for the battle raging in the Normandy’s picket lines.
The engagement was in full swing, and more than a few civilian ships were disabled, adrift in high, slowly decaying orbits. Not a small number were leaving the battle—having discovered that the Normandy was not as soft a target as they had been led to believe.
Still, against all logic, a second wave of ships was leaving the blockade to join the battle. Joe hoped they were going to help the disabled ships and not join the fight.
Then his attention was consumed by the squadron’s next target.
The fifth and sixths platform fell as easily as the first four, but scan showed that the next would not be such easy targets. A dozen destroyers were moving out of the blockade on a course to directly obstruct the next target.
These ships were not participating in the attack on the Normandy and likely answered to whoever was still running things in the military—someone unwilling to see their entire world’s defenses destroyed.
Joe called back to Colonel Jackson on the Normandy.
the colonel replied.
Joe replied and passed the order to both segments of his squadron. They pulled away from the planet and began a long, slow arc back around to the Normandy. He watched scan and noted that even though the colonel had pulled his ships back, a second wave of fighters, Falcons this time, were launching in what would be a long parabola that would allow them to strike the remaining rails in twenty minutes.
Trust was in short supply in the black. Should the rest of the Diskers join the fight, it would be a decision they would immediately regret.
JERHATTAN
STELLAR DATE: 3223495 / 07.13.4113 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: GSS Interview Site, Jerhattan, North America, Earth
REGION: Terran Hegemony, Sol Space Federation
The call came over the local net. It was a broad send, so anyone with a wide monitor on the Link knew she had been called up.
Heads swiveled to watch her as she crossed the waiting room and entered the hall. Many of the people in room A3 had been waiting several hours for their final interview; many of them would wait hours more. Tanis had been sitting in the waiting room since 0600 and it was now 1803. Someone had definitely underestimated the interview times this project required when they set up the schedule.
As she stepped past the long rows of people, Tanis wondered if anyone recognized her from the recent coverage of the Toro incident. Even though it had been over two months since she issued the order to destroy the Toro asteroid and kill the monsters within, news of the event’s ramifications continued to dominate the news feeds.
She hoped they didn’t; the daily looks she got were enough that she had taken to wearing hats and sunglasses when in public.
Angela said.
Tanis asked.
The hall beyond the waiting room was grey and drab, as most things seemed to be on this side of Jerhattan. The island side was a much more colorful and vibrant place, but also a hundred times more expensive. This project was estimated to come in at millions of trillions of dollars. When you started to need exponents to tally costs, a lot of decisions were made to shave off expenses.
She chuckled to herself when the hall opened into another waiting room. A holo displayed over the entrance declaring the space to be Room B1. A man behind the desk at the entrance gestured toward the seats. She inclined her head in thanks before straightening her dress uniform and took the only seat beside a rather rumpled looking man.
He was shuffling several sheets of holo-plas and gave her a nervous glance before resetting one of them and projecting new data onto it with a finger probe. A pale blue light lanced out of his index finger and laid out new data across the hyfilm. Tanis suspected that it was data he was leaving with the interviewer. More advanced holo-plas would take data directly from a Link, but that wasn’t the disposable sort of thing you’d just hand to other people.
Tanis straightene
d her old-fashioned printed plas. It was a lower tech, but one used more frequently by the military for its reliability and durability.
He glanced up at her again and smiled nervously. “Been waiting long?”
“About twelve hours,” Tanis replied. “Any idea how long we’ll be in this pen?”
He laughed. “Feels like a pen, doesn’t it? A guy asked the man at the desk a while ago. He said it should be any minute before the next batch goes in. Interviewers are taking a dinner break or something.”
Tanis nodded. She could really use a dinner break. Not that she blamed the Generation Ship Service. When you are processing several million applicants, providing them all snacks probably wasn’t in the budget, especially with how the Federation had been restricting the GSS’s funding. Though the federal service still administered colony distribution, most of the actual money for colony missions came from private investors.
The man at the desk looked down at his screen. “Samuel Hendsen. Room One,” he said without looking up. He rattled off a few other names and rooms. After the first one, Tanis’s companion stood.
“That’s me, wish me luck,” he smiled crookedly.
“Good luck,” Tanis said and returned the smile.
“Gonna need it,” Samuel muttered.
A news alert appeared on the room’s holo-wall and Tanis listened in shock as the reporter related a story about a TSF carrier blockading Makemake in attempt to influence the Scattered Worlds Alliance’s vote to secede from the Federation.
For once she was glad that the blow-back from Toro had her on administrative leave. That was an operation in which she would not want to take part.
Angela said.
Tanis replied.
Angela said.
Tanis took a deep breath. She didn’t want to get into that with Angela, not here, not right before she needed to be her best self for the interview.
Several minutes later, the man called the next few applicants to their rooms and Tanis was amongst them.
Tanis said to Angela.
Angela replied.
The interview room was as bland as the rest of the facility, grey walls, grey table, grey chairs. Her interviewer was a different matter. He looked to be only thirty years old, though it was difficult to tell with most people. The only distinctive physiologies were those of the very young, or very old. Anything in between looked about the same.
More interesting than his possible youth was her interviewer’s profession. He was TSF; full-bird colonel by the eagles on his shoulders. Tanis glanced at her dress whites, missing the eagles that used adorn her color. Her clothing was straight and in order and she snapped off a sharp salute.
“Sir!”
“At ease, Major.” His voice was smooth and pleasant. He looked up at her and she saw piercing blue eyes, something that was not too common on Earth these days. The blending of humanity on Earth had produced an overall brownness to all people: Brown skin, brown hair and brown eyes.
They were not unlike her own, though she was from Mars, where the trait was far more common.
The colonel gestured to the chair and Tanis sat as he straightened the film on the desk.
“Major Richards, what causes you to seek a colony mission when you have decades more service you could offer the TSF.”
She took a deep breath. This was where losing her calm, or letting her anger show, would be detrimental to her cause.
“Sir, it seems to me that the TSF is about done with my service. They have decided not to court martial me, but I doubt I’ll ever see the field again.”
“That may be, but you have a sharp mind, one that the space force has poured a lot of money into. You were groomed from a very young age to help make the federation stronger,” the colonel said, then flipped through the plas in front of him before continuing.
“I have it within my authority to place you back into the field, to give you a unit to run again.”
Tanis couldn’t help but scowl. This was not what she had expected, to be railroaded by the TSF back into active duty.
“No offense intended, sir, but I don’t exactly have warm feelings toward the force right now. Being left to flap in the wind after doing what it took to save my people from a fate…a fate worse than you can imagine…well, it’s not endearing.”
“The force isn’t your lover, Major, it’s your boss,” the colonel’s blue eyes were hard as ice, and Tanis felt like they were boring right through hers.
“What was it that you saw on Toro?” he asked.
Tanis frowned, wondering what he was after. “If you don’t already know, then you don’t have clearance, and I can’t give that to you.”
The man nodded. “Good. You know when to keep your mouth shut.”
“Sir, where are we going with this?” Tanis asked.
He gave her a hard stare, his look appearing to judge her worth.
“Here’s the long and short of it. The TSF wants more service out of you. When the next colony world opens up, we won’t block your application, in fact, we’ll support it. But until then, you need to stay in line and do your duty.”
Tanis’s mouth worked, but she couldn’t think of any words that wouldn’t get her busted down another rank.
The colonel grunted, a half smile touching the edge of his lips.
“Major, you’re dismissed. Your next assignment will be sent to you in a few days.”
Tanis stood wordlessly, saluted the colonel, and once he returned the gesture, strode from the room without a backward glance.
CALAMITY
STELLAR DATE: 3223495 / 07.13.4113 (Adjusted Gregorian)
LOCATION: Makemake
REGION: Makemake, Scattered Worlds, Sol Space Federation
The Nostra’s cockpit was silent. Neither pilot moved; even their breath was abated. Periodically, one of the two women would shift, and the creak of their shipsuits or the movement of the viscous fluid in their acceleration couches would break the silence.
Katelyn said, her mental tone filled with a mixture of annoyance and concern.
Rory replied.
Katelyn eyed her sister’s avatar in her mind. Always calm and constrained, Rory was the foundation of their operation. But she also held back too often when opportunity knocked. Opportunity like now.
Although Rory believed in the principles of the Cause, Katelyn still had to spend weeks cajoling her sister into actually joining the movement. Over time, Katelyn knew that Rory had come to believe as strongly in the separatist movement as she did. The Diskers had to break free of the Terran’s grip. The disk, the gateway to the stars, is where the true opportunity lay, where untapped resources drifted in the dark.
The profits of which flowed toward Sol, toward the Terrans.
Rory didn’t respond immediately and Katelyn decided to take her silence as acquiescence.
She activated the pre-planned flight path and the tug’s engines ignited, boosting the ship out of the blockade and toward their selected target, an asteroid recently pulled into high orbit
around Makemake.
Katelyn knew the other seven tugs would follow her lead; they wouldn’t leave her out here alone.
For a long thirty seconds, they were the only tug boosting out of the blockade, but then another pulled free and a minute later all eight tugs were accelerating at max g toward various high-orbit asteroids.
Katelyn focused on their target, ignoring her sister’s quiet cursing as Rory prepared the grapple and thumpers.
The local traffic control AI was calling their ship repeatedly, increasing its urgency with each failed contact. The flashing token in her vision was becoming distracting and Katelyn dismissed it and put a ten minute block on the caller. After that local traffic control would have other things to worry about.
Katelyn informed her sister.
Rory only nodded from her couch, while giving the grappling arms one final spin to account for the asteroid’s slow tumble.
The seconds ticked by quickly, and, with a bone-jarring shudder, the Nostra made contact with the million tons of rock that was their target.
Rory said calmly, like this was any other time they had grabbed a rock.
Katelyn activated her plot and slid the fusion drives up to full burn. Helium3 pouring into the reaction chamber from the full tank, which their co-conspirators had provided just hours before they joined the blockade. The Nostra couldn’t produce a light show like the Terran carrier could, but it was certain to make a show in the night sky below.
Within a minute, once the other ships had grabbed their rocks, it would look as though an octet of new stars had appeared in the skies of Makemake.
The Nostra arced around Makemake, hanging low, gaining thrust from the planet’s gravity well, before breaking free and entering a gentle parabola that would put them on a collision course with the Normandy.
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