The Spreading Fire
Page 23
Watching a smaller remote of Card’s scan data in her console, Fugia bit her lip at the waves of fire hitting the fleeing Weapon Born. They evaded with motions that defied her eyes, returning fire from behind the cover of the junk cluttering their paths, before leaping out of the way at the last second. It was a battle no regular human could have fought. The dance grew more intricate as the tunnels became crowded with crawling and flying drones.
Fugia shot a troubled glance at Petral. “Is she right?”
Petral studied the new flight plan in her display. “We don’t have much choice. We’re down to seconds before we’re out of options.”
“You strapped in?” Petral asked.
Fugia struggled into her harness and nodded. Petral executed the burn command.
A boulder crushed Fugia into her seat. She turned her head to the side, grimacing. She hadn’t clenched her stomach in time, and now felt like she was going to puke. The edges of her vision smeared.
After the shock of the initial gs, Fugia was able to turn her head to focus on the holotank. The junk station appeared slightly smaller—or the perspective may have changed. She couldn’t tell. The fleet icons were still closing on them, moving depressingly fast. So far, no fast movers had separated from the enemy ships. There was no way they would outrun missiles at this distance.
Fugia kept her gaze fixed on the holotank, waiting for the green blips that would indicate the Weapon Born were at least free of the station. Once they were out, they would have the fleet to deal with, but she could only focus on one problem at a time.
Could she do anything to create confusion? Solar activity was already wreaking havoc with sensor systems. Fugia could only assume the AI ships were having as difficult a time tracking the Sun Runner as she had seeing them. Only, they had spent hours watching her, tracking their mass signature. As far as the Weapon Born were concerned, they were small, but there was only one place where they could run.
The colors in the holotank ran as Fugia’s eyes teared up from the pressure. She blinked rapidly, unable to wipe her face.
The running colors of the holotank jerked as Fugia watched. Where the gold outline had floated before, a cloud of spreading, sparkling light remained.
Fugia’s voice caught in her throat.
The Link was quiet. The command deck creaked around them, materials complaining under the sustained burn. The Sun Runner wasn’t made for this kind of acceleration. Fugia closed her eyes, tears running down the sides of her face from desperation and physical exertion.
She should have seen this before they left Cruithne. The data pipe had been a giant red arrow pointing at this location. Camaris wanted them to come here and see her project, then die in the process.
She checked the scan data on the other Weapon Born. There were no responses among the scattered returns clouding their sensors. Where the station had been was a squawking mess of intermixed activity. The sensors were overwhelmed. With the fleet coming down on them, they couldn’t wait to search among the debris.
Petral said.
Fugia let her head fall back against her seat. They wouldn’t know for certain until Emerson verified from Mars 1. That would take hours.
Fugia fought to swallow.
Think. Use your brain. There’s a way out of this.
Fugia stared at the spreading cloud in the holotank where Card had disappeared. The fleet icons had arrayed around it now in a protective arc, growing slightly smaller in the display as she watched.
At first, she wondered if Petral had been wrong, but then she saw new indicators of missiles closing on their location. The holotank would have picked up the new mass signatures.
She blinked more liquid out of her eyes, a spark of hope lighting in her chest. Proximity alarms screamed around her.
Talk, she urged herself.
Petral said.
Fugia couldn’t help smiling. Even in these last seconds, Petral was a fighter. What could she do?
Fugia blinked, straightening in her harness. They did have increased shielding, but not enough to withstand missiles. However, the Sun Runner had advanced EM shielding and a massive comms array to overcome solar interference. The system wasn’t made for the kind of specific active scan that would have spotted the fleet, but it could send long-range EM signals that taxed the engine at the same rate as a burn.
Fugia couldn’t turn her head to look at Petral. The other woman’s silence meant she was thinking. She saw the plan.
Fugia monitored the ship’s control systems, watching Petral quickly shift power from the engines to the comms array. The weight lifted off Fugia’s chest, and she floated for a second in her harness before leaning in to her own console.
She brought up the nav scan tracking the incoming missile barrage. There were four fast movers. There was no way they would escape all of them unless they could burn them at once without giving any chance of counter maneuver.
“You’ve got max power,” Petral said.
There was something comforting in hearing her voice aloud in the moment.
Fugia nodded.
She overrode the comms safety control and directed its broadcast back at the enemy fleet, the signal cone just covering all four inbound missiles.
Fugia lit the antenna array.
Petral transferred the incoming missiles to the holotank, and they both watched in silence. There was nothing to indicate the EM barrage tearing through space, only the pinpoint icons hanging in the air.
One bit of light winked out, followed by a second. Fugia held her breath as the third icon fell off.
“Did we get them?” she asked.
“Full shields!” Petral shouted.
A force like a giant’s hand slammed Fugia from the side. Her vision flashed white. She felt tossed around like a mote of dust, ears overcome by a high whine.
* * * * *
A voice reached her from what seemed like an impossible distance. The world was dark.
“I know you’re alive,” Petral said. �
�Can you hear me?”
Fugia coughed, shaking her head. She realized she was weightless, which meant they had lost spin.
“I hear you.”
“Thank stars, Fugia. I was going to be so pissed at you.”
Fugia coughed again, laughing. “You’re a dummy.”
“Are you hurt?”
“I don’t know. I’m sore all over. Are the engines dead?”
“Everything’s out. I assume we’re breathing residual air, which means we’re good for a week at least. Without scan, I can’t tell if they think we’re dead or outside the hull about to board us.”
Nodding, Fugia slowly moved her hands and arms, then patted down her chest and legs. She felt nothing moist, only bone-deep soreness. There were going to be some serious bruises, if she was ever able to see them.
“I can’t believe how hungry I am,” Petral complained.
Unable to control herself, Fugia laughed. Her body ached and stabbed her with small pains, but they were alive.
“One problem at a time,” she said.
DIVERSIONS
STELLAR DATE: 09.04.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: TSS Drake
REGION: Pallas, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
The fleet burned.
“Hans, sitrep!” Yarnes demanded from where he hunched over the holotable deep in the Drake’s CIC. His feet were hooked in floor straps, and a tether ran from his waist to the table. Neither were necessary, as his grip on the rail encircling the table held him firmly in place as he stared at the battle raging around his fleet.
Hans, the liaison between Yarnes’ command center and the fifteen-ship flag wing, replied without delay, “Colonel Amhurst has ordered evac of the Honored Few and the Warsaw. The rest of the ships are still operational and combat effective. He’s slingshotting the wing around Pallas to put it between us and the Jovians.”
The lieutenant didn’t say what everyone else in the CIC was thinking, but Yarnes did.
“Fat load of good that will do us.”
Four hundred and eighty-six Terran ships had approached Pallas to defend the lonely rock from the Jovians. Scan had shown a near-equal number of JC ships approaching—a match-up that should have seen the enemy fire a few passing shots before angling away from an unwinnable fight against both Yarnes’ fleet and the asteroid’s defenses.
A day ago, that had still been the expectation. Today—after ten minutes of combat—half of the general’s fleet were little more than drifting hulls. The JC fleet had begun to lob wave after wave of missiles at Pallas’s defensive emplacements, wearing them down.
The holotable showed the lonely asteroid as a pea-sized sphere on the left side of the display. The flag wing was a marker approaching the rock’s north pole, carefully maneuvering to avoid the chaff being fired at the inbound missiles by surface emplacements.
On the right side of the table, the Jovian armada continued its inexorable advance, nearly three times the size that long-range scans had indicated.
The enemy had used a trick that the general had never before seen successfully utilized, hiding their additional ships in the shadows of the visible fleet. How they’d accelerated every craft without the shrouded vessels’ burns being picked up was greatly perplexing the analysis team.
The only answer that made sense to Yarnes was that the Jovians had set the bulk of their attack fleet on course for Pallas months ago, the ships utilizing micro burns to pick up the required velocity while remaining on stellar scans.
Annotated by two markers on the table, the two hundred surviving Terran ships had broken into two groups, each peeling away from the approaching Jovian armada, spreading into a wide web, and rotating and jinking at the edge of human tolerance to avoid enemy fire.
“Why aren’t they pursuing?” he asked aloud, cursing the Jovians. “They’ve routed us.”
“They’re either coming for the flag wing or Pallas,” Colonel Davis commented from across the table, his knuckles whitening as the ship jerked to the side. “Though, I still don’t get why they’d put so much effort into hiding two thirds of their force to take such useless real estate.”
“A test of their ability,” Yarnes said. “Either they think they can repeat this maneuver, or they just want us to believe they can.”
“They couldn’t pull shit like this down in the stellar disk,” Davis countered.
Yarnes wasn’t so sure they’d have to. “What if they arched high over the disk, then came down onto an inner world? It’s not an unheard-of maneuver.”
“We’re still back to the question of why they’d tip their hand,” Davis said.
Yarnes scrubbed his hands across his cheeks, watching as the flag wing added to the defensive fire protecting Pallas from the inbound missiles.
“It’s too much,” Yarnes said, his voice strained as he watched more and more fast movers light up the display, streaking toward the asteroid like a swarm of locusts.
First, one missile made it through, striking an equatorial rail emplacement. Nuclear fire bloomed into space, the blast heralding the end as the decrease in defensive chaff opened a larger hole for the Jovian attack. Another red marker showed on the rock’s surface, then another and another.
“We’re going to be out of range in a minute, sir,” Hans said. “Should I advise the colonel to come around?”
Yarnes’ lips drew into a thin line as he did the impossible math of weighing lives against strategic goals.
“No. Inform Colonel Amhurst to hold his course.”
The CIC fell silent at his words, all eyes on Yarnes.
He didn’t provide an explanation for his edict. Everyone knew that if they stayed, they’d die.
Behind the fleeing Terran vessels, more and more Jovian weapons hit Pallas, until all the defenses were destroyed. Yarnes mapped out various escape vectors for his ships, knowing that it would do little good. With over an AU between his fleet and the stellar disk, no reinforcements would make it to them before the enemy could grind his ships to dust.
Over the next thirty minutes, only the barest of conversation could be heard in the room. The missile barrage had ceased, but the enemy ships still closed with Pallas.
“Wait,” Yarnes whispered. “They’re boosting, not braking.
“Shit. Yeah…sir,” Davis said. “What are they doing?”
“Their own slingshot,” the general said. “But where to?”
Time gave the answer. After another fifteen minutes, the first of the Jovian craft began to pass by Pallas, shifting their trajectory to a new course.
“Alert High Terra,” Yarnes ordered his comm officer. “The Jovians are headed to Ceres.”
THE MOVE
STELLAR DATE: 09.05.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: SolGov Assembly Tower, Raleigh
REGION: High Terra, Terran Hegemony, InnerSol
“If we don’t advance on Jove, they’ll work their way through the belt, and be on Mars’s doorstep in a matter of weeks!”
Senator Lance had risen from his chair, hands on the table, leaning over the other security council members. Next to him, Gerald, the other Marsian Protectorate member, nodded in agreement.
“‘Weeks’ is a bit of hyperbole.” Senator Alma shook her head, entirely unfazed by Lance’s outburst. “We’re engaging the Jovians at Pallas. That is clearly an exploratory probe. Once they realize that we’re going to push back on any advances into the belt, they’ll back off.”
“What makes you say that?” Lance demanded.
“Andersonians for a start,” Folsom said, a smirk on his lips. “They won’t fully commit until the rest of OuterSol falls in line, and that’s not a done deal, yet.”
“Fucking luddites.” Senator Gerald shook his head. “The rest of you should have dealt with them the way we did.”
A few looks were shared by the other senators. Mars had placed their Andersonian refugees in re-education camps, many ending up in their military. Normally, that would be a problem, but the members of the sec
urity council all knew why it wasn’t an issue for the Protectorate.
“So.” Lance straightened, staring down at the other senators. “What will Terra do to ensure the Jovians don’t take the belt?”
“Exactly what we’re doing now,” Alma said. “Nothing more.”
The Marsian’s face was a mask of anger. His lips worked for a moment, and then he turned around. “You’re underestimating them.”
“I’m—” Alma began, but the words died on her lips.
Folsom didn’t have to ask why; the same news that had silenced the Terran senator had just reached his ears.
The Jovians had engaged and defeated the TSF fleet at Pallas.
Somehow, their forces had been far more numerous than anticipated, and they’d crushed the Terrans. Now the fleet was headed toward Ceres.
Worried looks were exchanged between the senators. Folsom was certain they’d gathered the same intel he had. The Jovians didn’t want to destroy the Psion AIs, they were planning to capture and enslave them.
To what end, no one was quite sure.
Cara Sykes, you’re on the clock, now.
THE END
* * * * *
Once again, the battle will be fully joined at Ceres. Read on in book 3 of Solar War 1, A Fire Upon the Worlds.
AFTERWORD
This may have been the hardest book yet to write, not because the material was hard but because life keeps throwing curveballs. The current difficulty is a 16-month-old little girl who doesn’t want to sleep. When I stay up late to write, she won’t go to sleep. When I get up early, she wakes with smiles as I try to slip out of bed. I try to write during breaks at work, and I can’t focus… the list goes on.
Still, I’m incredibly fortunate. These are great problems to have, and I’m happy to figure them out. When you don’t have a lot of time to do something, it makes it harder to waste time. I’ve found it much easier to stay off social media when I have deadlines looming, and I definitely feel a deeper sense of accomplishment when the work is finally done, even if I am exhausted.