Joined In Battle

by Toby Neighbors

  “I’ll be ready, sir,” Loggins said as Dean stood up to leave.

  “I believe you will,” Dean replied, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt.

  Dean filed another report and did a little research on the New Wales system. It was one of only a handful of places in the galaxy that was fit for human habitation without terraforming of some kind. The fourth planet, formally known as Cymru, was also called Avalon, or New Eden because of its lush botanical life. No animal life had existed on the small word, which was only half the mass of Earth, and nearly sixty percent of the planet’s surface was covered by water. The atmosphere was rich in oxygen, and everything on the world seemed to flourish—even the imported fruit trees and vegetables the colonists had planted.

  Dean wasn’t sure why every colony world established such strict laws to govern the behaviors of the new inhabitants, but Cymru was a prime example. No technology was allowed outside the main spaceport, which occasionally delivered goods along with new colonists. Everything needed by the colony was made by hand by the craftsmen on the planet. Animals had been imported, mostly domesticated farm animals. Horses were the only mode of transportation, with large herds of horses running wild through the forests. Even medical care was limited to holistic treatments that left patients waiting months to heal when modern treatments could do the same job in a fraction of the time. Still, there was a simplicity to the place that was appealing: a sheltered world, free of outside influences. Dean thought that after a career of hard, dangerous work, a place like Cymru might be just what he needed to let go of the horrors he’d seen.

  An hour passed quickly, and Dean met with Chavez back in the Ready Room to talk strategy. Everyone was busy, some tweaking their armor or weapons, others saying goodbye to friends they’d made on the crew of the E.S.D.F. Hannibal. Dean knew that in all likelihood, his platoon wouldn’t return to the ship. If they survived the fight ahead of them, they would go on to take the Kroll ship back into enemy territory, and meanwhile the Hannibal would be busy on other assignments. He realized he had grown fond of the small escort ship. His only criticism was the size of the officers’ quarters, but otherwise it was a good vessel that suited its purpose. The crew was less seasoned than Dean would have liked, but they were maturing with each mission. He would miss them when he left, but unlike some members of his platoon, Dean hadn’t grown close to anyone on the ship’s crew.

  Onboard liaisons between service members was inevitable. Some had casual relationships that helped them deal with long hours of boredom that were unavoidable on tour. Others made genuine connections, the way Dean and Esma had. Life on board an EsDef ship could accelerate the pace of a relationship or magnify the feelings people sometimes had for one another. Dean was glad that he wasn’t saying goodbye to anyone he had come to care deeply for, but he was also jealous that he couldn’t say goodbye to the one person he longed to see one last time. She was on another ship, perhaps in orbit around Earth, or maybe in another part of the galaxy. All Dean could hope for was that Esma was safe, and maybe thinking of him a little.

  “You still with me, Captain?” Chavez asked.

  “Yes, Staff Sergeant,” Dean said, realizing he’d drifted off in private thought. “Sorry about that.”

  “No worries, things always get a little foggy right before an op. At least, they do for me.”

  “I never think so much as before a mission,” Dean said. “My mind shuffles the possibilities like they’re playing cards.”

  “Yeah, the quicker the better, in my opinion. Get me to the action—that way my muscle memory can take over, and my instincts usually steer me right.”

  “What do you think of this mission we’re going on?” Dean said.

  “Honestly, I’m trying not to. I don’t mind facing something dangerous, but I don’t like the idea of having no backup.”

  “Yes, there’s no room for error. But surprisingly enough, my mind keeps wondering if there isn’t another way. I mean, I know this is the right course of action, but knowing I’m going there to kill makes me feel like I’m doing something wrong, or missing something that I should have realized.”

  “Fighting was the only thing I was ever good at,” Chavez admitted. “Tallgrass don’t like to admit it, but deep down she knows it. I ain’t meant to do anything else. That’s why I don’t mind the thought of dying out here. I don’t think I’d adapted very well to life back in the world.”

  “You’re selling yourself short,” Dean said.

  “You sound just like Eleanor.”

  “She’s smart; you could learn a lot from her.”

  “Oh, I am, Jefe, I am,” he said, laughing.

  Dean focused on the project at hand. He was removing the long-range communications gear from his battle armor. It was a risky decision, since not having the built-in transmitter would make anything other than local comms impossible. But Dean knew there would be no other ships in the system to call on. And with the long-range transmitter removed, Dean could carry one of the demolition packs full of extra ammunition. If he’d learned anything on their mission to Lars, it was that he didn’t want to get caught without enough ammo ever again.

  Slowly, the other members of the platoon returned to the Ready Room. When they were less than an hour out from the New Wales system, Dean ordered everyone into their battle armor. Suits were checked, weapons loaded and tucked safely into place. Dean felt a little odd with the heavy backpack strapped to his back, but he was reassured by the weight.

  “Last chance you’ve got to change your mind,” Dean said. “Any takers?”

  No one moved, and Dean nodded to Chavez.

  “Alright, people, let’s move!” the staff sergeant said loudly. “Force Recon, first in the fight!”

  “Tip of the spear,” everyone chanted as they filed out of the Ready Room.

  But Dean knew they weren’t the first in the fight this time around. They were coming to rescue the crews of six EsDef ships who had been sent to fight the Kroll only to be defeated. It made him wonder just how much his single platoon could do to help the others, or if there was anyone left to help.

  Chapter 31

  “We’re just beyond the heliosphere now, sir,” Myers said.

  “Very good, launch long-range sensors,” Anders replied.

  Dean was in the Raptor combat shuttle with his platoon, but he was tapped into the command frequency, which allowed him to hear the orders issued on the bridge. The long-range sensors would pick up outgoing communications from the New Wales system as well as record any movement near their position. The Hannibal would seed the fringe of the system with sensors before returning to Earth and reporting what they had seen.

  “Extend the space telescope to focus on Cymru,” the vice admiral instructed.

  Every ship in the fleet was equipped with large telescopes, and the escort ships had impressive radar arrays. The vice admiral was doing his job, and Dean thought the importance of the mission had superseded Anders’ fear of being near the Kroll. Every naval commander’s greatest fear, Dean knew, was to lose their ship. It was more than just a black mark on their record; in most cases, it meant the end of a commander’s career. And even though they knew very little about the Kroll, one thing was certain: humanity’s new enemy was ship stealers.

  Dean held his breath as the image from the distant planet came into focus. It was a small, emerald ball, shining in the light from its yellow sun. It stood out in sharp contrast to the black space all around it. And Dean thought he saw another object near the planet, its dark hull absorbing most of the light, but not quite as dark as the space around it.

  “I have one alien vessel,” the XO, Captain Hines, said.

  “I thought there were supposed to be three,” Anders said.

  Dean enlarged the image, until it was a grainy blur that filled his TCU visor.

  “I’m checking infrared and ultraviolet now, sir,” Hines replied.

  “It’s three ships,” Dean said from his seat in the shuttle. “They�
��ve joined together, sir.”

  He sent an image to Vice Admiral Anders’ vid screen. Dean had colored a large, saucer-shaped vessel red and two long, narrow ships on either side in green.

  “The red one is the nest ship,” Dean said. “It’s bigger—the structure’s built around the central nest. The green ones are more like scout ships, long and narrow. The nest areas in the green ones aren’t as big, just a fraction of the size of the saucer-shaped ship.”

  “So where are the EsDef ships that were sent to this system?” Anders demanded.

  “We’ll have to get closer, sir,” the chief engineer, Lieutenant Monica Plegg, said.

  “Fine, but I want active radar sweeps. We catch sight of their capture vessels, we will launch the Recon platoon and exit the system at speed. Myers, plot our course back home. Include the requisite stop gaps. I don’t want to get caught unprepared.”

  “Aye, sir,” Myers said, and Dean could imagine the hunched navigator not bothering to look up from his console as he said it.

  Once the Hannibal had placed all their long-range sensors, a communications buoy was released. It had two light-speed courier drones that could carry information from the system back to the closest communications buoy in the Voltair system, which would carry the information back to Earth. If something happened to the Hannibal, EsDef would know about it.

  “Take us in, but slowly,” Anders warned. “Let’s do this by the numbers, people. This isn’t a drill.”

  Dean knew exactly what the vice admiral was thinking. There was nothing more difficult than making life-or-death decisions, and the lull before battle often made him more nervous than the chaos in the midst of combat. It was difficult not to second-guess every decision.

  The escort ship spent the next hour moving into the system, passing several planets, with no sign of activity from the Kroll around Cymru. The Hannibal was in the shadow of the system’s largest gas giant when the wreckage around the emerald planet came into view. Dean’s stomach tightened, and he sent images to his platoon, who grew quiet as they viewed the wreckage of several EsDef ships.

  “They didn’t make it,” the XO said.

  “Now we know,” Anders said. “That was our mission. Captain Blaze, are you ready?”

  “We are, Admiral. Wolfpack is a go.”

  “Lieutenant Chappelander, please launch the Recon shuttle. Set course for orbit around Cymru and engage autopilot.”

  “Roger that,” the operations lieutenant said.

  Dean felt the shuttle lift in its harness from the deck of the escort ship’s hangar bay. There was a thrill as his stomach seemed to leap into his throat, and then the unmistakable sensation of weightlessness.

  “Shuttle is away,” Chappelander declared. “Autopilot engaged.”

  “Very good. Prepare to take us home, Lieutenant Myers,” Anders said, his voice sounding clipped slightly as the shuttle moved away from the Hannibal. “Captain Blaze, your platoon is in our prayers, over.”

  “Much appreciated, Vice Admiral. It was a pleasure serving with you, over.”

  “And with you, Captain. Godspeed. Hannibal is out.”

  Dean watched the EsDef escort ship move rapidly away until it was a tiny dot, and then it disappeared from view. In that moment, Dean felt incredibly alone. He was used to facing incredible odds with just his platoon, but in the back of his mind he had always known that the entire Extra Solar Defense Force was there for him. He couldn’t help but think that his current situation was completely different. They were alone—no one would be coming to help him if things got rough. And his platoon would be looking to him to ensure that they made the most of their mission. He couldn’t charge in blindly and waste their lives or the precious resources they carried with them.

  “What do we do now?” Adkins said.

  “Wait to be captured,” Ghost said. “And hope they don’t just blast us into a cloud of space dust instead.”

  “Or ignore us completely,” Tallgrass said. “We’re not moving fast enough to reach the planet before we run out of atmo, even in our battle suits, if they don’t tow us to their ships.”

  “Kind of a raw deal for us,” Landin said. “Did the Hannibal even stick around long enough to attract the Kroll’s attention?”

  “I can’t tell for sure,” Dean said. “We don’t have the sensor capabilities to pick up their tug vessels until they come into visual range.”

  “Somebody wake me up before we die,” Ghost said.

  “We aren’t here to die,” Dean said. “And there are probably captives on those Kroll ships praying that we come to their rescue. We won’t let them down.”

  An hour passed, and it became more difficult to keep their spirits up with each passing moment. Dean could think of nothing worse for his platoon than to die doing nothing as they drifted through space. Dean kept the Kroll ships in view, watching desperately for any signs of movement. The ships were hardly more than a dull glint, like a fleck of dust floating in a sunbeam above the emerald world of Cymru.

  Finally, nearly ninety minutes after the shuttle was launched, Dean saw the familiar shape of the Kroll’s teardrop-shaped vessels. Their long tentacle arms were unmistakable as they reached out, waving in front of the alien ships.

  “Contact,” Dean said, causing his platoon to sit up straighter in their harnesses. “I’ve got four alien tug ships coming this way.”

  “It’s about damn time,” Adkins said.

  “Yeah, this waiting is for the birds,” Wilson added.

  “Double-check everything,” Chavez said. “I want weapons ready and everyone strapped into their harnesses.”

  “Remember their tactics,” Dean said. “We’re in zero-G now, but we’ll hit their gravity well once we reach their ship. It might drop us upside down.”

  The Recon platoon spent the next half-hour patiently waiting as the teardrop vessels towed them quickly back to the Kroll ships in orbit over Cymru. Dean noticed a marked difference in the specialists around him. They were normally very gregarious before a mission, but on this occasion they were quiet, focused, and diligently ensuring they were prepared for whatever happened.

  Dean kept a close watch on the approaching ships. They reminded Dean of bugs clinging together on the surface of still water. The two long ships had formed a V with what Dean guessed were their bows touching one another and their sterns connecting to the big nest ship.

  “Things are about to get interesting,” Dean said.

  “Platoon, weapons hot!” Chavez ordered.

  Dean thumbed the safety off of his utility rifle. In close quarters, the flechette rifles would do plenty of damage without the risk of compromising the Kroll ship’s hull. Everyone was loaded down with weapons. They all carried EMR rifles, even the HA Specialists, along with a Martin 3A defense pistol strapped to each thigh. They all had as much ammunition as they could fit into the harnesses on their battle armor, and Dean was carrying extra munitions in a Kevlar pack on his back in place of the long-range comms unit he usually carried.

  The teardrop-shaped tug ships flung the shuttle the last few yards before it connected with the Kroll ship. They passed through the artificial gravity field, and—as Dean had predicted—they were all suddenly hanging upside down in their harnesses. The ship hit the thick goo that the Kroll used to bind their cobbled space vessels together with a force that jarred Dean’s platoon, but they had been expecting it.

  “Out of your harnesses!” Chavez growled.

  All around Dean he heard his specialists hitting the quick release tabs on their safety harnesses. They didn’t immediately fall; instead, they held onto the restraints and swung their legs around so that they were standing on the ceiling of the shuttle. Dean was busy checking the shuttle’s visual cameras. He could see that the shuttle had impacted at the rear, where the shuttle hatch was located. The Raptor has halfway buried in the goo of the Kroll ship and looked like a black hippopotamus half-submerged in mud.

  “Gather at the forward bulkhead,” Dean said, h
itting the safety release on his own harness and swinging down. His voice was nearly drowned out by the sound of metal being wrenched at the rear of the shuttle. “Shield wall to the rear!”

  The platoon was crammed together in the forward section of the shuttle with the Heavy Armor Specialists shielding them. They had barely gotten into position before the back hatch was torn from the shuttle with a tremendous crash and a huge, simian creature with a small, armored helmet roared at them.

  The HA Specialists opened fire with their shoulder-mounted utility cannons. The alien was torn to shreds by the flechettes, but the wounds only seemed to make the creature angry. It was too big to get into the shuttle, but that didn’t stop it from trying. It strained against the bulkhead, snarling savagely. The open-faced helmet looked to Dean like a bucket with a U-shape cut into the side. The creature reached for the platoon of Recon specialists, but the massed fire from the utility cannons finally did their job. The huge creature slumped face-down, its body filling almost half of the open hatch.

  “Don’t move,” Dean ordered. “Harper, get me eyes in that ship.”

  A drone was launched from Emily Harper’s shoulder armor. It moved slowly above the alien and then through the tunnel of goo into the Kroll ship. Dean was watching the AAV’s vid feed and saw the feline aliens waiting in the compartment beyond. He almost shouted in alarm as one of the cat-like creatures lunged for the drone. Harper’s reflexes saved the Aerial Assault Vehicle, sending it shooting straight up near the ceiling as the alien’s wide mouth snapped below it.

  “We’ve got bogies in the alien vessel,” Dean said.

  The feline aliens didn’t wait for Dean’s platoon to emerge from the shuttle. They came bounding in with their back-mounted lasers firing in a haphazard barrage. Dean and the other specialists were forced to duck behind the hydrogen-titanium alloy shields mounted on the backs of the Heavy Armor Specialists. Their utility cannons returned fire, turning the shuttle and the tunnel beyond into a deathtrap. The flechettes tore through the insulated armor of the feline aliens, tearing the flesh beneath their tight-fitting armor into ribbons. They roared and jumped onto the walls, but the HA Specialists used the tracking software in their utility cannons and killed every alien before it could reach them.