Off World- Ragnarok

by J. F. Holmes

  “Not on my watch,” said Ortiz. “I got this. Get on the horn to the ACECOM watch officer and tell him we may have to take the network offline.

  “There’s an eyes-only Skype session going on right now, they ain’t going to like it.”

  “Fuck ’em,” grunted Ortiz. Though his combat was virtual, to him it was no less stressful than a gunfight. “SHIT!” he said suddenly and tore off the headset. What had flashed before his eyes was a notice from the 24th Air Force, based out of Lackland, Texas. All cyber communications between Alpha Centauri and Earth had been cut, pending evaluation of the cyber threat.

  Ortiz picked up the landline that ran through fiber optic cables to his counterpart Earthside, 4.3 light years away in space, and two hundred meters ground distance from him. “This is Master Sergeant Ortiz at ACECOM Gate Control, all our cyber has been cut. You tracking it?”

  “This is the watch duty officer,” the response came back. “We’re getting the same thing. Hang on, traffic coming through now.” Apparently cursing was now the order of the day, because the duty officer let out a string of expletives, said, “STAND BY FOR FLASH TRAFFIC FROM CYBERCOM,” and the line went dead.

  Wurtzer simultaneously hung up his phone and said, “Captain Weirzbowski’s on his way down. What do we do now?” Both of their screens were dead, just displaying the logo of US Cybercommand.

  “We check to see if any of that Chinese shit got through and is running around in our system is what. Bring up the McCaffery and that H-K program we wrote last month and lets…” and again he stopped, staring at his screen. Never mind the VR, he could see it right there on a bit traffic counter running in the corner.

  Cybercommand was doing a massive dump of data, shoving through torrents of compressed info. He checked again to see if it was some kind of denial of service attack, but the protocols were right. It was pure data, not even programs, terabytes of it. Then the screen went blank. Ortiz and Wurtzer were left staring at dark screens, while sirens wailed outside. The two network administrators had read the message that had flashed across their screens when the connection with Cybercommand was cut, but neither understood it.

  Captain Weirzbowski, who’d just stepped into the Operations Center, did. He read the words there and immediately picked up the handset, punching in the code for ACECOM J-6, cursing at the blazing star overhead and the wildlife that hampered all radio transmission.

  “J-6,” came the short acknowledgement from the communications watch stander.

  “This is Gate Control Comms. Put me through to General Halstead, flash traffic.” The line went quiet, not dead, as it switched over to the conference room where the general was waiting for the Skype session to resume.

  “Halstead,” he said briefly, unaware of the sirens wailing at the Gate facility, more than five miles away across the water and outside his secure conference room.

  “Sir, this is Gate Control Comms OIC. We’ve had a Ragnarök notification from Cybercommand.”

  There was silence on the other end, then a simple, “Thank you, please notify us if communications resume.”

  “Yes, Sir. We’re going to start analyzing the data dump now, but I’m pretty sure you know what it is already.”

  “I do, son. Carry on.” The general’s voice was rock steady, despite what Ragnarök portended. It was literally a flash dump of the accumulated knowledge of mankind, if such a thing were possible. More like an update to the databases already kept on Alpha Centauri, but it meant only one thing.

  “What is it, Sir?” asked Wurtzer as his boss hung up the phone, but he was afraid he already knew, as did Ortiz.

  “The end of the world, Sergeant. Or maybe the beginning, I don’t know.”

  Chapter 16

  Hunter Army Airfield, north side of Seaside, Gate Crash plus one minute

  “Hunter tower, Valkyrie Six Niner, four miles northeast inbound for parking and termination with Information Delta, over.” The air traffic controller actually got a kick out of using the radio. Two transmitters were located on towers out in the bay, one to the east and the other to the west. Tonight they were using the western one, drawing every flying creature in a two-kilometer radius toward it. It had the effect of clearing the eastern runway approach of flying projectiles.

  “Roger, Six Niner, landing space three west. Be advised, we have a Herc inbound two minutes behind you, orbiting angels seven, runway three seven, over,” came back the reply.

  Chief Warrant Officer Five Thornton was about to reply when red lights started to flash and a loud computer-generated voice blared in the cockpit, “WARNING, MISSILE INBOUND, VECTOR TWO SEVEN NINE.”

  His copilot, CW1 Shanice Williams, started to say, “What the…” but Thornton had reacted immediately. Her command pilot had been flying for almost thirty years, with eight combat tours in the Middle East and Central America, and his nervous system reacted without conscious thought. She felt her hands leave the controls as the helo spun in the direction of the incoming missile and dropped like a rock. Her stomach heaved, and she fought it down, reacting to training, craning her head to look for the flare of the missile’s engine.

  The bright flame passed directly overhead, missing the rotors by a good thirty feet. The proximity detector in the warhead detected the metal passing underneath and detonated. Though the warhead on the FN-18 was small, it was designed to fragment into several thousand tungsten shards. Half a dozen impacted the composite rotors blades, and several more hammered into the engine casing. One smashed through the plexiglass of the copilot’s windshield and tore into Williams’ jaw. She screamed and grabbed at her face, then started choking on her blood and smashed teeth.

  The controls under Chief Thornton’s hands and feet started shaking violently, and he heard the crew chief, another veteran, call calmly over the intercom, “Losing hydraulic fluid, engine temperature climbing.”

  “I see it,” said Thornton over Williams screaming, craning his neck to look out for any more incoming missiles. While doing so, he also glanced at instruments and fought the controls, straining to maintain altitude and get them over land.

  “ALL FLIGHTS, ALL FLIGHTS, SAM THREAT!” came over the radio in the panicked voice of the young airman on duty, and Thornton muttered, “No shit, Sherlock!” feeding power to the one remaining engine. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw another flash over the city, but it was a vertical streak, so he ignored it.

  “Hang on, Joey, going in hard,” he called over the intercom, hoping the crew chief had buckled in.

  “That’s what she said!” the crew chief yelled back through the intercom, and Thornton grinned, a ghastly smile.

  ****

  Standing in front of the rusty conex in the city dump, Captain Yi ignored the struggling helicopter, lifting the second FN-18 missile launcher to her shoulder. Like its American equivalent, the man-portable surface-to-air missile emitted a warbling tone as it searched the skies for another target. It was obvious; she could hear the drone of the big transport’s engines changing pitch as the pilot turned to head out of the engagement area. They’d been idling slow, her first choice of target, but the helo had surprised her. They couldn’t take a chance on being discovered on infrared or radar and hit by the helo’s guns, so she’d ordered Sergeant Fan to engage it first. Now she turned her attention to the transport.

  When she heard the clear tone, Yi pulled the trigger, and with a POP and a whoosh, the five-foot-long missile leapt into the air. It flew straight into the wing of the Hercules, actually crashing into the left-most engine nacelle before detonating.

  The pilot was good, as she expected; the aviators assigned here fought for the chance to fly on another world. The big plane was wounded, but maybe not mortally. For what seemed like an eternity, she watched as the pilot brought it under control. Yi held her breath, then cursed as the fire went out. There was one more missile, but the plane was going to be out of range before they prepared it. Then she punched her fist in the air as flame once again shot forth from the wi
ng, and the plane exploded in midair, flaming wreckage collapsing into the sea.

  “I’m ready, Captain,” said Sergeant Yeung, who had just finished attaching a fire control computer to the barrel of a 120mm mortar. The mortar tube itself was equipped with servos that adjusted the elevation and direction, matching it to preplanned targets.

  “Then let us begin,” she said simply.

  ****

  The rounds fired by the PLA Special Forces team were a derivative of the Swedish-manufactured Strix mortar round, though using a much more sophisticated seeker warhead than the original. Primarily designed to home in on the hot engine exhausts of armored vehicles, the newer rounds had augmented that with a millimeter wave length “smart” radar. As the first round reached its apogee and tilted over toward the airfield, the seeker head recognized the silhouette of another C-130. Small adjustment motors popped and flared, aiming at the center mass of the plane. It had been a priority target for Yeung, and so went first.

  Thirty feet over the top of the fuselage, the round detonated, firing a self-forging jet of copper plasma into the plane. It was slightly off center, but burned its way into a fuel tank like a blowtorch through tissue paper. The plane erupted in a massive fireball that reached far into the sky, easily washing out the dim red proximalight.

  Fourteen rounds fired in under a minute; the first ones struck the two CH-47 Chinooks, then walked along the runway. Next to go were the three remaining UH-60 Blackhawks, one also contributing a fireball to the night sky. The others merely burned. Finally the last three rounds impacted, one directly on the cockpit of one of three AH-64 Apaches. The other two merely had their tails blown off. In less than three minutes, the entire air wing of ACECOM had been shattered.

  The final two rounds had been directed at the almost more important support facilities. One round for the aviation fuel supply point, and another for the ASP, or Ammunition Supply Point. The first cracked open a ten-thousand-gallon tank of kerosene, and the night erupted in a brilliant fireball that was brighter than the first, and blew out all the windows in the tower. The second drifted slowly downward and fell, undetonated, on top of a pallet of Hellfire missiles, where it sat, slowly cooling. The Chinese Special Forces team waited for the last explosion, but Yi shrugged off the failure. Ammunition was useless without the weapons to deliver it.

  “Change of plans,” said the captain, with a grim smile of satisfaction on her face, and led them to the cliff edge. “We go by boat; Lieutenant Zhou had a problem getting a HUMVEE today. He will be waiting below.”

  Fan looked over the edge at the roaring surf thirty meters below. Boat travel was rare on Terra Nova; the twin moons made the tides fast and treacherous, and the local equivalent of sharks were a magnitude more ferocious than their Earthside cousins. She saw nothing, and had started to turn when Yi’s boot caught her ankle and she felt a hard push on her hip. The older woman, already off balance, pitched over the side of the cliff with a long scream, carried away by the wind.

  The senior sergeant, about to unsling a long rope Yi had handed him, was confused by what he’d just seen. “What happ…” he started to say, but the single shot from Captain Yi’s suppressed 9mm caught him in the throat. He sank to the ground, choking and trying to stop the blood, then fell on his face. His boots drummed and he squirmed, but then he quickly lay motionless. With shaking hands, Yi grabbed his ankles and dragged him over to the edge to follow his comrade into the devouring sea.

  “I’m sorry, Comrades,” she said to the wind, “but three moving together would have been caught, and I intend to survive this.”

  She quickly unzipped her coveralls to reveal her American uniform underneath. Anything to gain time in the darkness when confronted. Next destination, the logistics supply yard.

  Chapter 17

  USAF Firefighting Detachment 79, Hunter Army Airfield

  He knew that sound, even in his sleep. A combat veteran grows accustomed to listening, even in his dreams, for the things that might kill him, and this was one of them. The hollow THUMP of a mortar round being expelled from its tube, and the miniscule vibration that proceeded it, brought Master Sergeant Keith Harris off his cot, feet hitting the concrete before he was even awake. A second, faint THUMP, and he was diving to the floor of the one-story building where his Air Force fire-fighting unit was sleeping.

  “INCOMING!” he yelled at the top of his lungs, and the half dozen men and women, all of whom had been under fire back on Earth, reacted instantly, though there were no bunkers for them to crawl to or slit trenches to bonelessly flop down in. They hit the floor and covered their heads with their arms, waiting for that lucky shot to come crashing through the ceiling and detonate right over their heads. Hopefully a direct hit, one that left you a smear instead of a wailing, bloody mess.

  The first explosion was a sharp CRACK, not the usual CRUMP of the round hitting and exploding in the dirt. It was followed almost immediately by a WHOMP, so loud it deafened them and shattered the glass in the windows. The walls were lit by a brilliant orange glare as a C-130, far down the runway, erupted in a ball of flame.

  “GET THE TRUCK MOVING!” yelled Harris, his deep bass voice echoing around the room. He stood and grabbed his protective gear, shrugging into it and running through a doorway. On the other side was a bright white fire engine, hulking in the garage.

  As his half-dressed people fell in around him, another large explosion, closer this time, erupted into the air. Ignoring the steering wheel, Harris slid over to the radios. He grabbed a handmic, flipped on the power switch, and called the tower.

  “Hunter Tower, this is Fire Response, rolling in two. Gimme some directions!” He quickly motioned for his driver to get the truck moving as he counted his men climbing in. Three, four, and he leaned out to see a mirror, catching a glimpse of two more grabbing the handrails on the sides, not bothering to climb into the cab.

  The voice that came back was high pitched and excited, “We’ve got incoming mortar rounds, no I think they stopped. Looks like every damn bird is on fire!”

  “Roger, is the ASP secure?” The ammunition supply point was further down the runway, on the opposite side of the field.

  The reply was cut off as a giant fireball lifted into the air from the direction of the fuel dump. A wave of heat washed over them, even through their protective gear, and a bright yellow column of flame erupted from the broken tanks. With a calm voice, Harris told his second in command to get the truck over to the ASP and to make sure it was OK.

  “What are you going to do?” asked Sergeant Kallen. The look of fear on her face beneath her hood was bellied by the grim determination in her voice to do her job.

  “Save what I can, if I can.” He jumped off the truck as they neared the first burning helo and ran to a SATs. Just as he jumped on the small tow vehicle, ammunition in the burning UH-60 started to cook off, and he crouched low when something zipped past his head. Sweat was pouring off him as the cart slowly rolled down the runway. He was making for a darker spot in the burning wreckage that lined the field.

  Harris came up to an Apache and started to turn into the revetment, then swerved away when he saw the tail boom lying on the ground. The next was a burning wreck, the cockpit shattered, and the third lying sideway, smashed and smoldering.

  “Goddammit!” he yelled, and then came to the first CH-47. The second was burning fiercely, but the first…he jumped off and ran the length of it, looking for damage, and groaned when he saw the shattered rear set of rotor blades and the wrecked turbine on one side. No fire yet, though.

  “Better than nothing!” he said to himself, and ducked as a rocket from one of the Apaches shot crazily across the runway and into the sea. Harris backed the SAT up to the nosewheel of the giant craft and hooked up the tow bar, or tried too. He really didn’t know what the hell he was doing, and kept struggling with it until a figure shoved him aside. A pool of burning aviation fuel was slowly running down the runway toward the craft, and the woman who confronted him had run
through it to get to the aircraft.

  “I GOT IT, GO!” she yelled to the Master Sergeant, voice raspy from the smoke. Small flames flicked on her boots, and the airman’s face was a mass of burns, but she expertly hooked the tow bar up and yanked the chocks out from under the wheels.

  The SAT motor strained, but then started to pull the helo forward and across the runway. The airman who’d helped Harris started to follow, but then fell to the ground. As soon as they were a safe distance away, the fireman stopped the vehicle, standing on the brakes to cut the giant helo’s momentum. Then he ran back and picked up the woman, whose legs were now on fire, and dragged her free of the flames. He laid her on the ground and slapped out the burning fuel while she screamed in agony.

  Sitting down, he took her head in his lap and held her gently. Her skin was blackened, already peeling off in flakes, and she tried to speak. Harris leaned down and she croaked, “Is my aircraft safe?” He nodded; a painful smile cracked across what had once been a beautiful teenaged face, and her last breath rattled out.

  The fire truck pulled up to the Chinook and started spraying it with retardant, and another fireman started the SAT again to move it even further away from the random gunfire. Harris gently picked up the body of the airman and laid her down in the back of the cab, spreading a blanket over her. Then he turned and started barking orders at his men.

  The time to mourn the dead would come later.

  ****

  “Well, looks like we got some work to do.” Chief Tyson looked at the Chinook, covered with firefighting foam. The one turbine hung limply, shattered. It was only through mere change, or the grace of God, that the entire system had been drained of fuel. Still, the acrid smell of burnt hydraulic fluid mixed with the pungent chemicals.