by Ryk Brown
“Buckle up, boys,” Captain Donlevy suggested. “We’re jumping in hot in thirty seconds.”
“Jump complete,” Loki reported as the jump flash subsided.
On the Aurora’s semi-spherical main view screen, the dreadnought, flagship of the Dusahn Empire, was waiting for them just as Nathan had hoped.
“Their port midship shields are down!” Kaylah reported earnestly. “Multiple hull breaches along her port side, from just aft of her main forward guns all the way to her port hangar bay!”
“Locking all weapons on their midship,” Jessica reported as she tapped in targeting commands for the Aurora’s AI.
“Fire all weapons!” Nathan ordered.
“Firing forward torpedo tubes,” Jessica replied.
Red-orange balls of plasma rushed in waves from under the Aurora’s nose and along the bottom of the main view screen, quickly closing the gap between the Aurora and her prey.
A blue-white flash filled the main view screen, lighting up the interior of the bridge.
“Target has jumped!” Kaylah reported from the sensor station.
“Estimate his jump and plot to pursue,” Nathan instructed almost immediately. “This guy’s not stupid.”
“I’ve got him!” Kaylah reported. “He only jumped a few thousand… Missile launch! Eight inbound! Ten seconds!”
“Point-defenses are active,” Jessica added.
“Second launch!” Kaylah added. “Eight more!”
“Jump ahead half a light minute and come hard to port,” Nathan ordered.
“Jumping thirty light seconds,” Loki acknowledged as he quickly entered the jump parameters and engaged the jump drive.
Again, the blue-white flash washed over the Aurora’s bridge as she slipped away, escaping the incoming onslaught of missiles.
“Turning hard to port,” Josh reported as he rolled the Aurora into the maneuver.
“That was a point-blank missile attack,” Jessica pointed out. “We’ve never seen them launch at such close range before.”
“They’re either getting very desperate or very clever,” Nathan opined.
“Or their port weapons were down,” Kaylah suggested.
“She’s right,” Jessica realized. “We were off their port side for at least ten seconds, and they never fired a single shot from any of their gun turrets.”
“Turn complete,” Josh reported. “We’re pointed right at them.”
“Target is jumping again,” Kaylah reported.
“As long as we keep attacking from his port side, he’ll jump away before we can get a shot in,” Nathan realized. “If we hope to keep him away from Takara long enough for the Ghatazhak to make it to the surface, we’ll have to attack his strong side, and prod him into slugging it out.”
“That’s a bad idea,” Jessica insisted. “Aurora has already analyzed that strategy and warns that we cannot last more than two and a half minutes in a slug-fest.”
“Even with our broadsides?”
“That ship has a lot of guns,” Jessica replied. “If they focus them all on a single shield segment, that shield will fail, even with SilTek’s upgrades.”
Nathan thought for a moment. “Has the target changed course or attitude?”
“Negative,” Kaylah replied.
“Plot another intercept jump,” Nathan instructed Loki, “to their starboard side. We’ll pull in alongside and pound them for as long as we can.”
“The Ghatazhak need three minutes to get to the surface,” Jessica reminded him.
“Launch another comm-drone,” Nathan ordered. “First to the Ghatazhak rally point, then to command. Tell them they have two minutes, starting at zero plus ten.”
“Message from the Aurora,” Lieutenant Erskin reported over the general’s helmet comms. “Insertion has been moved to zero plus ten, and you need to have boots on the ground by zero plus one two. I’ve relayed the message to Digger Two.”
“Understood,” the general replied, glancing at the time display in the corner of his tactical visor. “We jump in two minutes,” he announced to the other forty-nine Ghatazhak crammed into the Contra ship’s forward compartment, connecting corridor, and extended cargo bay. “Change of plans. We have to be down in two minutes. So disconnect and jump as soon as your velocity is reduced to the safe drop range.”
“Fun,” Corporal Vasya droned as he lowered his visor, locking it into place, making his helmet airtight. “I guess we should have spent a little more time testing the limits of the inertial dampeners on these things.”
“You’re about to get the chance,” General Telles remarked. “Ghatazhak!” the general barked with authority. “It’s time to show our people the true reason the Ghatazhak were created.”
“Let’s kick some Zen-Anor ass!” Corporal Vasya exclaimed over comms.
Lieutenant Brons moved past the general, making his way aft. “You sure you want to promote him to sergeant?” he asked the general as he passed.
“Honestly, no,” the general admitted as he lowered his visor.
“Sixty seconds,” Lieutenant Calder announced from Digger One’s cockpit.
Commander Verbeek’s Super Eagle fighter decelerated sharply as it jumped into the thick lower atmosphere of Takara. The towering structures that dominated the skyline of the planet’s capital, Answari, raced toward him.
A split second after coming out of the jump, his tactical screen lit up with potential targets. Although the initial missile attack had eliminated most of the Dusahn’s surface defenses, and the Aurora had taken out the few surface-to-orbit batteries that had survived, there were still plenty of smaller targets, all of which posed a threat to the soon-to-arrive Ghatazhak.
“Weapons free!” the commander declared. “Find a target and blast the shit out of it!” he added, rolling to port and pushing his fighter’s nose down slightly, steering toward his first target. A second later, a targeting square appeared around one of the numerous target icons and began to flash red, indicating a target lock. His fighter’s auto-flight system took over, holding his fighter’s course true and on target.
The commander loosened his grip on the flight control stick to avoid causing the auto-flight to disengage, then pressed the fire button once to activate the plasma cannons on either side of his fuselage.
His cannons activated, the commander released his grip, allowing his hand to hover around his flight control stick as a barrage of red-orange plasma bolts slammed into the doomed target ahead of him. Within seconds, the shields protecting the small target collapsed, and the highly charged plasma ripped through the defensive emplacement, destroying it completely.
The target now wiped from existence, the targeting box disappeared along with the target’s icon. The barrage of plasma bolts automatically ceased, and the commander pulled back hard, regaining control of the fighter. He pushed his throttle forward to its stops, bringing his main engine to full power and rocketing upward as he pushed his jump button, rising a few thousand meters more above the Answari skyline in the blink of an eye.
Commander Shinoda studied the latest communication from the Aurora on his data pad. “Scott has cleared the Ghatazhak in at zero plus ten.”
Cameron glanced at the mission clock above the holo-display. “That’s in forty seconds,” she realized, concerned.
“He’s also asking them to get their boots on the ground by zero plus one two.” The lieutenant commander looked worried. “I thought their best estimate was three minutes?”
“It was,” Cameron confirmed. “Don’t worry, they’ll make it down.”
“And if they don’t?”
“Then the number of civilian casualties required to liberate the planet will rise exponentially,” Cameron replied.
Within seconds of coming out of her jump, the Aurora found herself in a wave of energy weapons fire. Still diving toward
her target, her forward shields took most of the force, flashing brilliantly as the ship bucked with each impact.
“Maneuvering to the target’s starboard side,” Josh announced as he pulled the ship out of its dive, relative to the flight path of the enemy warship.
“Locking all weapons on the dreadnought,” Jessica reported. “Firing everything!”
The one-way barrage of energy became two-way, but the majority of the plasma charges being fired were still coming from the massive Dusahn dreadnought.
“Forward shields down to forty percent!” Jessica exclaimed. “Get us in the slot, Josh!”
“I’m working on it,” Josh assured her, “but I swear that bastard’s accelerating.”
“He’s right,” Kaylah confirmed. “Target has increased power to main propulsion and is accelerating…slowly but steadily.”
“Get us into position, then match their speed,” Nathan urged his helmsman.
“All they have to do to get away from us is jump,” Josh pointed out.
“They won’t,” Nathan insisted, “not since we took out the last of their surface-to-orbit defenses. They’re afraid we’ll just bomb the shit out of their pretty little palace.”
“Even though it’s in the most heavily populated part of the city?” Josh wondered.
“That’s what they’d do,” Nathan replied.
The direction of the ship’s violent lurches shifted as the Aurora moved in alongside the considerably larger Dusahn dreadnought, forcing the enemy’s weapons fire to shift from the Aurora’s forward shields to those protecting her port side.
“We’re paralleling them,” Josh reported. “Attempting to match speed.”
“Adding port broadsides,” Jessica announced.
Nathan glanced at the mission clock as it passed the zero plus nine minutes and fifty seconds. “We’re in the groove,” he said. “Randomly rock us from side to side, no more than forty-five degrees. That should make it harder for them to target a single shield section.”
“You got it,” Josh acknowledged.
“That will make it harder for us to target them as well,” Jessica pointed out.
“We’re just trying to keep them away from Answari for now,” Nathan reminded her. “We’ll destroy her later.”
“You make it sound so easy,” Jessica commented.
“What can I say,” Nathan replied, “I’m an optimist.”
The Contra ship suddenly rocked as it entered the upper atmosphere of Takara. Far below, Eagle fighters were engaging Answari’s defenses, preventing them from targeting the cargo ships and the Ghatazhak who were about to leap from their aft cargo doors.
The ramp on the back of the Digger’s extended cargo pod dropped open, allowing the thin, ice-cold air of Takara’s upper atmosphere to come swirling inside.
The tightly packed Ghatazhak braced themselves against each other as the air rushed in around them. A second later, the indicator light over the now fully open aft cargo hatch turned green, and the Ghatazhak exited the bay, stepping out into the morning light.
One by one, fifty Ghatazhak walked out of Digger One’s extended cargo pod, falling toward the capital of their homeworld, some thirty thousand kilometers below.
General Telles, having been in the forward airlock of Digger One, was one of the last to reach the aft exit of the ship. Without hesitation and in lockstep with those preceding him, he walked out of the bay and off the end of the cargo ramp, beginning his own free-fall.
As planned, every man had begun to spread out in the air, creating enough room for dozens of parachutes.
“We are falling like a fucking rock!” Digger One’s copilot exclaimed. “One more minute and we won’t have enough power to pull out of this free-fall and jump back to space!”
“We can’t activate the grav-lift systems until they jump,” Captain Hosick replied. “You know that.”
“Doesn’t mean I like it,” the lieutenant replied as their ship continued to fall.
“Warning,” Corporal Vasya’s combat AI declared. “The few surviving surface-defense batteries are targeting Diggers One and Two. If they open fire, there is a twenty-percent probability that we will be hit by incoming fire intended for them.”
“Sucks, doesn’t it?” the corporal chuckled as he fell toward the city below.
“Twenty seconds to chute deployment. Steer five degrees to the right to maintain proper separation.”
Corporal Vasya tucked his right arm toward his body slightly, causing him to veer a few degrees to the right, as recommended. He turned his head slightly left. As expected, his squad leader, Sergeant Viano, was there, drifting further away with each passing second. To his right were specialists Brill and Deeks, and beyond them was General Telles himself.
“Ten seconds to chute deployment,” his combat AI warned. “Maintain current flight path.”
“No kidding.” Vasya watched the countdown in the inside of his visor out of the corner of his eye as the last few seconds ticked off. As the countdown reached zero, he braced himself.
“Christ!” Nathan exclaimed as the Aurora lurched with each impact against their weakening shields.
“Port forward shields down to twenty percent!” Jessica warned.
The ship rocked again, even more violently.
“What the hell was that?” Nathan wondered, clinging to his command chair.
“They’re channeling power from their far side to their engaged weapons!” Kaylah reported.
“Shields down to ten percent!” Jessica warned. “We can’t take this pounding any longer!”
“Jump us the hell out of here!” Nathan ordered.
“Jumping!” Loki replied as the jump flash washed over the bridge.
“Chute deployment,” the AI announced as the corporal felt a sudden pull against his torso.
The black drogue-chute deployed out from behind him, filling in seconds and slowing his fall toward his homeland.
“Rate of descent decreasing,” the AI reported. “Forty seconds to safe jump velocity.”
“Caps, recalculate for immediate stealth-jump to the surface and execute! All available spare power to inertial dampeners!”
Corporal Vasya grabbed his chute disconnect rings with both hands and pulled downward with all his might. His harness released, and his chute collapsed suddenly as the weight of the corporal and his combat armor no longer pulled upon it.
There was no time for his Combat Augmentation and Protection System to warn him of the risks. “Jumping.”
A split second later, the corporal found himself no longer falling from an altitude of sixty thousand meters, but from just over one hundred meters above the streets of Answari. He bent his knees and prepared himself for impact, landing and rolling to his left to help dissipate the kinetic energy of his impact.
For the briefest of moments, the corporal lay face down on the street, overwhelmed by the entire event. He had long ago given up any hope of setting foot on the planet of his birth, let alone in such a harrowing fashion.
But only for a second.
He jumped to his feet, raising his right hand and immediately pivoting in the direction of the nearest enemy combatant.
Fifty meters away, three Dusahn soldiers, each equally stunned by the unorthodox arrival of so many enemy troops, regained their senses and raised their weapons to open fire on the Ghatazhak soldiers appearing all around them.
Corporal Vasya dropped to one knee as the first shots fired by the nearest three Dusahn soldiers streaked over his head. He pointed his arm at the three soldiers, making a fist and cocking it slightly downward. A series of yellow, needle-like bolts of energy leapt from the weapon barrel on his wrist, slamming into the first, second, and third soldier in rapid succession.
The corporal rose to his feet and looked around as the rest of the Ghatazhak jumped in and landed a
ll around him. “Fucking awesome, right?” he exclaimed over comms.
The flight deck of the pod hauler lurched violently, coming out of the jump and into the Corinairan atmosphere, but after a few seconds, the ship’s inertial dampeners kicked in, reducing the vibrations to a tolerable level.
“Thank God for the dampeners,” Captain Donlevy commented as he adjusted the ship’s descent profile. “Razor Leader, Buster One inbound. One minute.”
On the tactical display at the center of his console, Commander Prechitt spotted the icon representing the first boxcar on its descent to Aitkenna. “Buster One, Razor Leader. LZs are still warm. Ground fire and some mobile weapons, but no AA. Suggest Bingo Two Five to start.”
“Copy Bingo Two Five, warm LZ,” Captain Donlevy replied over comms. “We’ll make it quick.”
“We’ll clear the way to Bingo Two Five,” the commander promised as he rolled his Nighthawk into a diving right turn and pressed his jump button to transition to the same area of Aitkenna that Buster One was now descending toward. “Razors Seven, Five, Six; clean up Bingo Two Five. Buster One is inbound; thirty seconds.”
“Five jumping to Bingo Two Five.”
“Seven to Bingo Two Five,” another Nighthawk pilot acknowledged.
“Six, Five, negative!” the pilot of Razor Five called over comms. “Two octos just jumped in at your five! Break left and jump to angels ten. I’ll shag’em and meet you at Bingo Two Five!”
Commander Prechitt guided his ship down low between the buildings, taking aim at a Dusahn armored vehicle sporting a top-mounted energy cannon that was already rotating toward him. He toggled his weapons select and fired, sending pieces of the enemy vehicle and its occupants flying in all directions.
“Six, copy!”
“Two more targets, left ninety, two kilometers,” his AI reported. “Hold course, and I can take the shot as we pass.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Negative.”
“Of course not,” the commander said. “Very well, engage the targets.”