The Lion and the Unicorn

by Christopher G. Nuttall

  “Waste of a good missile,” Tobias commented. The gunboats weren’t as fast as starfighters, but they’d been outside the blast radius before the missile had even detonated. “I think we have incoming …”

  He took direct control as the enemy starfighters closed on the gunboats. They were remarkably quick - he reminded himself, again, to watch for suicidal tactics - and very capable, but they couldn’t fire in all directions. The gunboats closed up, covering each other as the enemy starfighters swooped closer. Tobias felt sweat prickling down his back as his guns fired, time and time again. Thankfully, the enemy seemed unwilling to throw themselves away. Plasma bursts bored through space, but they didn’t close to point-blank range. It was definitely a relief.

  His console bleeped. “Return to base,” Bagehot said. “I say again, return to base.”

  Tobias blinked. It wasn’t that bad, was it? They’d damaged both the brainship and the carrier … the other ships had taken their knocks as well. But … he swore under his breath as he assessed the situation. The enemy fleet hadn’t slowed. It would enter orbit in less than twenty minutes. And it might just overrun the battlecruiser. The gunboats were supposed to be designed to enter planetary atmospheres, but Tobias had no intention of trying. Colin was down there somewhere.

  And so is the virus, he thought. He felt a stab of sympathy, although he wasn’t sure who he was truly sorry for. Colin? Or the virus? Poor bastards.”

  “Aye, sir,” Marigold said. She altered course, heading back to the battlecruiser. “We’re on our way.”

  Tobias winced. The enemy fleet was still firing, hurling salvo after salvo of missiles towards the human ships. The gunboats fired on the missiles whenever they came into range, but there were a lot of missiles. He shuddered, remembering the days when he’d played games intended to simulate real warfare. The enemy seemed to have used cheat codes, superheating its economy in ways no human could match. There was no way the Royal Navy could produce and deploy so many missiles for a relatively minor engagement.

  “We’ll be back within five minutes,” Marigold said. “And then …”

  “Yeah,” Tobias agreed. The battle was far from over. “We’ll be back.”

  ***

  “Captain, the gunboats are returning,” Donker reported.

  “Order them to assume escort position,” Thomas said. Docking the gunboats now would be worse than useless. “And continue firing until we clear the range.”

  “Aye, sir,” Donker said.

  Thomas nodded, projecting an image of calm as the range started to widen. Stern chases were inevitably long ones, even when the ships were evenly matched. The admiral had assured him that Lion could outrun anything that could outfight her, although he would have preferred to test the claim under less dangerous circumstances. His ship hadn’t lost any of her drive nodes, thankfully, but losing even one - right now - would be fatal. They had to put some distance between themselves and the enemy fleet.

  “Captain, they’re reducing speed,” Sibley reported. “I think they’re more interested in the planet.”

  Or they think we can’t harm them, Thomas thought. It didn’t take a genius to calculate, roughly, how many missiles Lion carried. Even if her entire hull was crammed with missiles, there would be limits. They may assume we shot ourselves dry.

  He frowned as the enemy ships slowly fell behind them. The virus had every reason to investigate the planet quickly, but … Captain Campbell could be right. The virus might be genuinely afraid, for the first time in five years of war. It might be terrified of the counter-virus, yet aware it needed to analyse the viral matter and devise countermeasures. Thomas had faced his own fears, years ago. The virus could do the same.

  It isn’t human, he reminded himself, sharply. He’d taken part in debate classes, when he’d studied at Hanover Towers. Two people could arrive at the same conclusion, unaware that they’d started in very different positions and taken very different routes to reach the same destination. It doesn’t think like us.

  “Communications, order Unicorn to remain near the planet and maintain a watch on the enemy fleet,” Thomas ordered. “We’ll proceed to the first waypoint and rearm.”

  “Aye, sir,” Cook said.

  Thomas told himself he was right, even though he feared otherwise. The logic was sound. The planet was unimportant, in the grand scheme of things. The virus wouldn’t leave an entire battle fleet orbiting Brasilia when it needed them elsewhere. If it had enough ships to do that, the war would be over and humanity would have lost. No, there had to be limits. There would be a chance to rescue the marines, if he waited. If nothing else, he was far enough from Earth that it would be weeks before he received any orders to fall back and abandon them.

  At least we proved the BioBombs worked, he thought, although he still had his qualms about the whole concept. God alone knew how many colonists were dying on the green and pleasant world on the display. The mission wasn’t a total failure.

  But he knew, deep inside, that they hadn’t succeeded either.

  ***

  “Hold position,” Mitch ordered. “Tactical, keep us under cloak.”

  He glared at the display as if it had personally offended him. He did not enjoy embarrassment. He’d been tricked and, worse, it had happened in front of his immediate superior. Captain Hammond would report the matter to Earth and … Mitch clenched his fists as his ship started to coast. Earth would not be impressed, even though no one else had seen disaster looming either. It would not look good in his file.

  Assuming we get home in time for it to matter, he thought. The enemy fleet was heading directly towards the planet, but it might change course at any moment. Lion and her consorts were still clearly visible on the display. The enemy might start planning something soon enough.

  He pulled up the starchart and considered the possibilities. When had the enemy been alerted to their incursion? When they’d destroyed the scout? Or when they’d invaded Brasilia itself? If the former, the enemy had had eight days to get the alert, organise a fleet and get it to Brasilia; if the latter, the enemy had done it in four. And that meant … he frowned as the possibilities started to narrow. The virus wouldn’t have been sure of the human squadron’s destination until the squadron had hit Brasilia itself. Mitch scowled. The timing was all too revealing. They’d missed either a starship or a flicker station, probably the latter. That wouldn’t look good in his file either.

  Unless they started probing up the tramline and just happened to run into us here, he told himself. It was possible, but unlikely. We could just have unknowingly passed each other in the night.

  He pushed the thought aside as he returned his attention to the near-space display. The enemy fleet hadn’t started bombarding the planet, not yet, but it didn’t matter. He’d read the reports. The marines were doomed, even if the enemy never engaged them directly. They had to be recovered and fast, before their life support started to fail. They couldn’t risk sticking with the shuttles and they couldn’t risk trying to cannibalise colonial gear, assuming they could find any. Mitch started to contemplate possibilities, tossing ideas around in his mind. There had to be something …

  “Captain, they’re launching shuttles,” Staci warned. “Half of them appear to be on recon patrol; the remainder are dropping into the planet’s atmosphere.”

  “Keep our distance from the patrollers,” Mitch ordered. Shuttles were easy targets, no bigger than gunboats, but that didn’t make them harmless. “And establish passive locks if they come too close.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Mitch nodded as he returned his attention to the console. There had to be something they could do, but … but what?

  ***

  “We’re clear,” Marigold said. “And we have permission to dock.”

  “Thank God,” Tobias said. They’d been in the gunboat for hours. He was ruefully aware he stunk. The entire craft would probably have to be fumigated. He had no idea how starfighter pilots coped. Perhaps they just turne
d a blind eye. Or had their noses surgically removed. He’d heard so many stories about starfighter pilots doing stupid things that it was hard to know what to take seriously. “Take us in.”

  He breathed a sigh of relief as the gunboat mated with the battlecruiser’s hatch. They were safe … for a given value of safe. It felt rather more like they’d merely postponed their death a few more hours. The battlecruiser had been hit … not badly, according to the reports, but enough to worry him. The next hit might take the entire starship out of action, or simply blow it to atoms. If they were deployed at the time … he shook his head. Right now, it didn’t matter. They needed a shower and rest, perhaps not in that order.

  “We’d better move,” Marigold said. She sounded as tired as Tobias felt. “I need coffee.”

  “Just put in a tube and inject it into my veins,” Tobias agreed. He had no idea how some crewmen managed to remain on duty for two or more days without sleeping. They probably used stimulants. Bagehot had told them it was possible, but strongly discouraged. “I need sleep.”

  Marigold smiled. “You must be tired,” she said. Her face looked worn, as if she had been pushed to the limits of her endurance and beyond. “You didn’t make the obvious joke.”

  “No,” Tobias agreed. He stumbled to his feet, somehow. The deck seemed to be vibrating slightly, as if they were caught in a storm. An impossible storm. “I think we’d better go before we collapse.”

  The hatch opened. Bagehot stood there, looking grim. “Get to your bunks,” he said, curtly. “The crews will shut down the gunboat.”

  Tobias wanted to argue. They’d been told, time and time again, that they had to take care of their gunboat. It was like owning a car, they’d said, although Tobias had never owned a car in his life. He couldn’t have afforded it. Now … Bagehot would have hit the roof, normally, if Tobias had shirked his duty. It had to be bad …

  “Yes, sir,” Tobias said. He could feel his mind wandering. It was only a matter of time until he collapsed. “What’s … what’s going to happen?”

  “Leave it to the CO,” Bagehot said. He helped Tobias out of the hatch, then did the same for Marigold. The crew hurried past, into the gunboat. “You two get some rest. You’ll be back out there, soon enough.”

  Tobias was too tired to salute. “Yes, sir.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  “You think they’ll nuke us?”

  Colin glared as they finished securing the camouflage netting over the shuttle. In theory, now the craft was powered down and covered, it should be invisible from orbit. In practice, there was no way to know. The enemy sensors might pick out something - anything - that would point them at the shuttle. Or they might track the marines through the trees as they assumed combat position. The virus might easily decide the planet couldn’t be saved and drop nukes on each and every moving target. There was simply no way to know.

  “No,” he growled. He felt his skin crawl as they hurried away from the shuttle. The viral matter in the air was supposed to be dying, but he refused to take it for granted. It would be a long time before he felt comfortable removing his mask, even though it was bulky and unpleasant. The slightest speck of microscopic viral matter might be enough to turn him into a brainless drone. “I don’t know what they’ll do.”

  He glanced up as they kept moving, heading back to the planned defence line. The marines were spread out, partly in fear of a nuclear or KEW strike, but there was no point in trying to go underground and hide. The clock was ticking, even if they didn’t want to admit it. They simply didn’t have the resources to survive on the planet, not until the counter-virus had finished its work. Colin felt trapped, even though the enemy was nowhere to be seen. All the virus had to do to win was absolutely nothing.

  The sense of being watched gnawed at him. He glanced up again, seeing nothing. He didn’t really expect to see anything. He’d been in exercises where surprise attacks had been foiled by drones drifting so high above the ground that they’d been invisible to the naked eye, their operators quietly tracking the assault force and moving the defenders into position to catch and kill the intruders. There was no escaping the unblinking eyes, once they had a solid lock. It almost made him feel sorry for people who tried to run the border defences. They simply couldn’t escape being caught and unceremoniously tossed back across the line.

  A sonic boom split the air as they rejoined the rest of the company. Major Craig had taken command and deployed his troops to wear down any enemy offensive, something that would have been solid tactics against almost anyone else. Colin glanced up again, wondering when the bolt from the skies would fall. The virus had deployed nukes against planetary targets before, showing a disturbing lack of concern for the host-bodies … he wondered, sourly, if the virus would show any less concern for the planet’s population. They’d been infected with the counter-virus. The virus might be planning to scorch the entire world, just to make sure the counter-virus didn’t spread.

  Not that it matters, he told himself. We know it works, at least to some degree. It won’t be long before we start dropping the counter-virus everywhere.

  Sergeant Bowman nodded to them. “Success?”

  “We concealed the shuttle,” Colin said. It looked as if the fire team would be going into the personnel pool, rather than being assigned to the defence line. “It shouldn’t be visible from orbit.”

  “Good,” Sergeant Bowman said. “The enemy appear to be landing shuttles around the settlement. Collect two MANPADs, then get as close to the landing zone as you can and hit them.”

  Colin nodded. The orders weren’t very precise, but the marines were making the operation up as they went along. It was too much to hope that losing a shuttle or two would be enough to stop the enemy, yet it might buy time. Might. The fire team was expendable, if push came to shove.

  He took a breath. “Understood.”

  The day seemed to grow warmer as they collected their weapons, then started the long walk down to the nearest settlement. The population had been hit hard by the counter-virus, he’d been told, but he was careful to stay on alert as they neared the town. Dozens of shuttles landed in the distance, seemingly coming down over the ocean and dropping within the city itself. Colin nodded, recognising the tactic. It was safer to fly over the ocean. Someone with a MANPAD could really ruin a shuttle’s day.

  “The population is dying,” Davies said. “Fuck.”

  Colin followed his gaze as they peered into the town. There were bodies everywhere, dead or dying. He forced himself to look, though it made his stomach churn. He saw a middle-aged man pawing the air, hands twitching uselessly as viral matter flowed from his pores; he saw a bunch of children, lying in a heap on the ground. The virus had turned them into drones, infected them so thoroughly the host-bodies could no longer survive without the virus. He turned away, cursing under his breath. Nuking the entire town was starting to look like a very good idea. It could no longer be reclaimed. Burning it to ashes was perhaps the only realistic option.

  “I’m picking up a bunch of signals coming our way,” Willis said. “I think they’re deploying drones.”

  “Shit.” Colin motioned for the team to get under cover. “How many?”

  “I’m not sure,” Willis said. “At least three sources …”

  Colin thought fast. He had two MANPADs. He could take down two drones, but the third would either return fire or provide targeting data to orbiting starships or ground-based artillery. Colin was prepared to take the risk - and shooting down the drones would delay the enemy, at least until they deployed new drones - yet he wanted bigger targets. The enemy would start using their shuttles to leapfrog up to confront the marines, sooner or later. It was a fairly standard tactic. The virus would have learnt from its human hosts if it hadn’t figured it out already.

  “Hold us here,” he said. “We’ll leave the drones unless they shoot at us.”

  Davies gave him a sidelong glance, but nodded. Colin understood. The drones would make it harder to
break contact, when - if - the enemy sent a pursuit force after them. And they might drop a bomb on their heads. A starship could afford to let the enemy fire first, in the certain knowledge she would see the missile coming in time to return fire, but troops on the ground couldn’t take the risk. They’d barely have a moment to realise they had incoming before the bomb blew them to hell. His lips quirked. The drone could probably kill them at any second, if it got a sniff of their presence.

  Sweat trickled down his back as they waited, hearing distant explosions to the south. Colin wasn’t sure what the virus was shooting at - as far as he knew, there were no troops on the far side of the city - but it didn’t matter. If the virus was shooting at nothing, he wasn’t going to try to stop it. He wondered, grimly, if the virus was shooting host-bodies that had been infected with the counter-virus. It made a certain kind of sense. Infected refugees had been shot on Earth, when they’d tried to cross the line. He tried not to think about the possibility that some of the refugees hadn’t been infected.

  And the longer we fight an utterly inhuman foe, he reflected, the more inhuman we become.

  “I’ve got something coming our way,” Davies announced. “Shuttle emissions, two of them.”

  Colin took the MANPAD off his back and clicked on the passive sensor. The display lit up, revealing a handful of possible targets. He frowned as he spotted the drones, then carefully selected the incoming shuttle instead. Beside him, Willis targeted the other shuttle. Colin glanced from side to side, making sure they had a clear line of retreat, then switched the MANPAD to active mode as soon as the shuttles came into view. They looked astonishingly crude to his eye, even for military craft that prized functionality over form. He couldn’t help thinking the virus hadn’t bothered to put anything beyond the basics into its craft. The hull looked tarnished, as if it hadn’t even been painted.

  Maybe it isn’t the first combat drop the shuttle made, he thought. The MANPAD bleeped, reporting a solid lock. It could have landed on a dozen worlds by now.