“Understood,” he said. “We’ll meet up with you in thirty minutes.”
He tapped his console, breaking the link. It was hard not to feel nervous. He’d staked everything on one last throw of the dice, from the marines on the surface to his career and perhaps even his life. Unicorn would be taking the most dangerous risk, particularly if the enemy saw what was coming and declined to take the bait. He owed it to himself, he supposed, to try. The marines could not be left to die.
And if we fail, some arsehole will say we threw good money after bad, he thought, as he stood and headed for the hatch. And that I wanted to wash away my failures with blood.
He snorted in disgust. History - and entire regiments of armchair admirals - would judge him. And Captain Hammond. And everyone else involved in planning the mission, from the tactical staff on Lion to Admiral Onarina herself. Mitch rather suspected he knew what they’d write. They’d question everything, they’d accuse him - and everyone else - of being incompetent or treacherous or both, particularly if the operation failed. He dismissed the thought with a flicker of irritation. History could make up its mind, once the operation was concluded. Right now, he had more important problems.
“Captain?” Staci looked up as Mitch stepped onto the bridge. “What did he say?”
Mitch took his seat. “We have clearance to proceed,” he said. “Once we’ve loaded the missile pods and decoys, we can give the enemy a nasty surprise.”
He studied the display for a long moment. “Is there any sign the enemy carrier is being repaired?”
“Unclear, Captain,” Staci said. “They haven’t launched any starfighters since the first engagement. Post-battle analysis suggests she might have lost her starfighter complement as well as her launch tubes, but it’s impossible to be sure.”
Mitch nodded. The carrier wasn’t entirely useless - she was big enough to carry heavy plasma cannons as well as missile tubes - but she had no place in the line of battle. Her starfighters were her main weapons and if they were unusable, her striking power would be much reduced. Ark Royal had served as a battleship as well as a carrier, but she’d been unique. The virus should have sent the damaged carrier back home for repairs. Mitch scowled as he studied the latest sensor readings. The carrier might be less damaged than the analysts thought. It was easy to fall into the trap of believing something if you wanted it to be true.
A low quiver ran through the hull as Unicorn glided away from the planet. Mitch sighed, pushing the matter to the back of his mind. They’d assume the carrier was fully capable, even though she was clearly damaged. It was the safest course of action … he smiled, suddenly, as his ship picked up speed. The carrier and the enemy battleships packed enough firepower to exterminate the entire squadron. The safest course of action was to turn tail and run.
But that would mean leaving the marines behind, he thought. I’m not going to do that. Not yet.
“Check the sensor platforms, then open a link to the marines,” he ordered. “They’ll have to be ready to move when the shit hits the fan.”
“Yes, sir,” Staci said.
***
Marigold was in her seat, flying the gunboat. Marigold was in his lap, kissing him. Tobias knew, at some level, that she couldn’t be doing both, but it was hard to think clearly. She was dressed. No, she was undressed … her breasts were pressing into his naked chest. He kissed and sucked her nipples as she knelt between his legs, her mouth warm and welcoming as she took him inside her…
… It was suddenly very warm. He looked down. Marigold was burning, flames licking her body as she pulled him closer. He wanted to push her away and run, but he couldn’t move. She was burning. He was burning. The gunboat was burning and the flames were consuming everything and …
Tobias woke up. The dream - the nightmare - had been so intense he’d thought it was real. He sat up, nearly cracking his head against the overhead bunk. The compartment was dark, so dark he could barely make out Marigold’s head on her pillow … he breathed a sigh of relief, feeling a strange combination of fear and horniness. He wanted her and yet … he was scared to wake her, to discover - perhaps - that he was still dreaming. The dream mocked him. He’d thought she was dying in front of him.
He wiped sweat from his brow. He knew they could both die at any second. He shuddered helplessly. If the gunboat was hit, if she died, they would die together. Bagehot and the other instructors had claimed there was an excellent chance of survival, but none of the gunboat pilots believed them. They’d be flying into the teeth of missiles and plasma cannons designed to engage starships. There was no way in hell gunboat armour would stand up to them for more than a microsecond or two. The odds of survival were not great.
He wanted to go back to sleep, but he couldn’t. The nightmare overshadowed his mind. Instead, he swung his legs over the side of the bunk and stood. The deck felt wobbly, as if the ship was being buffeted by gusts of wind. He knew it was an illusion, but it was hard to believe it. He stumbled into the washroom, undressed quickly and climbed into the shower. If there was one advantage to being a pilot, it was that regular water restrictions didn’t apply. And, with the rest of the squadron fast asleep, he could stay in the shower as long as he liked.
And you can’t stay in the shower forever, his thoughts mocked him. You have to get out eventually.
He gritted his teeth as he stepped out and dried himself. He didn’t want to go back to sleep or … or do anything, really. No, that wasn’t true. He wanted to wake Marigold and take her to the privacy tubes, but he knew better. She needed her sleep, just like he did. He changed into a new uniform and shipsuit, then headed for the hatch. He could get some coffee, review the briefing notes and wait for orders. Who knew? Maybe they’d have come up with a grand plan to save the marines on the ground.
Colin is down there, he thought. He was torn between delight at the thought and fear for the rest of the marines. They didn’t deserve to die, not like that. Fuck.
Bagehot was seated in the common room, drinking coffee. He looked up as Tobias entered. “Can’t sleep?”
“No, sir,” Tobias said. “Bad dreams.”
“They happen,” Bagehot said. “Did you have the dream about bursting into flame? Or the one about being turned into an egg?”
Tobias frowned. “The egg dream, sir?”
“Old joke,” Bagehot said. He waved a hand, dismissively. “Don’t worry about it. Just pour yourself some coffee and sit down.”
“Aye, sir,” Tobias said. He wasn’t going to share all the details, but … he had to ask. “Is it normal? I mean, to have dreams …”
“Of death?” Bagehot shrugged. “We all get them. Every pilot I know has dreamed of his own death. They say it means you’re still human.”
“Great,” Tobias said. “And to think I was starting to doubt it.”
Bagehot laughed. “That’s nothing some coffee won’t fix.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“We just received word from the marines, sir,” Staci said, as Unicorn prepared for action. “They’re ready to evacuate on command.”
Mitch nodded. They’d spent the last six hours frantically preparing to mount an operation that would go down in the history books, either as a textbook-perfect piece of misdirection or as a grim example of what not to do. He’d gone through the plan time and time again, teasing out all the weak points and doing his level best to compensate for them, but he was all too aware that elements of the plan depended on the enemy doing the right thing. Captain Hammond had pointed out, rather sarcastically, that relying on the enemy to act in a certain way was asking for trouble. Mitch hadn’t tried to deny it.
And there would be no point in trying, he thought. He’s right.
He surveyed the display, checking the escort carrier and the drones holding position near the ship. They’d go live on his command, taking a page out of the enemy’s tactical handbook and turning it against them. Hopefully, the brainship would misunderstand what it was seeing. The escort carrier wo
uld make it easier to convince the enemy that Unicorn was the real threat. There was no way - not yet - to fake starfighter emissions.
“Activate the command datanet,” he ordered. “And then prepare to take us out.”
“Aye, sir,” Staci said. The display updated rapidly. “We’re ready to move.”
Mitch nodded, feeling an odd calmness come over him. The die was about to be cast. “Take us out,” he said. “We’ll activate the drones at Point Enterprise.”
He sucked in his breath as a dull rumble echoed through the hull. The enemy should have no idea of their location … hell, the enemy might think the entire squadron was halfway to New Washington by now. It was quite possible, given how little the virus cared for its host bodies. It might assume Mitch and Captain Hammond had simply abandoned the marines to their fate. Or … he glowered at the display. The virus had learnt a great deal from infected humans over the last few years. It might be expecting some kind of recovery mission. And it might even know time was short, no longer on humanity’s side.
Unless the counter-virus really did spread through the planet’s atmosphere, Mitch thought. If it did, it might be safe for the marines to breathe without masks.
His eyes tracked the enemy fleet. It hadn’t moved ever since it had entered high orbit. Mitch hoped that meant it was just waiting for orders, rather than holding position until the marines were infected or wiped out. Captain Hammond had been right, when they’d been thrashing out the details of the plan. Lion could do a great deal of damage, if the enemy fleet refused to take the bait, but she couldn’t recover the high orbitals. There was no guarantee, either, that she could take out the brainship. And no guarantee, of course, that taking out the brainship would be enough to shatter the enemy fleet. The battleships were easily large enough to carry a critical mass of viral matter and base cells.
He kept his eyes on the display, feeling the tension growing as the ships crawled towards Point Enterprise. There was no reason to believe the enemy could track them - there was no reason to think the enemy had so much as seeded space with recon platforms - but it was easy to feel paranoid. They’d been caught by surprise once, after all. The virus had been more imaginative than anyone wanted to admit. God alone knew what it would do next.
And what would we do, he asked himself, if we were a single mind bound and directed by a single will?
He kept the thought to himself. He’d read some of the more alarming projections from the analysts and he hadn’t been able to escape the feeling they simply weren’t alarming enough. The virus didn’t have humanity’s weaknesses, all the petty follies and prejudices and stupid short-term thinking that had nearly condemned humanity to death; it didn’t share the joys and sorrows of being human. It could easily decide to dismantle a planet, then bring together the resources to make it happen … Mitch had seen the proposals to blow up Mercury for raw materials, but he doubted it would happen. Space was filled with raw materials, ready for the taking. Why bother blowing up an entire world?
“Captain,” Staci said. “We will reach Point Enterprise in two minutes.”
Mitch nodded. “Good. Is Lion in position?”
“Yes, sir,” Staci said. “She’s ready to move.”
We’ll have only a few short moments to pull it off, when we create the window of opportunity, Mitch thought, grimly. And if the virus realises what we’re planning, all it has to do is nothing.
His lips twitched, humourlessly. The idea of someone winning by doing absolutely nothing struck him as absurd, yet … it could happen. Victory was sometimes a matter of doing nothing more than keeping cool, refusing to respond to provocation and simply waiting for the enemy to give up and go away. Mitch disliked the thought of doing nothing, and of the enemy doing nothing, but … he shook his head. They had to appear as threatening as possible to convince the virus to take them seriously. The virus had to believe it had to do something.
“Activate the drones,” he ordered. “And launch the probes.”
He let out a breath as the drones went live. The virus would see the entire squadron advancing on the planet, the missile-heavy battlecruiser readying itself to strike. What would it do? If Mitch was any judge, it would leave orbit and close the range as much as possible, both to allow itself some manoeuvring room and to give its missiles a better chance of scoring hits. He’d devised the tactic as carefully as possible, trying to steer the virus towards a specific course of action. And the only way to convince it to take the bait was to let it have a chance to win.
“Communications, signal Haddock,” he added. “They are cleared to launch starfighters.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Mitch leaned forward. The range was already narrowing rapidly. The time-delay was minimal. The virus already knew they were coming. What would it do? The starfighters should allay whatever doubts it might have, ensuring it took the bait. Unless it thought the starfighters were nothing more than sensor ghosts. It was possible.
It knows we’ve been experimenting with improved ECM, he thought. For all it knows, we have cracked that particular problem.
“I have targeting locks,” Staci said. “The brainship is the priority target.”
Mitch nodded. They still weren’t sure if the enemy carrier could launch starfighters. If it could, it had to be taken out; if not, it could be safely ignored until the battleships were gone. He doubted it carried enough heavy weapons to make a difference in a long-range engagement.
“Hold the locks on the brainship,” he ordered. The virus would do everything in its power to protect the brainship, but if it could be taken out … “Fire on my command.”
He waited, feeling the seconds tick away. Would the virus take the bait? Or would it wait for the ghost squadron to come closer? Mitch had endlessly simulated the mission, but the outcome had depended on factors outside his control. If the virus didn’t move …
“Captain,” Staci said. “The enemy fleet is breaking orbit. It’s heading towards us.”
Mitch let out a sigh of relief. Millions of tonnes of firepower were heading towards them, which wasn’t the sort of thing he’d normally regard as good news, but at least the plan had worked. The window of opportunity was starting to open. And it was just a matter of time before he took advantage of it …
“Copy our records to Lion,” he ordered. The probes weren’t signalling the battlecruiser directly. The laser beams were supposed to be undetectable, but it would only take a minor accident for the enemy to realise something was wrong. “And deploy the missile pods.”
“Aye, sir.”
***
“Incoming!”
Colin ducked into the trench as a mortar shell crashed down on the position. The ground shook, mud flying everywhere. He forced himself to stand, peering down towards the enemy position as another human wave attack began. The survivors, the infected settlers who hadn’t been killed by the counter-virus, were being thrown into the fire. The virus seemed intent on getting rid of as many of them as possible, using their bodies to soak up bullets. Colin thought it made a kind of sense, if one didn’t give a damn about the dying host bodies. The marines couldn’t replenish their ammunition in a hurry.
Or at all, he thought, as he fired at a cluster of host bodies. Two of them disintegrated, as if whatever was holding them together had vanished; the remaining bodies kept coming until they were shot to pieces. It was like being in a horror movie or a nightmare, one where the enemy troops kept coming until you were ripped to pieces. We’re going to run out of ammunition soon.
He cursed as a pair of shuttles flew overhead. One was blown out of the sky by a MANPAD, the debris crashing somewhere to the east; the other landed roughly amidst a marine position and deployed its troops. They were gunned down quickly, but not quickly enough. Colin swallowed, hard, as he realised the lower trench lines were on the verge of breaking. The zombies just kept coming.
His earpiece bleeped. “The enemy fleet is leaving orbit,” someone said. It sounded female, but otherwis
e … she was unfamiliar. “Prepare to retreat to the evacuation shuttles.”
“Swell.” Colin cursed as another row of zombies, little more than rotting corpses, threw themselves towards the defenders. They were practically dead already. He shuddered as they disintegrated under human fire. “When do we …?”
He heard a roar and looked down. A trio of tanks - alien tanks - were making their way towards the trenches. Behind them, he could see aliens in protective suits. Troops, he guessed. They moved with an odd jerkiness that reminded him of untrained men pretending to be soldiers, but the weapons in their hands were very real. He guessed the virus had expended the settlers purely to wear down the defenders, as well as making use of the host bodies before they died. And now the marines were in no state to hold off the tanks …
“Call down fire,” he snapped, harshly. He wasn’t sure who was in command of the trench any longer. The line was dissolving, piece by piece. He could see zombies cracking the lines, seemingly undeterred by antipersonnel mines that had been banned for years before being authorised for this war. “Hit those bastards.”
He swallowed, hard. The trench was no longer tenable. They had no antitank weapons, no MANPADs that could be pressed into the antitank role. He glanced at Davies and the rest of the unit, then signalled the retreat. He’d be in real trouble if he wasn’t the senior officer - he snorted; a corporal wasn’t really an officer - but he saw no choice. If they stayed where they were, they’d die.
A zombie landed in front of him, the rotting corpse so worn-down Colin couldn’t tell if it was male or female or even human. He’d never seen a body so shattered, not outside his worst nightmares. He kicked the corpse as it lashed out at him, sending it crashing to the ground; he stamped on its arms and legs, then ran past it as mortar shells started to explode around the tanks. The virus had had to have shipped them in, unless it had managed to bring more of the local industry back online. Hopefully, it had only a very limited supply. Perhaps, just perhaps, they could be taken out before it was too late.
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