“Fall back to Point Adam,” Major Craig ordered, over the intercom. “And keep your heads down.”
Colin nodded. The shuttles were waiting, but … he shuddered. They’d shot down enemy shuttles. The enemy would try to do the same to them. And if the spacers couldn’t clear the way, the shuttles would be hopelessly vulnerable when the enemy starships returned. The virus would probably give up hope of taking the marines prisoner if it saw the marines running for their lives. A lone destroyer would be more than enough to take out all the shuttles.
He forced himself to keep running. They’d done everything they could to make the evacuation work. And the rest of it was in the hands of the gods.
***
Mitch studied the enemy fleet, silently calculating and recalculating vectors. The range was steadily closing and, soon enough, the virus would open fire. Mitch had a feeling the only reason the virus hadn’t opened fire already was that it was probably short of long-range missiles, although he knew it couldn’t be taken for granted. Perhaps the brainship, assuming the ghost squadron was actually real, had calculated it couldn’t reasonably hope to overwhelm its point defence. It would be right, if the ghost fleet was real …
“Captain,” Staci said. “They’re targeting us.”
Mitch hesitated. The timing wasn’t perfect. The greater the distance between the enemy fleet and the planet, the better. But … the more the enemy fleet probed the sensor drones, the greater the chance it would realise it was being suckered. He’d done everything he could to ensure the virus would ignore the first few doubts, but … they just didn’t have enough ships to play shell games indefinitely. If the virus cracked one of the illusions, it would pretty quickly crack them all.
“Fire on my command,” he ordered. The missiles should banish the nagging doubts, at least for a few moments longer. The virus would assume that sensor ghosts couldn’t fire missiles. Technically, it would be entirely correct. “Fire!”
“Aye, sir.”
Mitch leaned forward as the missile pods opened fire. The missile targeting wouldn’t be anything like as precise - they’d left the gunboats on Lion - but the seeker warheads should be able to draw information from the probes and sensor platforms. Mitch felt a hot flash of irritation as the missiles picked up speed, confirming - seemingly confirming - that the ghost fleet was real. In hindsight, they shouldn’t have had to jury-rig an interface between the sensor platforms and the missiles. It was the sort of oversight they should have identified and fixed during the planning stage.
We’ll have to do something about that, when we get home, he thought. Next time, we might not be so lucky.
The display sparkled with red icons. “Captain, they’ve returned fire,” Staci said. “It looks as though they’re trying to swamp the drones.”
Mitch nodded. Unicorn and Haddock had been targeted as an afterthought, if they’d been targeted at all. It didn’t matter. They’d be wiped out in an instant if the virus realised the truth and acted fast. And they’d done everything they could …
“Bring up the drones, then alter course,” he ordered. Hopefully, they could keep the enemy confused for a few moments longer. “And cloak us as soon as Haddock has recovered her starfighters.”
He felt his heart start to race as the display updated, time and time again. There were so many missiles heading towards the ghost fleet that the icons were blurring together, the projectors struggling to handle a wall of death that would vaporise an entire battleship effortlessly. They’d unloaded all of the freighters and towed the missile pods into firing position, but … it felt as if they’d merely spat into a hurricane. His eyes followed the missile clusters as they stabbed towards the brainship. Hundreds died, picked off effortlessly; a dozen made it through, laser beams stabbing into the armoured hull. If nothing else, he told himself, the virus would be hurt …
The brainship exploded. Mitch breathed a sigh of relief as the remaining missiles threw themselves at the battleships. The brainship was gone, which meant … he hoped, prayed, it would take the virus some time to recover. The battleships would need to sort out a new pecking order. But how long would it take?
“Sir, Haddock has recovered her starfighters,” Staci said. She shot him a grim smile, then returned her attention to her console. “She’s ready to run.”
“Take us into cloak,” Mitch ordered. It didn’t matter which way the escort carrier went, as long as it was away from the enemy fleet. She knew what to do if Unicorn - or Lion - didn’t make it. “Helm, get us out of here.”
“Aye, sir,” Hinkson said, loudly. He sounded nervous, even though they’d been in worse scrapes. “Getting the hell out of here!”
Mitch watched the torrent of missiles as they slammed into the ghost fleet. No point defence weapons tried to stop them. He smiled, allowing himself a moment of relief. The virus had to know it had been tricked, but it was too late. There was nothing it could do, now, to keep itself from expending hundreds of missiles. It had fired off so many Mitch didn’t have an accurate count, all of which had been wasted. He felt his smile grow wider as the ghost ships vanished, the remaining enemy missiles detonating uselessly in interplanetary space. Even if the virus started looking, it would have real problems tracking Unicorn and blowing her to hell.
And the virus has other problems, he thought. It shouldn’t have time to worry about us.
“Signal Lion,” he ordered. He smirked. His counterpart wouldn’t be amused by a flippant message, but it was what he was going to get. “The window of opportunity has been broken open. It’s time to snatch and run.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
“Captain,” Sibley said. “The enemy fleet has taken the bait.”
Thomas had to fight not to let out a sigh of relief. The plan had been too rough for his peace of mind, with too many things that could go wrong. Lion was under cloak, but the virus was filling space with sensor pulses. The battlecruiser could have been detected at any second, forcing her to turn and run. As it was, the window of opportunity was shorter than he’d hoped. The enemy would presumably reverse course the moment the virus realised the battlecruiser was recovering the marines.
And using a battlecruiser to pick up the troops is unprecedented, too, he thought, as the seconds ticked away. Unicorn and her ghost fleet could give the virus a bloody nose, but only once. The enemy fleet would survive, long enough to decide if it wanted to return to the planet or try to run Unicorn down before she could make her escape. Their window of opportunity for stopping us is narrower than they might hope.
“Helm, take us into high orbit,” he ordered. “XO, prepare to launch the gunboats.”
“Aye, Captain,” Donker said. “Gunboats ready to launch on your command.”
“And signal the marines,” Thomas added. “I want updated targeting information, and I want it yesterday.”
“Aye, Captain.”
Thomas sucked in his breath. Lion wasn’t designed for planetary bombardment. She could drop KEWs, just like anything capable of flying under her own power, but she lacked the sheer firepower of a monitor or assault carrier. Her targeting sensors were good, yet they simply didn’t have the time to isolate the enemy positions and build a proper targeting matrix. They’d have to rely on the marines to provide targeting data, even if it was danger close. The last reports had made it clear the marines were being pressed hard, that human positions were increasingly intermingled with alien troops. It was quite possible the KEWs would hit the wrong targets.
They know the risks, he told himself. Any marine who called down fire on his own position, or close enough to run the risk of a blue-on-blue, had to be desperate. They’ll be careful.
“Captain,” Sibley said. “The ghost fleet has opened fire.”
“Good,” Thomas said. The sheer volume of missiles roaring towards the alien fleet would be very convincing. Perhaps a little too convincing. He’d actually considered suggesting that they reduced the first barrage, just to avoid tipping their hand too soon by firing
more missiles than Lion could launch in a single salvo. “Do we have updated targeting information?”
“Yes, sir,” Sibley said. “Primary and secondary targets are locked. Ready to deploy on your command.”
Thomas nodded. “Decloak,” he ordered. “Launch gunboats. Start the bombardment.”
He watched, grimly, as the first volley of projectiles fell into the planet’s atmosphere. The tubes were already reloading, preparing themselves to fire a second barrage. They’d wipe out what remained of the colony, putting the dying host bodies out of their misery. The beancounters would probably whine about the expenditure, but KEWs were nothing more than compressed rocks. They could be replaced effortlessly. And besides, they were no use in ship-to-ship combat. If Lion had to shoot her way back to friendly space, the KEWs would make no difference.
“Impact in ten seconds,” Sibley reported. He broke off as the display started to update rapidly. “Captain, the alien fleet is reversing course.”
Thomas nodded, unsurprised. The virus knew what they were doing. Trapping Lion against the planet was its only real hope for salvaging something from the disaster. He remembered the reports from the ground and shuddered. The virus might well have captured and infected someone who knew something about the counter-virus, although all the medics and researchers were accounted for. The captives were dead - or they would be, when the KEWs struck the surface. Whatever the virus had learnt would never leave the planet.
But it’ll figure out what we did, sooner or later, he thought, numbly. And it will try to devise countermeasures.
He put the thought out of his head. “Tactical, deploy missiles when the enemy fleet comes into range,” he ordered. “Slow it down as much as possible.”
“Aye, Captain,” Sibley said.
Thomas forced himself to remain calm. The alien fleet had lost its brainship. It would take time for it to work out how to work together again, although … he narrowed his eyes as the alien fleet picked up speed. It might have already sorted out the new pecking order. A standard human datanet was designed to designate a new command ship immediately, if something happened to the old one. There was no reason the virus couldn’t do the same. Hell, it might have copied the more decentralised structures beloved of spacers. The net couldn’t be shattered with a single blow if there was more than one command ship.
And it doesn’t have to worry about any personality conflicts either, Thomas thought, sardonically. It’s a single entity in billions of bodies.
“Captain,” Donker said. “The marines are ready to begin the evacuation.”
“Proceed as planned,” Thomas ordered. “Helm, prepare to reverse course.”
He watched the display as the battlecruiser opened fire. The enemy fleet didn’t look deterred. It was steering into the teeth of his fire, aware it packed enough point defence to thin out the missile clusters before they reached their targets. Thomas felt a stab of envy, mingled with fear for the future. It was only a matter of time before the virus started churning out missile-heavy battlecruisers of its own, if it didn’t simply update the battleships it already had. And who knew what would happen then?
We’ll have to devise something new, he told himself. In that, at least, we have the edge.
He took a breath. One way or the other, it would all be over soon.
***
“Incoming,” someone screamed. “Danger close! I say again, danger close!”
Colin hit the dirt, an instant before the hammer of God Himself struck the planet. The ground shook so violently he thought it was an earthquake, the force of the impact strong enough to send pieces of debris flying in all directions. He had no time to spare a thought for anyone but himself as the shaking went on and on, waves of pressure rushing over his back and vanishing into the distance. The infected zombies had been in the open. They’d have been utterly flattened by the KEW strike.
Silence fell, so abruptly he thought he’d gone deaf. His ears had been extensively modified during basic training, and his earpieces should have given him additional protection, but he’d never been so close to a KEW strike before. He swallowed, hard, as he forced himself to stumble to his knees. He’d never had fire called down so close to his position before, not even during training exercises. It was very much a last resort. The risk of actually hitting his own positions was just too high.
His earpiece crackled. “Group One, withdraw to the shuttles,” the coordinator said. “Group Two, hold the line.”
Sure, Colin thought. He felt punch-drunk, as if he’d been beaten so badly he’d gone beyond pain. That had never happened before. Hold the line against what?
He stared towards the remains of the city. The forest was gone. The trees had been reduced to sawdust and smoking craters. In the distance, he could see flames rising from the settlements … the former settlements. The air was hot, but still. If there were any zombies left, he couldn’t see them. They were dead and gone, literally atomised. He heard a whining noise behind him and turned to see the first shuttles, stabbing their way towards space. It looked, very much, as though the battle was over.
“They’re hitting the city,” Davies said, quietly. “Look.”
Colin followed his pointing finger. Streaks of light were falling from orbit, seeming to move slowly even though he knew they were picking up speed with every passing second. They touched the ground … he looked away as brilliant flashes of light rent the horizon, the sound bursting over them seconds later. He’d seen KEWs before, back on Earth, but never so many. The days when mass orbital bombardment was the order of the day for dealing with rogue states and terrorists were over. These days, the military rarely needed more than one or two KEWs to make its point.
He couldn’t move, even though he knew they stood in the open. Snipers had picked off targets from five kilometres or more, but … it was hard to believe there was anyone left alive, apart from the marines themselves. The planet’s population had been trapped in living death before the counter-virus and the KEWs had struck, granting them a merciful release. He wiped sweat from his brow. If there were any infected host-bodies left, they were doomed. They certainly didn’t have time to organise a counterattack.
“Group Two, fall back to the shuttles,” the coordinator ordered. “Hurry!”
Colin turned and forced himself to jog up to the remains of the terraforming station. The shockwaves hadn’t been kind to the structure, knocking it to rubble. He hoped the spooks had gotten what they wanted, before the station had been abandoned. The marines simply didn’t have time to sift through the piles of rubble, not any longer. The briefing had made it clear. Once they got into orbit, they were going to be running for their lives.
He who fights and runs away, lives to run away another day, he thought, as they ran towards the shuttles. The craft were already powering up, a dull whine echoing through the air as they prepared to leap into orbit. We’ll be back.
Sergeant Bowman checked them off as they reached the hatch. “Where’s Willis?”
“Dead,” Colin said. His heart clenched, suddenly. Willis was dead. Colin had shot him. He knew he’d had no choice - Willis had died the second he’d been infected - but it still tore at him. If they’d had proper medical gear, if they’d been able to get their friend to sickbay in time … he told himself, again and again, that he’d had no choice. “I’ll … I’ll report later.”
He scrambled into the shuttle. The marine units had been jumbled up, unsurprisingly. He sat next to a stranger and buckled in, bracing himself as the drives grew louder. The shuttle shook, time and time again. More KEWs? Or … he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. They were sitting ducks, if an enemy MANPAD team had survived long enough to get into firing position. Or if the enemy fleet returned before it was too late. He told himself, firmly, to stop thinking. His mind refused to obey.
You get out of this, you’ll have one hell of a story to tell, he thought. He’d heard a lot of stories from the old sweats, from detailed accounts that had the ring of truth to tall t
ales he’d flatly refused to believe. And no one will believe you either.
The shuttle shook one final time, then jumped skywards. Colin heard someone praying in a language he didn’t recognise, save for a handful of words. Latin? Or something else. He didn’t blame the stranger. They’d been taught that God helped those who helped themselves, but they could no longer do anything. It was in the pilot’s hands now.
He smiled, suddenly, as a memory surfaced. The Beast had been very insistent on everyone attending assembly, where they’d sung hymns and listened to Bible readings. Colin hadn’t been impressed for all sorts of reasons. The stories of Muscular Christians being Extremely Muscular all over the planet would have been more interesting if they hadn’t been interspersed with tedious little morality tales about the importance of Virtue, Clean Living, Obedience to Authority and Avoiding Vice. It was certainly hard to imagine the Beast believing in God. He’d never had any qualms about insisting that sparing the rod spoilt the child.
And if I get home, I’ll really look into his military career, Colin promised himself. I wonder how the School Board would react if they discovered he was a Walt?
He felt his smile grow wider. The School Board would not be amused. And who knew what they’d do?
***
“Captain, the second wave of marine shuttles has left the planet,” Sibley said. The display updated again, showing thirty shuttles breaking atmosphere and heading towards the battlecruiser. “However, the enemy fleet is redlining its drives.”
They must be desperate to score some kind of victory, Thomas thought. It was a little out of character for the virus - it had never shown any real hint of anything resembling human feeling - but it was possible it was panicking. The counter-virus had to seem like an Outside Context Problem, rather like radiation or the virus itself. Or maybe they want to deter us from trying it again.
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