I shook Antillon’s hand and kissed my wife goodbye. I would speak to her daily, with our new hyperspace communications, but that did not make missing Alyssa’s birth any easier. But, with any luck, I would return to Earth in time to see her birth from my current campaign, but it seemed unlikely.
The dropship, a new model called a Raptor was sleeker and supposedly better than our previous Scalper dropship. It also held far fewer humans and cramming all thirty-one of my new unit was almost impossible, and it worked only when I took the co-pilot controls behind a helmeted, anonymous pilot.
“I have the ship,” The pilot announced, and I glanced over and looked at the speaker, who grinned back at me. “Good morning, sir. It is good to see you again.”
I grinned back. “Lieutenant Daniels,” I said. Daniels was the fearless pilot who had attacked the Gilbaglian flagship with me, and nearly been killed in the process. Scars ran across and down her cheeks and I felt horribly guilty for that. “Are you going to be our designated combat pilot?”
“I am, sir.” She said with a nod. “Admiral Valentine assigned me personally.”
Typical, I thought.
I brought up a list of current mission orders as the dropship left Earth behind and aimed itself for the edge of the gravity well, where the carrier and the two huge dropships were waiting to take us back to the far edge of the galaxy, to wait for an enemy that we may or may not be able to defeat.
The mission orders read more like a funeral dirge than deployment orders. Venlent had definitely wrote them for my wife, who ordered the twelve-ship task force back to Atom, the corridor, and mostly certain death. It also listed that the Government of Earth had determined that a state of war now existed with the Gilbaglian people. I rolled my eyes. Of course, we were at war with them, but I suppose the bean counters on Earth needed employment, too.
I closed the image. The orders gave me broad discretionary power when it came to engaging targets of both Meyges and Gilbaglian origin, and authorized complete deadly force against both enemies if it came to that.
The other unusual thing was the fact that the Cetoplins were not mentioned. The council, before they had ceded power to Mallory, had a three-day long conference before the ancient aliens had left Earth. Neither I, nor Mallory, had any idea of where the leadership had gone, while the civilians that had been with them had settled in Vatican City, to study the ruins left behind there.
I felt the gravity from Earth fade away, and a moment of giddiness passed as the artificial gravity kicked in and the dropship rocketed the short distance towards the carrier.
“Nervous, sir?” Ivata’s voice drifted in behind me.
“I don’t get nervous, Noku.” I replied.
“I’m nervous.”
“Don’t project your emotions on to me, then.”
He grinned. “I haven’t been in combat since Vandor, sir.”
“Yeah, I know. Don’t worry, just try not to shoot anyone in the back.”
Ivata and I chuckled, and the dropship began to decelerate as it approached the Eternity. I peered out the viewport as we approached and thought just how strange it was that for the first time since my father died, Mallory would not be commanding the big battleship.
I sighed to myself and glanced back over my shoulder. “Why did you come out here?” I asked Ivata.
He was, above all things, an excellent teacher. During the liberation of Vandor from the Phelb, he’d specifically asked me to be removed from combat operations to train Vandorian soldiers for the cause. He’d escaped the destruction of Vandor by the Gilbaglians aboard the city carrier Black Wave, and come to Earth, set up training bases, and trained both Vandorian and Phelb soldiers for the last two years. He’d rescued me personally after I’d been injured on the Gilbaglian frigate we’d captured, and now once more, here he was following me into a stupid mission that would probably get all of us killed.
He shrugged. “I never said I was a pacifist.”
“I never thought you were.” I replied, feeding landing coordinates to Daniels.
“I just didn’t want to kill humans anymore. I was sick of it, we were just killing each other over a war that should have ended before it began. Over religion. That’s just…”
“Stupid.” I finished for him. “I agree.” While in principal, I have no real issues with religion, I don’t believe that it should be state-sponsored, and certainly not enforced with violence and death the way the Phelbs had. They’d physically damaged women, degraded females overall, beat and executed those who were not completely and obnoxiously loyal to their god, and that was just stupid. And then, they’d chased us across the galaxy trying to enforce their religion on a group that just wanted to be left alone.
But we showed those fuckers, in the end.
“So, now we’re going out here to fight an actual enemy, an actual threat. I don’t want to miss this part of the war. The part where I get to actually watch you do obscenely stupid things.”
I grinned. “Welcome back, Major.”
“Shadow of Eternity to Raptor Lead.” The comm came to life, without any of the static or annoying delays, clicks, or anything else that made ship-to-ship communication such a pain. Undulon comm technology was amazing.
“Go ahead.” I replied into my headset in my helmet.
“You’re cleared to dock on platform three-six. Welcome back, Colonel.”
“Thank you, Captain.” I recognized the voice of Miranda Dawes. Every good soldier, sailor and Vandorian was up on this mission. Mallory had pulled out all the stops. “We’re ready to depart as soon as we dock.”
“Copy that, Raptor Lead.” She replied. “We are spooled and ready to jump.”
The dropship touched down on the deck a few moments later and I rose and turned to leave the cockpit when Daniels touched my arm. “Colonel, a word?”
I turned. “What is it, Lieutenant?”
“This is a suicide mission, isn’t it?” She asked softly.
“Probably.” I admitted. “They’re sending a dozen ships to hold the line against a force that probably can outpunch us. There are five thousand infantry and there are thirty-one of us, here, Lieutenant.”
“We should do fine.” She said firmly.
I cocked my eyebrow at her. “I admire your delusions of grandeur, Lieutenant.”
“Sir, with respect, I’ve fought with exactly one Vandorian, and you killed an entire ship with a rifle, pistol, and…” She tilted her head. “And I’m honestly not even sure where you came up with that bomb that you used to destroy that ship.”
“I should stop looking like I know what I’m doing, shouldn’t I?”
She chuckled.
We disembarked and I headed straight for my quarters to call my wife. But like usual, I just wasn’t that lucky. I ran into a familiar faced, blue eyes Master Sergeant that glared at me.
“Ritnel.” I said in my leadership tone.
She stopped and saluted. “Colonel, sir.” Drawing a deep breath, she looked in the eyes. “Permission to address you, sir?”
“Granted, of course.” I said in the same formal tone.
“I was unprofessional in our last encounter, and for that I apologize, sir.”
I nodded. “Emotions run high after battles, and we had a vicious one.” I said softly. “Water under the bridge, Master Sergeant.” I said, extending a hand.
She shook it and then saluted once more and departed. I sighed. Phelbs always seemed to be up to something.
The door of my quarters slid open and I immediately hated them. It was the stateroom that I had shared with my wife, and her absence on the ship made me lonely and angry. I sighed and sucked it up. The Colonel had to be seen to be living the high life, or else the other soldiers wouldn’t have anything to gripe about. I looked up at the bulkheads and sighed softly. “Valentine to Admiral Valentine.” I said. The new comms also instantly connected us to anyone we wanted to talk to, as long as they were within the communication network, which was anywhere within ten fe
et of their device.
“Hey.” She replied, her voice smooth and soft. “Settled in?”
“Unfortunately,” I said. “I wish you were here.”
“I know, I miss you too.” She said softly. “They’re telling me that there are some Phelb loyalists that are going to try and assassinate me pretty soon.”
Mallory had a special talent for lobbing grenades into conversations the way I threw grenades in combat. “They what?” I demanded.
“Don’t worry about it.” She replied. “Antillon already knows who it is, he’s going to shoot him when he gets closer to save time on a trial.”
I burst out laughing. “I guess that’s probably what I would do.”
“Don’t worry about me here, Destota. I’ve got the Council and Davon advising me, I’ve got Night Stalkers guarding us, we’re going to be fine.” I knew what she meant. She had top-flight protection, I had nothing but a rifle and a pistol that had always stood between myself and darkness.
“You’re right,” I said. “I will do my best not to worry.” A silence stretched out for us, neither of us wanting to sign off. “I love you.” I said finally.
“I love you too.” She replied. “Now get the hell out of here before I order you to become the gardener.” I chuckled and the link closed.
A voice came over the loudspeaker a few moments later as I was stowing my clothing away in the drawers once more, “Subspace transition in five minutes.”
This was it. I thought with a sigh. Deploying to Atom was going to be our biggest challenge either. The idea was to set up a forward operating base there, and to be ready to counter the threat of the Meyges, and launch strikes against the Gilbaglians.
If we were able.
And that was a damned big “If”.
---
The sprints down the spine of the Eternity, as organized by Ivata, were flat out painful.
While Atom, our new home for the next little while, had a normal oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, the gravity was almost four times higher than what Vandorians were used to, so Ivata had the gravity turned up in the long spine and then made the team, including their commander, “acclimate” to it.
I decided on the third mile of the run that I was going to punch him in the testicles as hard as I could.
At the end of the run, only Ivata, two original Night Stalkers named Davos and Ford, and myself had survived the adventure. The others lay in quivering heaps of half-dead humanity somewhere along the route. I stopped and turned to Ivata, who smiled, even though he looked shaky.
“I fucking hate you.” I said firmly. “I really do.”
“That’s okay.” He said. “You have an advantage. You have all that new nanotech.”
I wasn’t going to tell him that I’d already recovered from the run, because then he’d make me run again. I’d never been a huge fan of running during training. I was good at it, and I was one of the fastest Vandorians alive, but that didn’t mean I liked it. Running meant that I hadn’t killed my target, and that just wasn’t something I didn’t do.
Then again, fleeing from that Gilbaglian flagship had needed to be a power run with Rosita carried over my shoulder, so I guess it wasn’t all useless training.
“What’s your point?” I said.
“We need to set an example for these recruits. Remember, they’ve never seen combat before.”
I glanced back to see one of them struggling to her feet and doing her best to resume running and shrugged. “We should all get the update.”
Ivata’s brows rose. “What, injected with nanotech?” He asked.
“Yeah.” I said, rubbing my neck. There was another built-in feature of the nanotechnology that had been injected into my body. If required, it would send a neuro-electric shock into my brain stem and kill me before anyone could capture me. “It seems like a good idea after everything that has happened, we get injured and cut off from real medical care, and we’re as good as dead.”
Ivata nodded slowly. “I don’t know how I feel about all that technology in my body swimming around, moving things.”
“It’s helpful.” I said with a shrug. “It helps maintain your erections.”
Ivata’s brows went up. I could often make his ears turn red with a well-placed sexual comment. “I don’t have any…” He stammered.
“Sure, whatever, I mean, I’m not a doctor, you should probably talk to your healthcare professional about that.” I grinned, and the two Night Stalkers that had made the run with us roared with laughter as Ivata’s ears turned bright red and he looked at the deck.
I looked sharply at one of them, Davos, and he tried to recover and return to his calm poise. “Do you have any issues with that, Corporal?”
He couldn’t manage a straight face and burst out laughing, doubling over and holding his chest. I looked back at Ivata. “I will leave you to deal with these personal issues yourself, Major. Please don’t bring them to my attention again.”
I turned and strode away into a waiting elevator, leaving the Major severely embarrassed and two Night Stalkers trying not to choke on their own tongues with laughter.
Deciding to forego my quarters for now, since it was just a lonely reminder of not having Mallory aboard with me, I instead went to the large gym where the Private Melbur had tried to kill me the last time I’d been there. I walked directly over to the room settings on the wall, looked around to make sure nobody had weights above their heads and dialed the gravity up to the new standard. Immediately the normal grunts and groans became more strained and people cried out as their normal workout was interrupted.
“This is the new standard for training,” I announced. There were a hundred or so in the gym at the moment. “All of you, report to Major Noku on the spine for a four-mile run. Now!” I shouted this last, and all the soldiers in the gym rushed out the doors and hurried to report to the Major. I grinned, he’d be just thrilled to see them.
This also meant I had the gym entirely to myself. I put myself through an intensive workout, burning off the better part of two hours of the day, and then I looked up as the doors to the gym opened.
“Captain Dawes,” I said nodding to her, wiping sweat from my brow.
“Colonel,” She replied, nodding to me. She was wearing her duty uniform, so I doubted she’d come down for a workout, which meant that she probably wanted to convey news to me. “How are you today?”
“Excellent as always, Captain. How can I be of service today?”
The Captain took a deep breath and looked me in the eye. “We’ve…had sensor contact with Atom and the probes we left there.”
My heart skipped a beat and my mouth went dry. I’d never taken the time to talk to Doctor Kahleesh about that anxiety issue of mine, and I just remembered that. “And what are they?”
“There is a massive Gilbaglian presence there. They’ve occupied the planet.”
“Damnit.” I said softly, shaking my head. “Do we have any idea how many there are?”
“Well, we analyzed their tactics, and it looks like there are about twenty thousand on the planet proper, supported by eighteen ships, ten of those are heavy battleships.”
I swallowed hard. Gilbaglian heavy battleships were the opposite number for ships like Makalos and Shockwave. But our ships carried much heavier weapons and much more powerful shields. We also had a more accurate and powerful method of traveling through space, and we could pinpoint our subspace jumps to within mere inches, instead of a rough guess and then traveling through normal space to form up. This made our engagements against the Gilbaglians much easier for us to win, having the element of surprise.
“Any other bad news you’d like to impart?”
“The Undulon are picking up three unknown contacts as well. Possibly Meyges ships.”
“Son of a bitch.” I said, hanging my head.
“The Admiral authorized me to abort this mission…” She began, and my head snapped back up to glare at her. “Uh…” She took a half step back. “Not that I’d co
nsider that. But what would you like to do?”
“Get us in sensor range,” I said. “Let’s get a full reading on what the situation is, and then we will devise a battleplan.” I pondered a moment and then looked up at her. “Did Vandorian arms outfit us with the new jump armor?”
“They did, but only forty suits. We don’t have enough to outfit our entire compliment.”
“That’s all right. As long as we have enough for my people.” I rose, grabbing a towel off the machine I’d been working on. “I have an idea. We’ll see if I’m crazy enough to do it or not.”
Chapter Twenty
---
Atom system
Taurus arm of the Milky Way Galaxy
Eleven Days Later
“You’re crazy.”
“I wish people would stop telling me that.” I rolled my eyes hard enough that I felt like I could see the bottom of my brain. “I am not neither crazy nor am I insane.”
Ivata rounded on me. For the first time in our long history together, he looked genuinely angry with me. “There are twenty-two thousand of them down there.” He said, pointing out the force-field of the hangar bay to Atom below. Angry red lances of particle cannon fire shot back and forth across the middle distance, exhaust trails of missiles, glittering detonations and other facets denoted the fighting between the Vandorian flotilla and the Gilbaglian task force. They were evenly matched, but the Vandorian ships had the advantage of being just flat out meaner. “And there are thirty of us, Destota.” His eyes were wide and he looked frightened.
There had been thirty-one of us. But an unfortunate training exercise had seen one of the young recruits sucked out of an airlock in a training jump failure.
“I don’t care.” I said firmly. “Stay behind if you want, Major, but these are my orders.”
My orders didn’t seem so complicated to me. We were going to complete a void-jump from the Eternity to the surface of Atom, on a close pass by the carrier. It wasn’t uncommon, and we had dozens of aero-shells aboard for just that reason. We would land and harass the enemy at length until we were able to be reinforced. Mallory was sending a battalion of Night Stalkers, lead by no other than Major MacKenzie to assist us. They would be here in something like ten days and had only the carrier Backlash and a handful of destroyers escorting them.
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