Into the War (Rise of the Republic Book 3)

by James Rosone

  The civilian continued to explain how it worked for a few more minutes to assure Hackworth the device could place a very small satellite in space. “Once the unit is in space, it has the ability to stay in orbit for up to a year before its fuel cell runs out. Once that happens, it’ll slowly lose altitude and eventually fall back into the atmosphere—”

  Hackworth interrupted, “OK, Doc, you’ve convinced me you can get it into space. How does it send and receive data without being detected?”

  “We’re actually using a microburst transmission process based on Orbot technology we recovered from the last campaign over planet Rass,” Bob explained. “When it’s time to insert your unit, there’ll be a spy ship lingering in the system. That’s the ship that’s going to receive your transmission and forward it on to the fleet.”

  Hackworth admired that this R&D team had come up with some innovative toys. He never would have imagined they could create a portable satellite launcher and system. This totally solved not only this communication problem but a host of other coms problems they’d experienced in the past.

  “OK, sir, you’ve solved my coms problem,” he admitted. “Now, how are you going to insert us without getting caught?”

  “Follow me, Colonel,” Bob responded. “We’re going to head to the hangar. We’ve got something new to show you, and I think you’re going to like it.”

  The group walked down the hallway and then took an elevator down a couple of floors. When they reached the bottom, they got out and boarded a tram. Wherever they were going, it was apparently underground and far enough away from the building they needed to take a tram.

  “If you don’t mind me asking, what else is this building used for and how protected is it from space?” inquired Hackworth.

  Bob glanced at the military soldier sitting next to him as if calculating how much he should share.

  Colonel Hackworth wasn’t sure who Bob was or what unit he was from. If he was in Special Forces, their paths hadn’t crossed. Hackworth found that kind of hard to believe considering he was entering his seventy-second year in SF. Hell, he’d been in the military since the last Great War, so he knew damn near everyone at this point. If they hadn’t done that major reorg a few years back, he probably would have had a few stars on his collar.

  Hackworth had to withhold a snicker—he knew exactly why he didn’t have those stars. It all stemmed from a fundraiser at Senator Chuck Walhoon’s reelection cocktail party in Houston thirty years ago.

  I never should have gone to that stupid party, Hackworth chided himself. I was just wallpaper dressing for the senator in the first place. Walhoon liked to surround himself with soldiers and war heroes when he knew there’d be a TV camera or his rich donors would be around. But Hackworth had been on assignment to the senator for a few months and had just wrapped up his assignment, so when Walhoon had invited him to the fundraiser, he had agreed.

  Wild Bill Hackworth had partaken in his share of free drinks and regaled many of the senator’s donors with some epic war stories before he caught sight of one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen. Heads turned wherever she went, and she was absolutely stunning in that classic red dress.

  Feeling slightly inebriated from his liquid courage, Hackworth had asked the gorgeous maiden to dance, and she’d said yes. After a second song together on the dance floor, they’d excused themselves to the terrace to talk.

  “I hate my father’s fundraising events,” she’d confessed. Walhoon’s daughter, Crystal, complained that she was only there to be eye candy for the old goats who donated money to the campaign.

  After he’d served as her shoulder to cry on for a little while, she’d led him off to Senator Walhoon’s office in the mansion that constituted the man’s home. When they had closed the door, she’d practically assaulted him, kissing him all over. Before he could process what was going on, she had his zipper down and was working him over. She then pulled him over to her father’s desk, where she pulled up her dress and lay back, waiting for him.

  Hackworth didn’t hesitate. The two of them had been going at it on the senator’s desk for maybe five minutes when he thought he heard some voices. Before the two of them could react, the senator opened the door to escort a couple of his special donors in for a private conversation—only to find Hackworth there with his pants down to his ankles and his daughter with her dress pulled up on the edge of the desk and her legs on his shoulders.

  Needless to say, Wild Bill Hackworth had been passed over for general officer selection five times since. It was impossible to get selected for general or admiral without the Senate Armed Services Committee signing off on it. As the chair of that committee, Senator Chuck Walhoon was never going to sign off on Hackworth making general, and frankly, Hackworth was fine with it. He liked being at the operational level.

  Bob broke back through his trip down memory lane. “Colonel, I can’t tell you everything we do here. But suffice it to say, we do a lot of R&D type work for the war. As to how protected this place is, well, nothing’s completely safe. If they want to take us out, I’m sure they could find a way. However, we didn’t make it easy for them, that’s for sure.”

  The tram came to a halt. When they walked into the underground hangar, a ship came into view. Wild Bill let out a soft whistle. It was a sleek vessel, twenty or thirty percent larger than the Ospreys they normally flew around in.

  “This is how your soldiers will infiltrate. It’s a specially modified version of the Osprey we’re calling Nighthawks,” Bob explained as they began walking around the outer shell of the craft. “Thanks to some miniaturization help from our Altairian allies, we’ve shrunk the FTL drive down to work on this ship. You’ll be able to jump from one gate to another and travel through without the aid or help of a mothership. As you can see, the floor of the Nighthawk is two meters high. This constitutes the engineering room for the FTL drive and the interplanetary propulsion. It also has its own gravity generator, so despite its size, you won’t have to deal with that challenge during the trip.”

  As Hackworth ran his hand along the exterior of the hull, he had to admit, it was one attractive ship. He was eager to see how it was set up inside.

  Bob continued his explanation of the Nighthawk. “Now, we don’t have an official cloaking system, so we came up with the next best thing. We made it virtually invisible to the naked eye. We also coated it in a special radar-absorbent material to further minimize its signature.

  “The Nighthawk isn’t built to be a warship, so it’s not loaded up with weapons. You do still have the same thirty-two smart missiles that Osprey carries, along with the two fifty-caliber machine guns on the sides, and we beefed up the chin-mounted gun to a five-barreled 20mm rotary gun. But I think you’ll like how we organized the interior of the ship.”

  Bob led them around to the rear of the ship. It had an extended ramp to compensate for the extra size of the undercarriage of the ship. The group climbed up into the craft.

  “The rear of the ship has been outfitted with a depressurization room, so your teams can organize themselves in here for an orbital jump or spacewalk. As we enter the main cabin, this section has been converted to become an equipment locker for your weapons and gear. Here,” Bob said as he pointed to four simulation pods, “we put these in so your team can continue to train while en route to the target. Next, we have a modified washroom; you’ll have two showers and two toilets.”

  “This is a pretty tight space, Bob,” Hackworth said as he surveyed the ship’s interior. He tried to imagine one of his teams living and working in this ship.

  Bob didn’t shy away from Hackworth’s assessment. “It is,” he admitted. “It’s meant to get your guys from point A to point B. It’s not meant to be a luxury cruise.”

  Hackworth laughed. “Sounds great, Bob. I’m looking forward to having you on the trip with us.”

  Bob held up his hands up in mock surrender. “I get it, Colonel. The space is tight. Ideally, you’ll fly in a mothership to get y
ou closer to the target before you’ll board the Nighthawk and continue the rest of the way there. The unique thing about the ship is its interior design. We modularized it, depending on the type of mission your units are on. This allows the ship to have a lot more functionality than it otherwise might have. As you can see, we’ve configured this ship so it can hold a crew of four and up to twenty soldiers. I’m not going to lie and say it’ll be comfortable. It’ll be cramped. But it will get you to the target.”

  No one said anything for a few seconds as Hackworth walked around more of the ship.

  Bob finally added, “Once you arrive on station, you have two options. Either you can enter orbit and land the ship on the ground, or you can do an orbital insertion and have the ship fly away to a safer location and wait to pick you up.”

  Hackworth turned to look at Bob. “I take it this is only possible because of food replicators and the miniaturized FTL?”

  Bob nodded. “Exactly. Those two things now make specialized craft like this possible. Mind you, Colonel, this will be the first time we’ll be using this ship on a long mission like this. So far, we’ve only tested it on a few places near New Eden. Operation Arrowhead Ripper will be the first real test of the ship.”

  Hackworth took in the information as he walked around the reconfigured Osprey. This was going to be tight. He didn’t like it one bit. He knew his soldiers weren’t going to like it either, and they’d be the ones stuck in here for months.

  He observed that the Nighthawk had a section with seven bunks for sleeping, a table big enough for everyone to sit at and two food replicators. There was a small kitchen for cleaning dishes and other functions. The whole design reminded Hackworth of those old-fashioned RVs, only this one would have to hold a Special Forces unit for months as they transited to the planets each unit was assigned to.

  There is no way we can fit twenty-four people in this ship, thought Hackworth. They’d go nuts. Maybe they could rework this with a much smaller team and some C100s.

  “So, Colonel, will this work for your snake eaters?” asked General McGinnis. “Can we get some of your teams inserted onto those Zodark-controlled planets?”

  Wild Bill thought about it for a moment. He scanned the Nighthawk one more time before turning to face the general. “I don’t like it,” he said bluntly. “I think it should be a bit bigger if we’re seriously considering this thing for long-term Special Forces missions. We can’t just cramp people into a confined space like this for months and think it won’t cause problems. That said, for this specific mission, I think we can make it work.”

  Hackworth turned to the DARPA civilian. “Bob, there’s no way in hell twenty operators and four crew are going to fit in this thing for months on end to travel to the target,” he said forcefully. “No way, no how are they going to stay sane all cooped up in this small space. Reconfigure it for a six-man team and two-man crew. Find a way to stuff six C100s in it. They can stay shut down, so they aren’t in the way. But we’re going to need to create some more living space and room for them to stretch out in here. Remember, these are SOF—they like to train and train constantly. You can’t have them packed in so tight they can’t move. This setup would be fine for a day or two, but we’re talking about months of travel to reach the objective. I also recommend we maybe configure one ship to be our crew ship and turn the other ship into a coms ship. You know, bring extra com drones and satellites so we can ensure we have a good link in place to pass information from the surface to orbit, then from orbit to the gate and beyond.”

  Bob nodded and made a few notes on a tablet he had with him. “We’ll start on it right away. I think we can get the second bird spun up the way you want it configured without too much hassle. If you don’t mind, Colonel, I’d like to ask you some additional questions about what you think would make for a better Special Forces ship. Admiral Bailey has tasked us with either turning this Nighthawk into one or working with you guys to figure out what’ll work.”

  Hackworth nodded in approval. He liked this idea a lot. If could influence what the ships his guys would have to use would look like, then he’d love to be involved in that conversation. As they worked to make the 1st Orbital Ranger Division operational, his snake eaters would get back to their more conventional SOF-oriented missions and less of these direct-action ones that had been costing them so many operators.

  *******

  Captain Brian Royce and Major Jayden Hopper reviewed the mission brief. This was clearly a SOF mission, no doubt about that. It was also an impossibly difficult mission and one none of them had ever done before.

  Colonel Hackworth finally chimed in, “I know it’s a tough mission, but this is what you Deltas train for—a deep-behind-enemy-lines recon mission.”

  “That’s an awfully small ship for such a long journey,” Captain Royce countered.

  “I’m not going to lie and say it isn’t. I’ve seen it up close and in person. It is small. The first version they proposed would have packed twenty of you in that ship. I told them that was out of the question and we dropped it down to just six, plus four crew to fly it.”

  “Well, you’re the mission commander,” Major Hopper said to Royce. “You think you and a team of six can get it done on the ground?”

  That was the big question. Truth be told, Royce wasn’t sure. In theory, sure, they could probably make it to Sumer and maybe even land this Nighthawk on the surface. But could they operate on the planet as well developed as Sumer and not get detected or, worse, handed over to the Zodarks? That was the real trick. They needed to gather real-time intelligence on the enemy presence down on the surface and what kind of popular support they could expect from the locals once the invasion started.

  Royce gave it some careful consideration and then an idea popped into his head. A slight smile crept across his face as he replied, “Yes, sir, we can get it done.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The NAS

  Gaelic Outpost in the Belt

  Non-Aligned Space

  Liam Patrick sat at the desk carved out of an asteroid. It had been a gift from a mining company that had transferred their base of operations from the Mars Orbital Station or MOS to their little fiefdom out here in the Belt. Many outfits had rebased their operations on the GO or Gaelic Outpost. The tax structure Liam had implemented out here allowed the miners to keep a good portion of their earnings while still giving Liam the financial resources to provide for their people.

  As a matter of fact, business had been so good out here the last five years, they had moved forward with their plans to build a massive extension to their carved-out asteroid. On the outer edge, they had started construction on five plateaus on which to construct these new cities. The new domes would range from anywhere from six square kilometers to upwards of twelve. Along the edges of the smaller domes, the base height was one hundred feet. On the larger plateau sites, the tops of the domes would reach heights of one thousand, three hundred feet. This would give them plenty of space to build large skyscrapers and structures that would house many tens of thousands of people. Once the five new biospheres were built, they’d increase the population of the Gaelic Outpost by more than two hundred percent. They’d have the largest human colony outside of Mars and the Moon.

  Liam looked at a sketch of the new cities. We still need more room to grow, he thought. We need access to our own habitable planet to colonize.

  Not everyone agreed with him. There were many who would rather stay out in the Belt, where they were free to do as they pleased. Liam, however, had bigger plans than just being a pirate-turned-leader of the free people of the non-aligned space. He wanted to build an entirely new society, unencumbered by the trappings of Earth and its history.

  “Did you read that request from Rorsh?” asked his partner, Sara Alma, as she walked into his office and sat down opposite him. “You know, that Polish shipbuilder that wants to lease some of our new construction bays.”

  Liam furrowed his brow. “I don’t think I saw th
at one. When did it come in?”

  Sara smiled and shook her head. “Nice try, playing dumb, Liam. You know, if you want to be the station chief and head of the NAS, you’re going to need to stay on top of things like that.”

  Liam shrugged and gave her a weak smile. “You going to tell me about it or make me dig around for their message and proposal?” he asked.

  Sighing, Sara tapped away on her tablet for a moment before she found what she was looking for. She hit a key and the message was displayed in a floating text box on the center of the desk between the two of them.

  “Going to make me do all the work for you, aren’t you?” she asked coyly, her Irish lilt especially strong in that moment.

  Blushing at the rebuff, Liam started reading the proposal. “They want ten slots?” he asked, practically shouting. “That’s half the new slots we’re completing with the new yard expansion.” Sara motioned for him to keep reading. “Whoa, they’re wanting a fifty-year lease. Willing to pay one-third of that lease upfront, right now.”

  Sara smiled and put her hands on her hips. “See what you missed by not reading your mail? It’s a good thing I’m nosy. You would have missed the deal of a century, Liam.”

  “Yeah, I guess so. That’s a lot of money. Do you have any idea what they’re wanting to use the slots for? Like what kind of ships they’re wanting to build?”

  Sara shrugged her shoulders. “No idea. I’m sure you could ask. You know, we’re one of the few places with a shipyard that isn’t dedicated to wartime production. If I had to guess, I’d say they are probably looking to build transports. There are hundreds of millions of people who want to move to New Eden or Alpha Centauri.”

  Liam shook his head at the mention of war production. He’d allowed them to get roped into that several years ago as part of his unofficial drug deal to have the charges against him and his company wiped away. In exchange for their independence in the Belt, they had to produce up to ten frigates at a time. There was no letup, no quota, just ten frigates constantly under construction. As soon as one was complete, they’d start laying the hull for another one. Each slip was knocking out a frigates at a pace of one every three months, for a total of forty frigates a year. Out of that lot, they’d been able to keep a total of eight to form up their own navy and self-defense force.