In the grand tradition of Washington D.C. funerals, this service droned on and on. I wondered if I would reach Mars before it ended. First there was some dreary organ music. Then a Protestant minister stood up to speak. The man gave a thirty-minute sermon over the dead body of a devout atheist. I imagined Klyber’s ghost rising from the coffin to say, “Listen to this rubbish, not over my dead body.”
After the sermon came the eulogies. I thought military men kept their speeches short, but General Alexander Smith of the U.A.A.F. went on for forty-five frigging minutes. Next came two of Klyber’s pals in politics. I expected them to drone on and they did not disappoint.
A small red emergency beacon flickered on and off at the bottom of my vision. By flicking my eyes at the flashing symbol, I brought up the call.
“Harris, are you seeing this?” Freeman asked.
“Seeing what?” I asked, though I really wanted to say, “Ray, nice to hear from you. Yes, the flight has been good so far. And how are you?”
“Gateway Outpost is under attack,” said Freeman.
I knew Gateway. It was a habitable planet in the area where the Orion and Sagittarius arms met. The space around Gateway was a high-security zone even though Sagittarius and Orion were the only arms that remained fully loyal to Earth.
Both the Central Sagittarius Fleet and the Inner Orion Fleet patrolled that area. As I considered this, I realized it could take days or weeks before ships would arrive to help Gateway. The Inner Orion Fleet patrolled a channel that was 10,000 light years deep. The Central Sagittarius Fleet covered an area that was more than 30,000 light years. Getting to a planet like Gateway would only take a couple of minutes if either fleet happened to be near the Broadcast Network. It could take weeks if they were in deep space.
Without saying a word, I switched to the Galactic News Service. The GNS was an organ of the Unified Authority internal structure and a propaganda machine, but it offered the most up-to-the-moment information. GNS reporters traveled everywhere, including planets that had declared independence from the Republic.
The picture before my eyes was one of grand destruction. The legend on the screen said, “New Gibraltar” in light blue letters that seemed to glow over the pitch-black sky. New Gibraltar was the capital city of Gateway. Gateway Outpost, the local Marine base, was on the outskirts of the city.
In the center of the picture, a dying Marine base crumbled before my eyes. Its three green particle beam cannons fired into the air lighting up the midnight sky. On a major base like this Gateway Outpost, there should have been a hundred cannons. No buildings remained on the streets around the fort. Flames danced on the shattered remains of what might have been hotels and business centers. The fort itself, a five- or six-story affair, was shrouded in darkness. Sections of the outer wall had fallen.
A red beam, as wide around as a highway tunnel, flashed down from the sky. It seared one corner of the fort. Cement exploded into smoke and flames and another cannon went dead as more of the wall tumbled to the ground.
“When did this happen?” I asked.
As if hearing my question, a tickertape image along the bottom of the screen appeared. “Live Feed.”
“The attack started a couple minutes ago,” said Freeman.
There was movement on the street near the base of the fort. Twenty men, maybe as many as thirty, skirted around the remains of blasted buildings and wrecked vehicles. They were on foot, running quickly, and hiding behind cover. “The scouts have arrived,” I said.
“It has to be a demolition team,” Freeman said. “There aren’t enough of them for anything else.”
“Who are they?” I asked.
“The Pentagon won’t speculate until after the battle,” Freeman said. “I’m guessing they’re Mogats. Amos Crowley is probably someplace nearby coordinating the attack.”
Freeman and Crowley had history, and Freeman wanted to settle that score. He wished he was in New Gibraltar, I could hear it in his voice. Freeman may have considered himself a mercenary, but he mostly collected bounties. Crowley was the prize he wanted most.
The majority of the Marines in the base must have been dead or wounded. However many were left, they did not put up much of a fight as the commandos closed in. Somebody managed to mount a machine-gun nest on the wall and a perforated line of tracer fire rained down into the street. A commando fired a shoulder-mounted rocket at the nest. The rocket streaked through the air leaving a trail of glare and smoke. Dust clouds exploded out of the wall where the machine gun had been. The tracer fire stopped.
The commandoes divided into teams that now stormed ruins of the fort. They sprinted the last yards to the base, dodging around holes and debris and overturned cars in the near darkness of the night.
I viewed all of this knowing that I was connected to these events and yet somehow I felt detached. What did I care if the Republic fell? The only people I ever considered friends were in the Unified Authority military—Bryce Klyber and Vince Lee, my old buddy from the Marines. Klyber was dead, of course, and I had not heard from Vince in years. Last I heard, he was an officer in the Scutum-Crux Fleet.
Using an optical command, I brought up an “On the Spot” audio analysis.
“Enemy ships continue to batter the city of New Gibraltar from outside Gateway’s atmosphere while enemy troops now storm the Marine facility. Reports suggest that there may be as many as ten battleships attacking the city.
“In recent months, Gateway has functioned as the central base of operations for several raids into the Perseus Arm. This attack may be retaliation for . . .
“We have a report that several ships from the Sagittarius Fleet have broadcasted into the Gateway System and should arrive shortly.”
On the screen, the commandoes turned to retreat. They backed away from the fort and headed toward a single transport under the cover of a bullet and rockets barrage. The last of the commandos boarded and the shooting stopped. In the distance, the firefly glow of armored transport rockets vanished into space.
“The Moga . . .
“Watch the fort,” Freeman interrupted me.
The Mogats had placed High Yield radiation bombs around the walls of fort. These bombs burst, flooding the streets with a dazzling blue-white display that seemed to burn into my eyes. The effect of having my shades go stark white then black was like being blinded. For a moment I sat in that plush cabin thinking my shades had died, then I realized that the site I had been watching was no longer in operation.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Normally a wing of three Air Force F-19 Falcons guarded the Mars broadcast discs. As my Starliner approached on this visit, however, I saw two squads of five fighters circling the area.
“Starliner A-ten-twenty-thirty-four, be advised that Mars Station is on high alert. Do you copy?”
“Aye,” I said. “I copy.”
“Due to heightened security, disc traffic is slow. We are requesting that pilots return home unless they have urgent business. Please await instructions while I access your travel file.”
Considering the attack on Gateway and the importance of the Mars broadcast discs, I thought that ten F-19s was pretty skimpy protection. The Army base on Mars had some pretty hefty cannons, but after seeing the destruction of Gateway Outpost, ground cannons no longer seemed like an effective deterrent. I joined the queue of ships waiting to approach the broadcast discs. The line was at least twenty miles long. Hovering above the line, like a trio of vultures, were three fighter carriers.
Mars did not have a fleet of its own. These ships had to be on loan from the Earth fleet. Since capital ships travel a maximum speed of thirty million miles per hour, the trip from Earth to Mars would be anywhere from three to five hours depending on where each planet was in its orbit. Even a five-hour trip seemed short compared to the twenty hours it had just taken me in my Starliner.
“My records show that you are traveling to the Golan Dry Docks. Is this correct, Starliner A-ten-twenty-thirty-four?” the traffic con
troller asked. “The Golan facility is a maximum security facility. What is the purpose of your travel?”
“I am working for the Joint Chiefs,” I said.
There was a short pause. “Starliner A-ten-twenty-thirty-four, you have been cleared for immediate broadcast. We have dispatched an escort to take you to the front of the line, sir. Please follow your escort.”
In times of emergency, the military ran the Broadcast Network. The man on the other end must have been Air Force.
As I approached the broadcast discs, the tint shields came on and I could no longer see out the windows of my ship. The tint shields had to be thick to protect my eyes from the blinding glare that poured out of the discs when they discharged their electrical currents. Sitting in my pilot’s chair, I watched the slow approach of the two Falcons on my radar. In another moment, the radar would go blind and I would see the glare of lightning so bright that it penetrated the tinting across the Starliner.
In the last moments before my radar went out, three fighters glided alongside my ship. My Starliner must have looked like such a relic compared to those ships. The F-19, designed for space and atmospheric combat, was probably the sleekest fighter in the U.A. arsenal. It had an elongated fuselage that looked like a cross between a stiletto and a dart. Its wings were razor thin but strong enough to handle atmospheric maneuvers. These jets would outpace any fighter in space and fly circles around any attacker that tried to touch down in an atmosphere like Earth’s. The F-19 was the pride of the Air Force.
“Hello, Starliner A-ten-twenty-thirty-four,” one of the fighter pilots said. “Why don’t you follow us, sir?”
This, of course, was fighter pilot humor. The Mars flight computers had complete control over my cockpit. I could not even shut down the power to my engines without asking permission.
A squadron of Tomcats circled the Golan Dry Docks and the nearby disc station. Two battleships were moored nearby. Golan was indeed on high alert. After identifying me and scanning my plane, traffic control brought me in through a partially sealed aperture and armed guards walked me to the security station.
The last time I passed through the posts at this security station, I was identified as Lieutenant Wayson Harris, “Marine on the lam.” This time I was a retired Marine and I was coming to visit the head of Golan security, Colonel Clarence McAvoy.
I handed my papers to the guard and walked toward the post. The Dry Docks’ high alert had brought out the brass. An Army major sat with civilians and enlisted men on the other side of the bulletproof glass. The light on the inside of the booth was bright. After the gloom of the hangar, it made me squint. This, I suspect, was intentional: it’s hard to shoot accurately when your eyes have not adjusted.
“Step forward,” said the guard on the other side of the posts. For all I knew, this was the guy who pulled the gun on me the last time I passed through. He was Army. He wore combat greens, and his M27 was strapped to his belt like a side arm.
I stepped forward.
The corporal snapped to attention. “Welcome to the Dry Docks, Colonel,” he said in a loud enough voice for the people behind the glass to hear. I looked over and saw that even the major now saluted me. I returned the salute and moved on.
“Colonel McAvoy is expecting you, sir. He left word that he wanted to drive you to your meeting personally.”
“Very well,” I said, still trying to figure out how I could have suddenly become a colonel.
McAvoy pulled up in his little base cart—an electrical scooter with a top speed of fifteen miles per hour. “Colonel Harris?” he asked in a voice drenched with mirth. “You’ve gone through the ranks more quickly than any soldier I have known. Weren’t you a Lieutenant last time I saw you?”
“I retired after that,” I said.
We shook hands. “Well, come on Colonel,” McAvoy said. “I thought I should roll out the red carpet for you, just in case.”
“In case of what?” I asked as I climbed into the cart.
“In case you’re on the Joint Chiefs next time I see you.” He started the cart and rolled into the service hall. “Your pal, Huang, called for you. He told me to have you call him the moment you landed.
“You heard about Gateway, right?”
I nodded.
“Bastards,” McAvoy said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Colonel?” I asked.
“Welcome back, Harris. You’ve been recalled to active service, and as a colonel. I never thought I would see a clone make colonel, but desperate times call for desperate measures.” Huang looked more tired than he had at the funeral. Dark bags had formed under his dark brown eyes. No trace of that cocky smile showed on his face.
“And the reason for this?”
“Clearance, Harris. Only officers with the rank of colonel or higher are cleared to view the information I’m going to show you. Don’t worry about the commission, I don’t want to leave you in the Corps any longer than I need to.”
Still an anti-synthetic prick, I thought to myself, but I was glad the change was not permanent.
“I don’t suppose you can guess how long the siege on Gateway Outpost lasted?” Huang asked.
I took a moment to think about this. “I watched the feed,” I said. “It was fast.”
“Real fast,” Huang agreed. “No guesses?”
“No,” I said.
“Eight minutes,” he said, a disapproving expression on his face. “Almost to the second.”
“I must be missing something,” I said as I tried to figure out why he mentioned this.
“Shit, Harris! You’re supposed to be bright.” Huang no longer looked tired or disappointed. Now he looked disgusted. His eyes closed to slits. He put a hand to his temple, brushing aside the short brown hair.
I thought quickly. What was so important about eight minutes? It showed a certain level of efficiency. Whoever planned the attack had done a superb job combing out the logistics.
“Eight minutes, Harris. Eight, specking minutes. Eight minutes, the amount of time it takes GCF ships to power-up and self-broadcast. You couldn’t figure that out on your own? Judas in heaven, what did Klyber see in you?”
I wanted to tell Huang to speck himself, but I agreed with him. I should have seen it. I said nothing.
“I’m sure you’ve seen the video feed of the ground attack,” Huang said. “You haven’t seen this.”
Satellite video showing the surface of Gateway appeared in my mediaLink shades. The full name of the planet was Gateway Kri—the term kri designating that the planet had a terraformed atmosphere. In truth, the planet looked a lot like Earth with icy poles, large oceans, and green continents.
The screen flashed as lightning danced across the scene. I saw the four battleships from the Galactic Central Fleet only as silhouettes against the glowing surface of the planet. Their hulls looked black as coal. They were shadows. Had the satellite not been orbiting above them, they would have been invisible against the backdrop of space. From this perspective, the ships looked like giant sharks circling their territory.
The ships had a deformed diamond shape. They were long, not wide, with blunted corners at their bow and stern. They dove down to the edge of the atmosphere and green dots flashed on the surface as the Marines down below fired cannons at them.
“Concentrated firepower, the mark of a well-trained commander,” Huang said. “All of their laser fire hit within a five-block radius. Whoever led this assault knew his tactics.”
In the bottom corner of the screen, a small window showed the Gateway outpost. Laser blasts rained down on the fort and the streets surrounding it. As the attack began, the cannons along the walls of the fort flashed like strobe lights. That cannon fire slowed as hit after hit tore into the walls of the fort.
“Now this is interesting,” Huang said. “The GCF ships appeared one minute ago to the second. In that minute, the Marine base has focused all of its weapons on the capital ships . . . standard procedure.”
The screen f
roze. What I saw was one flame. It looked no more significant than a firefly as it penetrated the atmosphere.
“That is the transport. It will take that transport precisely one minute to land.”
The little flame seemed to shrink to nothing as the transport raced down to the planet. In the small window on my screen, New Gibraltar wilted quickly. The invading ground force stormed the fort, then ran off. At six minutes, to the second, the bombs went off creating a bubble of white light that seemed to grow like a blister out of the side of the planet. The flash was clearly visible from space.
At seven minutes the transport rejoined the battleships. One minute later, the entire invasion force was gone.
“They call themselves the Hinode Fleet,” Huang said.
“Hinode?” I asked. I had heard the name Hinode before, on Ezer Kri, the planet with the large population of Japanese descent. That was what the locals called their capital city. The real name of the city was Rising Sun, or Hinode in Japanese.
“The Japanese population on Ezer Kri called their capital city Hinode. Do you think there is a connection?” I asked.
“I don’t want to guess,” Huang said. “That’s your job.”
“My job?” I asked.
“Yes, Colonel, your job. It came with the commission.”
“What about finding the guy . . . ?”
“The Republic is under attack. We knew about the Mogat instigators and the Confederate Arms. We knew about the GC Fleet. You get to figure out why GCF ships are using a Japanese name.”
“Doing a little scouting before you take them on in the Doctrinaire?” I asked.
“Yes,” Huang said as if answering a challenge. He took a moment to gather his thoughts before speaking in a calmer voice. “You get me movements and capabilities on that fleet. You get me a profile on the officers commanding those ships. You help me win this war.”
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