by Daniel Gibbs
“I know that look.”
Wright’s statement made her smile. “Oh?”
“Skipper, we can’t jump the ship into the Sol system. It would far exceed our orders.”
“Hopefully, we won’t have to.” Tehrani set her jaw. “But I’m not leaving my people behind.”
In the silence that followed, tension of a different sort appeared, the old tug of war between the two of them. One was focused on the mission’s success, and the other was intent on protecting the crew and ship as much as possible. The differences of opinion were required for the Greengold to function appropriately, but sometimes Tehrani wished she didn’t seem to veer so much toward risk-taking. Or am I? Maybe Wright was too cautious. One thing was for sure in her mind: leaving pilots behind if they could get them out wasn’t in the cards. The minutes continued to count down, and Tehrani prayed no further delays would come from engineering.
Justin blinked as his eyes adjusted to the HUD as he processed that they’d successfully emerged from the artificial wormholes. There had been no further engagements before they reached Mars’s Lawrence limit and powered up the FTL drives, and all fighters popped out of their wormholes just inside of Pluto’s orbit—they were less than an hour from being home free. Score one for the good guys. As long as the Marines got the fuel, we might pull this off.
Reality soon shattered his wishful thinking. The sensor overlay snapped on, showing thousands of contacts. Justin’s jaw dropped. “Martin, Green, you guys see this?”
“Enough Leaguer ships to wipe out half the galaxy?” Green replied. “Yeah, I see it.”
How are we getting through this? Dammit, Justin. Focus. Work the problem. “See any holes?” As he asked, Justin zoomed the sensor display in along with entering a search string into the combat computer—looking for any weakness. The Leaguers had noticeably fewer ships in some areas, and most vessels were small—the corvettes previously observed along with a few frigates.
“Thirty minutes away at maximum thrust, they’ve got a lower concentration of warships but more fighters,” Martin said. “We might have better luck there.”
Justin changed his focus to the region Martin had indicated. Yeah, Leaguers are thin there. He immediately wondered if it was a trap. Probably not—they don’t think that fast on their feet usually. Even if it was, it didn’t matter. The noose was tightening around the entire operation, and it would come down to superior skill and a healthy dose of good luck. “Frankly, it appears to be our only option, unless someone has a better idea.”
“I got nothing, except it’s been an honor to fly with everyone today,” Green replied. “Even if the War Hogs are the best pilots on the Greengold.”
“We’ll settle our accounts when we all make it back,” Justin said in a taut tone. “No heroics. Punch through and keep going. The point’s been made. No holovid stuff, got it?”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Martin waggled the wings of his Ghost.
“Okay. Inform your squadrons, and I’ll brief mine. Good luck, folks.” Justin flipped his commlink back to Alpha element. “Everyone still with me?”
“Until the entire League Navy shows up and shoots us down, yeah,” Feldstein replied. “Everything’s just peachy, sir.”
Justin snickered. “They have a few gaps without full coverage. Whatever else I can say about them, the damn Leaguers seem to have plotted where gravity wells prevent in-system jumps very carefully. Another hour, and the entire system will be locked down.”
“We’ll be fine,” Mateus interjected. “Just try to keep up with me.”
“Even if we don’t make it back,” Adeoye said, “we have accomplished our objective and injected fear into the enemy’s heart.”
Startled, Justin pondered his words for a moment. That sounded like a man making peace with death. Thinking his wingman might know something he didn’t, Justin looked at the small printed picture of Michelle and Maggie. He’d moved it from his Sabre to the Ghost as a reminder of why he fought. I’m coming home, baby.
“None of that talk. We’re all landing together. Come to heading zero-four-eight, max stealth speed.”
“That’s the last of it, sir.” MacIntosh stood from his console. “The Greengold has a full primary and backup fuel load.”
Nishimura turned from staring out the bridge’s window. “Outstanding.” He turned to Flores. “Thank you doesn’t seem like it’s enough.”
She smiled and turned her palms outward. “God puts us where we’re meant to be, to carry out His plan.” Flores climbed up from her station. “I only thank Him that I was able to do it.”
The League woman’s faith continued to touch Nishimura to his core. Not much got through the tough Marine exterior, but she was, in spades. He furrowed his brow. “Look, uh, Candace, why don’t you come with us? Everyone here will vouch for what you did. I’m pretty sure we’d grant you asylum.”
Tears shone in Flores’s eyes, and she twisted her face. “If the Terran Coalition is a tenth of what you’ve expressed to me, Major Nishimura, I would give one of my limbs to take you up on your kind offer.” Flores shook her head. “But I can’t. I have a husband and three children on an agriculture station at Jupiter. Brothers, sisters, parents, aunts, and uncles, scattered all over the League. You have to understand how the political commissars work. They would kill my entire family and send everyone I know to the reeducation camps.”
A knot formed in Nishimura’s stomach. “Then what’s going to happen when they figure out you helped us?”
MacIntosh pointed at the door leading out of the freighter’s bridge. “Major, the shuttle’s arriving from the Zvika Greengold. We’re to evac immediately, per Colonel Tehrani’s orders.”
“Go ahead, Captain. Make sure my Marines and the Master Guns are accounted for.”
“What about you—”
“I can take care of myself,” Nishimura replied. “Now, move out. No dusting off without me.”
“Yes, sir.” MacIntosh turned on his heel and left.
Flores and Nishimura were left alone except for the soft hum of electronics. “Answer my question,” he said, staring at her intently.
“They won’t find out.” Flores set her jaw. “Because you’re going to leave enough bruises on me to make my story plausible. The cruel capitalists tortured me, but I gave them nothing except my handprint. My family and those like us have gotten very good at hiding and deceiving the commissars, Major.”
Nishimura blanched in horror. Hit a woman? It went against everything he believed. “Where I come from, men don’t hit women unless they’re an enemy combatant. I can’t do that.”
“If you don’t, I’ll try to injure myself, but I doubt it’ll be convincing.”
He flexed his fist a few times, trying to picture what karate moves he could employ that would leave marks but not harm internal organs, but found it difficult even to consider. If I don’t, her blood is on my hands. “Okay.” Nishimura unsealed and pulled off the armored gauntlet on his right hand.
Flores swallowed and braced herself. “I assure you I’ve had worse in my life.”
“Ready?” I really don’t want to do this.
She nodded. “Major, I’ve been through childbirth three times. Trust me. I’ll get through it.”
Well, when you put it like that. Nishimura’s hand went rigid, and he assumed a ready stance. A practitioner of the wadō-ryū martial art, he was a master at close-quarters combat. He lashed out with his right hand once, twice, then three times, striking her hip and lower rib cage.
Flores cried out and nearly crumpled to the floor. She groaned. “Okay.” After steadying herself, she motioned him forward. “Face too. It has to look good.”
That was almost a bridge too far for Nishimura. The urge to vomit briefly overcame him before he forced his hand back into the ready stance. He planted a single strike into the right side of her face, aimed at the eye—hoping to do enough for a shiner without breaking bone.
“Aieee!” Flores screamed and stumbled bac
kward. She slid into a chair and gingerly felt her face. “You pack some power, Major.”
“Third-degree black belt.” Nishimura stared at her. The right eye was already showing a bruise. “Please tell me you can still see.”
“I can. Hurts to keep it open, though.” She smiled weakly. “I’ll be fine. I promise. Now, I think you need to go.”
“Jump the ship back to the system you came from and tell them you escaped your bonds.” He dropped a pair of flexicuffs on the deck. “Rip those up and sell it.”
Flores stood and put her hands on his. “Would you allow me to pray with you?”
Stunned, Nishimura stared at her wide-eyed. He’d never before encountered someone who was such a seeming font of faith. To discover such a person in the heart of the League of Sol continued to shake him. “I, uh… sure.” He frowned. “I don’t, well… what I mean to say is I don’t do a lot of praying. The truth is I’m a pretty crappy Christian.”
“Would you like me to lead us?”
“Yeah, that’d be nice.” He squeezed her hands and bowed his head.
“O, God, Heavenly Father, give us the courage to change what must be altered, the serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and the insight to know one from the other, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” Her hands tightened on his. “And, Father, protect your servant Kosuke Nishimura as he walks through the dark places he must go. Stand with him and help him on his path. Amen.”
Tears came to Nishimura’s eyes. “Thank you. May God walk with you as well. Godspeed, Candace.” He let go of her hands and turned to go then made it as far as the door to the passageway beyond before turning back. “I give you my word. I’ll make sure my superiors know what happened here. Someday, the Terran Coalition will come back to Earth and rescue the oppressed. I hope to be alive and leading the charge. If I am, I’ll find you.”
“I look forward to that day, Major.”
He nodded once and walked out. A hard man, Nishimura wasn’t prone to emotion or tears. But the effect Flores had on him continued as he walked the two hundred meters back to the shuttle. It had shaken loose something within him, and he determined once the battle was over to ponder his beliefs and how he lived them.
18
Time crept by as the CDF fighters, virtually invisible to both the naked eye and the most advanced scanning systems known to man, rocketed toward the League force standing between them and escape. Justin kept the fighters in a tight spherical formation, seeking to deny the enemy as much attack surface as possible. After he’d spent eight hours in the cockpit, everything ached. I’d do anything to get out and stretch for a minute. He snickered at the thought.
“We’re going to have to decide on a final intercept point, sir,” Feldstein said. Her voice crackled through the commlink. “Less than fifteen minutes to contact.”
Justin studied the sensor readout on his HUD for a bit before replying privately to her. “See the small formation about five degrees off our current course?”
“Yeah. A frigate and two smaller ships. Corvettes, maybe?”
“Probably the same trade cutters we saw performing inspections on the way in. I doubt they’re serious warships. That’s where we punch through.”
“You’re the boss, sir.”
“As the CAG would say, don’t forget it.” Justin cued his commlink to the squadron-commander channel. “Martin, Green, we’re going in on the following coordinates.” He tagged the course on his HUD and sent it out over the taclink. “Any objections?”
“As long as we get to go home and blast some of these commie buggers on the way out, I couldn’t care less, sir,” Martin replied cheerfully.
“No objections here, sir,” Green said. “Who’s taking point?”
“My thoughts are we put the bomber pilots up front, while Red Tails fly close escort. War Hogs can handle what’s left.” Justin scanned his sensor readout one last time.
“Wilco, sir,” Green replied.
Justin switched commlink frequencies once more. “Attention, all pilots. Break right, five degrees, eight degrees upward vector. Prepare to engage the enemy.”
As the formation closed on the Leaguers, Martin and his Winged Lightning squadron mates broke off into small groups. The enemy vessels opened up with volleys of point-defense fire the moment they entered weapons range. Red plasma balls and streaks of energy filled the void, which the fighters answered by launching numerous Javelin missiles.
One of the corvettes, apparently crewed by braver men and women than they’d encountered so far, charged forward with its weapons blazing. The Ghosts attacking it scattered as the ship ranged on them, forcing it to divide its fire between four targets. Two anti-ship warheads hit its forward shield, causing massive flashes of white light, then two more quickly followed. When the glare faded, the League vessel had a good portion of its hull missing and was tumbling out of control. Escape pods launched before it blew apart.
“Scratch one Leaguer!” Martin roared.
The other corvette veered behind the frigate, apparently not interested in joining its consort’s fate. Four other Ghosts from Martin’s squadron loosed Javelins toward the League frigate before adding a maelstrom of neutron-cannon fire to the mix. They stayed in a tight, interlocking formation and closed the distance.
Made from slightly sterner stuff than the destroyed corvette, the League frigate opened fire with highly accurate point-defense weaponry. Red plasma balls filled the void and took out most of the anti-ship warheads headed toward it. Then the balls found the onrushing Ghosts. One ship exploded in a bright-orange burst of flame, while the other three quickly broke off and juked away.
Alarmed, Justin watched it play out on his sensor screen. Wait a minute. Something’s wrong here. League ships of any class, much less frigates, don’t have that kind of massed PD weaponry. “Echo One, break off. I say again, break off.”
“What the hell do you think we’re doing, Alpha One?” Martin replied. “We’ll take another pass with everyone. That commie bastard is going down.”
“I scanned their turret configuration. There’s twice as many close-in weapons on that thing as a normal Lancer-class frigate,” Green said. “No wonder they were able to knock down our Javelins.”
A new cluster of red dots suddenly appeared on Justin’s HUD. “Bandits, bandits, bearing zero-seven-four.” It took a moment for the computer to calculate how many. His eyes grew wide as the count ticked up to twelve Shrike fighters. “Twelve inbound bandits. Red Tails, break and attack. Winged Lightning, avoid engagement and re-form to attack the frigate.”
The range was closer than Justin would ever have liked to begin an engagement at less than fifty kilometers. The Leaguers separated into a stacked formation with six craft in two layers. It appeared on the scanner as a rectangle. No time to get fancy. “Red Tails, get a hard lock and use LIDAR-tracking missiles then close in and finish ’em off.”
Buzzing from the missile-lock-on warning system filled the cockpit of Justin’s fighter. He deployed a wave of jammers before squeezing the launch button. “Alpha One, fox three.”
Missiles from both sides raced through the void, and many exploded harmlessly from massed ECM pod use and jamming chaff deployed throughout the battlespace. Several League craft were hit and two destroyed, while one unlucky Ghost was bracketed by four Leaguer warheads and erased from existence. The fight quickly degenerated into a tail-chasing dogfight as individual pilots and their wingmen clawed for every advantage.
Justin chased a League craft, snaking through several scissor maneuvers before he finally obtained a guns solution. He held down the firing trigger, and dozens of blue bolts from the miniature neutron cannons erupted from his fighter. The Leaguer’s aft shields held for several hits before collapsing, and it exploded a moment later.
Thanks to the entire squadron’s efforts and a few lucky shots, the League force was reduced to three Shrikes then two. Justin got behind another enemy, aiming for the six o’clock position. Unlike his previous oppon
ent, the Leaguer could fly and evaded almost everything Justin threw at him.
I don’t have time for this. He switched the stores selector to a heat-seeking Eagle warhead and launched. The missile dropped out of the central bay on his Ghost and raced toward the enemy. It hit the weakened aft shield and caused just enough damage that the next volley of blue bolts hit and erased it from space.
“You’re clear, Echo One. Light ’em up!” Justin practically shouted as his Ghost roared toward the exploding League fighter. He rolled away from the blast, searching for another target. For the moment, his scope was clear of other enemy craft.
“Wilco, mate,” Martin replied.
The battered Winged Lightnings re-formed and came in at different attack angles, skillfully targeting the same shield arc but avoiding the tight formation that had cost them so dearly the last time. Each Ghost loosed a Javelin and turned to stymie incoming point-defense fire as soon as the warheads were away. The League frigate gamely tried to shoot down the incoming missiles, but it was a hopeless task, with so many coming in on scattered vectors.
One after the other, fusion warheads smacked into the energy barrier protecting the Leaguer vessel. The barrier failed, then the next four warheads exploded against the thin armor plating, sending molten alloy into the void. A few seconds later, the entire ship went up like a Roman candle. No escape pods flew from it, and the resulting debris was less than a meter in length.
“Who’s next?” Martin asked. “Any other Leaguers want to fight? I’ll take any of you on.”
It took Justin a moment to realize Martin was transmitting on the guard frequency. He keyed his mic. “Alpha One to all pilots. Break toward the Lawrence limit and push it up. Max speed.”