by Marko Kloos
Chapter 24
The Navy comes prepared for once. The two drop ships that descend out of the rain-heavy clouds thirty minutes later are loaded to the wingtips with air-to-ground ordnance pods. The Shrikes circle overhead as the drop ships land on the ground in front of the ruins of Willoughby Four-Seven. When the tail ramps of the drop ships lower onto the muddy ground, each ship disgorges a full squad of Marines in sealed battle armor.
“Glad to see you people,” Commander Campbell tells the lead Marine when they reach our ragged and tired group of survivors. “It’s getting a little unfriendly down here.”
“So we’ve heard,” the Marine says. Because his suit is sealed, his voice is projected through the speaker in his helmet, and he sounds disconcertingly artificial as a result. “Had a bit of trouble with the new neighbors, I see.”
We trot to the waiting drop ships while the newly arrived Marines bring up the rear. When I walk up the ramp of the closest Wasp, I see that the hatch to the cockpit is closed, and that the crew chief standing by the ramp controls is in full ChemWar gear as well.
The pilots of the drop ships do not waste any time with sight-seeing. As soon as our ragtag mix of civilians, Marines, and Navy stragglers is distributed onto the two Wasps, the pilots gun the engines and get the ships airborne before the rear cargo hatches have closed all the way.
“You pick up any more of my people?” the Commander asks the Marine team leader seated on the bench across the aisle from him. The Marine shakes his head.
“Not us, sir. But there’s SAR flights in the air all over this place. They sent down just about every drop ship in the battle group, I think.”
“What do we have up in orbit?”
“Carrier Battle Group Sixty-Three, sir. The Manitoba, two cruisers, two destroyers, and a frigate.”
“Hot damn,” the Commander says. “That’s a lot of tonnage to send our way.”
“We were in the neighborhood, I guess. Live-fire exercise out by Deimos. We were supposed to practice zero-G assaults, but then your buoy popped out of Alcubierre and started wailing.”
“Sorry about spoiling your exercise,” the Commander says, and the Marine chuckles.
“Not at all, sir. A combat drop beats exercise every time. Three more drops, and I get to pin on the Master drop badge.”
Now it’s the Commander’s turn to chuckle.
“The way things are going right now, I think you Marines are going to get your fill of combat drops soon enough, son.”
The Wasp has no windows back in the cargo hold, but I can tell when we leave the atmosphere of Willoughby when my body pulls against the lap belt of my seat. We hear the engine noises changing as the drop ship transitions to spaceflight and climbs into orbit to meet up with the carrier.
The sensations of forward motion and weight return when we enter the artificial gravity field of the assault carrier. I’ve never been in a drop ship that docked with something floating in space, and I expect something similar to the shuttle docking procedure when I arrived for Fleet School on Luna, but the skids of the drop ship simply touch down on a hard surface. Then we’re in motion again, this time being lowered on the platform of a large elevator.
When the cargo ramp lowers, there’s a welcoming committee waiting for us. The flight deck of the assault carrier is cavernous compared to the two-ship affair on the Versailles. I see rows of drop ships and Shrikes, and the flight deck is abuzz with activity, crews in color-coded shirts fueling and arming the craft parked on the deck. The section where our ships set down is walled off from the rest of the flight deck with a transparent barrier of flexible polymer, and there’s a decontamination tent set up not too far away.
“Well, I was looking forward to a good shower,” Halley says dryly when she sees the ChemWar team in full protective gear waving us toward the decontamination tent. “Just not in the middle of the damn flight deck, with half the fucking carrier watching.”
We get scrubbed, rinsed, and doused with what seems like a dozen different chemical agents before the ChemWar team lets us put on some fresh uniforms. Even after the decontamination session, the Manitoba’s armed Marine guards keep us segregated from the rest of the crew. We are led into a large room that looks like a hastily cleared storage area, and a dozen medical officers and nurses descend upon us to treat our minor scratches and bruises. When they’re finally convinced that none of us will suddenly grow tentacles and devour the rest of the crew, we’re led into yet another room, this one a briefing lounge big enough to hold a platoon of troops with room to spare. In front of the briefing lectern, there are rolling tables loaded with sandwich trays and beverage pitchers.
As we stand around the food tables, wolfing down sandwiches and draining pitchers of Navy bug juice, a group of officers enters the room. They split us up and take us away for debriefings in smaller rooms. I end up at a table in a corner of one of the hangar’s maintenance sections, with two officers sitting across the table from me. One of them is a Lieutenant Commander with a Spaceborne Warfare badge, and the other is a Lieutenant with Military Intelligence. Despite his lower rank, he’s in charge of the conversation.
I know the military’s dim view on lost and broken equipment, and considering the fact that we just lost a warship worth more than a billion Commonwealth dollars along with all the gear on board, I expect a rather hostile grilling from the MI officer. Instead, the debriefing is almost amiable, without a word of accusation. The officers listen to my version of the events, starting with our drop out of Alcubierre, and ending with the arrival of the rescue drop ships less than an hour ago.
“Any idea what happened to your admin deck?” the MI officer asks when I finish my narrative. I think about it for a moment, and shrug my shoulders in apology.
“I left it next to the cot in the storage room when we got some sleep,” I say. “Down in the admin building next to the terraforming station.”
“That’s a pity,” the MI officer says. “Could have gotten some more intel off of that. The disaster buoy just sort of gave us the synopsis.”
“Well, I can tell you we got shot out of orbit, but I have no idea how it happened. When we got out with the spare drop ship, there was no other ship around, just the Versailles.”
“Wasn’t a ship,” the Lieutenant Commander says. “We came in with all the curb feelers out. Our new friends did some upgrades to the place, and that’s all I can tell you right now.”
“What, like we ran into something? Like an orbital minefield?”
The Fleet officer looks at his MI counterpart.
“Yes,” the Lieutenant says. “Some sort of pods. You get close to one, they just kind of pop open and spray the neighborhood with penetrators. We didn’t catch ‘em at first, because they don’t show on radar, but the Linebacker cruisers took care of the problem.”
I know that under normal circumstances, the two officers wouldn’t give me the time of day, much less explain enemy dispositions, but I can tell they’re excited about being on the pulse of the action for this momentous event in human history, and their excitement makes them disregard the social and professional gulf between staff officers and junior enlisted for a little while. I don’t share their excitement. I’m tired and scared, and I just want to find a bunk and sleep. I answer their questions, fill in the details they request, and repeat the sequence of events a few more times. Finally, the officers are satisfied with the amount of information they managed to squeeze from my brain, and I am dismissed to rejoin the rest of the crew.
Back in the briefing room, we continue our meals and exchange data to piece together the big picture. Carrier Battle Group Sixty-Three dropped out of Alcubierre roughly four hours ago, and approached our last known location above Willoughby at Combat Stations, ready to do battle with the Sino-Russians. What they found instead was an orbital field of proximity mines that wouldn’t show on radar, and looked like nothing listed in the Spaceborne Weapons recognition manuals. The drop ships of the Manitoba are still shuttling stran
ded Versailles sailors up from the surface, and rumor has it that the Shrikes have been emptying their ordnance racks at the alien terraforming structures, only to come back for bigger warheads.
“What’s going to happen now?” I ask the Commander later, when we’re finishing the last of the food, and waiting for the rest of our marooned crew to trickle in.
“Well, they’re going to take care of business down there. I expect we’ll see half the freakin’ Navy in orbit around this rock before too long. Then I guess we’ll head back to Gateway. We’ll all end up in the Transient Personnel Unit until the Navy figures out what the hell to do with us. You may yet get your wish about that laundry-folding job, Mister Grayson,” he adds.
“Any chance for some leave, you think?” I ask, and he barks a laugh.
“We just had a run-in with a sentient alien species,” he says. “If you think they’re going to let us back to Earth, you’re in for some disappointment. They’re going to keep a lid on this until they’ve figured out how to break the news to the folks back home.”
He stuffs the rest of his sandwich into his mouth, and washes it down with the last of the juice in his cup.
“You know, it’s kind of funny, in a weird sort of way,” he continues. “Back at Staff Officer school, they have all these wargames and scenarios they throw at you, to see how people deal with command pressure. We used to call the scenarios for alien encounters ‘bug levels.’”
He puts his plastic dishes on the floor next to his chair, and leans back in his seat with a sigh.
“Now here we are, in our first real bug war, and we’re the bugs.”
When Halley comes back from her debriefing, she waves me toward her as soon as she spots me in the back of the room. I walk up to join her, and we claim a pair of chairs in a quiet corner of the room. By now, everyone in the room is stretched out in a briefing chair or two, dozing or talking.
“They’re loading fucking nukes on those attack birds,” she says to me when we’re sitting down. “We cut across the corner of the flight deck when we got back from the debriefing, and I got a good look. Mark Sixty-Five guided nuclear missiles, fifteen kilotons.”
“Holy crap,” I say. The last time a military used nuclear arms in battle was forty years before I was born, during the last global fracas with the Sino-Russians that left half a million dead, and led to the signing of the Svalbard Accords that put an end to direct Earthside conflicts between the two blocs.
“Guess they couldn’t crack the stuff down there with the rack-grade stuff.”
“That’s going to mess up the real estate down there,” Halley says. “If those things set up half the number of atmo exchangers we did, there’s going to be close to a hundred nukes raining down soon. Nobody’s going to farm down there for a few decades at least.”
The idea of rendering a planet uninhabitable just to pry off a competing species seems ludicrous, but that’s how I know the military is going to do precisely that.
We’re assigned a few empty enlisted berthing sections far away from the flight deck to get some rest. At this point, I’ve slept only six hours out of the last thirty-six, and I’m starting to have auditory hallucinations. There’s a pair of medics outside of the berthing section, handing out pilot-grade No-Go pills to anyone who wants them, but Halley and I pass on the sleep aids, since we’re both tired enough to sleep standing up if needed.
The Manitoba is a much newer ship than the Versailles was, and everything is far more modern, but the enlisted bunks aren’t any bigger. Halley and I try to occupy one of the bunks together, but we conclude that the space is barely enough for one person. I let her have the bunk to herself, and take the one directly below hers. I close the privacy curtain, and get under the thin blanket without bothering to take off my clothes. All around us, the sounds of a warship underway are ringing through the hull—announcements, tromping boots on metal gangways, humming machinery—but at this point in my short Navy career, I am used to falling asleep to that particular soundtrack.
There are no day times on a warship, just watch cycles. The powers in charge let us sleep through a watch and a half before sending in some petty officers to shake us out of our cots. When I climb out of my coffin-like cot, I have no idea whether we’re on first, second, or third watch, because my internal clock has lost its careful calibration it had just achieved before the Versailles slipped into the Alcubierre chute to Capella A.
While we were asleep, the Manitoba’s drop ship crews managed to pry another few dozen of our stranded crewmembers off the planet’s surface. When we file back into the briefing room we used before, several rows of seats are already taken by other Versailles enlisted and officers. There’s a general commotion as people rush to meet up with friends and berthmates. I don’t know too many people on the crew yet, so I stick with Halley. She looks around to find some of her fellow pilots, but frowns when she comes up empty.
“Looks like I’m the entire aviation section now,” she says.
I do a cursory headcount and come up with roughly sixty people, less than a third of the Versailles’ standard crew complement. Even allowing for a bunch of injured people in sick bay, our crew received a terrible drumming.
“Attention, all hands,” the XO says to the assembled crew after the first general buzz of excited conversation has dimmed a little. Everyone stops talking and faces the Commander.
“We’re done here,” he continues. “The Manitoba will remain on station and continue combat operations on the surface. Some of you will be hitching a ride back home on the Bunker Hill. The Lieutenant here will read off a list in a minute.”
He pauses for a moment to look over the assembled remnants of the Versailles crew.
“You can all look forward to more debriefings, and new assignments to God knows where. That’s for the Navy to decide. I wish they could give us a new frigate, so we could paint FF-472 onto the side and get back to business, but that’s not in the cards.”
Some of the sailors chuckle quietly and murmur their assent.
“For those of you going to Gateway for reassignment: until you report to a new XO or Commanding Officer, you’re still crew members of the NACS Versailles, and if I hear that any of you don’t act the part while you’re waiting around in the Transitional Personnel Unit, I’ll personally stop by and recalibrate your skulls. Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” we shout back, loud enough to make the XO recoil just a little.
“Well, good,” he says. “Glad that’s out of the way.”
“Sir,” one of the petty officers says. “Any word from the skipper?”
“Captain Hill’s pod was recovered last night,” the Commander says matter-of-factly. “Their chute either didn’t deploy, or got ripped off the crash pod on descent for some reason.”
The room turns deathly quiet in an instant.
“There were no survivors,” the XO continues. “In the pod with the skipper were Lieutenant Commander Schiller, Lieutenant Munoz, Chief Petty Officer Ellis, and Marine Lieutenant Connelly.”
For a few seconds, you could hear a piece of lint falling on the ground.
“Spare a thought for the Old Man and the rest of the CIC crew when you’re on the way back to Gateway. You’ll have plenty of time for that in Alcubierre. The skipper was a good man, and a fine commanding officer.”
He looks at the Lieutenant next to him, who carries a clipboard with a bunch of printouts stuffed into the document clasp.
“Mister Benning will now read off the list of personnel who will hitch a ride on the Bunker Hill in an hour. If your name’s not on the list, you’re staying with me. If it is, I wish you good luck, and safe passage. I am proud to have served with each and every one of you, and I’ll gladly stand the watch with any of you again.”
My name is on the list for the Bunker Hill, but Halley’s isn’t.
I was hoping for some more time with Halley, time that doesn’t involve trying to get out of peril or flying around a desolate planet with an una
rmed drop ship. As things stand right now, all I get is a quick good-bye in a busy gangway outside of the hangar deck.
“Isn’t that just fucking fabulous?” Halley says to me as we embrace for our third attempt at letting go of each other. “You pull all these strings to get transferred to my shit bucket, and then they blow it up from underneath us.”
“I think the universe might hate me,” I say.
“I don’t think that’s quite true, Andrew,” she says, and kisses me on the corner of my mouth. “You managed to get on the right ship, after all. And we didn’t crash or get sucked into space. I’m pretty sure I’d be a charred spot on the ground down there if I hadn’t ditched Rickman after my watch and come to hang out with you.”
“Well, there is that,” I concede.
“We’ll just do the distance thing again. Who knows, though? It’s not that big of a Navy. Try to get yourself posted to some big bird farm, one with lots of drop ships, okay?”
“I will.”
We embrace one last time, ignoring the looks from passing crewmembers. Halley kisses me one last time, and then gently pushes me away with the palm of her hand against my chest.
“Go, before one of us goes UA and ends up in the brig for missing deployment.”
“Stay safe,” I tell her, and she laughs her cheerful, dark laugh.
“You’ve been there, Andrew. You can’t be careful in the left seat of a Wasp, don’t you know?”
“Later, pilot babe,” I say.
“Later, computer jock,” she replies.
“Last one,” the crew chief of the shuttle Wasp tells me when I walk up the ramp without much enthusiasm. “Get strapped in, we’re running behind already.”
“Aye-aye, sir,” I reply, and take a seat near the tail hatch. The crew chief steps back into the ship, and pushes the control button for the cargo ramp. I fish for the worn safety straps on my seat, and slip into the harness.