Honor the Threat

by Kevin Ikenberry

  An explosion tore through the trees above her. Jessica looked up and saw a large Zuul with gray and black fur, carrying a rifle, falling from the tree into the thick flora below. Trees shook in the distance. The rogue CASPer settled into position and laid fire against the compound’s wall, supporting the other CASPer’s ambling around the southeast corner. Jessica skidded to a stop behind the parapet as the CASPer leveled its railgun and targeted the mine delivery systems. The first salvo destroyed the mine system three sites over to Jessica’s left. Systematically, the CASPer re-sighted, fired, destroyed a mine system, and sighted on the next one. MinSha weapons pylons spun into action, firing an intense but ineffective barrage at the CASPer hiding behind a large, gnarled tree. Jessica saw the CASPer extend its railgun again and fire. She raised her rifle, leveled it at the targeting system mounted to the tip of the railgun, and fired three quick shots. None hit their mark.

  Dammit!

  Ducking behind the parapet, Jessica closed her eyes and tried to relax. Shooting anything required steady hands and complete focus. She remembered the words her instructors at Peacemaker U taught her.

  Settle the weapon.

  Steady the hand.

  See the shot.

  She recited it four times, slowly, before she felt calm enough to attempt the next shot. She popped up, sighted on the CASPer partially hidden by the tree, and waited.

  <> Lucille chimed.

  “Not yet,” Jessica said. The CASPer’s arm came up, and she found the cylindrical railgun sight easily. When the arm extended, Jessica took a breath and let it halfway out before she pulled the trigger three times in rapid succession. It only took one shot to disrupt the sighting system. The CASPer pulled back behind the tree.

  Got ya!

  Above her, rounds arced into the compound and impacted the western wall. Jessica dove for the platform and assumed her semi-covered position again, face against the parapet. Rounds fell along the southern wall, and from the explosions she knew they were getting closer and closer to her wall. The southeast corner shook under massive detonations, jarring her forehead hard against the steel wall. Her rifle skittered out of her grasp and fell into the central compound. She half-rolled to her stomach and looked out along the eastern wall as another fusillade crashed down. To her left, below the wall and inside the compound, there was a flash and a burst of shocking heat that washed over her in a millisecond. Then she was off the floor and over the wall, tumbling head over heels into the jungle below. Secondary explosions in the mine delivery system flung her further into the bushes, tearing away her slate and weapon as she fell.

  For a split second, she was nine years old at the trampoline gym, twirling and twisting unlike any other kid her age. The large, open pits full of cloth-covered foam blocks were her playground. The key, her teachers told her, was to visualize where her navel was and turn her body to put it where she wanted it to be. Cartwheeling through the air, she tried to twist, wanting to somehow find a way to land on her feet, but it was not to be. Jessica over-rotated and crashed into the dense foliage on her back. The impact drove the air from her lungs. She bounced once and felt her headset tear away as a thousand branches snatched at her body. Searing pain shot through her left arm, and as she came to a stop, her head bounced off a tree stump. The noise of the jungle bombarded her then fell strangely silent as her ears seemed to fill with the sounds of a distant ocean. Darkness swam around the edges of her vision as she lay there gasping for breath, until unconsciousness swam up and took her away.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Nine

  Macon, Intergalactic Haulers

  In Orbit Above Shaw Outpost, Thletca-4

  Shaw Outpost was one of the twelve moons of Thletca-4. The gas giant planet was twice as large as Jupiter and had a gravity well to match. Of its dozen moons, only two were habitable. The first was an icy world not unlike Europa, except that its acidic oceans sat devoid of life under six kilometers of ice. The second looked like the Mars movies of the twenty-first century that James “Snowman” Francis remembered seeing. Mars wasn’t covered in large rock formations and daunting terrain like those old Tri-V programs showed. The moon below was a black disk contrasting with the haunting blue-green layers of Thletca-4. Against the planet, he could make out the wispy, noxious atmosphere. They’d be able to deploy the flyers but conducting operations without masks and oxygen tanks was out of the question. He glanced at the darkened moon for a long moment and realized what bothered him. According to the charts and information feeds, he should have seen lights from one major settlement on the near-side of Shaw Outpost, but there was nothing but darkness. His stomach tightened. Darkness meant death in the void.

  Outside the Macon’s port-side bridge window, the lighted hull of the Valdosta hung in space. The frigate was two-thirds the length of his command ship. Valdosta and her twin, the Decatur, were capable, multi-purpose vessels with retractable gravity rings for long flights. They’d kept the rings stowed on emergence from the gate, expecting trouble, which had turned out to be a good move. By the looks of things, they’d have to land the CASPers on the surface. He needed to find a place for the Valdosta and the Decatur to land. The Macon and his weapons platform, the Oglethorpe, would remain in orbit, ready to support them.

  “Sensors?” Snowman turned to his second in command. Pierre Dupont looked up from a sensor display, frowning grimly. His lips pressed together in a tight pink line that stood out from his dark skin. From Algiers, Dupont had been a researcher in sensor dynamics at Cambridge before answering the call of exploration. He’d signed on with Intergalactic Haulers as soon as Snowman filed the company’s paperwork. They’d sat together, total strangers, at a coffee shop counter when it happened more than thirty years ago. How their lives had changed from that chance encounter. It seemed like yesterday, except the touches of gray in Dupont’s hair said otherwise. “Nothing on infrared or thermals. Looks like Voida is completely cold.”

  Snowman pressed a button on his Tri-V and displayed the city’s expected location in the center of the disk. Voida had a population of more than five hundred thousand souls—mostly miners pulling F11 out of the moon’s core. “Anything in the spectrum?”

  “Everything we can monitor is silent. There’s a lot of distortion on the Ka and Ku bands, but most everything is quiet.” Dupont replied.

  Snowman bit his lower lip for a moment. “Ryu? Any sign of the Anzacs? They should have four vessels, and Max always leaves one in orbit.”

  The newest member of the Intergalactic Haulers didn’t look up. “No sign of anything crewed in orbit from this vantage point. Gate control feeds show a handful of objects on the far side. Tracking the usual communications and relay satellite constellations, but they’re all dead silent, too.”

  Snowman turned to the fourth member of his bridge crew and took a slow, deep breath. While most Human companies, mercenary or otherwise, maintained an unwritten code of Humans only, Intergalactic Haulers was diverse by design. Snowman wanted relationships not only with members of the different guilds in the Galactic Union, but with the different species and their home worlds, as well. After the resolution of the conflict on Araf, Snowman realized several of the Altar soldiers possessed talents and vision far beyond those of some of his sub-unit commanders. One was by far the best tactician he’d ever met, and he’d played a more than substantial role in Jessica’s successful mission. When the colony stabilized under permanent leadership, he’d asked the Altar about a different career option, and the answer had been obvious. “What do you think, Bukk?”

  The young Altar’s mandibles twitched as he thought. “Removing communications capabilities is the first step to silencing an enemy. Without a way to call for help or plead for mercy, a colony must fight or die.”

  Snowman nodded. Bukk was right. The Tortantulas and whomever they’d brought with them were bound and determined to eliminate the entire moon. Without resistance, they could take the F11 and adversely af
fect the markets throughout the galaxy, which was why Max Alden and his company had been deployed. Max wouldn’t have given up Voida and its high-rising arcologies for anything short of victory. The high-rise buildings were densely populated and ecologically low-impact—perfect for such harsh terrain, but easy targets. There were two more colonies on the tidally-locked dayside of the moon—what they called the side facing the planet—and that was where their enemies would be waiting. He turned to Dupont.

  “Ready and deploy the communications boosters. As high an orbit as you can get.”

  Dupont nodded. “I’ve got a high-dwell-time orbit planned for two satellites. We’ll co-deploy counter-ASAT birds with them.” Communications satellites were unarmed, sitting ducks. A couple of defenders for each platform would give them protection and the most finite of resources—time.

  “Good thinking,” Snowman said. “Once our comms are secure, establish a relay to Gate Control and ask them to maintain an open channel. We’ll use them for updates and anything that needs to go out to the Union. Ryu? Get as much data on those orbital platforms as you can. Full conjunction analysis.”

  Bukk’s antenna twitched. “Permission to load and set weapons?”

  Ryu raised up and looked over his shoulder. “For what? Maybe the city is asleep or something.”

  Snowman looked at the young man and saw the curious mixture of mother and father in his features. “Ryu? An arcology built on the dark side of a moon only goes dark under catastrophic circumstances. We’re going around to the dayside, and we’re going to do it armed and ready to respond to attack. If we’re wrong, no one will know our weapons were ready to fire. If we’re right, we don’t waste valuable time getting ready to fight.”

  “The loaded weapon is substantially easier to fire than one that is not,” Bukk said.

  Ryu nodded reluctantly. “I get that, Snowman. Just seems a little presumptive.”

  “You don’t stay alive in this business without being presumptive, son. You monitor those contacts on the dayside. Get all the information you can from them and sound the alert if they move in our direction.” Snowman smiled at the young man, who returned it affably. “Now then, sound ‘boots and saddles.’ All external weapons ready, and I want all CASPers to stand-to in five minutes. Get me the first and second company commanders on primary comms, Pierre.”

  “On it, Boss.”

  Snowman turned to Bukk. “Relay to all. External bays loaded and prepared to fire. I want the landing teams ready to load their vehicles.” He looked at his display and saw the time-to-dayside countdown clock at twelve minutes. “They need to be ready in ten minutes. Ryu? I need a perfect insertion burn, giving us distance and position on that first target, in case it’s not a friendly.”

  Ryu turned back to his workstation. “Give me a minute, Boss.” His voice was back to the confident, measured tone that reminded Snowman of the boy’s father. They hadn’t come any better than the Misakis. If I’d retired when they had…

  The hatch to the Macon’s bridge opened, and a woman in an olive-green flight suit with no patches on it hung in the circular opening. Microgravity played hell with the eyes and brain, and from where Snowman sat, Li Ping not only appeared to be flying, but upside down. He thought she was back aboard the Valdosta, preparing to deploy her CASPer. “I thought you went back an hour ago?”

  “Last minute system updates. We’re patching the CASPers now. Nothing major. Any sign of Max?”

  He shook his head. “No, Li. When I hear something, I’ll pipe it directly down to you.”

  “Copy that. I’ll be back aboard in ten.” She pushed off from the hatch opening and flew away from the bridge. “Keep the faith.”

  Snowman gave her a thumbs-up and managed a tight smile. The hatch closed, and he stared at it for a long moment. “Keep the faith” was something Max Alden taught him years ago. Lei Ping’s mother was Max Alden’s second wife. They’d married in the aftermath of one of Max’s missions. Max went to Earth and spent three days trying to locate any next of kin of his executive officer, who’d been killed in action in the Tesc region. Max preferred to relay any condolences in person to the chagrin of most mercenary commanders. Lei’s mother took pity on the dark-haired New Zealander and helped him find the young woman, and Max had asked Lei’s mother to join him for dinner. They’d been together ever since. For the last twenty years, Max and Jenny Alden had been some of his closest friends. They’d known his secrets for twenty-five years, and they knew what his own mission had been. They’d kept silent until he’d publicly returned to Araf. He hadn’t had a chance to thank them for everything they’d done. In his absence, they’d buried his wife and taken Jessica under their wings until she became a mercenary. For being a father figure to his daughter, Max Alden had earned the last full measure of whatever Snowman and Intergalactic Haulers could do.

  “I’ve got imagery inbound,” Dupont said. He’d deployed a small elSha-built probe on a fast approach trajectory to get pictures of the two settlements on the moon’s dayside. “Downloading the first shots of the Solus arcology now.”

  Snowman grunted and adjusted his harness for the millionth time. When he headed into any situation he didn’t like, he couldn’t get the five-point harness tight enough. The last thing he wanted was to flail about the cabin under fire like the actors in those old holoshows. He stabbed the communications button to speak to the entire company, all four ships and their vehicles / CASPers. “Alright, folks. You know the drill. We’ll see what’s going on down there and deploy you forward. Oglethorpe, bring your guns online. We’ll pass over the Solus arcology in about nine minutes. We may need to drop some rocks. Before anybody says it, we’ll be above ten miles. Yeah, I got it. You all know Max Alden and most of his company, and I know we’ll be above ten miles. The rules say we can’t bomb from up here—I get that. You know my take on rules, people. There is an exception to every single one, and this ain’t no different. The Anzacs are in trouble, and we’re going to rain fire and damnation on what’s down there.

  “There’s another piece, though. It don’t look good right now. Voida is completely blacked out and silent. We’ve had no contact with the Anzacs or anybody else down there. That may change when we swing around the dayside, so keep your eyes and ears open. Anything you hear or see, make sure it’s relayed up the chain. Until we find out what happened to the Anzacs and everyone else on this moon, we gotta stay together and in contact with each other. This ain’t a salvage mission, people. We’ve got friends down there that need our help. We’re going in hot to give it to them. Let’s give them hell, Haulers.”

  He looked at Dupont, who frowned and said, “Solus is on fire. Seeing sporadic weapons fire from the city itself. Nothing on the spectrum.”

  “Anything from the Anzacs? IFF? Trackers?” Mercenary companies worth their salt used tracking software or identification friend or foe radio signals to broadcast their positions to each other. They’d been in use with most militaries since the twentieth century in one form or another. Something on the surface should have been transmitting.

  “Nothing. Unless the Torts have figured out a way to jam CASPer communications suites, we should hear something.”

  “Battle damage is possible,” Bukk said. “The alternative is that they’re fighting for their lives. Look at the display.”

  Snowman called up the latest image on his central Tri-V and sucked in a quick breath. His stomach seemed to fold in on itself at the vision of unmitigated hell below.

  Holy shit.

  The Solus arcology was the largest of the three settlements. Built atop a mesa that ran from the moon’s southwest to northeast, the arcology towered over the surrounding terrain. In the vertical city, there were three thoroughfares running the length of the mesa, connecting two landing pad complexes on alternate corners. Most of the buildings weren’t as tall as the ones in Voida because of the space traffic around the complex. There was nothing in the air, and several vessels on the ground looked compromised. He looked away
from the shattered spaceport to the city’s border. The edges of the mesa abutted an escarpment of rock, catching the reflected light from Thletca-4 and shimmering unnaturally. As the live video zoomed down to the eastern side of the mesa, Snowman felt his stomach knot again. The entire valley floor below the archeology teemed with Tortantulas. The swarming mass looked like maggots rolling and pressing against the rocks. In at least three places, streams of the dark mass climbed up and penetrated breaches in the arcology’s walls.

  It’s a damned siege. They’ve got the high ground surrounded and can take the city whenever they want. So, what’s stopping them? Something is.

  Snowman exhaled and looked away from the Tortantulas. He’d hated spiders ever since he was a kid, and a brown recluse had bitten a friend’s leg while camping. Nuking the moon from orbit would have been fine with him; if not for Max, he might have bailed. Instead, he looked at the built-up city for signs of resistance. It took thirty seconds, but he found them.

  “Northwest corner, Pierre. See them?”

  “Enhancing the image now.”

  He zoomed in as tight as possible. On top of a building, there were two, maybe three CASPer units. They moved, then fired. “I want their feeds, Pierre.”

  “Not going to happen until we’re closer, Boss,” Pierre said. “I’ve got nothing from this distance. When I can get a laser on them, we might be able to figure out what’s going on.”

  Snowman grunted. The CASPers moved as if in slow motion. “Is the feed slow?”

  Dupont leaned closer to his console. “No. We’re getting a good feed from the probe. Something wrong?”

  “I don’t like the way they’re moving. Too slow for a crewed CASPer unless it’s really chewed up. Anybody see anything else?”

  “Sporadic fire from two other locations. Looks like structure to structure fighting,” Bukk said. “The underground levels must be compromised, so they’ve pushed the fight vertical. The CASPers on the roof may be down to their last reserves.”