by M. R. Forbes
"Hang on," Major Long said. "This is going to be close."
He couldn't see what was happening, and he couldn't feel the changes in direction or orientation that Long was effecting on the ship. He could see the Tetron's second stream coming towards them, threatening to turn them into corroded sludge. Long had said he could make it.
Mitchell hoped he was right, unblinking while the stream bore down on them.
Then it was past.
"Whoooooooooooooo," Long shouted.
Mitchell let out the breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
"One minute thirty seconds," Borov said.
Mitchell found the Goliath on the grid. Hundreds of discs spat from it, headed for the remaining cruiser. It disappeared a few seconds later.
He could feel his heart racing. He couldn't believe it. They had done it.
"Second cruiser down," Millie said. "Valkyrie, you are clear to-"
A dozen new dots flashed into view.
"Oh hell," he heard Rocket say.
"Twenty seconds to atmosphere," Borov said, his voice steady.
"Tetron is preparing to fire again," Millie said.
"Rocket, Polestar, tighten up," Alvarez said. "Coming back home."
"Valkyrie, you have incoming nuke signatures."
Incoming nukes? This close to the air?
"Alvarez, intercept," Mitchell said.
"Roger."
"We're all gonna die," he heard Cormac say. Then the Private started laughing.
"Firedog, shut the frig up," Shank cursed.
Everything seemed to speed up. Or slow down. Living in the moment, it was hard for Mitchell to tell. His eyes tracked the amoebics that Alvarez launched at the nukes. They tracked the missiles on their way towards the Valkyrie. They tracked the new ships that had appeared in the space: six cruisers, a carrier, and a second battleship, along with four patrollers. They flicked to the Goliath, unleashing its own fury on the interlopers, and then skated to the disappearing dot that had once been Polestar.
His war?
He was helpless. Useless.
The nukes vanished, detonated prematurely by the amoebics and prevented from delivering their warheads. Two of the patrollers vanished under Goliath's attack. A third plasma stream began arcing towards them, right into the thick of the soup, the Tetron willing to kill any number of people to kill them.
The Valkyrie groaned.
"Shields are gone. Main one is out," Major Long said.
"Ten seconds to atmosphere."
The S-17 zipped around the Valkyrie, the sole remaining fighter unleashing disc after disc in a scattershot pattern to keep incoming shots at bay. They were clear of the plasma stream path, which headed past them, into the mix and the Goliath.
"Five seconds."
The Valkyrie groaned again, a hard bang slamming the wall next to the mech, loudly enough that Mitchell heard it naturally. A screeching and tearing noise followed, and the dropship began shaking violently, smacking into the atmosphere and punching its way through. Mitchell could see the dents in the poly-alloy, rattling and threatening to tear away from the frame.
"Hull is holding. Stabilizing thrusters are offline. Forward repulsor is down." Major Long's voice was calm while he rattled off the damage. "Sorry, Colonel, we're off target. You'll have to get to York on your own."
Mitchell cursed under his breath. He hadn't expected this to be easy, but it was worse than anything they had simulated. Not quite worse. They were still alive.
Gravity was gaining on them, and the docking clamps groaned above the mech, the shaking of the Valkyrie threatening to tear them free. Mitchell had been on some rough drops before, but this was something else. The ship rolled through the sky, corkscrewing them at a downward slope.
"Major, you need to straighten the spin, or we're all going to die," he said, doing his best not to get dizzy from the rotation.
"I'm aware of that, Colonel," Long replied, still calm.
"Thirty seconds to drop," Borov said.
Drop? They couldn't possibly drop like this.
"They're still trailing us."
Mitchell tried to focus on the overlay, to see the dots on the grid and ignore the g-forces, blunted but not erased. Some of the starfighters had followed them down.
"They can't fly in atmosphere." Long's voice cracked, losing an edge of calm. Shooting at them or not, these were still Alliance pilots whose lives were being sacrificed in the chase.
Mitchell could hear the bullets hitting the fuselage, pounding into the thick armor plating. The rolling began to slow, the Valkyrie straightening behind Long's focus.
"Twenty seconds. Opening drop doors."
The cameras on the mech's head swiveled down, showing Mitchell the base of the dropship folding apart, revealing the ground passing as a blur below them, with York on the wrong side of the Valkyrie. He saw a light shape streak past and crash into a line of trees, followed by a rolling fireball. One of the Alliance Morays, entering the atmosphere with no means to provide lift.
Then the mech was hanging by the clamps. Mitchell brought up a second overlay, powering up the reactor and checking his jump thrusters. A thought moved the mechs hands, balling them into fists.
Something hit the Valkyrie. She was still rolling when it did, and the force pushed them hard sideways. The alloy on the other side of the mech bay tore away, the shaking growing more violent as it did.
"Colonel, I'm dropping your team. I'm dropping them now," Long shouted.
"We're not straight, you'll kill-"
"You'll die if I don't."
The clamps released. The mech hung frozen for an instant, and then gravity began to reel it in.
Long's voice was interspersed with silence. "Goliath, this is Valkyrie. Mains are out. This is a one-way trip."
Mitchell fired the jump thrusters, twisting the mech's arm and using it to push away from the corner of the Valkyrie as he fell out of it. The corner of the bay glanced off the shoulder, and he cursed while the mech spun out and away from the crashing ship.
"We're taking heavy fire up here," Millie said. "We can't hold out forever. We'll draw them away from the planet, and then we're going to jump out. You have one week, Mitch. You hear me? One week. We'll be back. I promise."
Mitchell didn't respond. He was too focused on getting control of his tumbling mech, balancing the arms and legs with the thrusters mounted on the Zombie's back, using it all to slow the rotation, to get his mech upright and slowing before he smashed into the ground below. He had no idea if any of the others would make it or if any of the infantry modules had survived.
"Drop team is released, God save your souls," he heard Long say, somewhere in the back of his mind. "Valkyrie is going in hard. I'm popping-"
Then he was gone.
The world was a spiral around Mitchell. His p-rat beeped at the rapid descent, warning him that a fatal crash was imminent. His jaw clenched, and he growled while he pushed the jump thrusters harder, new warning calls that he was going to burn them out following the move. He ignored them, increasing the force, slowing the spiral of the descent, bringing the Zombie upright and firing the emergency chute. It spread out wide above him, big enough to slow the drop of the massively heavy machine. He looked down. The ground was still coming up fast. A forest. He was way off course from the drop point, an entire frigging mountain range between them and York.
The forest was a National Preserve that sat on either side. It was a thick growth of trees which had been brought from Earth during the initial planetary terraforming two hundred years earlier, and that had been spared much of the brunt of the Federation's assault. Mainly because there were no targets there. Even if the team had survived, it was going to cost them days to get back into position.
Days during which the Tetron would do its best to stop them.
"Godspeed, Millie," Mitchell said softly into the open channel. He kept one eye on the sky around him, the other on his combat grid. He was a big target dropping to ground
like this. Easy pickings.
He let the chute carry him for fifteen seconds, and then he cut it loose, firing the thrusters to control the rate of the mech's final descent to the ground. He found a small clearing in the midst of the trees and aimed for it, hitting harder than he wanted, the synthetic muscles shivering at the impact, the legs flexing and cracking. His body shifted against its attachment to the chair, the shell protecting him from the impact while his mind worked with the CAPN-NN to stumble the machine forward and reach out to grab the trunk of a large tree.
Once he was steady, he was still and silent, waiting for a reply.
None came.
23
Christine opened her eyes.
Morning had come. The rain was gone, replaced by moderate clouds and occasional blue sky, with Liberty's moons visible despite the growing light. She lifted her head, bringing herself up on her elbows, finally removing her weight from her stomach.
She slid out from beneath the dead CCU, careful to keep her rifle off the ground and stay silent. She looked up, scanning the skies around her for any sign of drones.
She had escaped. She was safe.
For now.
She stretched her legs with a light groan, and then brought her hand up and opened the weatherproof shirt to reveal her shoulder. Caked blood glued the shirt to her skin, and she tugged it away, expecting some measure of pain from the action. There was none. She ran her fingers over the wound. It should have been nasty, bruised, painful.
It was almost gone.
She stared at it out of the corner of her eye. It hadn't been that bad to begin with. A glancing blow. That was how she remembered it. Not a bullet through the shoulder. She couldn't remember having ever been shot. She could remember the battles. She could remember people dying around her, their cries of pain echoing in her thoughts.
Not her.
She was lucky.
Luckier than she had any right to be.
Luckier than anyone could be.
She walked slowly over to the corner of the rooftop, reaching the lip and leaning over. She looked down at the street two hundred meters below, at the broken machinery, the litter, the abandoned cars and the bodies. It was like everywhere else. Deserted. Destroyed. And for what?
Because they could. Wasn't that always why things like this happened?
She didn't see any soldiers down there. Did the enemy let them sleep? Or did they shuffle in a fresh group and dispose of the others without ceremony or regard? Or was it another trap? Another trick to lure her out? To lure anyone out?
If there was anyone left. It had been days since she had last spied someone moving around on their own, a teenager who had gotten his hands on an M1A. He had made it three blocks before she lost sight of him. She heard gunfire from that direction not too much later, and she didn't imagine he stood much of a chance against soldiers.
They were out there though. Rebels. Freedom fighters. Whatever they wanted to be called. The damage was testament to it. Of course, they had been beaten back, but she had to imagine some of them had escaped into the mountains, or the trees of the National Preserve. She had considered joining them there, of telling them what little she knew and helping them to stay alive. She could never bring herself to do it. She had to be here. She had to wait.
She wasn't sure why.
She didn't know for how long.
She retreated back to the climate control unit, squatting down and reaching under it to grab a candy bar she had found inside a burned out storefront. Somehow, the single block of synthetic sugars, chocolate, and bacon had survived the fires. It seemed as impossible as her own survival, and she appreciated that.
She tore open the wrapper, examining the brown surface, broken up by bits of fake meat like rocks jutting out of a lake. She brought it to her mouth and took a bite, savoring the blend of salty and sweet, the smokiness of the bacon, the creaminess of the chocolate.
She swallowed, and then dropped the rest of the bar onto the dirty, matte, reflective surface of the rooftop. She dashed around the CCU, past the service stairs to the southern corner of the building.
She felt the gathering in the air. She could smell the change in the atmosphere. Her eyes darted to the sky once more, and she saw it there through a break in the clouds, out past the deepening blue of the sky and into space beyond. A ship. A massive, heavy, bulky block of a ship.
Her eyes shifted. Another was tailing away from it. Descending. Coming to Liberty.
Why?
The oxygen seemed to vanish. Only for a second, maybe two. A stream of blue and white and gold lightning rose from the planet in a heavy blast, headed outwards towards the ship hanging above it.
She traced it through the sky, watching it rise. Her hands gripped the lip of the rooftop, clenching it tightly, her mouth hung open, her breathing shallow and tense. Nothing could withstand that.
Nothing.
The clouds around the blast burned away, giving her a better view of the action. She could see more ships now, dots and specks aligning above her, moving at a frantic pace. The ball of energy continued upward toward them, reaching the edge of the atmosphere, its color fluctuating and shimmering when it broke through the planet's shell. It was on a direct course for the biggest ship.
A ship she suddenly realized was familiar to her.
She had seen it before. She was sure of it. When? How? Her eyes fixated to it, trying to trace it across the distance. She could see it was shimmering too, and she watched as its own spear of energy burst out and met the first. A bright, momentary flash, and both streams were gone.
Still she stared at it. She knew the ship. She chided herself for being unable to remember. She closed her eyes tightly, hoping it would jog her memory. She opened them and regained the stare.
It wasn't a memory that flowed into her at that moment. It was something else. A feeling, an emotion, a swirl of understanding on the edge of her being. It started at her center and spread throughout her body, up into her head, out into her arms and legs.
It was a feeling of dread. Cold, hard, and unforgiving.
24
"Riggers, this is Ares. Knock back if you can hear me."
Mitchell reached behind the mech's back, grabbing the massive rifle and swinging it around in one hand. He checked his overlay, scanning the grid for friendlies. Something was messing with the sensors, and he had already witnessed the Tetron's ability to confuse them when he had flown over York the first time. Could it block their encrypted communications, too?
He told himself that was the reason no one was answering him.
"Riggers, this is Ares."
He moved the mech slowly through the trees, keeping the cameras in constant motion, scanning the sky for signs of incoming fighters, the ground for any sign of his team. Had he been the first out of the ship? The last? The spin had robbed him of his ability to even begin to track the descent of the others.
"Riggers, this is Ares."
He turned his attention further up. The cloud cover was light, and he could see the dark spot of an Alliance cruiser above them, matched in the distance by the larger shape of what he assumed was another Federation ship. There was no sign of the Goliath. It was better that they had escaped. There was nothing they could do for the drop team now.
They had failed the drop. It didn't matter how much they had prepared, they had still underestimated the forces the Tetron was controlling, as well as the range of its control. The ships that had fallen out of hyperspace must have been waiting at least a light year away.
They had failed the drop. They had lost the Valkyrie, their only way back off the planet unless they could find a ship to steal. Would the Tetron destroy them all to prevent that? Mitchell didn't doubt that it would.
They had failed the drop. Did he really believe they wouldn't? The run was suicidal to begin with, the odds longer than the Goliath herself. To get through the defenses to put them in, and then a second time to retrieve them?
No. In the end, he w
ould have the means and the motivation to abandon them if it meant getting Christine back to Origin. The Tetron had reprogrammed the S-17's helmet for Alvarez, but it had also reprogrammed the S-17. When the Goliath returned, Origin could release the fighter, and it would deliver itself to wherever Mitchell was with the idea that he would be able to load Christine into it and get the hell out.
"Riggers, this is Ares."
It might not matter now. If he was the only one who survived, he wouldn't be abandoning anyone if he somehow managed to find her. It would almost be easier that way.
He laughed at himself. The Tetron's ground forces were sure to be much thinner than the space defense. That didn't mean a single mech could punch through them, even with the amoebic warheads Origin had provided.
He needed his team, at the same time he was faced with the potential need to leave them behind.
That was more than just a hard choice. It was an impossible choice. One that ate at his conscience.
Victory at what cost?
If he did get Christine back to Origin, victory was hardly assured. What they would gain was information, a chance, nothing more.
As badly as they had failed the drop, a chance was more than they could have otherwise hoped for. The Tetron hadn't just invaded Alliance space. They had taken assets from the Federation, and were already making use of their more advanced war machine.
The head of the mech bowed to reflect his sudden feeling of doubt. It was over before it had truly began.
War eternal?
That was a joke.
If they had ever come close to winning, it was probably because the Tetron had let them.
"Riggers, this is Ares."
The words came out flat, Mitchell's hope waning.
"Ares, this is Shank. I hear you."
The mech's head raised, Mitchell's reaction sending subconscious thoughts to the CAP-NN. He scanned the woods. "Shank. This is Ares. What's your position?" He could barely contain the excitement and desperation that threatened to spill into his voice.
"I'm sending you the coordinates."
A beacon appeared in front of his eyes a moment later, directing him to turn left. Shank's module had landed three kilometers away.