A whirl of thoughts went through Bokamu’s mind.
I’ll never be committed to anyone.
I’ll never have children.
I’ll never see New Earth or my family again.
He looked at Pemberton — smirking, insolent, crooked-smiling Pemberton — and saw complete certainty in the man’s face. Bokamu exhaled, and felt some of the fear rumbling through his body evaporate.
He raised the datapad and noticed the flashing red icon. A bitter laugh bubbled up his throat as he held a fingertip on the icon then swiped across ‘cancel/ uncompleted’ when the menu bubble appeared. Having put his admin house in order, Bokamu accessed the probe control function menu, finding a flashing green icon marked ‘launch.’
Fifteen minutes later Heimdallr Eight was boarded by the Vyptellians.
Making It Count
“I’m going to die,” the second lieutenant said, his voice toneless. “What a stupid way to have to die.”
Sergeant Siengha looked up but the officer’s words weren’t directed at her. Instead, he stared into the distance, the exhaustion every surviving member of the platoon felt making his face as devoid of emotion as his voice. She took one more glance at the young officer’s armor control chipset, located on his right hip, and slowly shook her head.
Small, no bigger around than Siengha’s little finger and just three millimeters thick, the chipset was nestled under one corner of an armor plate and accessible only through a hardened lid. It controlled several key features of a soldier’s armor, including masking the human body’s heat signature. Soldiers were told Vyptellian hunter drones searched for and locked in on human-sized hot or cold spots, depending on the surrounding environment
As much as she may have wanted to, there was no way to dispute the lieutenant’s assessment. Tiny as it was, the lieutenant’s chipset had shattered into three pieces after a direct hit on the armored lid. She shook her head again. In all the battles she had been part of, Siengha had never seen a control chipset destroyed before: it was a million-to-one shot.
The sergeant stood and stretched, her eyes checking the time displayed on the inside of her faceshield before sweeping the tight perimeter. They were in a narrow valley, just a slit between two stony hills. What was left of the platoon after the Towers battle — about twenty soldiers in all — sat with backs against dull red rock, chests heaving and limbs limp after two days of running from Vyp drones and cannon fire. They’d rested five minutes and she had planned on giving them five more; ahead was another day on the move to reach the latest rally point broadcast over the command net.
As much as she wanted to, Siengha hadn’t dropped to the ground or leaned against the rocks when they reached this spot. Instead, she sipped water from the tube in her helmet while going from soldier to soldier, checking their status. Most had blunt impact wounds, their armor dented and scratched, and a few nursed broken bones, but nothing that impacted their mobility.
Then she got to the lieutenant, who at first tried to shoo her away and then ordered her to leave him alone. Siengha would have none of it.
“How long?” The officer didn’t reply so she reached out and gave his shoulder a shake. He started and looked up at her. “How long have you known about the chip?”
“Does it matter?”
Siengha sighed. She liked this lieutenant as much as any the green officers Command sent to learn from her. He had been a flight officer and was selected for officer school after completing basic training, arriving at Operating Post Tango-5 with a large group of replacement soldiers just before the Vyp pull back. She spent the next ten days teaching him as much as she could about leading troops in battle, all the while growing more and more concerned about what the enemy was up to.
Unlike too many before him, this young officer listened attentively to everything she said, asked good questions, and checked with her before making decisions. When it was announced that a large force, including their platoon, was going to sortie from the outpost in search of the enemy, Siengha felt she and the lieutenant had formed a functional partnership that gave all of them a reasonable chance of survival in a fight.
But no matter how much she taught them the true test of any new soldier was battle, and at the Towers the lieutenant performed well. When the Vyps suddenly attacked, pouring through gaps in the rocky hills and from hidden pits, there was a brief moment when the young officer’s fear got the best of him, but then it was over and he set about helping her get the platoon positioned and returning fire.
Penned into a valley by the two largest mountains in the region — the Towers — the human force quickly dug in and used pre-registered cannon fire and massed missile salvos from drones to hold off the initial assault waves. The aliens withdrew and used their own cannons and drones to batter the makeshift perimeter before launching another assault that nearly broke the human line in several places.
Siengha’s platoon held firm but the unit to their right began to falter and she quickly formed a quick reaction team of five veteran soldiers to help them out. One of the five was shot down while shifting positions but the others jumped into the fray, which in places had become a hand-to-hand battle. At one point Siengha speared the midsection of Vyp with her assault rifle, fired several rounds, and then pushed the alien’s lifeless body back to block two more who were then cut down by fire from the human line.
Shooting, using their rifles as clubs, and finally pulling out the combat blades sheathed on their lower legs, the sergeant and her team pushed back the attackers and sealed the breach — temporarily. The aliens fell back, pounded the humans with more cannon and drone fire, and then pushed forward again. And again.
Despite all the missiles and cannon shells fired into the massed aliens, their numbers never seemed to decrease. After an hour of battle the humans were exhausted and nearly out of ammunition; air assets, transports and assault ships, were called in to effect a breakout. The aliens had anticipated this and were prepared. As the last burning transport fell from the sky the ground commander came on the net and told company and platoon leaders to stand by to move.
Then the surviving assault ships used flamebombs to carve escape channels through the massed Vyps. One of the channels was directly in front of Siengha’s position and as the assault ships screamed overhead she and the lieutenant led their platoon between the sheets of flame, shooting down any Vyps in their path. Others followed in their wake, but her focus was on what lay ahead.
She kept the group moving after escaping the killing field, allowing them only brief stops for rest. They heard drones overhead and cannonades fell all around them, some far away and some frighteningly close. As they moved, so too did the rally point, always to positions farther away from the battle.
Now with another day of running ahead of them, Siengha’s face was devoid of emotion as she looked down at the young officer whose eyes were wet with unshed tears.
“It matters,” she said in a quiet but firm voice.
The lieutenant’s back straightened and he nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. The last cannonade, where the trails crossed. I felt something hit my legs, but nothing made it through. There was a fault warning up on my display, but we were moving fast, making time. I figured it could wait ’til we stopped.” He sighed. “I’m sorry. I should’ve said something right away.”
Siengha nodded. She had to assume the Vyps were tracking them and had been for at least two hours, unseen drones zeroing in on the officer’s heat signature. That they hadn’t been shelled again meant either the aliens were hoping they would join more survivors of the Towers ambush to make a more enticing target for cannon fire, or ground troops were closing in.
Whichever it was, the sergeant knew what had to happen next. She switched to the platoon net. “Break’s over. Everybody up and moving.”
Ignoring the grumbling, she returned to the command channel and stepped in front of the lieutenant, placing herself between him and the others. “Okay, sir, this is what’s going to happen. Yo
u stay here for another five to ten minutes after we leave, then head down our trail. There’s a crossing on the nav display about a klick from here; you take the left trail, and then the next left after that.”
“What? Look, maybe the chip doesn’t do anything at all to spoof their drones. Maybe Command lied to us about it, you know, to make us feel safer.” His eyes were desperate, pleading. “How would we know any different?”
She looked away from him, unable in that moment to watch him grovel.
There was a part of her that distrusted the tech, too. That didn’t believe humanity’s better gadgets would be the difference in winning the war. From what she’d seen, the only sure way to victory was through things that demonstrably killed and wounded the enemy, like bullets, knives, cannons and missiles.
But the battlefield was no place for philosophical discussions.
Siengha locked eyes with the lieutenant. “You’re going to stay here for five or ten minutes, then follow on our path.” Her tone was firm, unwavering. “Take the left trail about a klick along, then the next left.”
The lieutenant’s shoulders slumped. After a moment, he swallowed and nodded. “I know I can’t go with you, that you need to get moving before a drone spots me. I’ll stay here … fight them when they get here, or just wait for the cannons. Either way, I’m dead. I know that.” His voice quavered and she barely heard the last words.
She slowly shook her head back and forth. “We’ve got to assume they’ve been tracking us since the chip went toes up. I need you to lead them off. Give me time to get some distance between the platoon and them.” She placed a hand on his shoulder. “Make what happens count.”
He turned his head away from her. “You’re right. Of course, you’re right.”
Siengha began to leave but stopped herself. Dropping to one knee, she searched his face. “Do you have people? At home?”
“My brother and grandparents live on Barribes. Mother and father are gone. They were soldiers, too.”
“I’ll let them know.”
His back straightened. “Thank you, Sergeant Siengha.” He reached out his hand and she clasped it. The young officer nodded toward the group of soldiers gathering on the other side of the small open area. “You make whatever happens count, too.”
“Always.” She got up and turned away from him, flipping her comm channel to the platoon net. “Lieutenant’s armor has a glitch, he’s going to hang back. We’re moving.”
Big Push
Flight Officer Caviness had never seen so many Vyp fighters.
From the concerned and surprised yelps of her squadron and wing mates on the net, no one else had either. After months of nearly empty space and no action it was as if some giant conduit from the Vyp side of the galaxy had been opened and all the aliens building up behind that blockage were bursting into their battlezone.
Where have they been until now? she thought.
Her hands and feet moved smoothly across the control surfaces as she twisted her fighter to the left and down, trying to avoid the arcing shots of at least five aliens. Caviness immediately changed course again, knowing instinctively that spending more than a millisecond on level flight would be disastrous. The targeting reticle flashed green then red then green again as Vyp fighters streaked across her viewscreen. She gave up trying to target individual aliens and just held her thumb on the firing touchpad, sending streams of charged slugs out.
A red flashing light appeared on the viewscreen, and at the same time a harsh tone cut through the comm chatter in her earpiece: weapons system high temp warning. Rivulets of sweat ran down both sides of her face as she stopped firing and worked the controls, turning her fighter this way and that while she searched for a bit of open space to compose herself and figure out how to deal with the swarm of aliens.
“Control, this is White Echo Three Five, I’m done. Display is red.” That was Bischolov, in the flight control unit to her left. She had no time to spare a glance in his direction but her eyes briefly widened as he added: “You already know that.”
As more ships were destroyed she heard pilots asking Control to shift their control units to the replacement fighters launched as soon as contact was made with the Vyp horde. Control’s reply was a reminder that it was standard procedure to wait until replacement fighters were less than ten minutes from the battlezone.
But then something unheard of happened: a woman identifying herself as Air Group Ops came on the station net, ordering all Control points to immediately release replacements fighters to available pilots.
The sweat on her face turned icy cold as Group Ops continued: “All stations! A large force of enemy fighters has broken through and is headed inbound. ETA thirty minutes. All Control points direct fighters back to the station to establish a defensive line. Launch Stations, we need every available fighter as soon as possible.”
Caviness spared a glance at the navigation inset on her main display and silently groaned. Her evasive maneuvers placed the main Vyp group between her and the station: she would have to fight her way back through the massed alien ships and then outrun them.
A bluish-green stream of shells crossed her viewscreen and she snapped her fighter down and into a rolling turn, firing her own cannon at the Vyps flashing by.
Damn it! Keep moving!
Without leveling out she reversed the turn and climbed, sending her fighter in the direction she needed to go. Working the control surfaces, firing whenever the targeting reticle flashed green, she was in the heart of the alien fleet when her luck ran out.
She saw two Vyp fighters collide out of the corner of her eye and then a stream of alien fire passed over the top of her, tearing into another Vyp.
There’s so many of them they can’t help hitting each other!
She sent her fighter into a steep dive but before she could make another move a warning tone warbled in her earpiece, telling her the fighter was taking fire. Seconds later the blackness of space disappeared from her viewscreen, replaced by solid maroon.
Her fighter was gone. For a moment she sat in the control unit, conscious only of the ragged sound of her own breathing. When the comms crackled in her ears she jumped a little and felt the belts on the pedals cutting into the tops of her feet.
“White Hotel Three Four this is Control. Shifting you to replacement ship in five, four, three, two … shift!”
The viewscreen flashed and the dark red was replaced by the black of space, bright specks of stars shining in the distance. “This is Three Four, I have control of replacement. Standing by for vector to defensive line.”
Fifteen minutes later her viewscreen was again maroon.
Caviness and the other pilots in replacement fighters had flown head-on at maximum speed toward a point between the station and the charging Vyp phalanx. Just before reaching this ad hoc defensive line she saw the aliens pass through it, the flashes of weapons firing and ships exploding telling her the human-controlled fighters already there had been swept aside.
She and the others tried to blunt this assault, flying into the mass of enemy ships with lines of green slugs arcing out in front of them. Twisting and turning, resorting to once again holding the firing key down until the overheat warning sounded, Caviness used every trick she knew to keep her fighter in one piece. For the briefest moment the Vyp charge seemed to slow as the aliens responded to the assault, then the weight of their numbers began to tell.
Caviness heard first one, then two, and then many pilots on the comms requesting replacement ships. Diving and climbing, turning and rolling, she tried to avoid their fate but suddenly her viewscreen filled up with alien fighters and then it flashed to dark red. She gritted her teeth and yelled, hammering either side of the cockpit with her hands.
With tears of frustration joining the sweat on her face, she took a deep breath. “Control, this is Three Four requesting transfer to replacement fighter.”
Several seconds passed and she was about to repeat the request when her earpiece crackled to
life. “Negative your request, Three Four. No replacements available.”
“Control, how long until a replacement is available.”
“Three Four, there, ah, there are no more replacement fighters.” She heard a sigh from the woman. “Repeat, no replacement fighters are available. Three Four, exit your unit and stand by for instruction.”
Caviness stared at the red viewscreen, the enormity of the situation sinking in for the first time. After her squadron launched as part of the all-station alert she focused solely on flying and fighting the Vyps. From her seat she realized the situation was grim — There were just so many Vyps! — and heard a lot of pilots reporting their ships blown up … but finding the station out of fighters left her dazed and nauseous.
She’d lost her share of fighters since joining the squadron, but those losses seemed isolated, a pittance measured against the large number of enemy fighters shot down during the same engagements. Powering down the control unit, she realized she’d never seen the losing end of a battle.
Her hands felt numb and fat as she loosened the safety belts holding her feet to the control pedals. Shakily, she stepped out onto the flight deck. To her left and right were pilots who looked just as disoriented as she felt, standing next to their vacated control units. Caviness pulled off her helmet, holding it awkwardly with both hands.
“What do we do now?” Bischolov asked no one in particular.
Caviness looked around. “The support officers should be here. They’ll tell us what to do.”
“Where are the support officers? Where are they?” The voice, coming from somewhere to her right, was shrill.
There was a flicker to her left and Caviness realized it was the exterior viewscreen above Tyko’s control unit. Watching him dodge and fight Vyps, a pang of guilt swept through her: she hadn’t thought of him since they were called to the flight deck midway through lunch. She placed her helmet on the deck and walked over to Tyko’s unit, joining a knot of pilots watching him battle.
Green Zulu Five One: And Other Stories From the Vyptellian War Page 11