Soon, the skies turn into the black of space.
Wreckage from the orbital battle is everywhere. Ruined spaceships and spacecraft tumble in erratic and unstable orbits. Shattered, gleaming fragments of the Chandelier drift everywhere, creating a scintillating, flashing, distracting backdrop to everything. Shimmering clouds of countermeasures dust drift in deep, thick clouds. Entire constellations of ECM decoys, dazzlers, and jammers fill the sky in every direction. You could hide an entire battle fleet in all this, and that’s the general idea.
It’s hard to tell who won or lost, or even if the battle is over.
At least the Callisto is still out there; we just need to get to her.
* * *
There aren’t many incidents after that on the short flight. We run into one weapons satellite in the wreckage that everyone missed, but it must have already exhausted all its munitions, because all it had to attack us with was laser clusters. The Angel frames burned it out less than a second after it was identified. There were also a few loiter missiles and cluster mines in orbit we had to shoot down, too. Other than that, it looks like the fighting is over—up here in orbit at least.
Now that we’re back in the Jovian communications network, Talon gives me the basics of how the battle unfolded. The surprise attack by House Dragon hit everyone hard, but they didn’t have enough to take over all of Venus in one swift strike, which was really their only chance. Once their initial strike was over, Houses Unicorn and Phoenix allied against their stronger foe and worked together with the Jovian fleet to defeat the Dragon forces in space. The Dragons didn’t have a chance after that, but still fought with more courage and tenacity than I’d expected from Venusians.
Now, space is ours. There are still Venusian warships in orbit belonging to Houses Unicorn, Phoenix, and various minor houses, but the Callisto’s task force remains the most potent combat force in Venus space. There are still House Dragon ships in distant deep space, and the battle on the surface of Venus is far from decided.
I’m glad to see the Chandelier survived…mostly. Sure, pieces and fragments of the superstructure are everywhere in orbit and will be a navigational hazard for thin-skinned ships for years to come. Still, enough remains to regulate the weather of Venus and provide a simulacrum of a day/night cycle. The vast constellation of mirrors and prisms always had massive redundancy, more for artistic reasons than for practicality, but the result is the world below us should continue to be a living world, if we can somehow keep this civil war from wrecking the rest of the planet.
The ambassador is silent the whole flight up. Medical monitors indicate he’s not injured, and he’s not asleep, so it’s not that. Maybe after all that, he needs some time to take it all in. Maybe we all do.
But we’re not going to get that time.
Our orders are to return to the Callisto and get our frames repaired and rearmed while we’re briefed on our next mission. Then we’ll be back out in space again. At least this time, I’ll be with my Angel in the fighting.
There she is. The Callisto has certainly seen better days. Scorch marks and ablated armor cover the entirety of the great ship. Craters and holes dot the hull here and there, and armored repair crews are already out there, working on critical systems and applying patches. Much of our escort fleet is similarly battered, and we lost the escort frigate Principal.
The Dragons knew they had to neutralize our carrier at the start of the fighting and threw just about everything they had at her. I guess their plan was, if they took out our carrier task force and also took Venus, Jupiter wouldn’t be willing to send an entire war fleet in retaliation due to our losses in the battle of Mars. Knowing us, I think they were mistaken; sheer outrage would have led us to war to the knife with Venus.
There’s a lot of frames, gunships, and other small craft orbiting the Callisto, waiting for their turn to dock. Since we’re carrying the ambassador, we move to the head of the line and fly straight into the landing bay along with our Angel escort.
* * * * *
Chapter 11
Phoenix
We’re out of the shuttle as soon as it lands. They need to get it out of the way of all the frames and everything else coming back in for rapid rearming, repair, and refueling.
I help the ambassador out of the shuttle and hand him off to two medical staff. He’s a mess, and not on the outside. I expect all the wounds are deep inside. The ambassador walks with a halting gait, and his eyes seem to stare past the bulkhead walls out to something only he can see. He came to Venus to participate in a series of meetings amidst the finest luxury and entertainment Venus could provide. What he got was a front row ticket to a vicious civil war. It’ll probably take him a while to get over all the shock he’s had to deal with. Even with training, it was rough for me after my first fight, and he’s had no preparation for all this.
Our frames land as soon as the hangar’s clear. They’re still in good enough shape to walk under their own power to their racks for repair. There’s no time to check in with them; we’re on the way out of the hangar for our next briefing. We’ll be back with our frames soon enough.
“Hey, where were you during all the action?” one of the other squadron pilots asks.
I bite back the reply before it can get out. He didn’t know why we weren’t up there fighting alongside him—except he should and probably does. He can access the data network and find out we were all down on Venus, guarding and evacuating the ambassador. OK, then, he’s just pissed and looking for someone to vent on. In that case…
“I was doing my job,” I reply curtly. That doesn’t work, and he tenses up, about to say something. “Look, we’ve got to deal with the Venusians first. All of us—working together.” As I turn to go, I add, “If you want to meet up with me in the sparring room after it’s over, I’ll be there.”
That done, I leave. What was that all about? Let’s see, Lt. Commander Williams, and the data file about his last battle has…
…oh…
Ohhhhhhhh….
He was out on patrol, guarding the task force, when the Venusian sneak attack hit them all—hard. Weapons satellites, Harpies, and ground batteries opened up on them. They lost half their people in those first few seconds. Then they had to hold on, desperately spending every last missile, until more squadrons of Angels and drone flights could help bolster their defense. They kept it up the whole time we were down there, only now returning to the carrier.
Yeah, he might be dealing with some stress right now.
Well, we’ll have to see if there’s a problem later; it’s time for me to get to the meeting.
* * *
There’s no time to stop, eat, and shower, but I still manage to take a drink from a replenishment pack on the way to the briefing. The Venusian war isn’t over, and the threat to the ship isn’t over until the war ends or we’re millions of kilometers from Venus. I can’t expect much rest until one or the other happens, maybe both.
Most of the other frame pilots are here in the domed briefing room, and everyone’s in their flight armor. The dome overhead shows the current tactical situation around a hologram of cloudy blue and violet Venus.
Space around Venus is mostly the blue of the Jovian task force, the purple of House Unicorn, and the gray of the various unaligned infrastructure, such as the Chandelier satellites. The red icons representing the ships and satellites of House Dragon are already gone from orbit, and the yellow House Phoenix forces are missing now, as well. All three of the Great Houses are in conflict with each other. House Dragon started it, and the other two Houses worked together with us to take them down. Then Houses Phoenix and Unicorn fought it out in orbit, and we stayed out of it. Currently the Unicorns hold orbit around Venus, and they’re our allies…maybe. We’re still at war with House Dragon, and not with the Phoenixes…maybe. Everything could change in the next hour, of course, assuming we even have an hour.
On the surface of Venus, the war is still going on. The floating city of Aphrodite has been taken over by
House Unicorn, but the fighting is still going on at Ishtar, and the Dragons seem to be gaining there since the Phoenixes attacked the Unicorns once they were ahead. The rest of the floating cities form a patchwork of different colors under the control of one great or lesser house or another. The planetary surface likewise forms a shifting patchwork of warring factions and changing alliances. It all looks like a colossal mess, and there’s no way to tell who’s on whose side at any given moment.
I really hope we’re not going down there…
“We’ll be doing a series of close patrols of the Venusian surface within the hour,” Commander Rackham declares.
Great. The last planetary civil war we got involved in was on Earth, and I still have nightmares from that mess.
The orders go out for each of the squadrons. One will be on standby in the Callisto, as reserve, while another will be on combat space patrol, defending the task force. Other squadrons will patrol Venus orbit and guard what’s left of the Chandelier and other vital space infrastructure. We’ve got a team of cleaner ships out there, too, that’ll be trying to clean up the wreckage with magnetic fields before all the debris causes even more damage. Then there’s my squadron…
“Vance, you’ll take your squadron down to Lakshmi Planum, currently held by House Phoenix. We have signals indicating the presence of Saturnine technology there, as well as other anomalous signals. Our mission here is to make sure Saturn isn’t taking over influence of Venus, and your squadron will have to provide us intelligence as to what exactly is going on down there.”
Uh, oh. Is that it? Are we at war with Phoenix now, too?
“As of this moment, we’re not at war with House Phoenix,” Rackham continues, anticipating my question. “However, our ambassador is still sedated in the hospital, and Jupiter is over two hours away by comm-laser. We need that intelligence now. Your rules of engagement are not to fire unless fired upon.”
Which is highly likely to happen when a squadron of Angels comes thundering out of the sky. Great. Still, if Saturn is working with House Phoenix, it’s better to find out soon, and it’s better to have it out now rather than later, when they’re ready to attack us.
Still, there’s going to be a huge diplomatic blow-back with all this. There’s no diplomatic authorization for this mission, nor orders from Jupiter for this. I just got volunteered for a mission that could cause another public incident, after everything else that’s happened so far already. Maybe that’s why they’re sending me; I can take the fall afterward.
Am I OK with that?
I tell myself I don’t really know what’s going on; there could be—actually, must be—more than what I’m seeing. And I know we really need to look into any connection with Saturn and Venus…no matter what.
* * *
We scream in through the atmosphere, trailing flames of royal blue and fierce gold. Twenty-five contrails of ionized flame stretch out behind my squadron, racing through the uppermost limits of the Venusian ionosphere.
We’re not alone. Aegis defense and Invictus assault drones were sent ahead of us by the Callisto, now fully integrated into a defensive formation with our frames. Our Angels are spread out enough to protect us from nuclear strikes, but close enough to provide supporting laser fire to each other. Along with all this, the skies are filled with glowing streaks that are pieces of the Chandelier and other orbital debris burning up in the upper atmosphere.
Other than that, the skies up here are quiet. There’s been no weapons fire from below.
Below us, the northern continent of Ishtar Terra is spread out in all its splendor. The awesome ice-capped peaks of Maxwell Montes to the right and Danu Montes directly ahead rise up like jagged teeth from the living plains below. Mountain ranges of all types ring the Lakshmi Planum, creating a natural wall of fortifications around our objective. The rolling, circular flatland ahead is covered in dense thickets of purple jungle and flashing lakes, with layers of puffy white clouds over all that.
Lakshmi is a rustic parkland. Other than a few tourist towns, hunting lodges, and artistic groves, the Venusians have made a carefully tended “wilderness” park with little development. It certainly doesn’t look like the site of a Saturnine garrison or an advanced research complex. I’m guessing its isolation and low population density were the reasons it was chosen for clandestine activity, if indeed it has been. It also works out well for us, because if there’s a fight, at least there won’t be many civilians around.
Still, it’s an area over 1,000 kilometers across, covered in jungle and hilly terrain. Somehow, we’ve got to search all that. Even with Jovian technology, it isn’t going to be easy.
At the speeds we’re scorching along in the ionosphere, we pass over the entirety of Lakshmi Planum in a few minutes.
We’ve blanketed the surface with high intensity scanning beams, and there’s nothing. No incoming fire, no targeting systems, nothing down there seems to be powering up. Is that because they’re hiding and biding their time or because there’s nothing actually down there?
I give the order for us to split up by flight and cover each sector in the search more closely. We’re still traveling supersonic as we execute a series of wide turns, but we’ve slowed down enough that there’s no thermal plume of ionized flame behind us anymore. Our various drones are following us, and with the task force still overhead, we’re as safe as we can be. Still, we need to finish up fast; the task force will be over the horizon before too much longer.
Roaring along in the thin, cold upper atmosphere, and still nothing. Oh, I’m sure everyone down there has noticed us, but nothing attacks us or even issues a challenge.
Finally, we split up by individual Angel, each with a small cluster of escort drones. It should be safe enough for us to go in low and slow. All kinds of biological and man-portable systems might be down there, but nothing heavy could have possibly escaped our earlier sensor sweeps—at least I hope not.
We drop below the sound barrier and the cloud deck, and there’s a rumbling roar as our sound finally catches up with us.
The rolling hills are covered in purple jungle, winding rivers, and gleaming lakes. Water vapor rises like steam from the forest below, and showers of rain pour down from scattered clouds. The whole scenery is achingly beautiful—it’s a shame we’re at war with them.
Still, nothing. Just a few small towns, tourist lodges, and endless jungle and wildlife.
Should we make another pass?
No. If we were going to find anything, we would have found it by now. It’s time to return to the Callisto, as the whole task force is going over the horizon and won’t be able to provide fire support.
“This is Thunderbolt—”
Saturnine targeting systems light up our whole flight.
We dodge and fire off more countermeasures clouds as power systems light up all over the rolling plains. Those systems are powering up fast, faster than anything we can do. That must be part of how Saturn has been able to pull off so many sneak attacks.
“—everyone evade and return fire. Callisto, we’re being targeted by Saturnine forces—”
That’s all I get out before a storm of high-powered jamming wipes out everything.
* * *
Time slows as all my augments come fully online. I don’t know how much it will help in a fight at point-blank range, but at least I’ll be able to see what happens to me.
Streaks of violet light rise out of the forest, and Saturnine missiles turn sharply toward our frames.
Talon fires his laser clusters before I can say anything and combines fire with the various drones around us to make a fine net of anti-missile laser fire. Blue flashes of plasma fill the air, as one by one, the incoming missiles are shot down, each explosion coming closer and closer as the incoming swarm converges on my frame.
The last one explodes close enough to shake me around in my frame.
Talon and my Invictus drones return fire with x-ray lances at every identifiable target within line of sight.
The lasers fluoresce through the humid air and burn deep into the ground to detonate the hidden bunkers firing missiles at us.
I fire off a spread of missiles at identified targets, and the Invictus drones follow my lead, attacking my designated targets with missiles. Even with slowed perceived time, they look like curving streaks of blue light rather than actual moving objects.
They hit the ground in flashes of blue light that grow into plumes of smoke and flame, and the expanding shockwaves are actually visible in the humid air as they rip through the surrounding ground cover. Our last few missiles are burned down by anti-missile batteries.
If their anti-missile batteries are charged up, then…I dodge instinctively, and my frame shakes, and more alarms light up. Most of the enemy laser lances miss, but a glancing hit scours off half my ablative armor and clips one of my wings, sending me tumbling. Talon pulls us out of the spin, and he fires his x-ray lances and lasers, and those of the drones, to hammer away at the enemy gun emplacements.
How did they get those lasers up and running so fast?
The immediate area is clear of enemy fire. Smoking craters and burning forest indicate where the buried Saturnine weapons emplacements used to be.
Flashes of light dance along the horizon. It’s hard to get communications through all the jamming to the rest of my squadron, but a few outcries and updates get through to me anyway. It’s clear that enemy systems are opening up all over the place.
Up above, flashes and flares of light show the renewed orbital battle. Who’s fighting who? It’s hard to tell. Tight-beam transmissions indicate a whole lot of House Phoenix and Saturnine systems are attacking from groundside, and they’re sending up Harpies and Saturnine war machines to attack our people in orbit. All our frames are up there, fighting for their lives. There won’t be any reinforcements coming for a while. Eventually, the Callisto will complete her orbit around Venus, and the task force will be able to support us with their heavy weapons batteries. They won’t be back overhead for another 90 minutes.
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