We’re on our own for now.
* * *
Flashes of light flicker and glow on the horizon. The low rumble of explosions and sonic booms blend together into a low, ever-shifting roar, punctuated by sharp cracks. Columns of smoke rise into the air everywhere. Overhead, countermeasures dust turns the sky a shimmering, prismatic tinge, where drones and flashing dazzlers move like a constellation of alien stars. Tracks of light rise and fall as missiles and beams crisscross the war-torn skies.
Patches of burning forest and craters break up the violence-scarred jungle that races underneath me. Flashes of light from the ground, my frame, or drones sear through the humid air as lasers exchange fire at a speed even an augmented human brain can’t keep up with. Talon and my drones burn down incoming missiles as they hug terrain to pop up at the last second over a hill or ridge.
I’ve got to hug the ground, too, weaving through low valleys and racing over rolling hills, only to duck back down as far as I dare. There are just too many weapons emplacements; anyone who went all the way up would be directly targeted by everything. None of us would last a minute. So now we’re all trapped down here, hugging the surface of a hostile planet, unable to engage long distance targets properly, and unable to break off and escape the atmosphere. We’re wending our way through hills and valleys, trying to find the enemy before we bumble into them.
This is my fault. I didn’t have us break off once we lost the overhead cover of our task force. We would be in space now, able to come back and do this properly, instead of stuck down here under constant fire. Now my men are separated and under attack, and I can’t even tell what condition anyone is in, or coordinate anything beyond my local constellation of drones.
It’s hard to get proper transmissions through to the rest of my squadron. The countermeasures dust and ever-present jamming prevents any kind of broadcast, and even trying that would pinpoint us for enemy missiles and drones. Tight beam to my squadron is impossible this low to the ground, and beams to the orbital array keep getting interrupted by all the enemy action going on up in orbit.
Once again, we’re stuck down here instead of being up there, where we belong, fighting alongside our ships.
If we run away slowly, individually, and at ground level, we’ll just make it easier for the enemy to pick us off one by one. Worse, all the enemy forces here will be able to attack our ships when they come back over the horizon, without us to distract them.
So we’ll fight it out. They’ve caught us in a trap; now we’ll show them how much that’ll cost them.
Another nearby explosion shakes my frame, and searing plasma burns off even more armor. That was too close.
Talon has built up an analysis of the enemy ground positions and fire patterns. It looks like the weapons emplacements are set up in three concentric rings to protect something in the center. Odds are, whatever it is Saturn has devoted so much to protect is going to be bad news for the rest of us.
I send one of my dwindling number of drones up to transmit to my squadron. “This is Thunderbolt. Converge on these coordinates, destroy any enemy emplacements you find—” There’s a flash as my drone is taken out, cutting me off.
I turn south and head toward the center, whatever it is. Maybe we can make them pay for what they’ve done to us. Maybe we can keep them busy so the task force can attack them or survive a concentrated attack from another direction. Maybe we can even take that thing out—whatever it is.
The Aegis drones go on ahead in a crescent formation as my shield. They have the most anti-missile lasers, countermeasures ordinance, the best jamming, and the armor to take a lot of fire. Behind them, in a wedge around me, the Invictus drones are my sword, ready to strike at any enemy. My attack drones have their own x-ray lasers and Lancer missiles, bolstering my attack strength.
The enemy fire thickens as I near the center, with exploding missiles and cluster munitions seeming to form a wake of blue flame ahead of my drones and lasers, and rail cannon fire falling upward like rain. Two more of my drones are burned from the skies, and I’m running low on Lancer missiles. This must be the second enemy perimeter with missile and laser emplacements closer together, positioned to reinforce each other with their fire.
Finally I’m through, and the enemy fire slackens, but doesn’t disappear. The worst is up ahead.
My squadron is tightening up around the objective, close enough now that I can tell roughly where they are by the trail of destruction around them and the occasional tight-beam transmission that makes it through our drone networks.
Up ahead, violet drive flames rise into the air like sparks from a fire. When I zoom in, I can see the black, articulated battle shells and glowing red compound eyes of the foe—Saturnine Tarantula assault-battleoids, often called spiders.
Our task force is still over 74 minutes away.
* * *
With Saturnine assault-battleoids ahead of us, there’s nowhere to run in time. Our only chance is to hit them while they’re still concentrated, before they launch their own defensive systems.
“Open up on those spiders; we’ll blast our way through,” I send, with no guarantee they’ll get the message. Still, our best chance is a coordinated attack.
Immediately I open up with Talon’s four x-ray lances and the x-ray lasers from my Invictus drones. The spiders flash, burn, and fall from the sky, but not nearly enough of them. Next, I launch my remaining Lancers, as well as all the missiles in my drones. I follow through with my heavy torpedoes, which have multiple plasma missiles in their warheads. With all that ordinance streaking toward the enemy, I keep my x-ray beams on continuous fire.
My squadron lights up with launch flares, and missiles and laser pulses streak out from them to the cloud of spiders. Whether they got the message or they realized what had to be done, we’re now concentrating fire on the Saturnine battleoids.
We might just make it after all.
There’s heavy laser fire from the spiders, but they’re directing nearly all of it at our incoming missiles. They’re also launching their own missiles, which are arcing up and out—
A line of blue plasma explosions lights up the horizon, consuming the clouds of enemy spiders. It looks like nothing could have survived all that.
Unfortunately, some of them did. Tarantulas are tough, and nothing short of a direct hit is guaranteed to kill them. They’re also mad, and my lead drones are already taking deadly x-ray hits as they try to concentrate laser fire on the incoming Saturnine missiles streaking in—
Two of my squadron are enveloped in raging plasma fire that came from behind.
What?
Proximity alarms shriek, and Talon maneuvers madly, pushing past 12 gravities, and laser clusters and countermeasures launchers go fully automatic. There’s nothing on the threat indicators, though.
Whatever it is, hits hard.
The universe turns into blue fire, and I’m in the middle of a raging star of destruction. Hungry plasma devours the outer layers of my armor, eats away at exposed laser clusters and sensors, and damages wing control surfaces.
When it’s gone, I’m tumbling through the air, trailing smoke, with only a handful of my escort drones left.
What happened?
My connection with Talon is now faster and deeper than words. Images of the incoming missiles that hit us from behind flash into my sight. I can see how many were taken out by laser clusters until the last detonated early to catch us in the plasma wake. The mixed sensation of pain and data reports tell me that if they’d hit directly, we’d both be gone. Most importantly, I see why we were taken by surprise.
Those missiles were identified as friendly—they were ours.
One missile might go astray in friendly fire. Dozens won’t.
We’re still trying to straighten out our flight when another of our exo-frames bursts into an expanding sphere of raging plasma death.
Who is it that’s killing us?
The answer comes in hard x-ray fire. More alarms fl
ash as my frame shakes from vaporized armor, and structures are blasted away by the relentless strikes. The deadly beams strike deep and with precision—primary power, engine control, atmospheric stabilizers—whoever it is knows exactly where to hit.
My frame goes into an uncontrolled tumble as everything needed to control atmospheric flight is blasted away in one strike. The racing ground below rushes up to crush us.
Before we crash, the enemy lasers fire once more, betraying the identity of our betrayer…
Donner…
* * *
My frame and I break through the forest cover below, tearing through boughs, branches, and entire tree trunks as we tumble out of control. We hit the ground with a jolt that nearly hammers me unconscious, even with all the restraints and padding layered around me. My frame skips off the ground, then crashes through three more heavy tree trunks before finally sliding to a stop in a gully. I’m shaken around violently in my flight armor and the padding and restraints of the cockpit. That protection is likely the only reason I’m alive at all.
Alarms blare everywhere, demanding attention in a constant battle with the aches and pains raging throughout my body. They’ll both have to get in line and wait for later.
Talon and I are one as we roll to our feet and open fire on the target hovering above us. All four x-ray lances hammer at the traitor Donner and his rebel frame Sammy. The frame AI has to be in on it, too, and a rebel Angel is a very dangerous thing, indeed. My lasers hammer into Sammy’s armor, and he returns the favor, and deadly x-rays rip into Talon once more, burning through superstructure and seeking deeply buried systems.
Fresh damage alarms are everywhere; sooner or later he’s going to hit a critical system, the AI core, or even myself. I ignore them and keep pouring it on with all the raging anger now flowing through my veins. Talon is also throwing out everything he’s got, and I can feel the terrible, icy, cybernetic fury directed at the traitor.
This can’t go on. Donner’s drones are taking out the last of the drones in my constellation, and soon they’ll turn on me and finish me off. His frame is also less damaged than mine; eventually, his incoming fire will overwhelm my frame. Still, I’ve got nothing else to do. My drones are all engaged, I’m out of missiles, and SPGs won’t be able to get close to him. The only thing left to do is pour it on, go out fighting, and hope maybe someone else will be able to deliver justice—
The Saturnine missile barrage finally arrives in fury and thunder. The skies turn into blue plasma and white fire, and shockwaves hammer my frame over onto his back, while blowing down smaller trees and sending leaves and branches racing through the air. The thermal pulse ignites everything flammable, which is the entire countryside around me. Roaring flames rage in an instant forest fire that burns unnaturally hot in the high-pressure, high-oxygen atmosphere of Venus.
Overhead, the searing light fades into clouds of malevolent orange and red fire, and even that fades to thick clouds of smoke, countermeasures dust, and spiraling feather shrapnel that falls like snow.
My opponent is gone. There’s no sign of him visually or on passive sensors. I don’t dare go to active scans and try to find him that way.
Is he dead?
I don’t believe it, though it looks like the blast took out the last of my drones.
He could still be out there, somewhere, in all this obscurement, hunting me. If he isn’t, then I know the Saturnine and probably House Phoenix are coming, and soon.
The task force is 54 minutes away.
* * *
I get my frame back to its feet and take off running. Talon fires off about a third of his SPGs in countermeasures and defensive mode, filling the air with even more shimmering countermeasures dust, flares, and dazzler systems.
A whole world of hurt is coming down here, and I need to be somewhere else, so I run as fast as my Angel can take me, the back thrusters helping me with a series of long, low jumps away. With all the wing damage, I’m grounded, so this is the best I can do.
Searing blue light and thunder strike where I was but a moment before. The ground trembles, winds blast through the burning forest, and the fierce blue light behind me fades into a column of raging flame rising into the tortured sky.
The situation is clear—become visible, and you die.
There are a lot of ways to hide now that the battle has transformed the jungle into a phantom world of flames and smoke. Blazing trees everywhere are crowned with orange flames, rendering me invisible in infrared. The roar and crack of flames are everywhere, masking any sounds I might make, and, overhead, the crack and roar of sonic booms break the skies like a thunderstorm. Drifting clouds of smoke, countermeasures dust, and airborne jammers scramble all active and passive radar. Even lidar is limited, with all the refraction microcrystals falling like strange, glittering snow.
Confusion is in the air. Eerie electronic screams fill the radio frequencies around me, echoing the pent-up fury and terror sliding along my nerves. In and out of the hiss and screaming of the jamming, occasional voices come and go. There’s just enough I can almost make out what they’re saying. Are these phantoms really my men in trouble, dying and begging for help? Is it real, or just more distraction to mess with me? There’s no real way to tell.
Mixed into the high-pitched electronic scream is a deadly whispering. I recognize it, and so does Talon. It’s my old friend, the Saturn Virus. It wants in…into my frame’s systems and AI, and into my cybernetic augments and my very brain. It offers up hacked intrusion codes, falsified identities, urgent pleas for help, and stern warnings of imminent danger. It’s all lies. If that program gets into any of our systems, we’ll be taken over and sent to a living hell. So no communications with anyone or anything. That’s the only way to be sure.
I have to assume the rest of my squadron are also keeping their communications dark, and they’re out there, still fighting. The alternative…
No. They’re still alive out there.
I make my way slowly through the burning forest, reduced to passive sensors only. Sure, I’m leaving footprints in the ash, but they’re filling up quickly with new ash and falling trees. The burning forest of war now has new hunters and prey stalking each other through the burning boughs, each waiting for the other to make the first mistake…
A flock of beautiful, brightly colored tropical birds burst out of the flaming foliage right at me, trailing long red and gold feathers alight with flames…
I almost don’t fire in time.
Point-defense clusters hammer at the approaching avians, searing flesh before they explode. More blue plasma flashes fill the world in front of me as the phoenixes detonate, throwing a hurricane of flames and feather shrapnel into my frame.
Great…even the wildlife here is trying to kill me.
I run again as fast as Talon can go, leaving another spray of countermeasure dust, SPGs, and jammers in my wake. Someone would have seen that, and the incoming fire should hit any second now.
More detonations hammer the clearing I’d been in just a few seconds ago, filling the air with thunder and fury.
As the sounds fade, I can hear the scream of Saturnine engines behind me, and targeting radar and lidar tries to paint the forest. It looks like they’ve dropped some small Hunter drones along with the missiles, and now that they’ve caught my scent, they’re on my tail. Talon helpfully puts a number of dots on a projected map to show approximately where they are.
I keep running and dispense another set of SPGs as landmines for them to play with.
Behind me, flashes of light glare, and cracks of sound echo as my mines silence the pursuing Hunters.
Another rumble and roar of plasma explosives echoes through the forest. Then another…closer. Talon puts up shrinking concentric rings around my position on the map. Saturn is dumping a fire pattern on this whole section of forest to get me.
I pour on the speed, activating my boosters and racing along in long, low bounds. My only chance is to break out of the fire pattern nea
r the edge, where it won’t be as concentrated. I’ve got to run straight at the incoming bombardment. If I run away, I’ll be heading straight into the trap.
The rumble grows louder, and the ground shakes. Flashes of searing blue light cut through the forest ahead in titanic flashes, and static fills the airwaves from the plasma pulses. I keep running as the detonations crawl forward relentlessly, leveling everything in their path. Roaring winds and flaming bits of trees fly past me as I make ready for one last leap…
The universe becomes blue flame. Impossible force tosses my 10-meter-tall frame around like a ragdoll. Blinded by the elemental fury raging about me, all sense of direction and sanity blurs away, and I’m hammered, shaken, and beaten by the thunderous, deafening assault all around me.
I’m thrown to the ground and remain prostrate in my frame, lying on the ground, as the impossible force of the relentless blasts tries to shake my internal organs together into jelly and squeeze my brains out of my head. I’m screaming, but I can’t hear it.
The relentless bombardment seems to go one and on and on.
Time fades…
* * * * *
Chapter 12
Ashes
Silence.
A hush has fallen on the land.
Bit by bit, I open my eyes and discover that I’m still alive, and my frame still has power. Then I access my frame sensorium.
Ash falls gently like snow in perfect silence. White drifts cover the ground, and a feathery coating is burying my Angel. The fires have all gone out, and the remaining tree trunks stand as sentinels in the silent ruin around me. In the distance, the soft gray ash drifts blend into the gray, featureless sky. Visibility is less than 100 meters, and the only thing that breaks the stillness is the slowly drifting flakes of ash.
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