Battle Beyond Earth - Box Set (Books 6-9)

by Nick S. Thomas

  "If they even think about these things."

  "Maybe not the Gurvs, but the rest of them, sure. They follow her because she is all-powerful, but what is she now? Her hold over the peoples who fight for her is slipping, it has to be."

  "Gentlemen, follow me," said Vega.

  He led them to an operations room where they could talk privately, and took seats around a table.

  "We need a plan, and we need a schedule."

  "You are in charge," replied Jafar.

  "But I need your help. We are all experienced fighters, but you and Taylor have more years of experience than us all combined."

  Jafar looked to Taylor for answers.

  "You know what I would do."

  "No, enlighten us."

  "You're not gonna like it, Admiral," said Jones.

  "Maybe not, but I need to hear it. Whatever our commanders have been doing in this war it hasn't been working, but the things you have achieved. There are people who believe that you are some prophesied hero returned from the dead to save us. Maybe they are right."

  "I don't know about that, but I can tell you this. We are the strongest we can hope to be right now. We can only go downhill. But Bolormaa, she is the weakest she has been, and will quickly recover. This is the best chance we are going to have."

  "Best chance at what?"

  "Hunting her."

  "What are you suggesting?"

  "That we take everything we have here, every ship in this fleet, and we hunt her down. Everywhere her fleets go we go, and one by one we destroy everything she has."

  "But Earth, we have people down there."

  "He’s right. I hate to say it, Admiral, but our colonies have held us back from day one. We have been spread thin, defending so many locations, but now..." said Rogers.

  "You are talking about abandoning our post here?"

  "While we hunt, sure. The people of Earth are safe well below the surface in nuclear proofed bunkers. What more can she do? The environmental conditions make a ground assault near impossible, and she'd have to even know where and how to reach our people. We'd have ample time to get back here if anything went down."

  "And the orbital stations?"

  "They can hold out against a modest fleet. We should be hot on the heels of anything large enough to worry about. And any sign of more trouble, board the transports, and jump to safety. There is nothing left that needs protecting here, not that we can't get back to when and if we need to," replied Taylor.

  Vega looked worried. It went against everything he knew. It meant abandoning Earth in his mind.

  "We can go after Bolormaa half heartedly while we split our forces to try and protect this place, or we can do the job right. A divided force is a weak force. So we either stay here and wait for her to come to us, or we hunt."

  "The longer we wait, the stronger she will get. The Colonel is right about that," Rogers agreed.

  "I don't like it. We are leaving millions of civilians unprotected."

  "And if we do not do this, she will eventually come back in enough strength to end us all anyway. You have seen how weak she is. She wouldn't even face me again. Her naval engagements are raids. She isn't ready for a stand up fight, but we can force the issue. We can be strong, stand tall, and take her head on. She can fight and die, or run like the coward she really is. How long do you think her armies will keep following a coward? Hard to sell them on the idea that you are an invincible God when you won’t stand against a flesh and blood human being."

  "So this is to be our legacy? The last fleet ever assembled. The fate of the entire Alliance and all those left relies on what we do now. Dark times indeed," said Vega.

  "I wish we could choose the times we live in, I really do."

  "You were made for days like this. It was as if some great creator forged you for it."

  "Hell, no, you think I like to fight? I loved the Corps, and I love the men and women who I fight beside, but we do not need wars to live among such friends."

  "Without those wars, we would never have met."

  "No, and that would be a shame, Jafar, but was it worth the millions, if not billions of lives lost?"

  "Once they are gone, they are gone."

  "He has a point," said Rogers.

  "Okay, so if we do this, how do you want to play it, Colonel?"

  Taylor was rubbing his chin as he thought it over. He was thinking on the fly, although that was nothing new to him.

  "She is still hitting isolated targets?"

  "Yes, we have received a number of distress signals, but we cannot justify sending ships to engage the enemy."

  "Then we work from that. We get news of an attack, we jump in with everything we have and destroy them. We keep doing it until her fleets are smashed into dust, and she is forced to face us herself."

  "And the attrition that we will suffer along the way? Every engagement will cost us ships and crews. Two things that are hard to replace, even sourced parts won't be easy."

  "There must be more ships out there. Every outpost, station, and colony in the Alliance; have every warship that they have come to us. They haven't got the strength to resist Bolormaa alone."

  "And the civilians that will no longer be protected? Mines, factories, food processors, these are facilities that we need to keep operating."

  "As I said, they cannot defend themselves, anyway."

  "But they have the illusion of security, Colonel."

  "Yeah, well get with the programme. There is no safety anymore. All warships are to rendezvous with us, anything that has guns or the ability to carry fighters and assault craft. Everything that we can get."

  "And the colonists, what words can we send to assure them that they will be protected?"

  "My word. Wherever Bolormaa strikes, we will be there."

  "That is not an easy promise to keep," replied Rogers.

  "No, but we will try."

  The Admiral was distracted by data on a screen displayed on the table.

  "What is it?"

  "More ships are still arriving, Colonel. Many civilian vessels that have fled here for protection, but warships, too, and you have a friend incoming."

  "Friend?"

  "Follow me, I think we are done here."

  "It's not much of a plan," said Rogers.

  "It is. It's just simple. I like simple," replied Taylor.

  "Forty-eight hours, and we move out on the first news of an enemy sighting."

  "Thirty six, it's all we can afford."

  "We can't have all these repairs conducted in that time. Forty-eight was ludicrously ambitious as it is."

  "Tough, Admiral. Thirty-six hours, and make sure the work crews know how important this is. Many of us have worked around the clock for days on end without rest. I expect the same from them. Thirty-six hours, every ship available reports in. Anything not done stays here and continues repairs until it can join us."

  They left the room, and Vega led Taylor back towards the hangar where he had flown in. Vega was being vague in order to maintain the surprise. Taylor didn't much appreciate surprises. They were usually bad news. A small transport came in to land, and the ramp came down. A slight woman in skin-tight armour and flowing red hair stepped out onto the deck. She was unmistakeable.

  "Razor?" he whispered.

  "How is she even still alive?" Rogers asked.

  "I'll long outlive you all, because I'm not dumb enough to run right at the enemy," she replied with a cheeky smile.

  She strode right up to Mitch and hugged him. He looked quite uncomfortable, and Jones laughed, which didn't help.

  "I knew you'd come calling sooner or later, but I didn't think it would be this bad," she said.

  "Bolormaa has really gone off the rails, but we should have known this is the way it was going to go. She is a maniac."

  "Well, you want to catch a maniac, you need maniacs."

  "You're not wrong about that," Jones said.

  "I’m not gonna lie, things are bad, but you alre
ady knew that. In thirty-six hours we are starting a hunt."

  "Big game?"

  "Bolormaa. We aren't waiting for her to strike anymore. We are dividing our forces and trying to cover everything."

  "Not exactly much left to cover. I don't know if you have seen much outside this system, but the Alliance is in ruins. We could barely find a place to hole up for a few repairs before we headed your way."

  "So we are going for her, and we aren't stopping till she is dead, or we are. Will you come with us?"

  "I'd say no, but then I don't exactly have much choice, do I?"

  "Not really, you can help us, or watch the Alliance burn," replied Rogers.

  "Then I'm in. Anything I can do; let me know."

  “We’ve got thirty-six hours. Nobody leaves, but once that time comes, you all better be ready to fight until this is over.”

  “What do we do with our time?”

  Taylor shrugged.

  “Rest that arm, Jones. Clean our weapons, make sure our gear is maintained and in top form. Be ready to protect against any threats that present themselves before the time comes. For now, the work is in others’ hands. We can only hope they can work miracles. Be on alert, and be ready. Anything could happen between then and now.”

  Taylor strode off without another word.

  “She is a criminal, and not one to be trusted, you do know that?” Jones caught up with Taylor.

  “She is no more a criminal than I am. She is a relic that doesn’t fit with society. Or didn’t until the Alliance realised that they could use her skills.”

  “You don’t sound too happy about that?” Rogers was following them.

  “Always the same, when there is a war to fight, people want fighters like me and her. People who don’t play by the rules, and when there is no longer a war to fight, we are forgotten at best, and made outcasts.”

  “A pretty sceptical outlook, don’t you think? If you had survived the Krys wars you would have lived as a hero.”

  “Is that really how my friends lived? The ones who fought with me all those years ago?”

  Rogers had no answers for him.

  “I can bet you they weren’t. Nobody wants to think about war and the people who fought it. Or not until it is so far from memory that the pages of history begin to fascinate a new audience, because they had no idea what it was really like to live through it.”

  “I don’t think you need to worry much about that,” said Jones.

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s not likely any of us will make it through this war alive.”

  Taylor laughed.

  It was a morbid and yet darkly funny assessment of the situation. It seemed likely that would be the case, and yet he had felt that way so many times before, and he was still standing.

  “So where are we heading?”

  “The armoury.”

  Taylor set about cleaning and maintaining everything he had. He was servicing his weapon when he noticed the initials of the previous owner once more. He paused, thinking about whom it might have belonged to.

  "EP?" Jones asked.

  "You know whose this was?"

  "One of ours. Ethan Palmer. A replacement that came to us when we were fighting on Earth."

  Taylor shook his head.

  "What is it?"

  "The name, I just don't even know it. How could I not know one of the men who I commanded?"

  "If we'd had some respite from it all, maybe you would have, but you haven't stopped."

  Taylor still looked disappointed in himself. He had left that man behind. He was certainly dead, but that didn't make him feel any better.

  "Was he a good marine? Was he a good man?"

  "Sure, from the brief time I knew him. He never let us down, put it that way."

  Taylor oiled and cleaned all around the initials.

  "You can't beat yourself up over it. People die every day that you don't know. That doesn't mean you don't care."

  They fell silent for a moment, but Jones couldn't keep it up for long.

  "You think it's the right move to go after Bolormaa? Throw all our eggs in one basket, so to speak?"

  "Not only do I think it's the right choice, it’s the only choice. Or at least one that doesn't end in certain defeat."

  "And the odds of it working?"

  He shrugged.

  "That's reassuring."

  "It's going to work. It has to. I refuse to accept that we have worked this hard and sacrificed so much, only to lose."

  "It's a war, somebody has to."

  "Sure, but we never asked for this. We were not the aggressors. It isn't on us."

  "Maybe we shouldn't have gone poking around on the boundaries of space. We should have kept to ourselves and minded our own business?"

  "Bullshit. Don't put the blame on yourself or anyone in this Alliance. This is on her."

  “There is nothing you could have done to prevent this.” Rogers was sitting at another workstation nearby.

  “You don’t think humanity has pushed further and further? Maybe we went looking for trouble? Maybe we are just greedy?”

  “We are certainly that, but we also try to better ourselves all the time, and we always have. Your mission that started this war, that was not your fault. It was nobody’s fault but Bolormaa. She was always going to come back. It was only a question of when. We just happen to be the unlucky generation who have to live through this fated time,” replied Rogers.

  “Count yourself lucky. I’d done my time, and yet you all dragged me out to live through the same shit a second time around.”

  “What if you had never been woken up, what would Bolormaa have done? If she has been so obsessed with you?” Jones asked.

  “Probably the end of the human race,” replied Rogers.

  “It wasn’t the end of the Aranui or the Krys when they fought her the first time around,” replied Jones.

  That was enough to silence them all. None of them had any answers.

  “Are you looking to make sense of a creature as twisted as Bolormaa?” a voice asked.

  It was Razor. She was sitting on a crate a few metres from them. None of them had even noticed her arrive. She moved with a cat-like stealth.

  “Okay, give us some more insight, why do you think she is here? All right, it would make sense to come after Taylor, but he wasn’t around when this war started?” asked Jones.

  “Some things we’ll never know the reason, and we don’t need to.”

  “That’s helpful,” replied Taylor sarcastically.

  “I never said I had the answers.”

  “No, but take a guess.”

  “Okay, I’d say she pops her head up to see if there is anything interesting going on from time to time. If there is, she takes a bite.”

  Jones and Taylor laughed.

  “She may have a point,” replied Rogers.

  “Seriously?”

  “She is an all-powerful being, Colonel, and who clearly enjoys playing games. It might seem crazy, but she is crazy. They say power corrupts, well, what do you think absolute power would do over hundreds of years, if not millennia?”

  “I’d hope you’d get wiser with time,” added Jones.

  “Only if you’ve got something and someone to learn from. Bolormaa has done as she pleases for as long as she has lived. Maybe in her sick and twisted mind, she is aiming for some kind of greatness, some ambitious target. It will never make sense to any of us because we haven’t lived as she has, nor are we homicidal maniacs.”

  “But we aren’t exactly saints either.”

  “Compared to her, Razor, sure we are. We never went out looking for fight,” said Taylor.

  “But you can’t tell me you haven’t enjoyed it. Men like you thrive in times like this. What would you have ever been without war?”

  “A happy man.”

  “But not a hero.”

  “I could have lived with that.”

  She could see the sincerity in his eyes. It was surpr
ising, but she didn’t push it.

  “And you, what would you have been without war?” Jones asked.

  “I’d be rich,” she replied with a smile.

  “You’d be behind bars,” added Rogers.

  “You think bars could ever keep me for long?”

  “You enjoy living as an outlaw? An outcast from society?”

  “Sure I did, Jones. I don’t like living by other people’s rules,” she quickly replied.

  “A little selfish, don’t you think?”

  She smiled at Rogers. “We’re all selfish. I don’t care what anyone says. We do things for us, for ourselves, and the things we want.”

  “And now, why are you here to fight if you only do what you want?” Jones asked.

  “Because everything I want is in a world where humanity still exists. I am a part of the Alliance whether people like it or not, and I have an interest in it surviving.”

  “So that’s it? You want things to keep going so you can go back to your old life?”

  “Sure, do I look like a marine to you?” She smiled at Rogers again.

  “Nobody looks like a marine until they become one,” replied Taylor.

  The room fell silent as they continued to clean their weapons, but not Razor. She was chewing on gum and watching them work, which they all found unsettling.

  “So, this is it, the beginning of the end, Colonel?”

  “One way or other, sure. We can’t go on like this for much longer. She dies, or we do.”

  “She is going to die,” Razor said confidently.

  None of them could understand where her enthusiasm or certainty came from, but they didn’t have the heart to question it. They were just glad somebody was confident of a victory, as that was sorely missing amongst nearly everyone else in the Alliance. It wasn’t long before they had done all the cleaning they could do. They had stocked up on ammunition, re-equipped everything that they needed to do. Taylor loaded up on grenades of all kinds. There was a fight coming, probably the first of many, and he intended to be ready for it.

  “Sure could use those AR2 suits right now, couldn’t we?” Jones asked.

  Taylor looked to Rogers for answers.

  “If they were useable, we’d have them,” he replied with a sigh.

  It was a waiting game now. There was nothing else they could do until the fleet was ready.