by Ryk Brown
* * *
General Telles sat patiently in the back of Combat One, along with Corporal Elken, Sergeant Morano, and Corporal Rossi. They had been sitting in the four corners of the combat jump shuttle for just over four hours. The first hour was spent in successive jumps that carried them across one hundred and fifty light years of space. The last three they spent waiting for the slower Morsiko-Tavi to catch up.
“Jump flash,” Lieutenant Latfee reported from the cockpit of the combat jump shuttle. “Morsiko-Tavi, two hundred kilometers to starboard.”
“Finally,” Sergeant Torwell exclaimed with relief.
“What are you complaining about, Torwell?” Corporal Morano asked from below the sergeant and to his left. “You’ve got a great view up there, after all.”
“A view of nothing,” the sergeant said wearily. “Blackness and stars. Oh, and don’t forget, we have been in Dusahn controlled space for the last three hours, so that wonderful view you speak of also has the potential to be a Dusahn ship jumping in by surprise and blasting us into oblivion.”
“You’ve got a gun,” the corporal teased. “Shoot back.”
“Anything?” General Telles asked the lieutenant.
“No, sir,” the lieutenant replied. “But the Aurora would be coming in from the opposite direction, General. We wouldn’t detect her for months.”
“I was referring to unfriendly targets,” the general clarified.
“Oh, sorry. Nothing but friendlies for as far as we can see.”
General Telles glanced at the mission time display in the upper right corner of the tactical display on the inside of his helmet visor. “Telles to all units. One minute.”
“One minute,” the general announced over Connor’s helmet comms, as he stood at the back of the Seiiki’s cargo bay, facing aft.
“How are you doing?” Jessica asked.
Connor looked at Jessica to his left. “I’m good.”
Jessica smiled. He looked scared to death. “How about you two?” she asked, turning to speak to Michi and Tori behind them.
Neither of the Nifelmian doctors answered, both nodding instead.
“You will all do fine,” Sergeant Anwar assured them. “At least there will be no one shooting at you.”
“Thanks,” Connor replied dryly. “I feel so much better.”
“Mission zero in thirty seconds,” Loki called from the Seiiki’s cockpit.
Connor took a deep breath, his eyes closed. “Crew of the Seiiki. In case I don’t get another chance to say this… Thanks for everything.”
“See you on the way back, Cap’n,” Josh replied.
“Ten seconds,” Ensign Lassen announced from Falcon One’s cockpit.
“Guns are hot, targeting systems are online, missiles are armed in the bays,” Sergeant Nama reported from the back of the Falcon.
“Five seconds.”
“Here we go,” Lieutenant Teison said under his breath.
“Three……two……one……jumping.”
The Falcon’s windows turned opaque, clearing a second later to reveal the planet Corinair directly ahead of them, and approaching rapidly.
“Multiple contacts!” Ensign Lassen reported.
“Locking onto all four surveillance sats over Aitkenna!” the sergeant reported from the back.
“One cruiser and two gunships!” Ensign Lassen exclaimed. “Looks like we got lucky!”
“Not for long, I’m sure,” Lieutenant Teison mumbled.
“Good locks! Opening missile bays!
“We’re being painted!” Ensign Lassen warned.
“Jamming!” the sergeant replied. “Launching four! Weapons away!”
Four missiles streaked ahead of Falcon One, disappearing into the red-orange glow of the propulsion plant in their tails. Only a few seconds after they cleared the nose of the Falcon, all four missiles disappeared behind blue-white jump flashes.
“Weapons have jumped!” the sergeant added.
“More jump flashes!” Ensign Lassen warned. “Dusahn fighters! Six of them at our two! Six clicks and closing fast, slightly high!”
“Taking evasive!” the lieutenant announced, as he twisted his flight control stick and put the Falcon into a steep, diving left turn.
“Bandits are launching missiles!”
“Direct hits on sats one and four!” Sergeant Nama exclaimed.
“They’re jump missiles!” Ensign Lassen added urgently.
“Jumping!” the lieutenant announced. Two seconds later, they were much closer to the planet, which now filled their windows. The lieutenant immediately pulled the Falcon’s nose up until it was pointed directly ahead, at Corinair’s horizon.
“Flashes! Missiles are still tracking!”
The Lieutenant pressed his jump button again, causing the Falcon to jump ahead a few kilometers.
“Targets two and three destroyed!” Sergeant Nama added with satisfaction.
“The planet’s gravity has them!” Ensign Lassen reported. “They can’t turn hard enough to hold track. Nice move Jasser!”
Lieutenant Teison eased the Falcon’s nose back down toward the planet below. “Let’s go start some trouble in Aitkenna, shall we?”
In groups of four, Takaran jump fighters rose smoothly off the deck of the Morsiko-Tavi, each group turning forward as they accelerated away from the flat-bed cargo hauler. As they cleared the bow of the ship, they disappeared behind blue-white jump flashes. Once all sixteen fighters were away, the Morsiko-Tavi also jumped, but unlike the fighters, she was jumping to safety.
Commander Jarso felt a thud outside his fighter, which began to shake violently from the sudden entrance into the lower atmosphere of the planet. When his canopy cleared a split second later, it was daybreak, and the rising sun was at his back.
A quick glance at his tactical screen told him that the other three fighters in his group had jumped in with him, as expected, and all four of them were still in perfect attack formation.
A quick glance outside verified what his flight dynamics display was telling him-that he was flying a mere fifty meters above the sprawling metropolis of Aitkenna, the capital city of Corinair. His terrain following sensors activated a second later, realizing that the ship was no longer flying in space but was hurtling along at breakneck speeds, towards buildings that were taller than their flight path.
“Terrain, terrain, terrain,” the system prompted through the commander’s helmet comms. The system immediately drew red dotted paths around the obstacles rushing toward them, indicating safe routes for the commander to fly without having to climb.
The commander kept his ship on the left-most track, as he selected his ground targets. A security checkpoint. A military vehicle compound. Two precinct stations. All of them likely locations for Dusahn troops and assets.
His display lit up, indicating which targets he had selected, and which ones the other three ships in his group were targeting. It also indicated that his ship, being the lead ship, had priority firing control.
Without a word, Commander Jarso armed his nose turret and opened fire, the turrets on the other three fighters following his lead. His turret jumped from target to target, firing several volleys of red-orange plasma at each, before switching to the next target and continuing the attack. Once all four targets had been struck, the commander pitched up ten degrees and pressed his jump button.
Only fifteen seconds had elapsed.
Captain Donlevy’s pod hauler shook violently after jumping into the upper atmosphere of Corinair. Although the air was much thinner at such a high altitude, his ship was not the least bit streamlined.
“We’re over south Aitkenna!” his copilot, Josen Mullen, announced with excitement.
“Dump that shit!” the captain ordered over t
he ship’s intercoms.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Josen exclaimed.
“Wait until we get to the next part, kid,” the captain replied.
The aft door of the massive cargo pod slung under Captain Donlevy’s hauler began to open. The weak light of dawn began to spill through the widening crack along the top of the door, illuminating the cavernous interior of the pod as it opened. Wind rushed in through the ever-widening opening, causing leaflets to tear free of the stacks lined up near the door, ready to drop.
Once the door was opened and angled down thirty degrees, the four men inside began rolling the stacks of leaflets out the back. As each stack fell, tiny dispersal charges fired, breaking the bindings around the stacks and spreading the leaflets far and wide, the wind dropping them throughout the city below.
Once all the leaflet stacks were safely unloaded, rows of smaller crates, each of them fitted with automatic parachute systems, were also rolled out the back.
The cargo master stood by the back door of the cargo pod, watching as the small parachutes opened below and behind them, one by one, and drifted downward toward the surface, their automated navigation systems steering them left and right in an effort to disperse the packages evenly around the city.
The cargo master watched the last package roll out the door, then slapped the close button with his open palm, after which he tapped the comm button on his helmet. “Drop complete!” he reported, as he walked toward the center of the empty pod. Half a minute later, the massive ramp slammed shut, sealing up the pod once again. A few seconds later, the bouncing and shaking stopped, as the hauler jumped back into space, a full light year away from Coriniar.
“Let’s get this place ready for phase two!” he barked at his men.
Two young men came running out of their building, still wearing their sleep attire. They could hear the sounds of ships jumping in and out of the skies overhead and the distant explosions calling them out into the chaos.
“Look!” A voice called out. One of the neighbors was pointing at four flashes of light to the west, just above the buildings. Four tiny fighters disappeared behind a row of buildings, and when they reappeared on the other side, they were firing their plasma cannons at targets on the ground ahead of them.
“What is it!” someone else called.
The first young man looked up, spotting tiny pieces of paper floating down toward them. Higher up, were hundreds of small containers dangling under black parachute canopies.
The young man grabbed a leaflet as it descended, lifting it to his face to read. His eyes widened as he scanned the paper, and he shouted out in excitement. “The Karuzari are attacking the Dusahn! And Na-Tan is leading them!”
The other young man ran toward one of the crates that had landed nearby, his friend following closely behind. Both men dropped to the ground and pulled away the deflated canopy to get to the crate underneath. They unbuckled it and swung the lid open. Both men were taken aback at the contents.
Energy rifles.
“What the hell?” the first young man said.
The second young man was more alert and had his wits about him. “Quickly! We must get these into hiding, before the Dusahn come!”
“What are we supposed to do with these?” the first young man asked, confused.
“We’re going to fight!”
The Seiiki’s cockpit rattled as it jumped into the atmosphere of Corinair, only sixty-five meters above the surface of Aitkenna’s industrial district. The shaking settled down a few seconds later, after the initial air displacement subsided, and the ship cruised along in the calmness of the early dawn.
“Jesus,” Josh said under his breath, looking out toward downtown Aitkenna to his left. Jump flashes were appearing all over the center of the city, as the Avendahl’s sixteen surviving jump fighters slipped in and out of the atmosphere, attacking targets on the ground. The attack was less than a minute old.
“Drop point in twenty seconds,” Loki reported over his comm-set.
The Seiiki’s rear cargo ramp settled into position, sloping downward from the deck by a few degrees. Connor could see factories and streets passing under them as his ship flew low over Aitkenna. He knew his ship was only traveling at about one hundred kilometers per hour at the moment, but from such a low altitude, and with a parachute strapped on his back as he prepared to jump out of the ship, it seemed much faster.
“Drop point in twenty seconds,” Loki’s voice announced over Connor’s helmet comms. He looked to Jessica to his left. She gave him a thumbs-up gesture, which, despite the fact that he felt completely unprepared, he returned. He glanced over his left shoulder, spotting Doctor Sato. She looked odd, all dressed up in her jump gear. She was a petite woman, and looked overloaded by the weight.
“Ten seconds!” Loki warned.
Connor pulled at his harness, checking it one last time before jumping.
“Five…”
Connor looked at Jessica again. She appeared amazingly calm and relaxed.
“…Four…”
He wasn’t sure that made him feel any better.
“…Three…”
The realization that this was it suddenly hit him. If he jumped, there was no turning back. He would become Captain Nathan Scott, Na-Tan, the man who defeated the Ta’Akar Empire, liberated Earth from Jung rule, and ended an interstellar war before it really even began.
“…Two…”
And he would be the man who would lead the Karuzari rebels and drive the Dusahn from the Pentaurus cluster.
“…One…”
Or die trying.
Jessica was the first one out the door, running out onto the cargo ramp and leaping into the air. Connor followed her out, not more than two steps behind her. He leapt off the end of the ramp, his pulse racing and his breathing rapid. He spread his arms and legs out to stabilize for a few seconds, then, as he had been taught, he withdrew them as the dispersal charges fired, spreading his black parachute canopy above him.
His canopy filled with air, and his lines yanked at his harness, pulling up back and upward with incredible force. The air was much thicker on Corinair than it had been on Innis Four, and he felt as if his shoulders had been pulled from their sockets.
His body twisted around to face the direction that the Seiiki had been flying when they had jumped, and he swung back and upward. As he swung back down under the canopy, he could see the Seiiki jumping away only a kilometer ahead.
When the Seiiki’s jump flash disappeared a second later, Connor realized something that he had not anticipated. It was still dark. And with the Ranni facility abandoned, the exterior lighting was not on.
As if the Ghatazhak tactical helmet that he wore had read his mind, his visor suddenly painted with lines representing the obstacles surrounding his touchdown zone. General Telles had told them about the feature, but had not let them use it during their brief training, instead wanting them to learn to control their descent without the aid of digital navigation guidance. Not only were the obstacles clearly represented on the inside of his visor, so was the path he needed to follow to his touchdown point, along with a countdown timer to landing, and his elevation above both the terrain below him as well as the landing pad he was descending toward.
Connor reached up and grabbed his control lines, quickly gaining directional control. He was already slightly left of course, which he quickly corrected. He glanced to his right, spotting Jessica, barely illuminated by the light of the early dawn, riding smoothly beneath her canopy only a hundred meters ahead of him.
He turned his attention back to his visor, realizing that there were icons on it that represented Jessica, as well as Michi and Tori. At first, the visor was difficult to use, as he felt like he wanted to focus on the inner face of it. But he remembered Jessica’s advice, and look
ed past it, letting the data appear as an overlay.
A moment later, his feet passed over the elevated transit tracks, as he continued to descend toward the landing pad. Both the images on his visor, and the dimly lit pad in front of him, seemed to grow at a frightening pace.
Connor adjusted his grip, then pulled to flare as his feet crossed the near side of the landing pad. Two seconds later, he was on the ground and running forward. He grabbed the retract knob on his chest plate and twisted it as he ran, activating the canopy retraction winches in his pack. As he felt the pull of the canopy behind him, he leaned forward as he continued to run toward the Ranni Enterprises building fifty meters away.
Five seconds later, the pull of his retracting canopy was gone, and Connor followed Jessica across the compound, staying low as he ran. By the time he reached the building, Jessica was already punching in the security bypass code that Deliza had given her.
“We’re in,” Jessica announced as the status light on the keypad turned green. She swung the door open. “Lets go!”
Connor moved quickly inside, followed by Michi and Tori, who had both landed without incident. Jessica was the last one in, taking a moment to secure the door behind her. She scanned the area outside with the sensors in her tactical helmet, checking for any signs of pursuit. Luckily, they had none.
“We’ve got incoming,” Commander Jarso announced, as he opened fire on a new set of ground targets. “Ten clicks, one thousand up…” The contacts on his tactical display faded out. “Alpha flight! Jump, jump, jump!”
As the commander slid his finger onto his jump button, the inside of his canopy lit up with blue-white flashes, several Dusahn fighters jumping in to his right and opening fire. Yellow bolts of energy slammed into his starboard shields as he pressed his jump button, causing his ship to shake violently as his canopy turned opaque and he jumped away. “Well, that didn’t take long,” he said as his canopy cleared and he pushed his fighter into a steep left bank. “Alpha! Evasive! Rally blue seven in one!”