by Rod Carstens
Her drift stopped, but now she was being pushed backward. She was losing her forward motion, her legs were now being pushed backward. If she landed face first, they would be picking up pieces of her for days. She pushed her legs forward, using the servos in her armor to help the gyros. Her legs came back into the correct position. But she was still far away from her drop zone; she was now headed for a group of buildings instead of an open area.
The buildings appeared as white rectangles in her thermal vision, standing side by side in neat rows. Her armor system using the upload blueprints from Von Fleet labeled them as the shop area. It was where all the maintenance and repair parts were manufactured. They had to be occupied since the heat was on in all of them. The countdown to her retros firing began. She was going to land on the roof of one of the shops. At least it was flat. Three, two, one. The retros fired. Nani bent her knees and landed on her feet.
She immediately pulled her rail out of the clips on her chest and extended the stock, scanning the area as she did so. Nothing moved except the wind-driven snow. Nani pulled up a map on her heads-up display, she checked the distance to her planned drop zone. She was a full quarter mile off target. The display showed the rest of the platoon was scattered all over the area. The small green triangles were beginning to move to the intended drop zone. She needed to reach the drop zone so they could regroup. She took a step back, ran, and leaped to the next building. She continued, jumping from building to building, amazed that there seemed to be no alarm. It was as if the facility was deserted.
#
Five hundred feet above, Flight Petty Officer Zenos Lee groaned against the g-forces pushing against his body as he struggled to control the SOC in the turbulent air. Without the weight of the Marines, the winds were throwing the small craft around with even more violence.
He and the other pilots had argued for larger flight surfaces during the early testing days of the new SOC, but they had been overridden by the moneymen. Now the Marines were paying the price of those money-saving cuts by jeopardizing their lives and safety, not to mention the success of a mission. Lee glanced at his drop display; the Marines were scattered over a large area on the map, far beyond the drop zone. They would need close air support as soon as he could horse this beast around to cover them. A craft meant both for space flight and for air flight took more time to design than they had been given. But he would be damned if the incompetence of bureaucrats was going to stop him from doing his job.
"Drop doors retracted," reported Hesiod Odaka, Lee's copilot.
Lee and Odaka had been through Rift together. They were a rarity, two Swift Boat crewmembers who had survived the battle. Under Chief Kim's expert hand, they had managed to survive and to get in their licks on the Xotoli carrier. To Lee, their biggest accomplishment had been rescuing the destroyer Capella's survivors. With Chief Kim flying one Swift Boat and Lee piloting the other, they had managed to save over a hundred survivors of the Capella in six lifeboats. After the battle, Lee had gone to Kim for advice about reassignment.
"Chief, as much as I loved flying the TS-112 in battle, the thing I’m most proud of is picking up those lifeboats."
Chief Kim had just sat there looking at him, waiting for the rest of the question.
"Chief, they’re asking for volunteers for that new Special Operations Craft. They’re creating a new rating called the Special Warfare Combatant Crewmen, an SWCC. There’ll be a selection process, but to get into the selection pool, I would need a thousand hours flight time in a Swift Boat. All I've got is my time during Rift."
Kim's old, wizened face showed no surprise. He just looked at Lee for a time.
"Why do you want to change your rating? You love piloting a Swift Boat, and you were born to do it. You proved that to me at Rift."
"These new ships will be delivering Marines and carrying weapons for ground support. I really want a more . . ." He paused. "More direct shots at those kaks."
"And you think you’ll get that with these new ships?"
"Yes, sir. It’ll be more up close and personal. I want to see them being blown to pieces."
"You know the selection won't be easy,” the chief said. “And from what I've heard, they expect high casualties when they begin testing the new ship. You still want go through selection?"
"Of course."
"What do you need from me?"
"Since I don't have enough time in the seat, I thought a recommendation from you might help me at least get into the selection pool."
Kim paused. Then he said, "Lee, I'm not going to give you a recommendation."
"But you just said–"
"I’m going to do you one better. I'm the head of the selection committee. You're in. Report for selection next week."
So now, short months later, Lee struggled to bank the SOC around a jagged mountain peak, barely missing the rocky crest. He was beginning to question the wisdom of his decision to volunteer.
"Hey, Chief, the Marines are taking heavy fire from all sorts of prepared positions in the facilities. Permission to fire on those positions?" said Resa Toland, the gunner in the rear of the vessel.
"Toland, you don't have to ask. You got a target; you take it out. Just make sure your weapon clears it as an unfriendly."
"Aye, aye, Chief."
Toland's mini rail-gun spewed thousands of rounds of depleted uranium into the Xotoli positions. Meanwhile Lee cranked as hard a turn as he could manage in the violent winds to come around for another gun run.
"Odaka, you got some new targets for us?"
Odaka wasn’t just the co-pilot, but he was also the weapons officer for the boat and now he said, "Roger. Come around on 453. We should be able to nail that tower on top of that crane without putting the Marines at risk."
Lee made his turn and came to a heading of 453. The tower was dead ahead. As he began his run, the tower turned its fire away from the Marines toward the ship. The rounds sounded like pounding sledgehammers as they slammed into the ship, but the armor held. Odaka fired two air-to-ground missiles, and Lee added the four mini rails on the nose of the SOC. The tower collapsed in a series of explosions.
Over the ground-to-air frequency, Lee heard, "Dragon Eight, this is Bravo Six. Nice shooting. Can you get a shot behind the tower? There’s an automatic weapon dug into the side of that cliff. We have it painted."
"Roger, Bravo Six. Coming around."
The ship shook and rattled as the wind and ground-fire pounded it. Lee had to use all of his skill to fight the turbulence and pull the ship around for another gun run, but he had a huge smile on his face. He had waited a long time to hear that very transmission.
"Come around to 367," Odaka said.
"Roger that."
CHAPTER TWO
Xotoli Outpost
Exoplanet 1123.567
Von Fleet Planet 703
Geosynchronous Orbit
Landing Ship Dock
Tarawa
1st Marine Raider Battalion
Combat Information Center
Marine General Dasan Daniel Sand paced back and forth on the raised command platform overlooking the Combat Information Center of the Confederation ship Tarawa.
Periodically, he would stop his pacing at his command chair and glance at the situation displays that floated in front of his seat. He kept one display on high-resolution heat signature, that way individual Marines appeared as small white figures moving across the black landscape instead of green triangle icons. The troops moved swiftly with the practiced movements of well-trained veterans. He could see Marines moving toward the command center. They were under heavy fire from their right flank. As he watched, two Marines went down under the concentrated fire. There was a flash as someone fired one of the new handheld scrams, and the Xotoli weapon disappeared in the blossom of white on his screen.
It was up to Sand and his Marines to dig the Xotoli and their hybrids out of the planet and gather intelligence on the mysterious Xotoli. Then the Navy would destroy the facilitie
s with naval gunfire so they Xotoli couldn’t use them.
Not the biggest objective for the first strike against the Xotoli, but it was all the Confederation could muster at this point in the war. The planet held enough strategic importance to warrant the expenditure of the Confederation's precious resources. Some would argue it was a mere show of force, but a show of force would test personnel, equipment and tactics. There were so many lessons to be learned that Sand couldn’t begin to count them. He had argued that the best use of their capabilities was to start with a small, simple raid. Now his advice would be put to the test with lives on the line.
He touched the two Marines down on the display. Their status was immediately displayed. Both were yellows. That meant that their injuries were bad enough to keep them out of the fight, but at least they would live. Then he saw that several Marines were reds. He shivered at the thought. Seeing those icons took him back to Rift and when he had been a red on Rift. Every major organ had to be replaced. The many surgeries and long rehab, and Dasan still hadn’t fully recovered. But the war would not wait. Sand couldn’t afford to miss this opportunity to learn the lessons his Marines were paying for with their lives.
He zoomed out on his display so he could see the whole battle. The mission plan depended on the units being inserted close enough for them to assemble quickly and move, in force, to their objectives. Only a few platoons had been dropped in their planned LZs. The rest were being scattered so badly it was going to negatively affect the mission.
"What’s going on? Why aren't they hitting their landing zones?" Sand asked.
The S3 looked up from his screen. "Sir, we're going to have to re-visit the SOC ship design for this type of turbulence."
Sand looked over at Krutol. "Major, we were all shooting in the dark on this one. We had way too much to learn and no time to learn it. Make sure that the control surfaces of the SOCs are a priority when we return. We’ll be using the same SOCs for landing for the coming invasion. Let's make sure we get it right next time."
Commander Yasuji Kitmura, the chief intelligence officer for the Confederation's fleet stood beside Sand. Yasuji looked at Sand. "None of the drones showed anything like the weather we’re encountering. The planetary experts couldn’t have predicted it given the data we gave them. Even the Von Fleet records of the weather before it was occupied didn’t show a storm like this. This must be a hundred-year-type of event. You can’t produce a good plan without good intelligence. We need to improve our pre-invasion drones. In addition to the space weather forecasts, we need to look at planetary weather forecasts as well."
"No plan ever survives first contact with the enemy, or the weather for that matter," Dasan said.
"How bad do you think this is?" Yasuji asked.
"It’s bad, but Aijuba has drilled them until they can perform this mission in their sleep, and they’re all Rift veterans. They’ll adapt and complete the mission, but we’ll have more casualties than we projected," Sand replied, staring at the huge situation display at the front of the CIC.
The troops on the ground were the best the Confederation had to offer, and not one could be wasted because of poor planning. He and his staff should never have missed something as important as atmospheric conditions. He had to drive himself and his staff harder. He knew going in there were lessons to be learned, but they were proving difficult to watch in real time with lives on the line.
"Sir, you need to see this," the S3 officer said.
Sand turned back to the displays. He glanced at his tactical display and saw the small green triangles that represented individuals were moving in coordinated groups now, in spite of the drop. A sense of pride rushed through Sand as he watched his troops overcome the scattered drop, reorganize and continue with their mission. Then Sand saw some of the triangles turn yellow, red, and even black. They were under fire; the real battle had started. Sand glanced at Kitmura. He, too, was staring at the board.
"Sir, the units are reporting they are coming under heavy fire."
"Put their audio through the room’s speakers."
The CIC was suddenly filled with radio traffic between the men and women in battle.
"Be advised these are hybrid armored infantry."
"Where the kak did they come from?"
"On the right, on the right!"
"Three, breech the door."
"Get that kak in the tower!"
"Fire team three go."
Red triangles representing the Xotoli's human hybrid armored infantry began to show up on the screen. He had first seen the hybrids on Rift. Humans with alien genes that made them stronger and faster than any normal human
"We found no evidence of armored infantry in our intelligence," Kitmura said grimly, staring intently at the screen.
"Wouldn't you expect them to be assigned there? We did, didn’t we?" Sand said.
"Not this soon. As a reaction force, yes, but the first assault shouldn’t be encountering them."
"Any idea what it means?"
"No."
It was shaping up to be a slugfest between two heavily armored forces in close quarters just like Rift. This was not what the intelligence had predicted. It had indicated there were only security forces on the planet.
Sand leaned forward to stare at the situation display. He didn’t like surprises, and he didn’t like it when an operation so meticulously planned was running into multiple unknowns this early. This was a small corporation owned resource planet. Nothing had suggested it was anything more than a simple operation by the Xotoli to extract the resources and move on. None of the intelligence suggested any hardening of the facility or troop reinforcements for protection. It was just an outpost on an orphan planet with minimal defenses. Why would they need outposts if they had the ability to create wormholes at will? It didn’t make sense. The Xotoli didn’t need to worry about forward bases if they could create a wormhole anywhere. What was he really looking at? This was important.
Sand had noticed a change in Kitmura’s body language.
"What?" he demanded.
"Yes, sir. At this point, my best guess would be they’re beginning to fortify all planets that are close to our known wormholes. If the Xotoli can control those, they’ll control our ability to undertake offensive operations."
"But Rift and Ceti showed us that they can produce wormholes at will. Why worry about our dependence on them? Wouldn't they simply out flank us or show up where they could do the most damage?"
"That would make sense, but I think this indicates that we’ve hurt them more than we realize. I have a hunch they don't have enough hybrids for more invasions readily available. That would explain why they’re fortifying what they have until they’re ready to move to the next stage. It would also bottle us up so we couldn’t begin offensive operations against what they currently hold. In addition, from what little we know about creating wormholes, it takes energy on the level of a sun to drill through dark matter. It’s likely they’ve used up the ability for the time when they attacked Rift and Ceti. I've got no proof, but the crystals have to be a key component to their wormhole creation ability. Why else would they make Ceti the main target of their attack? No, the Xotoli may have more advanced technology than we do, but it still has limits. They need more hybrids and more resources for wormhole creation. This is a war about resources. The Xotoli mean to destroy us and take our resources"
Sand was quiet as he thought about what Kitmura had said. If they had slowed the enemy that much, they just might have the time to build a military capable of fighting the Xotoli after all. Raids like this one would be critical to keeping them at bay. These attacks were more than just raids; they were critical to slowing the Xotoli expansion!
"General, that is all conjecture. I have no empirical evidence to corroborate my opinions."
" I tend to think you’re right. But we need real evidence of your theory if we’re going to convince the commandant, Admiral Raurk, and the secretary general," Sand said. "Even if you’re right, f
ortifying planets like 703 helps control the wormholes we do depend on. It pins us down while they chose their next move."
He turned back to the screen. The red arrows of the Xotoli hybrids and green arrows of Marines were mixing as the two forces entered more intense close combat. More and more of the Marines’ symbols were turning yellow, red, and even black. They were paying a heavy price for the lessons that had to be learned. Sand instinctively knew that Kitmura was right, but he needed more proof, proof that no one could argue with. He knew that Admiral Raurk was already fighting for a more aggressive strategy against the Xotoli. They couldn’t sit back and let them fortify planets the Confederation needed until the Xotoli were ready to move again. They had to fight back, but they needed more evidence for the admiral to win her political battle.
CHAPTER THREE
Sol
Planet Earth
City State of New York
Confederation Senate Building
Office of Senator Colbert Carroll
Senator Carroll was nervous. He was about to face Admiral Raurk in the hearings on Rift. Ms. White had given him the questions he was to ask and what she expected of him. As a newly-appointed senator representing the Von Fleet Corporation, he wasn’t sure he could accomplish what Ms. White expected. Questioning the decisions of someone who had become a Confederation hero was going to be a daunting task. He had never faced such a challenge in the corporate wars, and he was brand new in the political arena. Yet he had come to know all too well what disappointing Ms. White would mean for him. He was still recovering from his last punishment for disappointing her. Oh, there were no marks that showed the pain he had endured. It was all about the pain she could inflict without leaving marks. She enjoyed it. She said it was her Xotoli side. There were times when she would work him over just for fun. She told him it was how the Xotoli had raised her to be as a hybrid. It would make him stronger she would say, as she did those terrible things to him, just as her Xotoli upbringing had made her stronger.