“The Army engineers should be here tomorrow,” replied Paul. “It'd be nice to have a better grasp on what's going on down there before they get here. Let's see if we can speed this up. Do whatever you can, Bri.” Paul stood and up-ended his coffee cup, placing it back on the table. “Back to the bridge, I need to send what Jack has sent us so far, to the Admiral.”
■ ■ ■
Brian pulled the throttle back to the zero indent when the Invader passed over the clogged, vehicle-littered four-lane highway at three-hundred-feet, eyeing the tall, dirty spires of rubble that used to be a city off to his left. It could have been any large city on Earth after a major war and he felt a sudden pang of anxiety roll in his gut. That kind of destruction was something he'd only seen in movies. It almost looked fake, surrounded by green hills, fields and forests.
“Target LZ dead ahead, Lieutenant,” announced Ensign Tusker.
Brian could see the fine line of the rural road cutting through the hills ahead. “I see it...” The farm buildings came into view and he fired the breaking thrusters, adjusting the ship's anti-gravity to compensate for loss of lift.
“Steele to Invader, set it down on the road.”
“Copy, Skipper,” replied Brian. “Gear down...”
“Aye, gear down...” Tusker pulled the levers and adjusted the auto-leveling settings for the landing feet, the hydraulics humming. “Gear down and locked.”
■ ■ ■
“Charlie Squad, let's go!” Jack stood at the foot of the ramp, the Invader's engines and anti-grav at idle. “You too, fruit cup,” he said quietly as Alité stepped up onto the ramp. She gave a backward glance as she passed. “Are you sure you want to go, Boney?”
The doctor shrugged, “I haven't been there for at least a year, and I haven't been through the city because so much of it is supposed to be impassable... I'd like a chance to see for myself how bad it is.”
“OK,” said Jack, “just checking.” They walked up the ramp together, Boney wearing some light armor of his own, carrying his own rifle and sidearm. Jack pulled on the control handle for the hatch and it slid closed, sealing it, the ramp pulling up flush with the hull. “Clear!” shouted Jack. The only response from the cockpit a quick wave and the sound of the anti-grav generators whining up and the craft feeling buoyant. A series of familiar clunks told him the landing feet had come up into the hull.
“Any worries over the city, Skipper?” called Brian from the cockpit.
“Nothing more than small arms, sticks and stones...” replied Jack. “They've pretty much destroyed everything of significance. Take your time, let's get a good look.” Jack moved up into the cockpit and crouched between the seats, seeing a new face in the copilot's seat. “Howdy...”
“Morning, sir. I'm Ensign Tusker.” He reached over and activated the shields, just in case.
“Morning Tusker. See anything interesting on scans?”
“No sir. No radio or sensor signals, no power sources. But I am getting thermal signatures down there.” Brian weaved the craft between some of the taller buildings - what there was left of them. Windowless skeletons.
“Lots?”
“Mmm hmm,” nodded the Ensign, concentrating. Looks like a market or something down over there,” he pointed, “about a hundred or so...” He adjusted the angle of the sensors to look out as well as down. “Some in the buildings too, even on the higher floors.”
Many of the streets were clogged with rubble, wrecks or abandoned cars, but there were some that looked like they had been purposely cleared. “Yeah that would be tough to navigate,” observed Jack, “it's like a friggin maze.”
“Everything's black or gray,” added Brian, “once you're on the ground, it would all look the same. You'd get lost in a heartbeat.”
“You recording, Tusker?”
“Yes, sir. In 3D and color.”
“Good, maybe we can map a path if we need to go through at some point.”
“LZ coming up,” announced Brian.
It sat at the top of a hill that rose above the level of the city, backed-up to the edge of a forest, the closest trees, charred, lifeless, void of leaves. A long, tree-lined drive snaking down from its approach connected it to the city. The condition of the palace looked like the rest of the city, its graceful lines and regal stature reduced to a slum. “Where do you want to put down?”
“Anywhere flat and level, I suppose.”
“I'm going for that area there,” pointed the pilot, “outside the palace wall.”
■ ■ ■
It had taken Lieutenant Zorvano and the Marine Private sent to get him, fifteen minutes just to navigate the subterranean labyrinth that Foxtrot had been exploring where Bravo had left off. Besides the offices, barracks and armory that Bravo had discovered, Foxtrot discovered a military war room, a tactical control room, a full surgery-capable medical infirmary, several research labs, and an entire subterranean hangar big enough to contain three football fields.
“Right through here, Lieutenant...”
“How did you guys not get lost down here, Private?”
“Who said we didn't get lost?” he joked, opening the blast door to the hangar. “We thought you'd want to see this, maybe relay the information to Captain Steele and the Admiral.”
The heavy door slid open and the two men stepped from the corridor into the underground hangar, where the Marines of Foxtrot were taking a general inventory of all that they'd found... including the black, two-hundred-eighty-four foot, Halceón Class research vessel.
Zorvano stopped mid stride and stared at it, his mind reeling. “That shouldn't be here...” he pointed, “I've got a bad feeling about this.” He looked around, “Where's your Sergeant?”
“He's in the hangar office looking over the records...”
“OK, fine. I want round-the-clock security on this hangar...”
“Not a problem, sir. We've gotten the systems up and running for the entire facility down here, including the signal boosters - we'll be able to use our comms now.”
“I don't see any markings on it at all... that worries me.”
“Sarge is looking over the manifests to see if we can figure out the who, what, and when.”
Zorvano started walking closer, “She's not a Maultier...”
“No, sir. The Maultier is wider, fatter in the middle with a low cargo ramp. This is a Halceón Class hull. Looks like she's configured as a research boat.”
Zorvano nodded, “Halceón's a versatile design... a lot of our Corvettes are built on this hull.”
“That would explain her armaments.”
“Lieutenant...”
Zorvano turned, “Sergeant.”
“Looks like she came in about two months ago... there's no ship's name on record and no crew listed, but she belongs to McSuddeth Mining. And believe me; I had to dig for that much.”
“Interesting. We have a ghost ship...” The Lieutenant removed his helmet and rubbed the short cropped hair on the top of his head.
The Sergeant pointed to a small four man shuttle on the other side of the ship. “There's something else. That shuttle belongs to her... But there should be two of them.”
Zorvano pointed to a small fighter parked near the four man shuttle, “What about that thing?”
“As far as I can tell, it's a two-seat Remora fighter. It mounts to the bottom of the Halceón's hull. It can drop free and return at will, but momma can't land if it's attached, so somebody had to fly it down. So it begs the question, where is everybody?”
“That's what I'd like to know,” said Lieutenant Zorvano.
■ ■ ■
“This used to be my room,” said Alité wistfully. Much of the outer wall was missing and looking up, the blue sky was visible through the blackened, jagged holes in the roof.
The room was easily half the size of Jack's beach house. He just rested his hand on her armored shoulder, not speaking. After all, what could he possibly say that might have any affect at all? It appeared much
of the palace had been severely damaged in the revolution and no room had escaped ruinous carnage. Little of value had been left behind by looters and those trying to survive on this damaged and suffering planet.
“Skipper... Skipper, you reading me?”
Steele keyed his mic, “I'm here, go ahead, Bri...”
“We have company...”
“OK,” said Jack casually, “gimme a sec, I'll be right down...” Brian's next transmission was garbled and seemed hurried. “You want to repeat that, Bri? I didn't catch that...”
“I said they don't look friendly! Hurry your ass up!”
“Everybody to the bird!” Jack ordered, “Double-time it!” Jack and Alité sprinted as best they could through the rubble, winding their way down the long corridors. “How many are there, Bri?”
“About f ve-h r d...”
Damn, not this static again... “Repeat, that!” yelled Jack.
“Five-hundred! Five-hundred!”
Holy shit! Thought Jack
“Invader One, taking fire! Taking fire..!”
■ ■ ■
Santine was the first one off the ground, the Cyclone's anti-grav shooting him upward as he snap-rotated the control handle. “Delta formation, on me, let's move it!” He nudged the throttle, the entire flight screaming past the control tower at window height, just below the sound barrier. A mile away they punched their throttles hard and the atmosphere thundered explosively, rolling through the hills.
“OK guys, we've got friendlies on the ground so confirm your targets...” He began, already sliding his throttle back toward the zero indent. The flight to the city was all of sixty seconds, and they passed over the palace, the compressed air thundering around them as they decelerated hard, looping back over the Invader and the Marines' defensive positions along the walls. The hill below them crawled with people pouring out of the city like rampaging ants. Blaster fire crisscrossed the open hillside below, the Marines picking and choosing their targets from protected positions.
“Drop to a hundred foot hover, line-abreast,” ordered Santine. “Guns only, over their heads. Let's see if that get's their attention.” The four Cyclones pulled abreast of each other, mere feet between their wingtips. “Firing...” Santine squeezed the trigger and fired, the others following suit, a flat plane of magenta streaks passing over the advancing army and destroying what was left of a ten-story building on the edge of the city. The massive crowd stopped and looked back as the structure collapsed in on itself with a roar. “I think we've got their attention... let's drop to twenty-five feet.”
The building dropped in slow motion and all human movement stopped, frozen in place. Though they temporarily held fire, the Marines hadn't given an inch and with this turn of events, weren't about to. The Cyclones eased forward of their position and dropped to a firing position of twenty-five feet above the ground, the hum of their anti-grav generators and low growl of their engines at idle, the only sounds. Cutting loose with their weapons at that height would have the same effect as a chainsaw on a bunch of bananas. Messy.
Steele keyed his mic, “Cyclones, hold fire, hold fire. Looks like they're trying to decide what to do.”
“Copy, Skipper. Holding. You've got another wave coming from the streets between the buildings... gotta be a thousand more people at least...”
“Crap. Did we just open Pandora's Box?” Jack looked back over his shoulder. Brian had taken the opportunity the cease-fire provided to move the Invader over the wall into the palace compound, its side door still open.
“Wait! Stop!” said the voices in Steele's earpiece.
“What the hellion is she doing?!” said another. “Get down from there!”
Steele whipped around to see what the Marines were talking about, scanning their positions, almost missing the fact that Alité was standing atop the broken wall, weapon slung to her side, completely exposed to the swelling crush of people below. She was waving her arms over her head, and proceeded to remove her helmet, dropping it off the wall behind her.
“Get off that wall!” he screamed, lunging into a run. She was all alone up there, no one near her to pull her down and bring her to her senses. What the hell is she thinking? She was holding something above her head that she had dug out of her backpack and Jack was trying to focus enough to see what it was while pounding across the compound. It unfurled and she let it fall open, shaking it hard enough to catch the breeze... a flag?
Alité held the Velorian national flag by the corners, letting it flutter in the breeze, looking down at the motionless wall of people below her. They glanced up occasionally, uneasily, at the row of heavily armed Cyclones hovering above them. “Citizens of Veloria,” she called. “These are UFW Marines. They are not invaders. They are not pirates or thugs... But if you attack them, they will defend themselves. And as you can see, they are extremely well equipped.”
“Why are they here?” came a voice from the crowd. They moved closer, slowly, walking, constantly growing in number. Those with weapons carried them at ease.
“To find out what happened here. To help us. To give us the tools to rebuild. To help us restore our way of life...”
“Where were they when we called for them? When we asked for help? Why now?”
“You are angry,” she shouted, “but the United Federation of Worlds never received those calls. There were other forces at work here, I'm sure you know that. People whose job it was to disrupt our way of life and ensure our failure. These Marines were sent to investigate when Veloria was no longer reachable on the UFW network. The pirate clashes continue. It took months for them to get here, but they are here to help us...”
“Why do you say us? We? Who are you to assume you are part of us..?” The army had swelled to a sea of people almost five-thousand strong, stopping less than twenty feet from the wall.
Still holding up the flag, one-handed, she reached back and slid the sword, still in its scabbard off her back and held it aloft for all to see. “I am Alité, daughter of Veloria, Princess of the House of Magistrate...”
“Liar!” shouted an agitator in the front row. “The royal family is all dead... Killed during the revolution!”
She stared at him, unslinging her carbine and laying it on the top of the wall, wrapping the flag around her neck like a scarf. Jack stood behind her, calling her off the wall and she stayed him with her hand, dropping to the grass six feet below on the other side of the wall, facing the sea of people, her sword grasped in her left hand by its scabbard. “And who are you to question me?” she hissed. “And how do you know this to be true... unless you were there?” Behind her, Jack climbed to the top of the wall and nudged the safety off on his carbine.
“The King was the ruination of us all; he got what he deserved...”
Alité's eyes narrowed, flicking to other people in the crowd that surrounded him, a wall of humanity standing almost shoulder to shoulder. “I'll ask you again,” she said slowly, darkly, “were you there?” She watched his facial expression but did not tunnel her vision, she saw all of him. “And who are you?” she demanded. “Where do you come from? It occurs to me you aren't Velorian...” His eyes shifted, and for a split second it seemed she could read his thoughts, saw the micro-twitch in his body as the synapses fired, bringing his muscles into motion to raise the handgun in his right hand, up to bear. The grace at which she moved was like fine ballet, her speed, deceiving.
Her right foot swept wide to broaden her stance with the scabbard still in her left hand, the sword's hilt in her right, coming cleanly out, sweeping across, producing a musical zwing as it sliced him across the abdomen, cutting cleanly, diagonally, through his arm, muscles, organs and spine in one swift movement. He collapsed to the grass, cut in two, his life's blood gurgling out, his organs spilling out onto the grass. She recovered, dropping the scabbard and stood ready to strike again, both hands wrapped tightly on the grip, scanning the astounded faces. The people closest to him were spattered with blood, eyes wide, mouths agape, motionl
ess.
Never taking her eyes off the wall of humanity, she dropped to one knee and wiped the blood off her blade with his shirt before straightening up. Having retrieved the scabbard, she re-sheathed the sword, holding it in her left hand as before.
“He deserves neither your pity nor your prayers,” she announced loudly. “Traitors and outside instigators were the ruination of our society, and will not be tolerated.” Her eyes scanned the crowd. “You know who you are. And everyone else knows who you are...” she pointed at the crowd. “If you are not satisfied on Veloria, you are free to leave, unfettered. But do not cause the good people of this beautiful planet any further grief... or I promise,” she growled, “I will hunt you down myself and plant your worthless carcass in the ground.”
Like an outward moving ripple of water, the mass of humanity dropped to a knee, the movement spreading out through the crowd like a growing wave until they had all silently bowed to her.
“Princess,” pleaded a woman near the front, “we've lost everything, what are we supposed to do?”
“Rebuild it, for God's sake!” the Princess snapped angrily. “You're not children; I shouldn't have to explain the obvious to you. But here it is... Whether you participated in the revolution, or you did nothing to prevent it, you are equally responsible! You created this mess, so now it's time to clean it up!” She waved her arms expressively. “When I left here four years ago, this was a living, breathing metropolis. Now it's a festering, decaying slum. I didn't have anything to do with it, you did. You listened to the disillusioned, the trouble makers, the instigators, and by everything I've seen, acted like angry little children who didn't get the dessert they wanted, throwing a temper tantrum.” She rubbed her forehead in frustration, “If you're happy living in abject squalor, then don't do anything... Look, you allowed somebody to convince you things needed to change. But you never asked or considered what that change might look like.” She waved her arms expressively to take in the wide spectacle of the city behind them. “Welcome to change.”
Wings of Steele - Flight of Freedom (Book2) Page 31