A Show of Force

by Ryk Brown

  “Mobile Two, Jahal,” the master sergeant began as he followed his commander. “We have a jumper down. Jumper One is down at our location.”

  “Jahal, Mobile Two. We copy. Vectoring Jumpers Nine and Twelve to your location. E.T.A., three minutes. We’ll try to get some air cover as well. Plenty of fast movers on their way down from orbit.”

  “The battleships?” Master Sergeant Jahal asked as he entered the stairwell behind Commander Telles.

  “Affirmative.”

  Mister Bryant frowned as his communications officer passed him the message. He turned toward the Admiral. “The Jung had two additional battleships in hiding,” he began.

  “Where?” Admiral Dumar wondered.

  “Behind a small moon orbiting the third gas giant in the Tau Ceti system.”

  “We cold-coasted that system several times,” the admiral insisted, frustration in his tone.

  “If they were tucked away between this moon and the parent planet, they would be extremely difficult to detect, especially with passive sensors. Due to the heavy traffic in the system, most of our recon was done from considerable distance, in order to avoid detection and maintain the element of surprise.”

  “Instead, the surprise was on us.” Admiral Dumar thought for a moment. “How did we learn of this? By ambush?”

  “Fortunately, no. Lieutenant Commander Nash managed to get word to the Ghatazhak, who then relayed the information to the Aurora, only minutes before the hidden battleships revealed themselves.”

  “Of course, the presence of those ships dramatically changes things,” the admiral said. “Those ships carry significant forces that they can deploy to the surface, and the Ghatazhak have a difficult enough assignment as it is.”

  “The battleships have already sent additional troops to the surface.”

  “How many?”

  “Undetermined at this point. The Aurora has already engaged the two battleships, but they do not believe they can take them both out without suffering significant, if not catastrophic, damage. They are recommending another KKV strike.”

  “Is that even viable?” Dumar wondered. “Surely, after seeing their other major assets destroyed, they are not going to remain stationary long enough…”

  “They are currently in low orbit over Kohara,” Mister Bryant interrupted, “very low orbit.”

  “They’re using the planet as protection,” the admiral surmised. “They must have figured out how we took the other assets down so easily.”

  “It would not be difficult to determine.”

  “No, it would not.”

  “The Jung obviously believe that we would not risk inadvertently striking a heavily populated planet with such weapons.”

  “A logical conclusion,” the admiral agreed, “although I doubt the Jung would have such concerns, should the roles be reversed.” Admiral Dumar took a breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t suppose Captain Scott is offering any recommendations?”

  “He is.” Mister Bryant looked at the Admiral.

  “I thought so,” the admiral replied, getting the message from the look in his subordinate’s eyes. “If we strike from an angle that guarantees the safety of the planet, we greatly reduce our chances of destroying the targets.”

  “What if we adjust that angle to one that, if the target is missed, the result would be a glancing blow to Kohara?”

  “Kohara has a population of over three billion,” Admiral Dumar reminded him. “Even a glancing blow is likely to wipe out half of them. If not immediately, then over time. It is a risk we cannot take.” Admiral Dumar sighed. “We have four KKVs left. Have them positioned for a minimum safe strike angle. Two KKVs per target, spaced properly along each target’s orbital path. Launch when ready.”

  “And if we miss?”

  “If we miss, the Jung will likely not even know we took the shot. If time permits, we will pick up the KKVs on the far side and try again.”

  “We could just leave and try again later,” Mister Bryant suggested. “Wait for a better moment…”

  “There will not be a better moment,” the admiral insisted, “and with all the additional Jung fighters providing close air support, we’d likely lose half our ground forces in a withdrawal.” The admiral sighed again. “No, we must destroy those battleships, now. Once they are gone, our forces can dig in and wait for the Jung air cover to run out of fuel. Meanwhile, make sure that we have destroyed any surface support bases for those Jung fighters. We don’t want them refueling on the ground.”

  In systematic fashion, Jung soldiers sent a continuous stream of energy weapons fire through the broken windows and doors of the front of the broadcast studio. Red bolts from varying directions struck all about the reception counter in the lobby, and the wall directly behind, as well as the ceiling above, sending bits and pieces of the inside structures flying in all directions.

  Gerard’s men tried to return fire, but the incoming fire was so intense that they could not take the risk.

  Jessica was crouched on her knees behind the counter, just like the others, trying to protect herself from flying debris as the energy bolts continued to pound their position. She could feel the heat of the Jung energy weapons, especially in the reinforced reception counter that was slowly heating up from countless strikes. She looked at Gerard a meter away. “They’re going to keep this up as they advance!” Jessica yelled above the constant noise of the firefight. “We have to fall back! Down the corridor and back to the studio!”

  “And then what?” Gerard replied. “They’ve probably got all the exits covered!”

  “We hold until help arrives!” Jessica answered as she turned to move toward the main corridor.

  “And if they do not arrive in time?” Gerard wondered.

  “Then we die!”

  Gerard pulled out a homemade grenade and activated it, tossing it over the counter into the middle of the lobby.

  The grenade detonated, and the weapons fire stopped. Jessica rose and started backing down the main corridor, rising up from her crouch just enough to return fire, her shots barely clearing the top of the reception counter. Gerard rose next, backing down the corridor as he fired in the same fashion, sweeping left and right aimlessly through the cloud of dust and smoke, providing cover fire for his last two men.

  As soon as all of them were returning fire, Jessica turned and ran down the corridor. The Jung opened fire, again sending bits of the walls and ceiling flying all about her.

  Gerard continued backing down the corridor, firing along the way. One of his men took a direct blast to the face, sending him tumbling over backwards. The second man took a hit in the left shoulder, sending him spinning to the left, but he managed to stay on his feet and run down the corridor. Gerard continued to return fire, moving quickly backwards as his last man passed him by.

  Jessica ducked around the right corner of the corridor, then came back around to open fire.

  The corridor was dark, filled with dust lingering in the air, and lit only by the red flashes of light as the Jung energy weapons flew down the hallway. “Firing on your left!” she warned Gerard and his last man. She again opened fire, sending a steady barrage of energy weapons fire down the corridor, barely missing her friends.

  Gerard turned around and ran, following his wounded friend, the two of them finally ducking around the corner to the left, opposite of Jessica. Jessica dashed across the corridor to join them on the other side. She grabbed two homemade grenades from the wounded man’s vest pockets. “How the fuck do these work, again?” she yelled.

  “Twist the top caps, then push them down!” Gerard replied as he helped his friend. “Ten second fuse!” He turned to his wounded man, questioning him in Cetian. The man nodded, and readied his weapon with his good arm.

  Jessica did as instructed, arming both grenades. After a few seconds, she tossed the first one all the way to the reception counter where they had been a moment ago, and the second one about halfway down the corridor. “Go!” she yelled.
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  The three of them charged down the corridor, away from the intersection and toward the news studio at the end of the hallway. The first grenade detonated, sending a muffled thud reverberating down the corridors. The second grenade was far louder. Jessica felt like someone had slapped her ears, which were now ringing.

  They burst through the studio doors, and immediately headed for the anchor desk at the far side.

  “What the fuck kind of grenades are those?” she yelled.

  “Very simple devices,” Gerard replied. “Very powerful. Explosive cores, packed with bearings, incendiary compounds, and smoke agents.”

  “They might be a bit too powerful,” Jessica commented as she stretched her jaw to try and clear her ears.

  “There is no such thing,” Gerard replied as he looked around the studio. “You take the anchor desk. We will go to either side of the set. That way they cannot take us all down with one well-placed grenade.”

  “Great,” Jessica mumbled as she headed for the anchor desk. “I get to be the one in the kill zone.” She moved across the studio, grabbing a large, rolling cabinet full of electronic gear and dragging it behind her. There was a pounding sound, and a muffled holler. She looked at the control booth, where one of the studio staff had apparently been hiding. The man was pounding on the window and yelling something at her, which she decided to ignore. She pushed the cabinet in front of the anchor desk, and then knocked it over to add a layer of protection. Sparks flew from the cabinet when it hit the floor, followed by a puff of white smoke. She glanced at the control booth as she moved around the anchor desk. The man was holding his head and looked like he was about to explode.

  Jessica smiled as she moved behind the desk, then stopped in her tracks, looking down. Hiding behind the anchor desk, squatting on the floor, was the newscaster. “Not a great place to hide,” she told the woman.

  The newscaster looked up at Jessica with a terrified expression. “Where should I go?” she asked in an almost inaudible voice.

  “Anywhere but here, lady. This is the kill zone.” Jessica waited for a response, or a movement, but the terrified young woman was paralyzed with fear and doubt. Jessica suddenly felt sorry for the girl. “Maybe you should go join your friends in the control room over there?”

  “Here they come!” Gerard yelled.

  “Maybe not,” Jessica said as she ducked down. Several energy bolts flew over her head, blasting through the set wall behind her.

  Gerard returned fire from the right side of the room as his injured friend fired from the left, both of them concentrating their fire on the only doorway into the studio.

  Jessica looked at the newscaster, who was now even more terrified than ever. “What’s your name?”

  “Are we going to die?” The woman asked.

  Jessica peeked up over the desk and fired several shots, then came back down to look at the girl again. “What’s your name?”

  “Kata,” she replied. “Kata Mun.”

  “Kata.” Jessica fired a few more shots. “We’re not going to die, got it?”

  Kata nodded, although she did not appear convinced.

  The firefight quickly escalated, as the Jung soldiers increased their rate of fire in an attempt to get through the door and into the studio. Jessica kept popping up to fire, then quickly dropping back behind the desk. Within seconds, she was no longer able to do anything but cower on the floor next to Kata, as Jung energy bolts tore apart the top of the desk, sending bits and pieces flying about. The set wall behind them caught fire, becoming engulfed in a wall of flames seconds later.

  “This was a really bad plan,” Jessica mumbled. She looked at Kata. “Okay, I may have been wrong a moment ago.” Kata looked at her with confusion. “You know, about the dying part?”

  The sound of weapons fire suddenly increased, albeit somewhat muffled, as if from deeper in the corridor beyond the doorway. The Jung soldiers came pouring into the studio, despite the hail of energy weapons fire coming from Gerard and his cohort on either side of the studio.

  “Damned if I’m gonna die hiding behind a desk!” Jessica said as she rose to her feet and opened fire.

  The room was full of Jung, perhaps twenty in total, rushing in all directions. Three of them were charging toward Jessica. She shot the first one square in the chest, then another shot in the face, causing him to tumble forward. More energy weapons fire streaked in from behind the charging Jung soldiers, but it was of a different color… more of an amber than the bright red of the Jung weapons.

  Jessica fired again, striking another Jung soldier in the shoulder and sending him spinning around and falling to her right. Her third shot missed a Jung soldier charging toward her. He jumped up onto the electronics cabinet that she had knocked over in front of the desk, then onto the shattered desktop, jumping forward toward Jessica.

  Jessica swung her rifle around, striking the diving Jung soldier in the face with the butt of the weapon as she twisted to her right to avoid his attack. The soldier fell past her, crashing through the burning back set wall. Another Jung soldier jumped up over the desk in the same fashion. Jessica spun back around just as the soldier slammed into her, knocking her backward. There was a sudden, intense sensation of heat as they fell backward, followed by the smell of burning flesh. They landed on top of the first Jung soldier as he tried to get back to his feet. Jessica pushed the second soldier off of her, rolling him to one side. Then she felt herself being heaved upward, rolling off the soldier she was lying on top of to the opposite side and landing face down among bits of smoldering scenery, with flames burning all around. She scrambled to her feet, but was instantly caught by one of the soldiers, his arm around her neck. She heard a nearby sound, and instantly recognized it as the sound of a knife being pulled from its sheath. She tried to jam her free elbow into the soldier’s side, but his body armor protected him. She was trapped.

  There was a sudden, sickening sound. A gurgling of something, and then a slicing sound. The man on top of her tensed up. She wondered for a moment if her adrenaline was masking the pain of being sliced open from behind. Had she been stabbed in the back? Had her throat been sliced open? Would her death be pain free, or would the pain suddenly wash over her as the adrenalin drained from her body along with her blood?

  The soldier’s grip around her neck loosened. A moment later, he was no longer on top of her. There was still the sound of sporadic weapons fire, as well as the sound of hand-to-hand combat.

  I’m not dead.

  Jessica jumped back to her feet, spinning around to face her next attacker. Instead, standing before her was Commander Telles. “Ha!” she laughed. “Thanks.”

  “You are quite welcome.” Telles looked at her shoulder. “I believe you are on fire.”

  Jessica looked to her right and saw that her jacket was smoldering. “Right,” she replied as she removed the garment. “What took you so long?”

  “We were a little busy.”

  “I take it you got my message?”

  “Indeed. The Aurora has been notified.”

  “Then they’re alright? Where are the battleships now?”

  “They are in very low orbit over Kohara,” Telles explained. “They are currently making our job quite difficult.” Telles tapped his comm-set. “Aurora, Telles. We have Lieutenant Commander Nash.”

  “Telles, Aurora. Copy you have Nash. Be advised, Tango Zulu, ten mikes.”

  “What the hell is Tango Zulu?” Jessica wondered.

  “Current code name for a KKV strike.”

  “At targets in low orbit?” Jessica said. “Isn’t that a bit risky?”

  “I’m sure command has considered the risks,” Commander Telles said.

  “Telles, Jumper Nine. We’re over you now. Jumper Twelve is thirty seconds out. Trooper Four is two out. Be advised, you have a Jung column inbound from the east. Estimate their arrival in five minutes.”

  “Nine, Telles. Copy. Do we have any Falcons coming?”

  “Telles, Falcon Four, we
’ll be on them in two minutes,” Loki’s voice reported.

  “Falcon Four, Telles, copy that.” Telles turned to Jessica. “We should prepare to leave. The extrication shuttle will be here shortly.”

  “What did you mean?” Kata wondered as she got up off the floor. “What risk? To who? To Kohara?”

  “The risk is minimal,” Commander Telles insisted.

  “Then why did that guy need to warn you about it?”

  “In case something unforeseen was to take place, it is better to be…”

  “What do you mean, unforeseen?”

  “Look, Kata,” Jessica interrupted. “The only way for us to defeat assets like battleships and battle platforms is to hit them with FTL kinetic kill vehicles. Usually we target ships when they are nowhere near a planet; that way we can strike at a ninety degree angle. Makes for an easier to hit target. But the Jung know that, and are using your planet as a shield.”

  “Then the risk must be great,” Kata concluded. “Otherwise they’d have no reason to believe that strategy would work, right?”

  “We’ll try to strike at a safe angle,” Jessica assured her.

  “What gives you people the right to do such things?” she asked, becoming infuriated.

  “Look, we didn’t start this fight,” Jessica said, “but we’re damned sure going to finish it.”

  “At what cost?” Kata demanded. “How many worlds have you destroyed? How many more must die to save Earth?”

  “It is not about saving Earth,” Commander Telles said, interrupting the young woman. “It is about saving all worlds. Those in the Sol sector, those in the Pentaurus sector, and all the lost colonies of Earth that the Jung will eventually find and conquer, for it is only a matter of time before they too acquire jump drive technology. Once they do, there will be no stopping them.” Commander Telles looked her with his usual serious expression. “Now, you can either help us, or stand aside. However, if you attempt to impede us, I shall kill you, without hesitation or remorse.”

  Kata looked at Telles for a moment, then looked at Jessica.