by Bobby Adair
By that time, the rocket flaws were manifesting themselves in a consistent fashion. One in seven failed on liftoff, and each of those ships turned into a huge ball of fire.
Of the sixty-eight support and decoy ships, only six exploded. Thirty-two of the two hundred troop carriers slated to go up never made it out of the atmosphere. Seventeen percent of the six thousand troops who’d been trained for the mission were already dead by the time Kane’s ship took flight.
A thousand lives were lost because earth was forced to rush production of space vehicles that existed at the foremost edge of its engineers’ technological abilities.
A thousand souls immolated on the altar of complacency.
Staring at the stars through the windshield, Kane sees bright flares, and toggles the flight crew’s comm. “What’s that?”
“The other ships are starting their burn,” answers Booker, unlocking his chair and spinning to face Kane, Garcia, and Harney. “Like us, they need to escape earth’s gravity and get on a trajectory to the moon.” He points out the window. “See how they’re spread all over the place? We’re all going to be coming in at slightly different angles. That’ll put lots of space between us, so we’ll be harder to hit when the Grays start shooting.”
“Hey, hey,” says Harney, perturbed and pointing at Howard. “Is that okay, letting him fly it by himself?”
“I’m just a backup system,” says Booker. “I drive when he gets tired.”
“Or killed,” adds Howard without turning around.
Booker laughs. “It’s how you get promotions in the astronaut biz. The guy ahead of you gets toasted.”
“That sucks,” says Harney.
“That’s how you’ll get my job.” Kane laughs. “And that’s how Corporal Bishop will get your job.”
Lieutenant Garcia elbows Harney. “If you wanted to wait for the guy ahead of you to retire, you should have stayed in school and become an accountant.”
“You guys are wrong,” sulks Harney.
Garcia looks down at the big-faced watch built into the sleeve of his suit. “How much longer are we going to burn?”
Checking his own watch, Booker replies, “Thrusters should fire for another hour or so. That’ll get us scooting on up to the moon in record time.”
“I thought the flight was gonna take thirty-six hours,” says Harney.
“That’ll be the record,” says Booker. “Two hundred and thirty-nine thousand miles is a long way.”
“Unstrap from your seat,” Garcia tells Harney and Kane. “Get your helmets off. Organize the men. Have them do the same. Get them out of their seats two or three at a time. I want them moving around so they can acclimate to the low g while we have it.”
Booker says, “After this burn, we’ll do about thirty-three hours of zero g before we kick the engines back on for a deccel once we get close to the moon. Nobody knows what kind of defenses the Grays have up there, but I’d expect them to start taking pot shots at us eventually. You’ll want the men strapped back in once that happens. We wouldn’t want a bunch of bodies bouncing around inside the cabin once Captain Howard decides he’s the Red Baron and starts taking evasive maneuvers.” Booker laughs. “Know what I mean?”
“Just let us know when,” Garcia replies with a grin.
Kane releases his strap and pushes himself out of his seat, turning around and hailing the other sergeants to get the men moving.
Chapter 6
“Wake up.”
Kane jerks to attention and sees Lieutenant Garcia leaning over him. Kane says, “I dozed off.”
“Boredom.” Garcia floats himself back into his seat.
The ship is still in zero g.
Kane looks over his shoulder at the rows of soldiers behind. Some of them are asleep. Others are talking quietly. Some are putting their helmets back on. “Something wrong?”
“We’re almost there.”
Kane looks at the large-faced watch on his wrist. The time confuses him. He tries to piece together when he went to sleep.
“We’re about an hour out.”
“God,” says Kane. “How long did I sleep?”
“As long as you needed.”
Kane shakes his head to knock the cobwebs loose. “I guess.”
Garcia straps himself into his chair. “We’ll start our burn pretty soon.”
Kane checks his belts. Still secure.
“You’ll want to get your helmet back on,” says Garcia.
The helmet is attached to a clip on the seat, just beside the line that feeds his suit oxygen and power from the ship. Kane detaches the helmet, and pulls it deftly over his head, connects the neck ring to his suit and locks it in place, just like he’s done a thousand times in training.
Using the crude controls on his wrist, he runs a diagnostic on the suit’s systems, a habit drilled into him during training. The story the instructors like to tell was that more than one hard-nosed dumbass, “just like you,” skipped the diagnostics and jumped into his exercise, assuming that because he could breathe, everything was fine. The problem is, the empty spaces in the suit hold enough air to sustain a man for a few minutes. So it’s easy to think the air system is running when it’s not.
Once the air in the suit turns toxic with carbon dioxide, the dumbass collapses. The lucky ones passed out close to someone who understood what was happening and knew what to do about it. Most of the dumbasses weren’t lucky. They died or caught a bad case of brain damage.
“For you idiots who don’t know it, brain damage is incurable.” The instructors were never kind.
Early on in lunar assault training, Kane’s unit took a tour of the ward where the Army kept the brain-damaged soldiers who’d made one mistake or another. Most of them looked like they’d been poured into their wheelchairs every morning, only to spend the day fumbling and drooling. The visit made an indelible impression on Kane. He always ran his system diagnostics, and he regularly checked his O2 and CO2 levels whenever he had his helmet on.
Harney, already awake, in his helmet, and strapped into his seat on the other side of Garcia, points out through the cockpit windows. “That’s earth, right?”
“Yep,” says Booker.
Kane is more interested in what Howard is doing. Howard is actively checking his instruments. He’s tense.
“Why are we headed toward earth?” asks Harney.
“We spun the ship ten hours ago,” says Booker, who busies himself with some toggles on the ceiling that cause a bank of monitors to swing down from above. He glances at Howard. “Good to go.”
Howard spins his chair around and orients himself at a set of controls Kane hadn’t paid any attention to before. Now Howard and Booker have their backs to the cockpit windows, using video feeds to fly the ship backward.
Garcia glances at Harney and says, “They pointed the rocket nozzles toward the moon.”
“So we can decelerate,” adds Kane. He paid attention in training when they were explaining all of this. Harney hadn’t.
“I see the other ships,” says Harney, “just like when we left earth.”
Booker looks over his shoulder to see out the window. “Yeah.”
“We’ll be there first?” asks Harney.
Garcia thumbs over his shoulder. “I’m sure there’re plenty out there we can’t see.”
Just then, one of the ships behind them explodes in a spray of silent fire.
“Holy shit!” shouts Harney.
Kane tenses. He comms the platoon. “Helmets. Now!”
Howard glances back to see the fiery explosion dissipate into the void. He looks at the rows of men sitting in front of him now. He focuses on Lieutenant Garcia. “I’m muting you guys now. Going to fleet comm. The Grays are awake. Hold tight. It’s going to get rough.”
Over the platoon comm, Kane orders, “Cinch up those straps. We’re starting evasive maneuvers. Expect to get jerked around a bit.” He looks over at the lieutenant, who is talking with someone, probably their new commander on another
of the ships. Harney is on the comm with his squad, talking fast enough so they won’t have time to think about the incoming fire.
Kane switches to the platoon command comm, just him, the other three sergeants, and Garcia. “Keep a close eye on your men. Make sure nobody panics. We’ll be in our own pile of dog shit soon enough. Right now, there’s nothing we can do except relax and trust our pilot to get us there. Clear?”
“Clear,” they respond in near unison.
Kane takes a few slow breaths to maintain his calm. Just like his men, he doesn’t like being under someone else’s control.
Booker leans a little to the left of his monitor bank and catches a glance at Kane before opening a connection. “Howard says I should leave a line open to you three.” He points a finger across the front row. “You know, so you can keep the platoon informed, so they’ll feel better. It doesn’t seem like it, but he’s all touchy-feely that way. Ask questions when you have them, and I’ll answer unless I’m busy flying the ship and saving your life or something.” Booker chuckles.
“Thanks,” says Garcia. “Kane, can you pass along info to the platoon, so we’re not all three talking.”
“Yes, sir.”
Booker says, “We’ve got incoming, and the captain is going to start his crazy pilot shit here, any second. Hope you boys had your Dramamine.”
“Evasive maneuvers!” Kane announces.
The ship’s engine rumbles and the ship pulls hard to the right, but just for a moment.
“Expect more of that,” says Booker.
“Like riding a roller coaster,” says Kane into the platoon comm. He can hear the men. He’s got them turned down to barely audible, but if anything gets out of control he’ll know right away.
“Deccel burn in ten seconds,” says Booker.
Kane relays the information.
Out in the space behind them, another ship explodes.
Two streaks of light slip past, just missing the hull.
“Tracers?” asks Kane.
“Lasers,” Harney tells them, tension in his voice.
“You only see lasers in the movies,” says Garcia.
Harney turns toward Garcia, ready to argue. “There was this experiment my science teacher—”
“You don’t see laser beams in space,” Garcia tells him with enough finality that Harney stops talking.
“They’re shooting some kind of super high-velocity projectiles,” says Booker. “They’re not tracers. They’re glowing because they’re hot as hell from the acceleration.”
“Railguns?” asks Kane.
“Confirm that,” says Garcia. “It’s coming over the company line now. They’ve got forty or fifty of them mounted on the ship.”
“Shit,” says Harney.
“Their fire rate is slow,” says Garcia. “Like they’re hand-loading them one shot at a time.”
The ship pulls hard, upward this time. Metal groans.
A light streaks past the cockpit windows, close enough to reach out and touch.
Some of the men shout and curse. They all saw it, too.
The ship pulls hard to the right.
“We’re in good hands,” says Booker, reaching over to pat Howard on the shoulder, making a show of it for the enlisted men.
Between the monitors, Kane sees Howard’s face. He’s focused on his monitors, still tense, but determined.
The ship jukes, then swerves into a long arc. The rocket engines stop burning.
“What’s that?” asks Garcia.
Booker glances at them between his monitors. Kane sees his humor is slipping. “Don’t pass this bit back to your guys. At least I wouldn’t. The first wave is getting shredded.”
Harney mutters something.
“We’re not going straight in,” says Booker. “We’re going to slingshot around the moon and deccel as we come around the other side.”
Garcia nods.
Harney asks, “Why?”
“So we won’t be an easy target,” answers Kane. “If we slow down to landing speed coming directly at the Grays’ ship, the slower we go, the easier we’ll be to hit. If we decelerate behind the moon and slide in over the horizon, we won’t be a target for long.”
Booker laughs. “That’s right. Tell you what, Sergeant, after Howard bites it, you can be my copilot.”
Another projectile flashes light into the cockpit.
More and more glowing projectiles are in the sky.
Garcia says, “For single shot weapons, the Grays are throwing up a lot of ordnance.”
Chapter 7
The black sky is filling with odd, shimmering shapes, the shattered remnants of ships. Some are still venting flaming gases. Others are spreading like poorly wrought fireworks.
The pilot jerks left, and then right again.
Another miss.
The hull sounds like it’s being pelted by hail and chunks of metal big enough to feel through the seat’s frame.
The men in the platoon are straining to keep their brave faces on, but they’re all afraid.
Most are keeping it to themselves.
A few others are starting to lose it. Kane directs their sergeants to mute them off the platoon comm and calm them down. Even Garcia has gone silent, eyes closed, hands gripped tight to his armrests, lips mouthing a silent prayer.
Trying to keep his voice on a level tone, Kane asks Booker, “What’s the story?”
“Busy as hell,” he answers, as he points to one of the large screens.
Howard turns the ship in response.
Kane finds the end of Booker’s humor worrisome. It underscores the impotence he feels being stuck in the rocket, unable to take a shot at those little gray shits in their interstellar cruiser, mercilessly pounding the fleet with their railguns.
He hates them even more now that he realizes his one consoling hope—through his training, the launch, and what might soon be his death—won’t work. If the fleet doesn’t make it through the hailstorm of defensive fire, no nuclear-tipped missiles will either.
No backup plan.
The rapidly shrinking lunar expeditionary force is the earth’s only hope.
“Most of the ships are damaged,” says Booker, seeming to breathe a little easier, all of a sudden.
That doesn’t sound like good news to Kane, so he doesn’t understand.
Booker seems to sense Kane’s misunderstanding and adds, “We’re the lucky ones.”
Seeing so much debris out the windows, Kane silently agrees.
“A few more minutes,” says Booker, “and we’ll be out of the line of fire.”
Howard pulls on the controls and Kane is mashed into his seat as the ship is pummeled again.
Debris from another ship flies past the windows.
Howard curses, losing his cool for the first time.
The ship swings in another direction.
Up. Down.
It barrel-rolls, and Kane is disoriented. He sees the earth. And then the edge of the moon. And then space again.
Heavy thuds pound the hull.
Kane closes his eyes and steels his nerves. It feels like the end. Out of the darkness, in his mind, he hears the gentle thump-thump of the heartbeat of his unborn child. The thought is broken by yet another impact.
But the ship doesn’t come apart. It shudders and veers to the left, long and consistent.
“We’re trying to get an orbital angle,” Booker shouts. “We don’t want to overshoot.”
The rocket engines start to rumble loudly.
“We’re burning to slow down,” shouts Booker over the noise.
Kane feels the g’s again, just like liftoff.
The noise of the rocket engines is all he can hear. His bones rattle so hard it feels like they might jiggle right out of his flesh.
“We made it!” Booker’s shout somehow carries over the noise of the engines.
Chapter 8
It feels like twenty, maybe thirty minutes, burning the rockets to slow down, but Kane sees out the
window they’re passing behind the dark side of the moon.
The orbital maneuver is working.
The Grays can’t see the ship.
The men in the platoon are feeling their confidence return. They’re joking, and talking about getting even.
Kane links in and tells his men, “Get yourselves ready, boys. The worst is past. We’ll have our turn soon enough.”
“Gonna stomp on a little gray fucker’s head,” jokes Harney. Some of the men laugh.
“We’re about fifteen minutes out,” Kane tells them. “We’ll land two or three clicks out and go in on foot.”
“How many ships made it through?” asks Harney.
“Don’t worry about that,” Kane replies. “You make sure your giggle-girls are ready to fight.”
“Hey,” says Harney, “nobody in my squad’s a giggle-girl.”
“Nobody but you,” laughs Garcia. He opens a private comm link between Kane and Booker. “I can’t raise anyone on the tactical link. I think the booster antenna on the hull was broken off in the descent. Can you guys raise the other ships?”
Booker talks quietly, even though he’s on the comm link. “Just between us, we’re not getting contact with anyone either.”
“What does that mean?” asks Garcia.
“It could mean we’re behind the moon and it’s blocking line-of-sight transmission.” He points to his screen. “I don’t see anyone in front of us. He glances back through the windows. “You guys see anyone else out there?”
“No,” answers Kane.
“Don’t tell me we’re the only ones that made it,” says Garcia.
“Can’t say,” Booker tells him. “Maybe we’re the only ones who took this maneuver around the moon, and the rest of them are on the other side giving the Grays what-for. Maybe we’ll be late to the party.”
Kane doesn’t like that idea. In fact, he almost likes it less than the helpless feeling he had when they were under fire and other ships were being blown to pieces. Like every soldier in the cramped cabin, he’s ready to kill the murdering little gray monsters.
Chapter 9
The ship spins one last time. Having shed its excess speed with the power of the engines, it can move in the moon’s light gravity with its maneuver thrusters.