by Elliott Kay
They also knew she’d do the sensible thing and rely on her sergeants. “Gunny, how do we look up front?” she asked.
“We have a clear lane ahead for now. Nothing is moving up here. There’s more shooting up ahead, and to the northwest. Down, stay low,” she urged suddenly, snatching everyone’s attention. “We have movement down the block. I don’t think it’s our enemies. Probably civilians running for cover. We need to figure out what’s going on.”
“Copy that,” said Alicia. She looked around. “Might be good if we can put somebody up on one of these rooftops for a look.”
“Hey out there,” called a voice from one of the nearby buildings. Alicia saw broken windows and scorched walls in the darkness without anyone to match the voice until a tentative hand rose from below a windowsill. The rest of him stood once he knew he wouldn’t be shot. He wore filthy fatigues and a bewildered expression. “Are you guys Union Fleet?”
“Archangel, with a Fleet task force, yes,” said Alicia. “Come on out. Is that a uniform?”
“Uh. Yeah. Yeah, we’re with Precision Solutions,” said the man. He climbed out with two others in tow. “We didn’t expect you when we called for back-up. I’m Corporal Jensen. How many have you got? There are more of you, right? Is that air support coming back?”
“This is First Platoon. We’re coming in with two companies but most will land outside the city. What’s going on here?”
“Shit, we were hoping you could tell us. We don’t even know who these guys are.”
“You don’t know?” Rodriguez balked. “At all?”
“This all started only a few hours ago. Up until now the worst thing we had to worry about was insurgents pissed off about their contracts. Then tonight we had earthquakes and the fucking volcano blew. Hell, we didn’t even know we had a volcano. And then these assholes showed up,” Jensen went on. He kicked over one of the black-clad bodies. The helmet came loose to offer the first clear look anyone had at their gold-tinted faces.
“Fuckers are out here killing everyone. Civilians, cops, us. They blew holes in the big towers and slammed through every gate and checkpoint into the city. A few blocks up there we had a whole inspection station. We’re all that’s left. I dunno who these assholes are, but they sure aren’t the insurgents.”
“Nah, that would be us,” said another man. He walked up from the rear of the shuttle with a marine beside him as an escort, holding his empty hands up in a half-casual gesture of peace. The marine at his side carried a rifle. Farther back among the marines still working out their perimeter, another civilian handed over a rifle. They both wore longcoats and bandanas. “I’m Chen. I’m with the insurgents. And I can tell you what’s going on.”
“Can you explain in a single sentence?” asked Alicia.
“The ancient aliens who used to own this planet woke up and they’re genocidally pissed off at what we’ve done with the place.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” asked Jensen.
“No, he’s right,” said Alicia. “That’s what’s going on. We didn’t know about the genocide.”
“I got it second-hand, but it’s a solid source,” said Chen. “How’d you get here? You can’t have heard a distress call all the way over at Qin Kai. Best case you’d have only heard a few minutes ago.”
“We got a hot tip,” said Alicia. “I can’t get into it right now. We’ve got a task force in orbit but they’re already engaged with enemy ships around the planet. The first wave of landing parties may be all that gets through. Can you tell me what’s going on in the city?”
“All our communications have gone to hell,” Jensen answered. “We usually lose a lot during the dust storms. This ash falling from the sky is just as bad and half the ground cables have been cut in all the fighting already.”
“Half of your ground cables,” Chen corrected. “We’ve been running our own. Mostly we’re focused on getting local civilians to shelter while Precision and the police keep the bad guys busy. A lot of the buildings have access tunnels and connected basements. We’re hiding people there. I can give you guides around the city using alleys and backways. We’re used to dodging the local heat. Same tricks are working against the Minoans so far.” Chen tilted his head toward Jensen. “But these guys got hit hard at the outset and the ones left are barely holding on.”
“They’re not alone anymore,” said Alicia. “Have you got a map? Can you show us the local situation?”
“Yeah, I can give you that.” Chen brought up a map from his holocom. He glanced around the platoon as the projection took form. “You guys knew exactly what kind of weapons to bring. The aliens tell you that, too?”
“Miss Wong.” Janeka strode over to join them, staring at Chen. “You’re still on the platoon net. No need to catch me up. Mr. Chen, can you tell us anything more about our enemy’s plans or their weaknesses? You said you had a source.”
Chen grinned, looking from one woman to the other. “Funny you should ask.”
Chapter Thirty-Three:
Desperate
“None of this military stuff is ever as precise as they want the public to believe. You train for that, but in practice combat is a lot of stumbling and flopping and improvisation. I’m starting to think a lot of other jobs are like that, too.”
--Crewman Tanner Malone, Unused Interview Video, January 2276
“Should I be anywhere near here right now?” asked Naomi.
“Nope,” said Gina. “Probably not me, either. But here we are.”
“Due respect, agent, you’re the one they wanted to see.” Master at Arms Lewis walked only a couple of steps ahead, setting a hurried pace down the corridor. “You brought her.”
Gina threw Naomi an unwilling and guilty glance, but didn’t say anything. The passageway curved up ahead, leading to a door with guards to either side.
“You really need armed guards on your own warship?” asked Naomi.
Lewis was the only one she’d seen who kept his faceplate racked back, presumably to give her some sense of reassurance. “You might have heard we’ve had some experience with boarding actions. We don’t take anything for granted.”
Naomi wondered if that was supposed to make her feel better, too.
A sharp jolt hit the ship, interrupting whatever Lewis said to the guards. Naomi learned from the last such jolt to stay close to one side of the passageway and lean in hard if she could. It was better than stumbling to the floor again. She heard an alarm blare after the jolt, rather than before when it might have done some good, but the alarm didn’t last. Hopefully that meant the problem had been handled.
The guards opened up the heavy metal door. The flag bridge was dimmer than the corridor, but much more spacious. Lewis ushered them inside but didn’t take them far. “They’ll ask for you when you’re needed. Until then, we stay back and out of the way. Stick close to me and don’t interrupt anyone’s work.”
In the center of the bridge, a small handful of people worked around consoles and floating holograms. Around the edges were far more people and more gear. Naomi couldn’t tell one station from another, but the tangle of icons on the big screens on the opposite side of the compartment suggested bad news. A visual projection to one side looked even worse: Minos seemed almost coated with dark grey clouds while dark vessels held off the Union task force. Voices from different stations only added to her grim impression.
“Dublin coming in behind us,” someone shouted. “Turning to shield. Turning to—fuck!”
“Dublin is hit,” another voice warned. “Engine critical. They’re jettisoning.”
“Have her pull back and we’ll cover,” said a steadier, feminine voice with an East Indian accent from the center station. “Keep up a screen of fire.”
“This sounds bad,” murmured Naomi. Then she spotted the list of names along the right side of the main display. Of the seventeen listed, four were in grey. Two had flashing asterisks. “This sounds really bad.”
“It takes a lot of training
to understand how to read and follow all this,” said Gina. “Don’t get carried away by what parts you can follow.”
“Are you trained for it?”
“Only a little.”
“Then how does this look?”
Gina frowned. “Not great.”
Amid the group at the center of the bridge, a stocky man looked back with his faceplate up to reveal dark brown features and a curious gaze. He straightened with recognition and walked over from the station. “You’re from the shuttle we picked up? I’m Ambassador Young.”
“Gina. Archangel Ministry of Intelligence,” said Naomi’s companion, putting out her hand. “This is Naomi Fletcher from the University of Fremantle.”
“You’re a professor?” Young asked, shaking Naomi’s hand in turn.
“Doctoral candidate. And a TA,” she added lamely. “Xenoarchaeology and geology.”
“You don’t want to start with the professor,” explained Gina. “He’s not a reliable source.”
“Hit them again. Harder,” demanded the East Indian woman. Beyond her, red lasers chased a dark Minoan vessel across the curve of the planet’s atmosphere.
“She’s already made a quarter-turn,” reported a voice. “Damage is out of our line of fire.”
“Damn it, we need to exploit those openings,” said the woman.
Young turned back to the others. “That’s Admiral Khatri. She’s in charge. We heard you had direct contact with the enemy leadership?”
“Yeah,” said Naomi. “We were here on a dig. They kidnapped us and pulled us into their base or headquarters or whatever you’d call it.”
“I want to hear the whole story, but as you can imagine we’re pressed for time,” said Young. “Can you give me the highlights? What do they want?”
“They want their planet back and they want to wipe out every human on the surface along the way,” said Gina. “Then they figure they’ll have to take on the Noonies and Kroks. Their empress thinks she can talk her way into peace and cut an alliance with us after she kills all the colonists. She’s crazy. And as far as we’ve seen, they’re all following her.”
“Alien logic really can be alien,” said Young. “It doesn’t necessarily mean she’s crazy.”
“I get that, sir,” said Gina. “But she told us her plan just to float-test it in front of some live humans. When we rejected it, she decided to go for it anyway. She’s nuts.”
“Direct hit on the screening vessel,” someone called out. “We’ve got her with the main guns. Gladiator is following up.”
“She’s backing off, but still holding together,” Khatri observed. “What is this going to take?”
“Their metallurgy is energy-resistant but it’s not impenetrable,” Naomi blurted out. “Don’t you have missiles on this thing?”
“Ambassador,” Khatri warned.
“We’re on it, please don’t interrupt,” Young told Naomi. “We tried missiles. Their hulls are more than laser-resistant. It’s hard to get a bead on them. We’re having to recalibrate the missiles and adjust the optical targeting.”
“You can’t shoot straight at them?” Naomi frowned. “Rocks don’t have heat signatures, but you can fire a missile at an asteroid, can’t you?”
“It’s more than resistance to lasers. They’re doing something to simple light reflection. We can barely get an accurate bead. I want you to imagine writing new targeting code in the middle of all this.”
“Bridge reports missiles are online,” shouted a voice. “Targeting now.”
“Don’t wait on me to—” Khatri began. Missiles flew from Beowulf as she spoke, crossing the visual composite on the main screens amid lasers and chaff flying everywhere.
Call-outs and activity on the bridge never ceased. Despite it all, Naomi felt the same tense wait as everyone while three missiles crossed the distance to the lead ship, curving and turning to match the vessel as it moved out of position.
“Not seeing any active defenses,” said one officer.
“No, and they cannot track something so small and fast with their main guns,” Khatri agreed. “But they’ve evaded before now. Or we’ve simply missed.”
Numbers spiraled down on the screens as the missiles closed in. Naomi held her breath.
The first seemed to overshoot. In almost the same instant, the second missile detonated, engulfing the dark Minoan ship. The blast set off both of its companion missiles in an even bigger explosion. Their target flew out of the cloud listing end over end in a sidelong drift. Gaping holes in the hull were plain to see. Other parts of the ship were entirely gone.
Cheers went up around the bridge. They didn’t last long against Khatri’s loud, steady voice. “Share that programming with the rest of the formation. Tell Admiral Branch to move to the next target. Press this advantage!”
“What was that about having to reprogram?” asked Gina.
Young glanced back to her and Naomi with a shrug. “They only needed to adjust,” he said. “The fight’s been going for a few minutes now. If we can get off our back feet and push this, the Minoans might be willing to talk.”
“Fat chance of that,” said Gina. “You’re wasting your time.”
“I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m an ambassador on a battleship in combat,” Young pointed out. “The only thing I can do is get prepared in case a cease-fire breaks out. Do you have any sense of what else they want? Is there any way we can negotiate an end to this?”
“They completely re-engineered their bodies to be mostly human so they could adapt to all the terraforming we did to their planet,” said Naomi. “And they’re pretty pissed about it. Also they have crystalized brains they can pass on from one body to the next. Minos Enterprises has been using those brains to make their high-end memory chips.”
Young’s lips pressed together. “I can see how that would build a grudge.”
“Java says she’s getting success with her main guns,” someone announced. “She’s got her target boxed in with her escorts. They’re breaking through that armor.”
“Then the missiles ought to help,” said Khatri. On the screen, Beowulf and one of the smaller ships hammered a Minoan dreadnought with missiles. The next closest Minoan ship pulled back from the fight. The Union formation still looked battered and continued to take hits, but the tide seemed to be turning.
“Relay drone from Recon One,” announced someone at one of the larger stations. “Just broke from the clouds and… my god. Admiral, you need to see this. The city of Southpoint is gone!”
“What?” Khatri asked. Rather than changing any of the larger screens, Khatri looked down to her console. Naomi couldn’t see around the admiral, but she saw a bright orange glow from whatever she watched. The admiral stiffened.
The fighting raged on. Khatri bowed her head, then looked to her screens again. “We need Dublin towed out of danger. Put that NorthStar frigate Turner on it. They aren’t doing much good where they are now. Comms, relay the signal from Recon One to the others. They’ve diverted to the capital.”
“What happened?” Naomi asked, looking to Young. “Could you see?”
“No, but I heard,” said the ambassador.
“Same here,” said Gina. “At least the fight is shifting.”
“We had them outnumbered when we started,” Young noted. “Even so, they’ve held the upper hand until now.”
“New contacts!” someone warned. “Objects dropped out of FTL at one-eight-five by two-one-zero relative, two hundred thirty klicks…same make as the enemy. Six of them. Correction, make that nine.”
“Damn, where the hell did they come from?” asked Young.
“The empress said they’d been planning this for a long time,” Naomi explained. “The Minoans were driven into hiding in a war with the Nyuyinaro and the Krokinthians. These ships came out of hiding from the moons. They probably had others in hiding farther out. Or maybe in deep space. She could have sent a recall signal. Maybe she sent it days ago.”
“They had
stasis tech,” added Gina. “There may be live crewmembers on there. Or they may be more of those robots.”
“Or automated,” Young considered. “We’re outnumbered two to one now.”
“So what do we do?” asked Naomi.
“Hell if I know. If they’re wiping out cities, I doubt we’ll find a diplomatic solution.” He started walking toward the center station and the admiral. “Stay there.”
Beowulf shook from another hit. Someone called out a report of damage to one of the main engines. “Am I forgetting something? Isn’t there anything else we can tell them?” asked Naomi.
“Nothing I can think of,” said Gina. “At least he knows we don’t have anything to bargain with. Not unless we can fight our way through this to a position of strength.”
“St. Catherine is online!” someone called out. “She looks damaged. Northwest quadrant!”
Naomi didn’t know the significance of it until an inset on the main bank of screens switched to a view of the ship. The image explained it: the small ship had emerged from the clouds. Smoke trailed from one side of the vessel, which tilted to reveal it had lost most of one wing. “She made her drop,” continued the reporting voice. “Anchorside is still intact. Heavy fighting on the ground.”
“Then we’re still in this,” said Khatri.
A wide yellow beam shot out from the clouds to cut through the middle of St. Catherine. The ship tilted forward, out of control and venting gas. Heartbeats later, she exploded.
“How do we get to a position of strength again?” Naomi asked under her breath.
“Close in on the next target,” Khatri ordered. “Missiles at the ready until it’s gone. Then we move on to the next one. Keep firing.”
* * *