by J. F. Holmes
The man went away grumbling, and she smiled. Ten was far too many, considering the lack of spare parts and the age of the planes, some almost fifty years old. Six would be enough, based on the scouts’ report of Cam Rahm Bay’s airfield. She expected four Invy fighters; more would come, but their mission would be over by then. Still, she had to push him.
She climbed the ladder up to her plane, and ran her hand over the five Chinese and two Russian flags painted under her name. The Spratly War had been fought even after the Invy Scout had crashed and the push had been on to form the CEF. She had been just twenty-three, fresh out of the academy, and Japan’s first ‘Ace’ fighter pilot in a hundred years.
As she lowered the cockpit bubble and started the engines, her crew chief gave her a thumbs up; Captain Ichijou returned it. Then he bowed, and fled down the ladder, even as others pulled it away from the rumbling F-22. She looked over and saw the maintenance officer, who held up seven fingers. That would have to do.
The next step on her checklist gave her pause. In place of the 20mm rotary cannon, an Invy anti-tank caliber plasma gun had been retrofitted into her weapons suite. Of course they had never been able to test it on a moving, flying aircraft, but she would have to remember that the muzzle velocity on the weapons rendered the leading of the target negligible.
Ahead, the massive doors concealed in the side of the mountain slowly slid open, revealing the last rays of sunset. She would have preferred the sight of a rising sun, but this would have to do. The pilot slowly increased her thrust, rolling the plane forward, gently working the rudder pedals and brakes to line up with the now wide-open doorway.
When the fighter plane cleared the entrance, she pushed the throttles forward while standing on the brakes. As much as the fighter pilot in her wanted to hit afterburners and rocket down the highway, Kiyomi Ichijou knew that it would be a waste of precious fuel. Instead, once all seven planes of her flight, two F-22s and five of the Japanese version of the venerable F-16, called that they were clear of the doors, she let the brakes go and increased thrust.
The vibration of the engines coursed through her body, and acceleration pushed her back in her seat. She yelled with joy as the front wheels left the ground, and that blissful feeling of being airborne again enveloped her, back in her true element.
Behind her, one of the F-16s suddenly dropped out of the air, several hundred feet off the ground and at several hundred miles per hour. It crashed in a fireball of burning jet fuel, and no chute appeared. Her joy was tempered by their first casualty as she watched it in her rear facing camera, and she said a silent prayer for the man, another good friend.
They quickly flew low over the ocean towards what had been dubbed “Yankee Station”, the place where the submarines were to launch, and she wished desperately for an AWACS radar plane to vector them in. Even as they approached, she saw the first series of contrails leaping from the ocean as the missiles reached up for the Invy orbital.
Her call was the only radio traffic to have been heard on Earth in more than a decade. "For your Empress, for our ancestors, and for us all, let’s do this! Sixteen element, stay and cover the submarines. Remember, their interceptors are not really designed for atmosphere. We can out maneuver them. KEEP THEM OFF THE SUBS! Meinu,” she called to her wingman, “follow me on high altitude intercept.”
The Raptor leapt upwards, finally set free, almost wingtip to wingtip with her partner. Climbing higher and higher, the sky started to darken before they tipped over and leveled out. She activated the AN/APG-77 radar, giving up the F-22’s stealth advantage out of necessity, and immediately got a return, 327 km out, approaching at a closing speed of almost three thousand kph.
“TALLYHO! Six, no, eight Invy approaching at angels 30! Vector 195 degrees, engaging!” The call was for the benefit of the older F-16s, which didn’t have the data link the F-22s shared.
Captain Kiyomi Ichijou, set free from the burden of being Empress, dove at the enemy of her world with a fierce, exultant joy in her heart. Even as she did, far to the southwest, another sun blazed forth, and she screamed "BANZAI!!!!" into the radio.
Never mind that it was a nuclear weapon; she had her Rising Sun.
H - 00:03
Chapter 44
“OK, Hal, light it up!” said Warren, and the AI did. Through his neural interface, the room disappeared, and was replaced by a display of the solar system, with orbital tracks of each of the major celestial objects.
One light flashed red, indicating the Invy ships at Titan. Another sparked on and off white, indicating the wormhole junction, far outside the orbit of Neptune. The last icon glowed blue, the position of the Lexington, on the same side of the system as Jupiter, but mixed in the asteroid belt.
“Hal, can you access the cruiser’s onboard ship systems?”
“No,” came the immediate reply. “They are separate from their network on Earth. Given time, yes, but we do not have that time.”
There went that idea.
“Lex, give me a status update, quick. Your condition, Invy ship types and capabilities, anything else you think is relevant.”
She came back immediately, and he once again thanked the instantaneous communications of the ansible. Without it, a command and response would take minutes. Data began to flow in through his implant, enormous amounts of trajectories, intercept vectors, distances. Weapons capabilities, Invy ship characteristics, weaponry range.
“OK, Lex, give me a visual of yourself. I know it isn’t necessary, but please,” he asked.
In front of him appeared the blackness of space, with the sun a distant star. The Lexington had been designed as a carrier, long and sleek with landing bays extended out on either side, and massive fusion reaction engines in the rear, though they were dead. She looked for all the world like the classic Battlestar, and he wished, for a moment, that they had named her Galactica.
Massive solar panels extended out on either side, angled to face the sun; the passive collectors had allowed Lex to remain alive but unnoticed. As soon as the fusion reactors lit up, it would be like setting off a blow torch in a dark room. Even as he watched, they folded inward, and various lights began to glow slightly in the darkness. Their warmth in the coldness of space made his heart beat faster.
Amidships was a massive hole through the body of the ship, and, even after eleven years, there were still bits and pieces of the ship drifting along with her, caught in her slight gravity field. With a start, he noticed that some of the debris were space suited bodies, spinning endlessly in the void. They would be left behind as soon as the Lex moved out, but he swore they would be recovered if they won.
“Zoom out,” he absentmindedly ordered, falling into command mode. Around the Lexington were the shattered remains of her division, the battleships America, broken in half, and a debris cloud that was all the was left of the United States. All were headed on the same ballistic trajectory they had been on when the battle ended.
“OK, Lex, tell me about your damage. What works, what assets do you have, what can’t you do. Give me the bad news first.”
“I have full reactor power, in simulation, but I haven’t been able to test it. We have devised a gravitic shield similar to the Invy for protection from rail gun rounds, but again only in simulation. Antigravity is, as usual, only adaptable up to five gravities of thrust, but without human crew, I can, in theory, accelerate up to thirty two gravities. Just do not ask me to maneuver at that speed.”
“Noted, but that will help. Thirty G’s versus the Invy five is going to give us a hell of a tactical advantage.”
“This was noted when constructing me, but for some reason, human crews were insisted on.”
“Our mistake. What about armament?”
“My mechs have salvaged the main gun of the America, though I cannot guarantee viability. Perhaps a dozen shots. I also have three fighters which are responsive to radio commands. Two are in my hangar bay, one is on a parallel ballistic course approximately three thousand kilo
meters away. Before his oxygen ran out, the pilot matched speed and course and deployed his solar arrays.”
He thought about the man, dying alone, just waiting, and doing one final act of bravery. Damn. Then he considered the guns. That’s a 240 mm steel shot accelerated to hypervelocity, he thought. Figure two for each cruiser. It would have to be enough, but those damn shields. The fighters could get inside them, but they would get smoked long before they got close. He also wished for the capability to hit the Invy orbitals with the rail guns, but they would have to save them for space combat.
“What about missiles?”
“I’m sorry,” the AI answered, “but our magazines were expended. Each fighter in my hangar is armed with a three hundred megaton fusion warhead, but I cannot guarantee their functionality.”
“Hal, have either of you managed to come up with anything to defeat their shielding?”
The answer took a minute, which, for an AI, was a lifetime. When he finally answered, it was with a note of resignation. “No, we have not. The only weakness we have found is an approach from the rear. The design of their propulsion requires an opening in the field when they accelerate.”
Warren thought hard about what to do. Head to head battle would be a complete disaster; the Lexington at her best might have been a match for cruisers, but never capital ships, even with a full complement of fighters to deliver successive bomb pumped x-ray lasers. Now, though…
“David,” said Hal, “the submarines have started firing. I must go.” With that, Hal’s presence disappeared from the net. Warren wished him a silent goodbye, hopefully not for the last time. He looked at the strategic display, and noted the positions of the wormhole, the Lexington, and Titan, and sudden inspiration came to him.
“Lex,” said General David Warren, “we are going to do some old school Odysseus on the Invy. Put your reactors on standby, juice up the fighters, and start doing some fancy math. I want you to …”
Chapter 45
It was hot, hotter than it should be, but then it always was in a chameleon suit. Nick Agostine sipped slowly at what remained of his water, and watched the Wolverine guard patrol, three of them, slowly following the fence between him and the runway. They were slack, though. Every army has the crappy troops that were regulated to boring guard duty, and it showed here. No joke in a fight, though.
Major Hollister lay there, unseen also. They had left half an hour before Colonel Singh was due to arrive at the hide site, more than three hours ahead of schedule. The pilot knew nothing about the why of moving the time up; she just figured it was part of the plan.
The infiltration had been easier than he expected. Eleven years of occupation without any real fighting had lulled the Invy, or at least the ones at the bases, into a sense of complacency. Their route had been scouted out a week earlier by Reynolds and Zivcovic, all the way up to the airfield fence, taking advantage of every dip in the ground and blind spot on a building.
The whole team was supposed to be there, but Agostine was done with losing those he loved. His family had died in the initial orbital strikes, and over the years, he’d lost teammates on a regular basis. That was why he had kept O’Neill on another team; he never could order her to do something that might result in her death. Now, well, it was all for nothing. She was gone. If the rest of the team survived this mad plan, well, it would ease his conscience a little. Only a little, before he died. He looked at his watch, then raised his rifle, waiting for the roar of fire on the opposite side of the base that signified the diversionary attack, sighting in on the patrol. When the gunfire started, a rolling, muted swell, his eye was already on the sight, red dot on the first creature’s head.
Before he could pull the trigger, a muted POP! sounded behind him, and the alien vanished from his sight. His open left eye noted the simultaneous bursts of dark blood from the other two, and he instantly moved, slapping Hollister to get her going, and heading towards the runway. He hadn’t made it more than twenty feet when he heard the whine of an APC roaring down the runway. The Quick Reaction Force had moved faster than he thought they would. Behind him, Sergeant Zivcovic gave his distinctive yell of “URRAH!” and, though he knew they would all soon be dead, he was suddenly glad that they would be with him in the end. A Javelin anti-tank missile leapt from under an IR blanket, rocketed forward, popped up, and then detonated directly over the APC, causing it to burst into flames and skid across the concrete.
“TAKE THAT, MOTHERFUCKERS!” yelled Boyd, as he and Hamilton worked feverishly to load another round on the targeting unit. With practiced speed, Boyd launched another rocket at the airfield barracks, this one a thermobaric warhead designed to detonate inside the building. With a WHOOMP of displaced air, it exploded, blowing out every window in the building and setting a raging fire.
Agostine grabbed Major Hollister by the arm and ran her forward toward the target ship. Looking over, he saw Jonesy, concealing hood thrown back, grabbing her other arm. The two of them practically carried the pilot to the ship, her boots barely touching the ground. “I’m … going… to… have… you … all … shot!” grunted Agostine under the weight of his pack, rifle, and the Major. Jones just laughed and ran harder as plasma bolts started to kick up dirt around them.
Looking out of the hatch of the ship was an Octo; it was the reason they had chosen this ship, knowing that they ran pre-dawn checks on each, and this would be the first. It disappeared in a purple spray as a shot from Reynolds knocked it backward.
As the two of them almost hurled the Major into the open hatchway, the Master Sergeant yelled to her, “GO! GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!” and threw himself down on the concrete, sighting on the approaching dismounted Wolverines. He felt the rest of the team fall in around him as the engines started to spool up; they began directing their fire at the heavier weapon emplacements around the airfield, suppressing the surprised crews. One operating heavy plasma gun could easily turn the assault shuttle into shredded metal. Unsuppressed weapons, rifles and machine guns long hidden, barked out their song, and Agostine felt the call of battle roar in his ears with a fierce joy.
He thought, about how Brit would have loved to see this day, and wished for some bagpipes to accompany their fight. The music unnerved the Wolverines, and he remember their effect at the battle of Cheyenne Mountain. Then, over the gunfire, he did hear them, faint on the wind; the swirl of pipes as someone from the Main Force attack lit into “Scotland the Brave”, and he smiled, looking down the line at men and women fighting beside him. Past them smiled back the ghost of a beautiful red haired woman, sky blue eyes blazing brightly.
“Live!” she said, and then vanished in the light of very red, very bloody dawn.
Day of Battle
Interlude
CEF HQ, Raven Rock
“This is all we have?” barked Bob Dalpe at the junior enlisted who brought him a small cup of coffee.
“I’m sorry, Sir, but this is the very last of the frozen stuff. Our last shipment from the silverbacks in Jamaica, well your staff used that up last week.” The girl was young, one of those recruited from the ruins, and didn’t understand coffee.
“Leave her alone, General,” laughed Colonel Jameson, the Air Wing CO. “She’s scared out of her wits working around you as it is.”
“How the hell am I supposed to fight a war without any coffee?” he barked back.
“We aren’t fighting, they are,” motioned the former fighter pilot, a vague hand wave indicating, ‘out there’.
Dalpe snorted, sipped some of the horrible coffee, and dismissed the enlisted woman. Together with his command staff, they watched the clock countdown to H Hour, the seconds seeming to drag. When it finally clicked over to 12:00 Zulu time, 06:00 on the East Coast, Dalpe let out a breath that he didn’t know he had been holding. Eleven years of hiding, nine years of occupation, it all came down to this moment, though elements of the CEF had been moving for hours already, planes and missiles launched minutes ago.
He crossed himself, m
ade a silent prayer for victory, and got to work.
“No Pressure”
Cheyenne Mountain, Former CEF HQ
Chapter 46
“OK, Hal, light it up!” said General David Warren, and the AI did. Through his neural interface, the room disappeared, and was replaced by a display of the solar system, with orbital tracks of each of the major celestial objects.
One light flashed red, indicating the Invy ships at Titan. Another sparked on and off white, indicating the wormhole junction, far outside the orbit of Neptune. The last icon glowed blue, the position of the Lexington, on the same side of the system as Jupiter, but hidden in the asteroid belt.
His thoughts wandered for a minute. The self-doubt that had sent him into hiding for eleven years, his shame over losing the fleet battle, crept back into his mind. He had only been seventeen then, a kid, really, and bullied by the politicians who ran the war. Boy genius, a fool. Snap out of it; that was then, this is now. It was on him, and only him. No politicians, no other military to interfere. No pressure.
“Hal, can you access the cruiser’s onboard ship systems?”
“No,” came the immediate reply. “They are separate from their network on Earth. Given time, yes, but we do not have that time.”
There went that idea.
“Lex, give me a status update, quick. Your condition, Invy ship types and capabilities, anything else you think is relevant.” Warren needed to know everything he was fighting against.
She came back immediately, and he once again thanked the instantaneous communications of the ansible. Without it, a command and response would take minutes. Data began to flow in through his implant, enormous amounts of trajectories, intercept vectors, distances. Weapons capabilities, Invy ship characteristics, weaponry range.