Star Carrier 6: Deep Time
Page 3
Swayze, unarmed now, raised both gauntleted hands. “Look, General . . . take me instead, okay? She’ll be nothing but trouble. I’ll promise to behave. . . .”
Korosi laughed. “What . . . you? You’re an NCO, a foot soldier! What makes something like you as valuable as the former president of the Earth Confederation?”
Swayze took a couple of steps forward, his hands still raised. “Simple: I know the full deployment of the Marines for this assault . . . and I know the plans that were set in motion to trap you here, to keep you penned up. I know the troop deployments topside here, and I know what naval assets we have in orbit. General Korosi, I could help you. A lot.”
Another cautious step . . .
“No closer!” The Confederation general gestured with the needler, warning Swayze back.
It was enough.
Since the first half of the twenty-first century, military armor had incorporated feedback cybernetics that allowed the wearer to lift and carry far greater loads than were possible for an unarmored individual. Neural augmentation—new circuitry nanochelated throughout the living brain—made it possible for an armored man to react and move more quickly as well. Clad in their Mark I armor, Marines possessed both superhuman strength and speed.
Janos Korosi was almost certainly enhanced as well . . . but not enough.
Swayze’s gloved hand snapped down and out with blinding speed, closing around the needler, the glove’s palm blocking the weapon’s muzzle. Korosi’s hand clenched convulsively: he fired and Swayze screamed. The needler’s power pack gave it the ability to shoot eight pulsed bursts of coherent light or a single beam lasting a few seconds. Korosi had the weapon set for a beam, and the five-millimeter thread of laser light melted through the glove, Swayze’s hand, and the top side of the glove within perhaps half a second.
By then, though, the Marine had twisted Korosi’s arm out and back so that the weapon was no longer pointed at the hostage. Swayze crowded forward, grappling with the Confederation general, continuing to grip the smothered weapon with his terribly injured hand as he knocked Roettgen aside and interposed his own body between the two. He kept squeezing, too, for as long as his armor’s glove could exert the pressure, crumpling the needler’s tough plastic body in his grip even as molten metal and ceramic charred the palm of his hand. In-head readouts showed Swayze’s doloric levels—the amount of pain he was enduring—shooting up at first, then beginning to fall . . . either as Swayze’s enhanced brain stifled the pain response, or as the nerves in the more sensitive parts of his hand burned away and shock began to set in.
Korosi struggled in Swayze’s grip. The laser failed—either crushed to uselessness or its power pack drained—and Swayze wrestled the general to the ground. The other Marines were leaping forward now and piling on, grabbing Korosi’s thrashing legs and arms.
“Nem! Nem! Engedj el!” Korosi screamed, his native Magyar immediately translated by Swayze’s in-head. “No! No! Let me go!”
Swayze subdued the man at last through the simple expedient of sitting on Korosi’s chest, cradling his wounded hand as his armor’s med units began treating him.
And with that, Koenig knew that the fight for Fort Douamont was over.
VFA-96, Black Demons
LEO
0019 hours, TFT
Lieutenant Connor threw her Starblade into a hard-left roll and engaged her forward grav projector. A brief burst of acceleration at twenty thousand gravities and she was hurtling past the incoming projectiles, several of which flared into vapor as she brushed them with the intensely warped pucker of space just ahead of her fighter. Two of the Todtadlers ahead and below twisted around to meet her, but she caught one in a target lock with her PBP-8 and slammed it with a high-energy particle beam, flashing the fighter into star-hot vapor.
The Pan-European Todtadlers—Death Eagles—were highly advanced, modern fighters. They easily matched USNA fighters like the SG-101 Velociraptor, but they were utterly outclassed by the newer Starblades. Connor could feel her mind pervading every part of her ship’s consciousness, directing weapons, power, thrust, and attitude together in a rapturous dance. Her fighter shuddered as a KK projectile passed through one temporary wing . . . but the nanomatrix hull flowed around the slug as it passed through, directing it harmlessly past the pilot compartment and other vital elements, and back into space. Connor didn’t need to spin the craft. Rather, she simply reformed it in flight, bringing weapons to bear on the second target and vaporizing it in a flare of radiation and plasma.
“Demon Five!” she called over the tac channel. “Two kills!”
“Demon Seven! Scratch one Toddy Velocicrapper!”
And the fighters merged in an angry tangle of fire and destruction. . . .
Emergency Presidential Command Post
Toronto
United States of North America
0020 hours, EST
Koenig emerged again from his virtual connection. A chorus of screams and yells filled the Presidential Command Center and rang off the walls—a roomful of military officers, civilian officials, aides, and technicians jumping and shouting and hugging one another and slapping hands together, congratulating each other. In a smaller room just off from the center’s main control room, Koenig blinked against the overhead lights. “What the hell is that noise?” he asked.
“The guys are going a little nuts, sir,” Whitney replied. “They got Korosi!”
“I know,” Koenig said, sitting up. “I was there. And it was the One-Five Marines who got the bastard, not us.”
“It was a group effort, Mr. President.” He gestured toward the other room. “They found Korosi, and they tracked him to Verdun. And you gave the order. . . .”
“And the Marines dug him out, and rescued Roettgen. Tell them to knock it off and get back on the job. We still have to withdraw our people.”
“Yes, sir.”
Whitney’s attempt to spread credit for the success around irritated him. Koenig had a particular and heartfelt disdain for the type of national leader who assumed the credit for his or her military’s successes. I directed . . . I ordered . . . We attacked . . . Bullshit. It was the men and women who were boots-on-the-ground in-theater—the ones getting shot at and taking the risks—who should get the credit, not the damned REMFs peering over their shoulders through drone cameras, satellites, or in-head links.
Admiral Eugene Armitage, the head of the Joint Chiefs, grinned at him. “But we did get the bastard, Mr. President.”
“Yes,” Koenig said, sitting up and rubbing his eyes. “We got him.”
Whitney nodded. “There’s more, Mr. President. You might have missed it, but they just flashed the word back. They’ve captured Denoix as well, trying to leave the perimeter by air car.”
Koenig smiled. His chief of staff was scolding him, mildly, by letting him know that the information he’d wanted had come through to the command post just as quickly as Koenig could have gotten it from a direct link. “Outstanding, Marcus.” He glanced at Armitage. “Admiral?” he said. “Please flash Meteor a ‘well done’ from me, personally.”
Armitage nodded. “As you wish, Mr. President.”
“There’s . . . ah . . . there is still one part unresolved, sir,” Whitney told him.
“The recovery, yes. I assume you have the heavy transports on the way.”
“Yes, sir. But it’s not that.”
“What, then?”
“Eight Todtadlers launched a few minutes ago from a site in southern Turkey . . . a city called Adana.”
“Adana? What do they have there?”
“It’s one of Turkey’s larger cities, sir . . . and the site of a small spaceport. Incirlik.”
Koenig nodded as data flowed through his in-head. “Got it.”
Once, Incirlik had been a joint U.S. and Turkish military air base, back in the days of the old
NATO alliance. After the mid-2100s and the beginnings of the Pax Confeoderata, the facilities had been developed as a local spaceport for Pan-Europe’s burgeoning asteroid mining initiatives. Turkey, geographically astride both Europe and Asia, had been an ideal region for economic development after both the Islamic Wars and the more recent Sino-Western Wars.
But the rise of the space elevators—first at SupraQuito, then in Kenya and in Singapore—had perhaps already doomed such antiquated assets as national spaceports. There wasn’t much at Incirlik now, save for a small military base.
But why were they attacking the USNA fighters in LEO?
For a moment, Koenig watched the data flow describing the slash and stab of aerospace fighters in low orbit. That why was becoming an increasingly important question. With the fighting at the Verdun planetary defense center all but over, there was no reason to challenge American space superiority, none at all.
Unless . . .
He called up a holographic map display, the board hanging transparent in midair showing the orbit of America’s space superiority fighters southeast across the Balkans, Turkey, the Arabian Peninsula, and out over the Indian Ocean. A red dot flashed at the northeastern corner of the Med, marking Incirlik. Four of America’s fighters had just shot down the last of the Todtadlers from the base; four more USNA Starblades were four thousand kilometers ahead . . . coming up now on the southern tip of India.
“A second launch, Mr. President,” Armitage reported. “More Death Eagles.”
“How many?”
“Five, sir. No . . . make that six. . . .”
“From where?”
“Surat, Mr. President. North India.”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” Koenig said, thoughtful. Surat was a large city on India’s northwestern coast, next to the Gulf of Khambhat. “I think those Death Eagles are trying to punch a hole through our orbiting squadron,” Koenig said.
“For what possible purpose, sir?” Whitney asked.
“For an escape. Admiral Armitage?”
“Sir!”
“I suggest you order the Elliot and the Hawes down from their perch for a closer look.”
“Right away, sir.”
The Elliot was a destroyer massing eight thousand tons, the Hawes a smaller frigate, a light escort of about three thousand tons. The two had recently been assigned to America’s carrier group and were now deployed in HEO—high Earth orbit, about thirty thousand kilometers out.
“Who would be trying to escape, Mr. President?” Whitney asked. “If we have both Denoix and Korosi—”
“Might be members of Korosi’s staff,” Koenig said. “Or it might be the real architects of Columbus.”
“ The real architects, Mr. President?” Whitney shook his head. “We already know Korosi was behind that, don’t we?”
“No, Marcus, we don’t. He’s a nasty character, I’ll admit, but the Confederation really didn’t have reason to eat a city, not when they had to take that big of a public-relations hit.”
As Koenig had noted, the attack by the Confederation ship Estremadura—awful as it had been—had done more damage by far to the Confederation than to North America. Nation states that had been sitting on the sidelines of the fast-evolving civil war—the Chinese Hegemony and the Islamic Theocracy, especially—had openly come into the war against the Confederation. Perhaps just as important, members of the Confederation—including Russia, North India, and England—had immediately distanced themselves from the world state, with Russia and North India both seceding from the Geneva government.
But the politics over there were still murky. One of the Confederation ships escorting the Estremadura on her deadly mission, Koenig remembered, had been the North Indian heavy cruiser Brahmaputra. At least some within the North Indian government, clearly, had known about the nature of the attack that had destroyed Columbus . . . and approved of it. If fighters were coming up from Surat, they might well be piloted by officers still loyal to Korosi, even if New Delhi had disowned the guy since the attack.
And knowing if that was true was crucial. With the takedown of the last major fortress controlled by Korosi forces, Koenig knew it was vital to maintain the momentum; handled properly, Korosi’s capture might end the war.
So the question remained: Who the hell was trying to escape the USNA’s tightening noose?
VFA-96, Black Demons
LEO
0022 hours, TFT
Megan Connor thoughtclicked a symbol, sending two VG-10 Krait missiles streaking toward the last Confederation fighter. At a range of just two hundred kilometers, the missiles detonated in twin flares of dazzling, silent light . . . and the enemy Todtadler disintegrated in tumbling, half-molten fragments.
Elsewhere in the sky, soft-glowing clouds of expanding hot plasma and debris marked the passings of the other fighters; one had re-entered the atmosphere below, a streak of ablating hull material scratched across the intense blue of the Indian Ocean.
Through her communications link, Connor could hear the chatter among the other pilots in her squadron.
“Nice shot, Five! That’s a kill!”
“The last one! Hot damn, and we didn’t loose a single damned ship!”
That was pretty spectacular, Connor thought. Eight fighters in that first launch out of Turkey . . . and six more from North India. Fourteen fighters against four of the new Starblades, and every single one of them shot down without a single loss. That was worth a hot damn in anyone’s flight log.
“Hey, Skipper? Demon Six. My scanners weren’t picking up any people in those ships!”
“Copy that, Six. America’s S-2 concurs. They were all on AI.”
“Shit, why? Aren’t we good enough for them?”
For centuries, the debate had continued to natter back and forth over the need for human pilots in fighter cockpits. Undeniably, artificial intelligences were faster than humans, sharper, more immediately aware, and surer in their assessment of data . . . but humans seemed to add a degree of creativity and inspired improvisation to the mix. So far, at least, the best tactical advantage seemed to rest with human brains cybernetically wired into AI-controlled spacecraft.
And the 14-and-0 victory they’d just won was a resounding validation of that . . . that and the fact that the new Starblade design left even the most advanced Confederation spacecraft chewing hard vacuum. But maybe the unbalanced outcome wasn’t so surprising after all, since it had involved enhanced humans fighting machines.
Especially machines on some sort of preset program. . . .
“Skipper?” she said, running through her sensor feeds. “See that, to the north?”
“What the hell?”
“That’s a fucking starship!” she exclaimed. “Running hot and under escort!”
And now the Confederation’s plan was clear. The attack rising from a spaceport in Turkey had served to scatter the four fighters riding that part of the space superiority orbit—not badly, but a little. The second wave of enemy fighters, coming south from Surat, had scattered the flight even further; the nearest other fighter to Connor’s right now was Mackey’s . . . a good fifteen hundred kilometers to her southeast.
And with the four Starblades scattered all over the sky, now was when the enemy was launching something big . . . and escorted by twelve more Todtadlers.
“The ship is cloaked,” Connor reported. “But I’m getting a mass of around four thousand tons.”
“Small,” Lieutenant Ruxton said. “Frigate size.”
“Fleet Combat Command is designating the target as Charlie One,” Mackey said.
“Where the hell is our capship backup?” Dobbs was referring to the two capital ships, the Hawes and the Elliot, which had been ordered down to LEO to support the USNA fighters.
“On the way, Demon Six,” Mackey replied. “In the meantime, let’s see what we can do.”
Now what the hell, she wondered, were the bastards trying to hide?
Chapter Three
29 June, 2425
USNA Star Carrier America
Naval Base
Quito Synchorbital
0032 hours, TFT
Admiral Trevor “Sandy” Gray was patched into the operations datastream in his private office, just off his sleeping quarters. According to ship’s time, it was just past midnight, but he always had trouble sleeping when an op was going down, even with electronic sleep aids. And so he was stretched out on a recliner, following the datastreams coming up from Earth.
Operation Fallen Star was pretty much academic so far as he was concerned. Some of America’s fighter squadrons had been deployed to LEO to provide aerospace superiority, but the carrier herself was docked at the synchorbital naval base and was taking no other part in the proceedings.
He could turn in, he knew. Laurie was waiting for him in the other room, unless she’d already fallen asleep. If so, he envied her that.
America’s AI was monitoring the feeds as well, of course, which should have further put him at ease: if anything happened, he’d be alerted immediately. As if the AI were reading his mind, he felt an inner nudge, directing his attention to new data—Confed fighter launches from Turkey and North India, and . . . something else.
“Now what the hell?” he wondered aloud. “Bridge, this is the admiral.”
“Gutierrez here, Admiral.”
Captain Sara Gutierrez was America’s skipper, and apparently she was burning the midnight photons as well.