by M. R. Forbes
Donovan had been a child the last time he had seen the Dread's mechanized armor, when they had been laying waste to the ruins of Los Angeles in an effort to root out the resistance. In his nightmares, he remembered them only as black monsters.
The real thing wasn't much different.
Its presence only confirmed what he had already guessed. The aliens were done being patient with the resistance and had every intention of ending it now.
"Come on," he said, running ahead of them, letting himself slide down the pile of rubble to where Diaz was still waiting.
She had her rifle against her shoulder, facing the armor. There was nothing their guns could do to hurt that thing, but maybe it made her feel better to act like there was.
"What are you doing here?" he asked as he reached her.
The armor was closing in fast, and before she could answer a massive flume of plasma launched from the left cannon. He could feel the static and heat of it as it passed overhead and struck the top floor of the building where they had set up the needle. The entire thing vanished in pulverized rock and superheated slag that rained down on them as ash. It burned where it touched the skin.
"No time," she replied. "Follow me."
The remaining members of the t-vault team followed Diaz as she sprinted away. They had only gone a few meters when a spray of pulsed plasma tore into the rubble behind them, lighting up the sky in a red hue and leaving a burning heat at their backs.
"This way," Diaz said, reaching a building and turning left down a tight alley.
Donovan could feel the vibrations on his bare feet. The Dread armor was following them.
"It knows we're out here," he said. "It can see us."
"You lost all of your clay," Sanchez said.
Donovan looked at the others. Sanchez and Cameron were still coated.
"Diaz, wait," he said, bringing his Lieutenant to a sudden stop. "Sanchez, Cameron, go that way and find a place to hide."
"We're not splitting up, sir," Cameron said.
"Yes, we are. They won't be able to track you, and we can't afford to lose any more soldiers. Do it. Now."
They hesitated for a heartbeat before bolting. The Dread machine was catching up with them.
"You just wanted to get me alone, didn't you, D?" Diaz said, smiling.
"I want them to survive this," he replied, not in the mood for jokes.
"Come on," Diaz said. She started running again.
Donovan followed. It was a challenge to keep up with her as she made tight angles through the wasteland of a city, vaulting wreckage and squeezing through small gaps. Donovan could feel his lungs burning from the dust, smoke, and effort. He could hear the armor behind them, gaining ground with every passing second.
A whine, and projectiles chewed through the buildings behind them, sending shards of concrete into the area. One hit Donovan in the shoulder, burying itself in his back. He stopped himself from crying out, desperate to keep moving.
Diaz looked back, seeing he was hit. A concerned look flashed across her face, but she didn't slow. They reached another alley, and she pointed to an open door. They ducked inside, finding themselves in what had once been the lobby of a hotel. There was debris everywhere, along with a few old corpses and some rats that scurried away at their approach.
"Where are we going?" Donovan asked. He held his left arm across his chest to ease some of the pain.
"Here," Diaz said, leading him to the back of the space and ducking under a partially collapsed ceiling.
He followed her through to a bank of elevators. One of the doors was open, and Diaz brought him up to it. He looked into the shaft. There was nothing but darkness below. The vibrations of the armor were growing stronger behind them, so close that Donovan was surprised it hadn't turned them to ash already. The rats had to be confusing its thermal sensors.
"Now what?" Donovan asked.
Diaz kicked some of the debris into the shaft. A few seconds passed until he heard the distinct sound of it hitting water. He didn't need a verbal answer to his question.
He grabbed her hand and jumped.
TEN
Gabriel leaned forward and hit the switch to deactivate the QPG. The fighter shook slightly as it disengaged from the slipstream and reentered realspace. Warning tones immediately began ringing out in the cockpit, and the power indicator flashed red.
His main battery was dry. He had two hours of reserve power to keep his life support going.
It was more than enough.
Delta Station floated ahead of him, a few thousand kilometers distant. It was brightly lit from here, its large, saucer-like head spinning slowly while the narrow docks and launch cannons remained stationary below, trailing downward into a near spike where the sensor array and communications antennas poked out from the bottom. It was a simple design and looked a lot more impressive from the outside than it was on the inside. Every part of it was function over form. Every ounce of material that had gone into its making was calculated and planned. Their printers could only manage so much per day, and everything that was constructed was essential to someone.
"This is Captain Gabriel St. Martin. Miranda, are you back on duty?"
"Gabriel. Welcome home."
Miranda's voice made him smile. He hadn't been worried about making it back once he'd joined the slipstream. It still wasn't the same as actually being home.
"I could use a lift back," Gabriel said. "My cell is empty."
There was a pause at the other end. She knew what that meant. How close he had come to not making it back at all.
"I guess you needed my luck after all," she said.
"For sure," Gabriel replied.
"I'm sending Captain Sturges out to bring you home. ETA, ten minutes."
"Sounds wonderful. Did I miss anything while I was gone?"
"Around here? In one day? Not much. One of the compressors broke on Alpha. All of the build jobs had to be reorganized to emergency print a replacement. Oh, and Shawna had her baby."
Gabriel tried to remember who Shawna was. With a total population of around twenty-thousand, there were some people who were able to keep track of nearly everyone else. Gabriel wasn't one of them. He wasn't interested in entertainment through gossip.
"Boy or girl?" he asked.
"Boy. Bradley Williams. Twelve pounds, four ounces."
"Big boy."
"Yup."
"Did they assign him yet?"
"Not yet. Space Force is arguing with Engineering over him."
"He sounds like he might get too big for Space Force."
"He's the right size for infantry. They're projecting him at over two meters."
"Just what we need. Another mouth to feed and body to train for a ground war that will never happen."
"You sound like your father."
"Good."
His father was right on that account. Twenty-thousand people and a quarter of them were infantry. Ground soldiers with guns that couldn't pierce Dread armor and no protection of their own. They weren't going to get the aliens off of Earth like that. Their only chance at victory would come from space. They needed to blast the Dread like the Dread had blasted them.
The existence of the infantry division was an asinine waste. It was also proof that despite his father's stature in the government of the New Earth Alliance, it hadn't been enough to guide every military decision. The council thought the infantry was good for morale, and General Cave loved having the resources and the control.
Just because humankind had nearly been wiped out of the universe, it didn't mean the survivors would give up on their politics.
Sometimes he wondered if things would be different if one of the colony ships launched from India or Japan had survived the exodus.
"Do you know if the resistance sent a message?" Miranda asked.
"You know I don't," he replied. "But that was a good nonsequitur."
"I don't want to bring any more of your father out of you. I'll be listening to you rant
for the next thirty minutes."
"He ranted because he was passionate."
"I know. And so are you. That's not always a bad thing."
"Not always?"
"Sturges is approaching. I'm going to leave you in his capable hands now. Locke out."
Gabriel laughed at the abruptness of her disengagement. She really was afraid to get him going. He turned his attention to the ship that was vectoring toward him. It was a simple supply transport, also known as a BIS, or box in space. As the name suggested, it was nearly square, with a large front viewport and a couple of small thrusters breaking the shape on either side. He could see Captain Sturges through the transparency, his wrinkled face wrinkling even more when he smiled.
"Captain St. Martin," Sturges said, his voice gruff and aged. "I heard you needed a ride home."
"Yes, sir," Gabriel said. They may have been the same rank, but Sturges was forty years his senior and a survivor from Earth. The last part alone meant he deserved respect.
"Close call?"
"Too close."
"I can see the burn marks on the frame. You're lucky you didn't lose integrity or shake apart when you joined the slipstream."
"How lucky?" Gabriel asked.
The BIS was getting closer, slowing and turning so that Sturges could collect the fighter in the rear cargo hold.
"Son, you don't want to know. You might not go back out there."
"As long as I'm not dead I'll go back out there. How lucky?"
"I'd say a few extra prayers tonight if I were you. You'll have to divert some of your backup power to thrusters to get in line."
"Yes, sir," Gabriel said. He worked his touchpad to shift power, ignoring the warnings from the computer.
He took hold of the secondary stick and gently fired the vectoring thrusters until the fighter was lined up with the back of the BIS. The transport's cargo hold was easily big enough to swallow him, and Captain Sturges directed the ship expertly, taking the fighter inside and then closing the bay door. A light on the front of the bay turned green once the space had been filled with air and the suppressor was reactivated. At that point, Gabriel opened the cockpit and got to his feet, feeling the blood rushing back to his legs.
He shook them out for a few seconds before climbing onto the wing. He took a moment to survey the damage, surprised to see how much of the frame had been burned away, leaving the inner skeleton and wiring of the craft exposed. He clutched the crucifix in his hand again, quickly thanking his mother for her intervention.
Then he jumped down to the floor and made his way to the front of the BIS, opening the cockpit door and entering.
"Captain Sturges," Gabriel said.
The older man glanced back at him. "Gabriel. Have a seat."
Gabriel sat down in the open co-pilot's seat. The BIS had been designed before the Dread had come, back when they had the manpower to use two people to fly a transport.
"I'm going to haul you back to Alpha," Sturges said. "That fighter of yours is going to need some reconditioning."
"I'm supposed to deliver the recorder to Colonel Graham on Delta," Gabriel said.
He laughed. "I know the procedure. I already spoke to Graham. He's on Alpha, too. You can drop it with him there."
"Why is he on Alpha?" Gabriel asked. He knew Graham. The man didn't like leaving Delta. He didn't trust that his subordinates could run the station without his constant oversight.
"General Cave ordered him there. Before you ask me why, I don't know. I get more intel because I'm old and people think I'm special for riding the Old Gator's ship away from the Dread, but they don't tell me everything."
Gabriel was silent. General Cave wouldn't have called in his officers if he weren't thinking big thoughts.
"Anyway," Sturges said, breaking the silence. "I'm sure your father wouldn't mind seeing you."
"He doesn't even know who I am anymore."
"Maybe not outwardly. Deep down, I think he knows. When was the last time you visited him?"
Gabriel thought about it. "I don't know. Six months?"
"He's getting up there, Gabe. You don't want to regret not spending more time with him when he's gone."
Gabriel stared out through the viewport. They had taken a wide angle around Delta Station, and now he could see Alpha Settlement up ahead. It was a long, low network of domed buildings that spread from a large central hub, all of which was resting at the bottom of a deep crater in the largest of Taphao Kaew's three moons. The original settlers had named the moon Manhattan after the famous Earth city.
Behind Alpha Settlement, sitting at the far edge of the crater was a starship. The U.S.S.S Magellan, a nearly three-kilometer long dagger of scarred and dirty metal that had transported the escaping humans from Earth to Calawan over fifty years ago. She was sitting abandoned and empty, a half-century restoration project still underway, working to convert humankind's only large space-faring vessel from a passenger ship to a military one. Over the years, she had been bolstered with extra layers of armor and newer damage control systems, while the inner configuration had been re-imagined to add fighter launch tubes and landing bays and provide for the needs of both the flying and ground units of the NEASF. It was an incredible amount of work for a population as small as theirs and a testament to what they could all achieve when they worked together.
It was also a constant and sad reminder of the cold hard truth of their existence. The restoration was unfinished, and who knew how long it would remain that way? The Magellan had no weapons systems or offensive punch of any kind. She was sitting dormant, waiting for the day when a means to defeat the enemy's defenses would be discovered.
A day that might never come.
To Gabriel, the sight of the ship was a strong reminder of his father. It had been a while since he had paid the man a visit. It was hard for him to bring himself to do it. He preferred to remember his old man as the spitfire he had been, not the invalid he was today. Still, he knew Sturges was right. He didn't want any more regrets.
"I know. Okay, I'll stop by."
"Good man."
ELEVEN
Gabriel waited for the loop transport to come to a stop and the entry hatch to swing open. He stepped into the small cylindrical vehicle, taking the first of two seats at the front. The loop system would carry him quickly from the hangar at the western edge of the settlement to the central hub where the Star Force Headquarters were located. He had changed from his flight suit to a standard issue pair of dress blues, grabbing a pair from the general commissary after showering off his hours inside the cockpit. A satchel was slung over his shoulder containing his fighter's data recorder.
Captain Paul Sturges sat down beside him. The older man had also showered and changed though he was wearing more casual utilities. A few other NEASF members filed in behind them, filling the small pod in no time. The hatch closed and the pod rushed ahead through the connecting tubes, a trip to that would take less than thirty seconds to complete.
"I know that you don't know why Colonel Graham is on Alpha," Gabriel said. "Do you know anything else that isn't common knowledge that I might be interested in?"
Sturges glanced over at him, flashing a wry smile. "I should have known you would ask me that when I sat here."
"You have about fifteen seconds to answer."
Sturges shrugged. "Nothing more than rumors and hearsay."
Gabriel watched the man's face. He didn't like Sturges' expression. "Anything credible? And please don't lie to me, Captain. We've known each other a long time."
"Heh. I've known you since you were still crapping your diapers. I know something, but you aren't going to like it, and I don't want that news to come from me."
Gabriel hadn't been expecting that answer. He felt his heart start to thump. "Paul-"
The loop slowed.
"Nothing definite, Gabe," Sturges said. "Just some things the military leadership and the Council have been talking about."
The pod came to a stop, and the hatch o
pened. The passengers disembarking in the central hub stood to depart. Sturges wasn't one of them.
"What kind of things?" Gabriel said, leaning over the man as he crossed the pod.
"I shouldn't say."
"Come on. Spill it."
Sturges looked back to check on the other soldiers. Then he leaned up and forward to whisper.
"Some members of the Council think we should start preparing the Magellan to take everyone into deep space. The science team believes they've discovered an Earth-type planet a year out."
Gabriel felt the heat rush to his face, his anger rising. "They want to abandon Earth?"
It wasn't the first time the subject had come up. Every time the scientists claimed they had found an E-type, someone on the Council decided to start pushing to take the colony there, even if it meant leaving the resistance behind.
"You know Siddhu is on the council," Sturges said. "She said the team presented a very compelling case. They believe they've really found one this time."
Gabriel barely heard him. He stood straight and stepped out of the pod, turning his head back over his shoulder. "Thanks for the tip."
He stormed away from the station, his mind a sudden blur of anger and frustration. Captain Sturges' wife was a strong woman, and she was usually on the side of the military. The rest of the Council wasn't nearly as accommodating. If the case were strong enough, they would vote to leave Calawan and their home world behind.
And there was nothing he could do about it except be angry and follow orders.
Sturges didn't want to tell him about it. He shouldn't have pushed. They said ignorance was bliss, but it was a lesson he still hadn't managed to master.
Gabriel made his way into the central dome. It was a massive structure, hundreds of meters high and wide and the home to all of the New Earth Alliance's government facilities, twenty-five floors worth in all. It was the place where every decision concerning the remains of free humankind was made, and a place where Gabriel always preferred to avoid. As soon as he stepped foot on it, he couldn't wait to catch a transport back to Delta Station.