by Richard Fox
The air from the Naga abated. Hale glanced over the lip of the breach and saw a corridor lit by flashing blue lights lying a few yards within an open slice of armor.
“The command bridge should be directly beneath us,” Steuben said.
“Let’s go knock on the door,” Hale said.
“Excuse us.” Elias barged in front of Hale, with Kallen and Bodel behind him. The Iron Hearts crawled one by one into the breach. As the third soldier entered, Lafayette jumped from its back, a light spacesuit over his head and torso.
“I believe you humans call this crashing the party,” Lafayette said.
“You were supposed to remain on the Crucible,” Steuben said. “Let some part of us survive.”
“And what? Sit on my shiny metal ass while you three kill Toth?” Lafayette detached a gauss carbine from his back. “I think not.”
“Breach is clear,” Elias said.
“The more the merrier. Follow me, Marines,” said Hale and jumped into the Naga.
****
Twin blasts from an air horn jolted Durand from sleep. She’d mastered the military art of grabbing a catnap whenever and wherever possible years before; waking fully alert came hand in hand with nodding off instantly.
She snatched her flight helmet from a hook on the wall and ran out of the small office. Her pilots were in the ready room, card games and reading slates tossed aside as they sealed up their flight suits. All looked to her for the reason behind the alert siren.
The door to the ready room burst open, and one of the mechanics stuck his head in and said, “Holy shit! You got to see this!”
“Make a hole!” Durand shouted as she ran for the door. Pilots stepped aside, one grabbing Lothar—who’d stood still looking at his brother in confusion—and pulling him out of the squadron commander’s way.
Durand got outside. The mechanic pointed into the pure blue sky, where distant explosions blossomed and faded away. Streaks of white contrails formed behind high-speed craft dogfighting in the upper atmosphere.
She glanced at the screen on her forearm: nothing but an error message.
“What gives, ma’am? I thought the Toth would attack Phoenix before they ever came here. All we’ve got is Dotok civvies and empty barracks,” the mechanic said.
“Our luck is shit,” Durand said. She looked to the adjacent landing pad where her Eagles were prepped and waiting. She knew a fight was coming to Earth and had put every one of her fighters on ready alert as a precaution.
Her pilots crowded against each other to get out of the glorified shack they’d been waiting in.
“Mount up!” Durand shouted. She ran for her waiting Eagle and slapped on her helmet. She shimmied up the ladder leading to her cockpit and jumped inside. Her crew chief attached air lines and data wires to the back of her helmet as she ran through the preflight checklist.
“Gall? This is Major Robbins in the Loa R&R defense center. Can you hear me?” came through her helmet.
“This is Gall. I’ve got you on IR and nothing else,” she said.
“The Toth are jamming everything. We got a partial transmission from Eighth Fleet. They said we’ve got fighters and landers inbound.”
“No kidding. Does fleet command know that my squadron is the only thing this island has that can fly and shoot?”
“I’ll be sure to tell them if I can get a line open to them again. The Eighth launched fighters. Aren’t they going to help?”
Durand swiped at a data screen and looked at the last known position of the Eighth Fleet in Earth orbit and did some quick calculations in her head. Her jaw clenched as her situation on Hawaii became clear.
“I doubt they can do much more than they already are,” Durand said. “At that range, any Eagle that hits atmo won’t be able to make orbit again without recharging their engines. That fleet’s air boss won’t sacrifice his fighter cover for whatever’s down here. And whatever air support we’ve got in Phoenix can’t get here for two hours. We’re on our own from the edge of space to the Pacific Ocean.”
The crew chief slapped her twice on the shoulder; she was hooked in. He got out of the way and the canopy lowered around Durand.
“Fleet say why the Toth are moving on us? Do they want the Dotok?” she asked.
“Uh…that’s need-to-know,” Robbins said.
“You think I don’t need to know? I’m trying to figure out how to run an interdiction mission and I need to know what I’m trying to interdict! Where are you sitting? I will come over there and—”
“There is a research facility buried into the side of Mauna Loa. We believe that’s their target.”
“The R&R center? Why?” Durand cycled power to her retro-thrusters. Icons for the rest of her squadron flashed green, ready for takeoff.
“That’s classified,” Robbins said curtly.
Durand slammed a fist against her canopy and mumbled a curse.
“103rd, this is Gall,” she said over the squadron channel. “The Toth are coming in force. We are the fight between earth and sky. We…” she hesitated against telling the half truth she’d got from Robbins, “we saved the Dotok once before. We need to do it again.”
She cycled power into the engines and lifted off from the landing pad.
“Take off in sequence. Whoever scores the fewest kills buys the drinks,” she said.
She nosed her fighter upwards and blasted into the sky. She felt the urge to fly straight for the flash of the dogfight above the atmosphere. Good men and women were dying and it wasn’t in her nature to shirk from battle.
She leveled her Eagle and flew north.
“103rd, come to fifty thousand feet and stagger by flights. I want eyes peeled and heads on a swivel. Nothing’s going to sneak up on us,” she said.
“We’re not going to attack?” Filly asked.
“We take out whatever gets through that fur ball up top. Keep them away from the facility near Loa,” she said.
“What about the Dotok camps?” Manfred asked. “We’ve got soldiers armed with rifles and little else to defend everyone that made it off Takeni.”
“That too,” Durand said. She gnawed on her lip as a hard decision reared its ugly head.
“So what’s the priority?” Glue asked. “The Dotok or that facility?”
“If we have to choose, that means enough Toth bandits made it through that the only thing we’ve got to worry about is not dying. So don’t worry about it,” Durand said.
A dozen red diamonds appeared on her canopy, all on approach to Loa. Images of the serrated-blade fighters and bulbous transports blew up next to the icons. Durand adjusted course toward the hostiles and gained elevation.
“Blue flight with me up top,” Durand said. “White and Red, I want you to go in swinging hard. Peel off as many fighters as you can so Blue and I can pick off transports. Everyone understand?”
Eleven pilots replied in sequence.
“Remember,” Durand said, “these are Toth, not Xaros. If these lizards don’t kill you, they will eat you.”
Somebody chuckled over the IR, but only one somebody.
“Nag, open your targeting computer,” Durand said. She hit a switch and a progress bar popped up on the canopy. It froze and flashed red almost immediately. “Figures,” Durand muttered. “Everyone, we’ve got a hostile malcode environment. Stick to eyeballs and good shooting.”
She glanced down and saw the blue square icons of White and Red flights on her visor. The eight craft sped ahead. The Eagle’s glass cockpit, tech almost a hundred years old, hadn’t been compromised by the Toth electronic warfare…yet.
“Manfred, Lothar, I know your families are down there, but this is where your fight is, understand?” Durand asked. The two Dotok pilots flew as a pair next to Durand and Nag.
The brothers spoke in Dotok briefly before Lothar said, “We’ve been studying your sacred texts. Our warrior creed shares much with the ‘star spangled’ hymn about standing ‘between a loved home and war’s desolation.’ You know
it, yes?”
“Do I sound American to you?” Durand snapped, doing nothing to conceal her French accent.
“Do…you?” Manfred asked sheepishly.
“Bandits entering rail-cannon range,” Glue said. “Permission to engage.”
“One shot each,” Durand said. “Don’t drain your batteries if you don’t have to. Let’s show these bastards who they’re messing with.” Durand activated her fighter’s rail cannon, and a pair of vane tips emerged from the fuselage.
Thunderclaps broke from the rail cannons of White and Red flights as their slugs shattered the sound barrier. Durand watched the rounds streak toward the Toth formation. Two slugs connected, annihilating a transport and a fighter, the hypervelocity rounds nearly pulling the transport inside out as it tore clean through its gleaming white hull.
A yellow exclamation mark flashed on her canopy; her gauss cannon was ready.
The Toth fighters fired afterburners and came straight for the Eagles while the transports flew low over the ocean, spreading a wake across the surface.
Durand pressed a trigger on her control stick and her Eagle bucked like it had been hit. The fighter undulated through the turbulence the rail cannon left behind. Firing the rail cannons wasn’t a joy in the void, firing them on a lower power setting in atmo wasn’t high on her list of fun things to do either.
“Splash two more,” Manfred said.
“Blue, we skip the fight with the fighters. Get the transports,” she said.
Gauss cannons pelted the oncoming fighters. The brrrrt of Gatling fire made it to Durand over the noise of her engines and the wind howling across her cockpit. The corner of her mouth pulled into a smile—how she loved that sound.
As the rest of her squadron crossed lances with the Toth fighters, the air below her turned into a swirling mass of planes and gauss bullets crisscrossing with burning bolts of energy. She craned her head over her shoulder, watching to see if any Toth fighters broke away to pursue her, but nothing followed.
“The transports are slowing down,” Nag said.
“What?” Durand watched as the wake behind the low-flying transports lessened. “Easy targets,” she said. “Smoke them and get back to the rest of the squadron.”
The transports came to a complete halt. Durand fired off a long-range shot, the fan of bullets splashing around the idling transports. One round struck home, canting the transport to the side and spinning it around.
Additional, heavier splashes erupted from the water. Durand’s head snapped from side to side. No one else had fired.
“I see Toth warriors are jumping from the transports,” Lothar said.
Durand closed within effective range with her gauss cannons and let off a long burst, joined by the rest of the squadron. Bullets blew the transports full of holes. One exploded in midair, and the rest crashed into the ocean, trailing smoke and fire.
Durand flipped her Eagle over and slowed as she passed over the burning wreckage. She saw a flash beneath the surface, like a fish retreating into the depths.
“Can Toth swim?” Nag asked.
“More bandits inbound,” Lothar said. “Fighters and at least…twenty more transports.”
“Back to White and Red,” Durand said. She looked to the sky. Descending contrails of more and more Toth breaking through the upper atmosphere appeared beneath the wild melee in space.
This is going to be a long day, she thought.
****
Hale ducked behind a bulkhead and banged a fist against it twice. There was a squeal of metal and a hurricane rush of air past him. Bits of trash and dying menials tumbled down the corridor.
The interior of the Toth ship was close to the last alien vessel he’d been on. Hexagonal passageways of metal grates over thick pipes, the metal was spaced just far enough to give the Toth menials handholds on any surface. There was plenty of overhead space to accommodate the overlords, which left room for the three armor soldiers leading the way through the ship.
“Clear,” Elias announced.
“Pressure’s equalizing, sir,” Cortaro said, reading from his forearm screen. “Looks like they’re getting their act together.”
Their boarding action had been easy up to this point: the armor soldiers pried open airlocks, exposing compartments to vacuum. The unsuited menials they’d encountered were too busy dying of decompression to put up a fight.
The sounds of banging doors and Toth language rose as the air thickened.
“Keep moving,” Hale said. “We wait around too long and they’ll—”
A blaster bolt sliced through the air and struck the deck next to Hale’s feet. A torch of fire burst to life at the point of impact, sparks shooting out from damaged cables.
The armor’s gauss cannons cracked like sudden thunder. Hale peeked around the bulkhead and saw an open turbo lift at the end of the passageway, the pulped remains of a team of armed menials dripping down the walls.
“Can we take that lift to the command deck?” Hale asked Steuben.
“We’re three decks above the overlord, but the lifts are death…” Steuben lifted the edge of his visor and took a deep breath though his nose. “I smell ozone.” The Karigole looked up at the ceiling.
Metal tubes glowed red. He felt heat coming through his helmet as the red lightened to a blazing white. The ceiling exploded, pelting the Marines with metal fragments and a wave of flame.
Hale managed to get his arms up around his head before the blast of overpressure shoved him against the bulkhead. His head bounced against the wall and sent stars swimming through his vision.
“Contact!” someone shouted.
A flood of menials poured through the jagged hole in the ceiling, right in the center of the Marine’s formation. Hale switched his gauss rifle to SHOT and swung the barrel toward a hissing pack of Toth running right for him.
He hesitated. Cortaro was in his line of fire, grappling with a Toth that had wrapped its limbs around the Marine. His Marines were well armored, carrying gauss weapons that could knock out a Xaros probe. Engaging in hand-to-hand combat with the Toth was not how they wanted to fight this battle.
Hale swung the butt of his rifle into a menial’s snout as it leaped at him. The impact snapped the creature’s neck and deflected it into the bulkhead. His reverse swing caught another Toth in the torso, snapping bones and earning a squeal of pain.
He leveled his rifle and sent a blast of tungsten-coated cobalt pellets into a mass of menials. Yellow blood burst into the air as the shotgun blast ripped through four aliens.
A warrior thumped to the deck in front of Hale. Crystalline armor plates refracted the fire’s light, making it look like an inferno raged across the warrior’s body. It howled an ululation that triggered Hale’s audio dampers. The warrior raised a six-clawed hand over its shoulder.
Hale backpedaled and snapped off a blast from his rifle. Pellets careened off the crystal armor, leaving hairline fractures across the surface.
The warrior looked away from Hale and hissed.
An armored fist slammed into the warrior’s helmet, shattering it into pieces. Elias snatched the warrior by its exposed throat, lifted it off the deck and slammed it face-first into the bulkhead next to Hale with a sickening crunch.
Elias tossed the jerking body aside and pointed a bloody yellow finger at Hale.
“Next time I tell you to—”
A shadow moved behind Elias in the smoking ruin between decks. A blast of energy hit Elias in the back, sending him staggering toward Hale. Elias hunched over, his massive shoulder striking the bulkhead inches above Hale’s head. Hale looked up at Elias’ helm and saw a lighting-strike crack through the visor over his suit’s sensors.
Enormous claws wrapped over his shoulder and yanked Elias away.
A warrior wrestled Elias to the deck and pulled a jagged blade as long as Hale’s arm from its back.
Hale switched his rifle to HIGH power and raised the barrel toward the warrior.
High-power shots w
ere supposed to be done from a firm firing stance as they expended almost a quarter of the weapon’s battery and accelerated the round to the highest velocity the barrel could withstand before blowing apart. The recoil kicked the weapon against Hale’s injured knee and sent it flying from his hands.
The round cut through the warrior’s flank and wrecked the bulkhead on the other side. Its head reared up, then the entire warrior fell limp atop Elias. Elias shoved it aside and fired his forearm-mounted cannons through the hole in the ceiling.
Bodel and Kallen stomped past Elias, smashing menials to death and crushing the skulls of any still fighting with the Marines.
Hale pushed off the bulkhead. His Marines were smeared with Toth blood, but they were on their feet.
“Sir, you dropped this.” Cortaro handed Hale back his gauss rifle. “I believe this is yours too.” He held up the gauntlet with the forearm screen. It was cracked and smoking around where a shot pellet had embedded in the center of the screen.
“Sorry,” Hale said. “Elias was—”
“If I can get over Steuben blowing my damn leg off I’m not going to complain about a little nothing like a cracked screen,” Cortaro said.
A dead Toth warrior slid through the breach and fell against the deck with a whump.
Elias rolled onto his hands and knees, a shallow crater smoking against his back armor.
“You hurt?” Hale asked.
“There’s a dent on my interior tank. Nothing serious.” Elias got to his feet slowly.
Steuben, his bloody sword in hand, stepped around Elias and made for the elevator.
“Steuben, wait,” Hale said.
“There is nothing to wait for, Hale. The longer we tarry, the more time the Toth have to find us again,” Steuben said. He knocked the flat of his blade against his thigh, sending yellow droplets spraying against the deck.
Hale looked at the hole in the ceiling and down to the floor.
“I’ve got an idea,” Hale said.
“Now we’re in trouble,” Standish said.
“How many more breach kits do we have?” Hale asked.
****