by Daniel Gibbs
He’s right. It’s only a matter of time until whoever’s in charge drops a battle group on top of us—heavy cruisers or worse. Tehrani set her jaw. It wouldn’t do for anyone on the bridge to remotely suspect she had any doubt in the outcome. “Then let them come,” she replied and flashed a grin at him. “We’ll take all comers.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Tehrani turned to Mitzner. “Navigation, come about to heading zero-six-five. Maintain even Z-axis flight. All ahead two thirds.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.”
“TAO, stand by to lower our forward shields once we’re clear of Master Three’s weapons.” Tehrani stared out the window as the station swung by its view. Hurry up, Major Nishimura. We don’t have all day.
17
Grigory Bogdanov was almost always the man who imposed fear on others rather than the other way around, but he felt overwhelming terror at that moment. The political commissar for League of Sol Forward Outpost Seventeen, he was feared and hated by every member of the League Navy on the station. Tasked with enforcing compliance with orders, Bogdanov made sure they followed the protocols of society and weren’t sliding toward individualism—the bane of the communist party’s existence. He stamped out any evidence of such activity immediately.
“There are too many, Colonel,” a young rating blurted out. “They’re cutting through our security force with ease.”
“Steady,” Bogdanov replied. He forced iron into his voice. “The individualist thugs of the Terran Coalition cannot defeat the champions of society. All we must do is hold fast until the fleet arrives.” Though Bogdanov shared the young man’s outlook on their prospects, all his life, he had been a man who got by. He had few real skills, aside from shifting blame to others. Somehow, he’d always prospered by worming his way out of the consequences for failures while taking credit for whatever successes happened to occur around him. In short, he was the consummate political officer.
“Colonel, we’re down to one platoon. They’re falling back to directly outside of the control room.”
Bogdanov had no experience with combat. Having never fired a shot in anger or at a real, live target, he was at a complete loss about what to do next. I suppose I’d better improvise and make it sound good. “Lieutenant,” he began, glancing at the tactical officer, one of the few who’d made it to the control room before the Terrans overran most of the station. “Open the emergency small-arms cache.”
Enlisted ratings stared at one another.
“Colonel, there’s eight of us.”
The words had been spoken as if they were all that was needed to be said. Bogdanov felt like a cornered animal. Part of him yearned to surrender and try his hand at slithering out of another messy situation. But fear that a true believer would shoot him if he didn’t resist until the end pushed Bogdanov on. “And in the name of Lenin, eight must be enough to hold.” When no one moved, he marched over to the locker built into the bulkhead near the back of the room. A palm print scan later, the locker popped open. He removed a sidearm. “Come, comrades. Arm yourselves.”
Bogdanov’s words seemingly inspired the others to draw upon a well of courage. Each drew a sidearm and took up positions in cover, with a clear view of the hatch out of the control room. The sounds of battle grew closer—high-pitched whines of League energy rifles along with the reports of a ballistic weapon.
Probably whatever these religious fanatics are using for guns. Bogdanov crouched behind a console, pointing the small pulse-laser pistol toward the opening. “Steady now,” he intoned.
The staccato sound of the Terran weapons was suddenly front and center. The screams and cries in the various languages of the League—mostly Russian, Chinese, and French—rose in volume through the hatch. Then they were gone.
By Lenin, they’re all dead. Bogdanov quaked in his combat boots.
“What do we do, Colonel?” a scared teenaged conscript asked.
“Our social duty,” Bogdanov forced out. “For the glory of our socialist republic!”
As if on cue, the hatch blew inward with a deafening roar. People in suits of power armor rushed in, firing their projectile rifles. Several enlisted Leaguers who’d taken Bogdanov’s exhortations to heart popped out of cover and opened up with their energy weapons. The Terran Coalition Marines cut them down without so much as a singe on their armor. One of the braver League sailors sprang up and charged the enemy formation, discharging his pistol into the faceplate of the closest Marine. It held for a moment then shattered into a thousand pieces. The laser beam cut through the unlucky man’s skull, killing him instantly. Return fire from the rest of the Marines shredded the sailor where he stood.
Throughout it all, Bogdanov sat transfixed. His fight-or-flight instinct was caught in a logic loop in which he couldn’t decide, so he sat mute while the battle raged around him. Aware that the shooting had stopped, Bogdanov let his pistol drop to the floor with an audible thud. Multiple rifle barrels appeared in his face.
“On your feet, Leaguer!” one of the Terrans shouted in Russian, though the accent was so bad that it was almost unbearable.
“I speak some English,” Bogdanov replied. “I surrender. No fight.”
Another power-armored Marine strode through the hatch. Even though they all looked alike, the new arrival carried himself differently. His faceplate popped open, and he surveyed the control room. Bogdanov immediately assumed the new arrival was in charge. The supposition was confirmed when he spoke. “Who the hell are you?”
“Colonel Grigory Bogdanov, League of Sol political commissar.”
“Is that supposed to mean something?”
“I ensure all maintain social duty,” Bogdanov replied. His heart skipped beats while sweat trickled down his forehead.
The other man glanced around the room. “Did he fire his weapon at you?”
“No, sir, Colonel,” the Marine who’d initially captured Bogdanov replied. “We found him crouched there, about to pee his pants.”
All the power-armored Marines laughed loudly, and Bogdanov’s face heated. Shame swept over him. “You kill me now?”
“No, Leaguer,” the Marine in charge stated as he stared Bogdanov down. “I’m Major Kosuke Nishimura, Terran Coalition Marine Corps. We don’t execute POWs. But you might make things a bit easier on yourself if you log my comms specialist into your computer system.”
Bogdanov got enough of what Nishimura said to realize they wanted him to help them take information from the station’s databanks. As he mentally grappled with the situation, part of him wanted to stay true to the League’s ideals. The other part argued that all he’d ever done in life was stab people in the back to get ahead. Why should this be any different? After a life of moral compromises and tortured justifications, one more was easy. “I give full access.”
“No tricks,” Nishimura replied. “Or it won’t go well for you.”
“No tricks.”
Nishimura gestured to the nearest console. “Have a seat, Mr. Bogdanov.” The Terrans stood at the ready, fingers on their projectile rifles.
With his heart still skipping a beat every ten seconds, Bogdanov sat down at the indicated terminal. A few keystrokes later, the computer core was unlocked. He turned back to Nishimura. “You have access all commands now.”
“Very good. Corporal, secure the prisoner,” Nishimura ordered. “Now, get the comms geek in here, and let’s get what we came for.”
As he was trundled off to the side of the control room and his hands zip cuffed behind him, Bogdanov pondered the choices he’d made over the last few minutes. His family back in the League would be ruined if word of his surrender—and worse, assistance to the Terrans—was ever discovered. They promised they would treat me better, though. His safety was the only thing that mattered. Of course, not even that mattered if their reinforcements arrived before the Terrans left the station. Bogdanov was certain the incoming battlegroup would destroy the station in a heartbeat rather than have it fall into enemy hands.
The warhead flew straight at the League fighter, whose pilot seemed to have only one focus: killing Justin. Thanks to the craft’s shield depletion, most of the energy bled into the hull when the Vulture slammed into the fore shield. The Shrike didn’t have a chance. It exploded into dust as the onboard reactor failed.
“Theta One, splash one,” Justin called. He let out a small sigh of relief. Staying alive in the damaged fighter was a challenging task.
“Attention, all pilots,” Whatley cut across the entire command network. “Our Marines are undocking momentarily and have taken prisoners along with a great deal of actionable intelligence. Defend those shuttles at all costs. They must make it back to the Zvika Greengold. Godspeed. CAG out.”
Justin paused to take stock of the battlefield at large. The remaining League destroyer was engaged in a slugging match with the Greengold, while half a dozen fighters brawled in individual combats. All in all, the situation was reasonably well in hand. At least for a quickly planned offensive operation where stealth was the watchword. His HUD came alive with several more red dots. More fighters? From where? That destroyer can’t have too many more on it. Then he realized they were launching from the station.
Three dots grew to six then ten then fifteen. Justin felt the blood drain from his face. They must have overridden the hangar doors and got them open manually.
He cued the commlink to Whatley’s one-on-one channel. “CAG, orders, sir? They’ve got us outnumbered three to one.”
“Close escort, Spencer. Get your ass over here and protect the shuttles. Don’t try to be a hero. I don’t care how good you are—fifteen to one ain’t survivable odds.”
“Understood, sir,” Justin replied. The commlink cut off, and he rotated his fighter toward the group of three slow-moving shuttles. Beta element had already taken up position around them, while Alpha and Delta elements continued to persecute the previously launched Leaguers.
“Alpha Two, splash one,” Feldstein called.
Justin glanced at his HUD and realized only three enemy craft were remaining in the furball. As he watched, the red dots representing them blinked out. Simultaneously, more dots appeared outside of the station’s hangar. Twenty-eight hostiles? Shit. The Greengold only had eleven Sabres plus his captured—and damaged—fighter on the field. “This is Spencer,” Justin said. “Red Tails, re-form into finger-four formations and tighten up around our Marines.” He forced steel into his voice. “These bastards want at ’em, they’ll have to get through us.”
“You heard your squadron commander,” Whatley rasped.
Typically, a Sabre going full tilt with afterburner would outrun the fastest League craft. But not when they were tethered to fully loaded shuttles. The enemy fighters kept coming. Justin toggled his commlink to Whatley’s private channel. “CAG, I think we should break two elements off and send a full spread of Vultures at our pursuers.”
“Leaving the rest of us to deal with whatever gets through?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I might have to upgrade you from dobber,” Whatley replied with a touch of mirth. “Do it. Take Alpha and Delta.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” Justin switched to the Red Tails frequency. “Alpha, Delta elements, break and attack bandits at one-eight-zero, mark positive eight. Follow me in.”
“Affirmative, sir,” Mateus said.
“Wilco, sir,” Feldstein replied.
Other voices sounded off as green lights across Justin’s HUD lit up, indicating the pilots had received and acknowledged his orders. He gripped his flight stick firmly and rotated his craft toward the onrushing blob of enemy fighters. Only three Vultures left. Still thankful for the miracle-working crew chiefs that had jury-rigged CDF munitions for use in the current combat, Justin watched the targeting reticule on the HUD. It turned red, indicating a stable lock. “Theta One, Fox three.”
“Alpha Two, Fox three.”
“Delta One, Fox three.”
All seven Sabres loosed a Vulture each along with a flurry of neutron cannon bolts. The Leaguers responded with a couple dozen of their anti-fighter missiles and massed plasma-cannon fire. Warheads passed each other in the void, while the energy weapons made for an eerie glow in the cockpit canopies on both sides.
Several League fighters ceased to exist as missiles connected. While the superior CDF electronic-warfare systems spoofed many enemy warheads, they didn’t get them all. One Sabre disappeared, and a second took significant damage. It veered out of the fight while automated repair systems went to work.
Justin and the rest of the friendly craft made a high-speed firing pass with their energy weapons, taking out another couple of enemies. Moving at an angle that allowed him to slide behind a Leaguer headed toward the shuttles, he took advantage of their seemingly myopic focus on stopping the captured intelligence from getting back to the Terran Coalition. Justin squeezed the trigger, and dozens of red plasma balls shot away from his fighter. They impacted dead center on his quarry, which exploded in a small orange fireball. “Theta One, splash one. Watch out, Red Tails. They’re trying to punch through us.”
His words were prophetic. As the furball continued, with the superior delta-V and weaponry of the Terrans providing a four-to-one kill ratio, the League forces’ considerable numerical superiority allowed several fighters to squirt through the remaining friendlies. Justin counted at least six that accelerated toward the shuttle group.
“CAG, you’ve got incoming,” he practically shouted.
“I’ve got eyes, Spencer,” Whatley ground out.
All six enemies loosed a wave of missiles that swept through the void ahead of them. While a few were spoofed with chaff deployed by the shuttles, three struck home on the lead transport. On Justin’s HUD, the friendly contact blinked, and the display indicated it had lost shields. Beta element gamely engaged the enemies, but they were down two fighters. Still, another Leaguer bought the farm as his craft exploded. Then another wave of warheads roared away from the League flight.
“This is Sierra Four, declaring an emergency. We won’t survive another missile hit out here. Any friendly fighters, get these bandits off our six!”
Justin didn’t recognize the voice but assumed it belonged to the warrant officer flying the lead Marine shuttle.
“Sierra Four, this is Beta One. I’ve got your back. Turn to heading two-seven-zero, pitch down relative,” Lieutenant Orhan Yavuz said. One of the better pilots in the squadron not assigned to Alpha element, he’d been on the Greengold since the beginning of the war. His Sabre raced on full afterburner, into the path of several of the incoming warheads.
“Yavuz, what the hell are you doing?” Justin demanded. “Jettison your chaff and break off.”
“Negative, sir. The intelligence is too valuable.”
Justin watched his HUD in mute horror as Yavuz’s craft went head-on into two missiles then a third and finally a fourth. The Sabre disintegrated in a short-lived explosion. The pilot didn’t eject, and Justin had precious little time to even consider Yavuz’s death.
Like a machine, he pressed on and obtained a LIDAR lock on the closest League fighter. Justin toggled his missile launchers to double fire. “Theta One, fox three.” Two Vultures—his last two—raced away and slammed into the enemy, destroying the Leaguer. One more down.
“To whoever saved our asses, thanks, and Godspeed, brother,” the unfamiliar shuttle pilot said. “Sierra Four on final approach.”
Red plasma balls
filled the void as the remaining Leaguers tried to eliminate the intelligence-carrying transports, but they were mostly using “pray and spray” tactics. Individual dogfights broke out and quickly turned into tail chases in which, again, the superior CDF technology won the day. Feldstein, Mateus, and Adeoye took out an enemy each, while Beta element handled the remaining two fighters.
“Listen up, pilots. Now’s our chance. The shuttles are headed for the hangar. I want every small craft from the Greengold on the deck in sixty seconds. Move like your lives depend on it, because they do,” Whatley said, his voice simultaneously gruff and full of pride.
“I don’t need to hear that twice,” Martin interjected. “Gamma element heading for home plate.”
Justin cued a private commlink channel to Whatley. “Major, there’s still a good ten League fighters out here.”
“Watch and learn, young man.”
“But—”
“Spencer, for once, trust I know what I’m doing,” Whatley growled. “Can you do that, son?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Now, land that piece-of-shit League bird somewhere I can’t see it on the flight deck, would you?”
Justin tightened his hand around the stick and pushed the afterburner up. The first shuttle had just touched down, and the next one was coming in. I wonder what crazy plan Whatley has up his sleeve. He grinned, thinking the Leaguers had no chance at all.
“All shuttles and bombers landed, skipper,” Wright began. “We’ve got a few Sabres still out there, including the CAG.”
“How close?” The bridge remained bathed in blue light. The soft hue cast long shadows across the consoles while the damage-control teams worked on broken equipment.
“Thirty seconds to landing, ma’am.” Wright double-checked his screen. “Port side is clear. Everyone else is coming in on the starboard quarter.”
“TAO, target incoming enemy craft bearing zero-nine-zero relative, activate point defense.” Tehrani grinned fiercely. “That should even it up a bit.”