“I love you more.”
“I love you, Thean!”
Thean smiled and made an inarticulate gurgling noise.
“It’s still in the freezer, right?”
“Yeah. We hold it every day.”
“Good. Thank you.”
An hour later and she had dressed in her mostly beige armor, had boarded the Mystic, and was on her way to Hangzhou.
Looking more in detail at the colony’s stats, she noted how there wasn’t too much of a military presence in the system. Hangzhou was situated fairly deep in Coalition territory compared to the standard pirate target, and as there was no great strategic importance in the colony, nothing more than a token force of a couple of military frigates was seen as necessary. It was a breathable world, but only the equator was considered habitable, since the regions nearer the poles were consistently beset by powerful blizzards. The colony itself consisted of nearly a million people, half of which lived in the modest capital city. Its population suggested it was immune to all but the largest of pirate attacks. While there was little military presence, its inhabitants would still have a small army of defenders willing to use their cache of weapons, ground-to-space rail cannons, mechs, and mercenary owned ships on their attackers. What comforted her more than anything was knowing that if a large pirate raid was planned, then it could not have been very well organized if the news of it was already sniffed out by the Coalition.
The trip to this world was two days long, or a handful of jumps by the cruiser. From her perch in the orbiting Mystic, Jane used the ship’s small observation deck window to see that Hangzhou’s northern and southern poles were almost entirely covered by grayish snow. This dullness gradually gave way to a thick strip of red at the equator, which came from the red plants that dominated any region outside the urban areas.
“I never get tired of seeing a view like this,” Captain Adelson said behind her.
Used to his sneakiness, an unruffled Jane replied, “I’ve seen better.”
“How is your family?”
“Adorable as ever, sir.”
“Who came up with ‘Thean’ anyway?”
“Oh, Vic found it. He found that it means ‘prince.’”
“Ah, and that’s what he is to you.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m sorry for taking you away from him sooner than you planned.”
“It was going to happen at some point. And it’s them, by the way. You took me away from them.”
“Yes, and how is your husband handling your call to duty?”
“You’ve never even met him. I never thought you’d be the type to be jealous of someone you don’t even know.”
“Jealous is a strong word. It’s more like confused. I never thought you were the type to tackle such an extensive reclamation project.”
“I admit Vincent didn’t have the most put together life in the galaxy when I met him, but he just needed to hit the restart button. If you really have a problem with my choices, then you can always promote someone else to be your lackey, sir.”
“It’s a mark against you, but that’s only your second strike.”
“Second? What was the first? Wait, was it when I didn’t-”
“Come on, we should start heading for the hangar.”
Their shuttle took them to a small military controlled port just outside the southern side of the capital. As there were no windows in the craft, Jane used a holoscreen to see that the chief building of note was a squat, square-shaped air and space traffic control center, its black façade standing alongside a lake where larger ships often docked. The building’s roof was larger than the floors below, allowing for multiple shuttles to park themselves on top. However, only her own met with the roof. The other seven went to drop off their passengers near designated shelters civilians used to wait out orbital bombardments. As Jane was Captain Adelson’s right hand woman, she was to aid him and the other officers on combat preparations. This meant testing orbital sensors, communication lines, rail cannons, and setting up the proper cyber defenses.
Later in the day, which was actually night on Jane’s side of the world, they received an update stating that a Coalition fleet was being sent to the system, suggesting that the report was being treated seriously. With word that the first wave of these reinforcements would arrive within the next thirty hours, it was everyone’s expectation that the enemy would retreat and scatter. Just about every system check had been done on the world’s defenses by the time the eighteen hour night ended. An alert was also sent to citizens in the system, advising them to be aware of the nearest emergency shelter should a crisis occur.
During the first lull period she encountered, Jane found herself staring out the wall of glass to see the orange star rising higher in the purplish blue sky. If the glass wasn’t reflecting everything from inside the room, she would have been surprised by the teal-stripped armor of the captain coming up beside her.
“I don’t endorse idling, first sergeant.”
She cleared her throat. “No, of course not, sir. I have never seen such a thing from any of my superiors. Not a one.”
“That’s good. Then what were you accomplishing during your musing?”
“I was wondering why the pirates would choose Hangzhou. Don’t tell me that question hasn’t crossed your mind.”
“It’s crossed every mind in this system. It’s crossed every mind that has learned that their world has been targeted by some bad people.”
Jane frowned. “Sure, but you know I’m talking a little more strategically than that. This kind of world is normally too ambitious a task to be raided. The fact that the Coalition is actually sending a force to counter the danger means they believe some syndicates have actually unified to become a significant threat. I just hate to think that some big time criminals are actually starting to work together.”
“They sometimes do. Even if we’re attacked, it wouldn’t make this the largest colony ever hit.”
“No, but it would be among the most senseless. If a few syndicates are actually working together on this, then why risk coming this far from the Badlands? There isn’t anything here that they couldn’t get with easier targets.”
“I can’t refute that logic, but only because we don’t know the people who arranged this attack. It’s likely several reasons made this the only planet they could target. I’m sure current and future investigations will reveal exactly what those motives were. In any event, I find comfort that our job is to protect people from the senseless, not find rationality in it. Or do you wish me to give you a break so that you may ponder over the mysteries of the criminal mind?”
“I’ll need to retire for that, sir.”
“Well then, assuming you’re not about to quit on me now, I would like you to take Dominguez and Grissom to the shuttle. There’s apparently an old kinetic barrier generator we might be able to salvage some backup parts from. I’ll join you in a minute.”
As the trio waited for their captain, Jane took the time to chat with Corporal Frida Dominguez. The right hand woman and Sergeant Alfred Grissom had already known one another for a couple of years, so comfortable silence existed between them. As for the corporal, she met her only a few days after arriving at Devon base and they were still getting to know each other.
Like Jane, some of Frida’s armor was modified, though hers had stripes of red wrapping around her gauntlets and thigh plates. The military’s basic armor wasn’t by any means bad. Its overall shield strength, power cells, flexibility, and durability were all above average, but they were not the best. With police forces, security companies, and mercenary groups making for lucrative clientele, businesses had significant incentive to craft armor types that were better and more expensive than what the military could afford to offer to the average soldier. To counter the possibility that a pirate gang could be better equipped than its armies, the Coalition made deals with several corporations to provide customizable battle armor for its troops and to allow soldiers to buy
upgrades when they saw fit. As time passed, the military even began to permit some range of personal customization, particularly after HUD technology became standard in a soldier’s eyes, virtually eliminating friendly fire. Still, as the standard army manual dryly put it, only up to ten percent of a soldier’s armor may contain some type of personal feature(s) that distinguish his or herself from their fellow combatants.
For Jane, her feature of choice was a pink band running up her helmet and then down to her armor’s spine and arms. She had read once that some people were uncomfortable shooting at a woman, so she decided to exemplify her femininity a bit. She really didn’t believe it would bring hesitation or mercy, but it didn’t hurt to don a color she liked anyway.
Once their captain arrived, the group flew toward the southwestern edge of the capital, where an older skyscraper’s top six floors held the out-of-order kinetic generator. Waiting on the thirty-five story roof were four members of the local militia. They were donned in shield-supporting armor as well, but they were extremely light and of the low-cost type. Jane doubted they would be much use in a prolonged firefight. The outside of the building no longer contained a sign that the structure held a kinetic generator, which would otherwise be displayed by large transmitter towers exiting the borders of the roof and upper walls in some fashion.
Going to the lower floors revealed the tawny generator units were held at the center of the rooms within large rooms of their own. When she entered the inside of the lowest generator unit by going through its hyper-steel door, Jane was surprised to see it was actually an old high-end model. The only registered kinetic generators listed in the colony’s data banks were of the smaller and cheaper variety that were only meant to project over individual buildings or shelters. Yet the age and type of this generator implied it once belonged to a set of barriers designed to protect hundreds of square yards when it was combined with neighboring generators in other buildings. There was indeed two other skyscrapers of equal height near them, but these had been stripped of their generators long ago. Why a colony that was never seen as a major asset once needed such a defensive system was a question that intrigued Jane as she worked to separate the serviceable parts from the inoperative ones.
An hour into her work, as she stored some workable battery packs inside the shuttle’s internal compartments, she found that her curiosity about the generator was being replaced by an uneasy feeling in her gut. The generator still had quite a few working parts, as though it could have been turned on with a few simple amendments. According to the captain, the only reason he even knew of the generator’s existence was due to his examination to some mislabeled files while at the port. She had the notion that someone was trying to hide some-
A sharp, high-pitched tone rang briefly in her head. It was coming from the activation of a jamming signal, one far more powerful than she had ever experienced before. It was strong enough to make her guess that it was originating planetside, not from an orbiting spacecraft. Long range communication was now impossible. The radio in her helmet was still potent enough to work over a short distance, but her thought-comm was forced to go through a short reboot and would probably not work unless she was a few feet away from her target listener, making the technology redundant.
“Captain, do we head for command?”
“Yes. Prep the shuttle. We’re heading up now.”
The captain allowed the militia members to tag along, seeing as they needed all the manpower they could get. When the shuttle was half a mile from the port, one of the zoomed up cameras showed a fire burning within the building. When they were a few hundred yards closer, every window was blown out by a fierce explosion.
“Shit,” said the corporal. “What’s going on?”
“It seems our enemy is already planetside,” inferred the captain.
“But the command center?” said Grissom. “That explosion came from the inside. How did they infiltrate it so easily?”
“Questions for later, sergeant. We’ll look for survivors for now.”
The computer guided shuttle landed by the fiery building. Some people were fleeing from the scorching structure and some soldiers who had already been outside the building sought out to help them. The captain ordered the corporal and the militia group to aid anyone they could outside. He then ordered Jane and the sergeant to go with him inside the building, where their warping abilities could help subdue the flames and get to any survivors. At this distance, their radio calls could reach anyone listening. A few answered the captain’s appeals. Water and air worked together to dampen the inferno in their way, allowing for them to speedily get to those in the most immediate of need. She saw lifeless bodies in their path to the others, most of them without their full armor on, though some had been near enough to the blast for their armor not to mean much. Going by the debris pattern, it appeared that the largest explosion erupted from the basement floor.
They were able to save over a dozen people, with two dozen more saved by other soldiers and the emergency personnel that showed up a couple of minutes after they did. Still, more than half of the over one hundred men and women were presumed dead, many of which were the highest ranking officers. The highest rank left was actually a rear admiral who had left the cruiser to organize with the now dead army colonel. For Jane’s branch, a major was now the highest ranking soldier alive. There was another major from the marines, but she was now missing an arm and was being treated. With the city’s emergency services taking care of the wounded, the remaining officers decided to send their units to defend the ground-to-space rail cannons from enemy incursion. With their group of militia members in tow, Jane’s unit was sent to a pair of cannons a few miles to the south.
Despite the anti-ship guns being over two hundred feet long, they were on the small end of the size scale and represented a fourth of all cannons on this side of the world. As the shuttle landed near the artillery, the captain attempted to contact the militia division in charge of operating the controls. There was never an answer. With the control room located five hundred feet below the surface, Jane, two of the militia men, and the captain took the cargo elevator downward. The opening door revealed the control room was not lit. To circumvent this, all three soldiers switched on every light in their armor and rifles. The sight illuminated sight of a small room drenched in the smoke that emanated from smoldering metal and wire.
“What the fuck?” said Mick, one of the younger militia members. “They got here, too?”
“Who are they, anyway?” asked his compatriot, Cho. “No way some small time pirates infiltrated the command port and the cannons without someone finding out.”
The captain and Jane traversed the cramped room. Piled on top of each other at the farthest corner were two bodies, each burned to an unrecognizable crisp.
“Sir?” said Jane.
Wearing his rarely seen face of stone, the captain answered, “Our top priority is to get as many civilians into the shelters as possible.”
During their trip on the rising elevator, after informing those above about what they found, Jane used her thought-comm to tell the captain, “Some of the heads of the militia have to be responsible.”
“A likely possibility. They were either paid off to betray the world they swore to defend, or…”
“Or?”
The elevator door opened.
“Or they’ve been preparing this attack for a long time.”
Stepping back outside, they saw the others looking at the northern skies, where a long silver contrail split the lavender sky in half. The effect of a fired rail cannon slug.
“At least one of them is working,” said Mick.
“Yeah, but maybe they’re firing at our own ships,” said Cho.
“Do we make sure that’s not the case, captain?” asked the corporal.
“Some of our own were already sent there, remember? In any event, the jamming signal is forcing them to fire almost completely blind. The best they can do now is deter any ship from hovering ne
ar the city for long. But if only one is currently active… Let’s go! We have to defend the shelters!”
The shuttle zipped back toward the city. Based on the clearing traffic, a city wide alert had sounded, sending speeders and other craft to the ground as their occupants looked for a bunker. When the shuttle was near the city outskirts, one of its cameras caught movement in the higher cloud layers. Zooming up on the object showed it to be a swiftly descending frigate. It was clear it was not of military origin. More soon exited the patch of gray clouds, many more. Mixed with these two dozen visible frigates were some single-manned fighters.
“Sacred help us,” whispered Cho.
“It’s like a fuckin’ fleet of them!” said the only woman in the militia group. Jane did not catch her name. “We can’t hold them all back.”
The captain telepathically commanded for the shuttle to fly as low as possible. Some of the frigates and fighters headed for the northern rail cannon, firing their weaponries at its shielded frame. Even a cannon of its relatively small size could rip a frigate in half with a single shot, but with its blinded sensors, it would take a combination of skill and luck to shoot down an exceedingly maneuverable frigate. A cannon defending a city could also not fire too low, or it would risk striking a tall building. Really, it was not designed to fire at anything inside the lower atmosphere. Thanks to a shield powered by the city’s large underground generators, it could withstand a heavy bombardment for some time, but that was only with more support from its allies. Jane expected the last working cannon would not last all that long.
Consequently, the last fixed defense against attacking ships were the smaller rail guns scattered throughout the city and surrounding area. However, without being able to rely on computer tracking technology, its accuracy entirely depended on the skill of its operator. Their firepower was also better used against fighters and mechs, not shielded frigates, though enough of them could overwhelm a weakened barrier. So seconds after the enemy ships became perceptible, a hail of slugs from dozens of rail guns fired up at the sky. The ships fired back at the same instant.
Generations (The Nimbus Collection Book 3) Page 20