by Marko Kloos
Knew, I think. Past tense, not present. Colonel Campbell knows as well as I do that the automatic emergency buoys don’t start sending until they are ejected from their host ship. No fleet skipper would have the emergency buoy jettisoned unless the ship is completely disabled and in the process of ejecting its life pods, and the computer will only release it if the ship is in the process of breaking up. If the Caledonia’s crash buoy is out there sending its distress signal, then the ship is almost certainly gone, and all her sailors with her. Then again, both the colonel and I survived the activation of the Versailles’s crash buoy some five years ago over the colony planet Willoughby, so maybe hope dies hard even in a seasoned, hard-bitten staff officer. Maybe the crew of Caledonia did manage to man life pods and make it down to the surface of Mars, and maybe they’re holed up down there waiting for a rescue, just like we were half a decade ago.
“Picking up Alliance beacons, too,” the SigInt sergeant says. “Lots of Alliance beacons.”
We watch silently as the plot fills with pale blue and red icons, all blinking their pulsing distress signals. We don’t know the identities of the SRA ships who released their own distress beacons, but there are—were—a lot of them. Ten, twenty, thirty—I try to count the mass of icons on the display but give up at thirty-five, and every few seconds the computer adds more of them to the holographic sphere hovering above the holotable. The space between our position and Mars is a sea of slowly blinking pale blue and red icons.
“What the hell is left at this point?” Colonel Campbell wonders out loud.
“Still nothing on active fleet comms,” the XO says. “We could go active, see if we can get anyone to talk back. There have got to be some surviving units in range somewhere. Ours or theirs.”
“That’s a negative,” Colonel Campbell replies. “If there’s Lankies out there in the dark, I sure as shit don’t want to broadcast a quarter-million-watt flare for everyone in this corner of space to see. Passive listening gear only, unless we know we have someone to talk to nearby.”
“Understood, sir,” the XO says. “Remain at full EMCON. Ears only for now.”
“Visual contact, Lanky seed ship,” the tactical officer calls out. “Bearing zero-nine-zero by positive zero-zero-three. Distance eighteen hundred kilometers, heading one-two-zero relative, speed two hundred meters per second. Designate new bogey Lima-8.”
“We’ll be passing a little too close for comfort. Correct our course, XO. Nudge us three degrees to port so we pass his stern with some room to spare. Son of a bitch is damn near right across our trajectory.”
“Three degrees to port, aye,” the XO says. “Helm, give me a two-second burn on the starboard-bow thrusters. On my mark. Three, two, one. Burn.”
I watch as the trajectory on the holoscreen simultaneously updates with the position and trajectory of the Lanky bogey catalogued as Lima-8 and that of Indianapolis as she fires her bow thrusters, nudging us onto a slightly different course to avoid swapping hull paint with the Lanky patrolling not too far ahead of us. The bow thrusters do their quick, controlled burn, and the line representing our trajectory bends to port very slightly. Physics being what they are, spaceships hurtling along at hundreds or thousands of meters per second can’t just turn or stop on a dime when something pops up in front of them. I’ve never paid enough attention in physics to be able to begin to make sense of conning a ship like Indy, but I know that in space, steering and braking require a lot of calculating and planning.
Colonel Campbell watches the plot correction and nods. “Steady as she goes, helm. XO, countercorrect to the original trajectory when we have this bastard at least a thousand kilometers aft of our stern.”
“Aye, sir,” Major Renner replies.
The more time I spend in fleet CICs, the more I realize that there is no real control in a starship’s control center, just an illusion of it, and that we are merely hanging on to an angry dragon by the tip of its tail. I may have even less control as a grunt on the ground, but with a rifle in my hands and a map on the display in front of me, I feel better equipped to determine my own fate than standing on a rubberized deck tile and holding on to a handrail while watching a hologram.
“Have you regretted your desire yet to switch to the navy all those years back, Mr. Grayson?” Colonel Campbell asks when he sees me studying the plot, as if he could read my thoughts.
“Yes, sir,” I reply. “Every single payday. This deep-space combat shit—they ought to pay us a ton more. Too hazardous.”
Major Renner chuckles softly. “Ain’t that the damn truth.”
“All Commonwealth units, please respond. This is Camp Webb, emergency shelter Sierra-Five. One hundred thirteen military personnel, seven hundred ninety-five civilians. Low on food and water, oxygen level critical. All Commonwealth units, please respond. This is Camp Webb, emergency shelter Sierra-Five. One hundred thirteen military personnel . . .”
We started receiving the distress call a little while ago, and right now I feel myself wishing Colonel Campbell would just take the repeating message off the speakers in the CIC. Camp Webb is one of the NAC’s main military installations on Mars, ten kilometers from Olympus City and its enormous civilian spaceport. It houses the School of Spaceborne Infantry, where SI assignees fresh out of boot camp learn the ropes of off-Earth ground combat.
“Almost eight hundred civvies,” Major Renner says. “Christ.”
“We can respond on tight-beam for the next four minutes,” the comms officer says. “Low power, probably won’t even make a blip on the Lankies’ radar.”
“Give me a link,” Colonel Campbell orders. “The second you see a Lanky heading our way, you cut comms, tight-beam and all.”
“Aye, sir. You have a link.”
“This is NACS Indianapolis, in approach to Mars, Indianapolis Actual. Broadcasting party, please identify yourself.”
There are a few seconds of line static. Then the voice comes over the speakers in CIC again.
“Indianapolis, thank God. This is Major Vanderbilt. I am holed up in emergency shelter Sierra-Five with almost a thousand people. The Lankies own the surface. They’ve taken out most of the infrastructure. They seem to target the radio transmitters and radar stations in particular. We are down to five percent oxygen. They have gassed the base and the city. We need immediate evacuation, Colonel.”
Colonel Campbell closes his eyes and exhales slowly before replying.
“Sierra-Five, Indy Actual. I’m sorry, but that’s a negative. We are in stealth approach for a high-orbit periapsis burn toward Earth. We are just an orbital combat ship, and a damaged one at that. We have one drop ship, and there are multiple Lanky seed ships in orbit. We can’t stop. Should have counter-burned seven hours ago for that, and then we’d have no fuel left for the burn to Earth. And even if we could stop on a dime, we can’t shuttle nine hundred people up to Indy with one drop ship, through the Lanky minefields. I’m sorry, Major,” he says again.
There’s a long silence on the line. I imagine the major down in the stuffy bunker deep underneath Camp Webb, hope flaring up at a possible last-minute rescue, only to have it snuffed out just a few moments later. Almost a thousand people, and they are about to suffocate, and there’s not a damn thing we can do about it.
“A hundred thirteen troops down here, Colonel. Over seven hundred civilians. Almost a hundred of them are children. For the love of God, if there’s anything you can do, please do it.”
Major Renner curses quietly under her breath. Several of the CIC personnel groan audibly. Colonel Campbell is stone-faced.
“We are minutes from our burn,” the colonel says. “We are moving way too fast, Major Vanderbilt. It would take us two days just to counter-burn and reverse our trajectory, and we’d run out of fuel trying. I wish I could help you, but I physically can’t. I will relay your coordinates if we make contact with any other Commonwealth units.”
There’s another long silence on the tight-beam link. Then Major Vanderbilt comes back on
, and his voice sounds almost toneless.
“Then give us a kinetic strike directly on our transmitter. Three rounds, sequential. Enough to reach down fifty meters.”
Colonel Campbell looks over at the tactical officer, who shakes his head.
“Not at this speed,” the tactical officer says. He looks like he’s ready to throw up on the console in front of him. “We’re too far for the gun, and we’ll be past the launch window too quickly. Can’t hit a bull’s-eye that small going this fast.”
“Two minutes until the comms window closes,” the communications officer cautions.
We can’t even give them the mercy of a quick death, I think. Reversing course would be suicide—hell, this close pass is almost suicidal as it is—and we would never get everyone off the surface even if we had the space and fuel, but speeding by and not being able to do anything for these people is like a physical punch in the gut.
“I’m sorry,” Colonel Campbell says. “I’m sorry.”
“Indianapolis, don’t let us suffocate like a bunch of—”
“Cut tight-beam,” the colonel says over the transmission from emergency shelter Sierra-Five. “Now.”
“Aye, sir. Tight-beam link terminated.” The comms officer complies with an ashen face, and Major Vanderbilt’s voice cuts off midsentence.
For a few moments, nobody in the CIC says anything, and the only sounds in the room are the soft audio prompts from various consoles and the faint, distant hiss of the environmental system that is pressurizing the room. The mood in the CIC is only slightly more upbeat than a funeral.
“Nothing we can do,” Colonel Campbell says into the silence. “Nothing except to push on, or our people back on New Svalbard are going to go the same way. Eyes on the ball, folks.”
“Periapsis burn for Earthbound leg in two minutes,” the tactical officer announces. The plot on the holotable updates with a time readout. We are going to get as close to Mars as possible before slingshotting around, to take maximum advantage of the planet’s gravity. There are much fewer seed ships in orbit than I had expected. We encountered half a dozen of them on the way here; I would have guessed to see many times that number above Mars. But as we hurtle toward our periapsis point a few thousand kilometers above the upper layer of the atmosphere on the currently dark side of the red planet, Tactical has plotted only four of them.
“We won’t see the minefields at this speed until we’re right in the middle of them,” the tactical officer cautions.
“We’re giving up the closest approach already,” Colonel Campbell says. “We should be far enough away for clearance.”
I’m in armor again—the ship is at combat stations for the approach to Mars—but the snug hardshell is less of a comfort than usual. If we run into a Lanky minefield at the speed Indy is going, nobody will be able to make the escape pods in time. Even without getting hit by their penetrators, the Lanky proximity mines will tear the ship into a billion fragments if we hit a few of them with Indy’s hull.
“Close enough for optical of the surface now,” the tactical officer says.
“Bring it up on holo,” Colonel Campbell orders.
Three new display windows open on the CIC’s central holotable, all displaying various feeds from the Indy’s high-powered optical surveillance gear. Mars is shrouded in thick, gray, swirling clouds almost from pole to pole. The Lankies had over two months to set up their terraforming network and flip the atmosphere to suit their preferences. I know that right now, the carbon dioxide levels on Mars are ten times what they used to be before the Lankies got there. If we ever get the place back, it will have to be terraformed all over again.
“Lots of radiation hotspots.” The tactical officer highlights a few locations on the holographic orb representing Mars. “One, two, three, four . . . That’s half a dozen just in this part of the northern hemisphere. Looks like fifteen-, twenty-kiloton tactical nukes.”
“Tried to stop them when they landed,” Colonel Campbell says. “Looks like it wasn’t enough.”
I see the familiar latticework of Lanky towns dotting the landscape below. Their shelters look nothing like human housing. They are interconnected, spreading out from a central point in what looks like a fractal pattern from above. Like everything else the Lankies make, their places look like they’re grown, not built—not a straight line or right angle anywhere. A Lanky settlement looks more like a coral reef than anything else. From the number and size of them, it’s clear that the Lankies have been busy, but Mars is a big place, and they haven’t settled even 10 percent of it yet.
“Maybe their resources are as limited as ours,” Major Renner suggests. “I expected more seed ships than this. Maybe they only have so many of them.”
“Wish we could pop a few nukes on those Lanky towns on the way past,” the colonel says. “Look at that. Ten, fifteen, twenty . . . That’s close to thirty settlements on this quarter of the hemisphere already.”
“At this rate, they’ll have the place settled in a year, maybe two,” I say.
“And then it’s Earth,” Colonel Campbell says darkly.
“Periapsis burn in thirty seconds,” Major Renner says. She picks up the handset for the 1MC. “This is the XO. All hands, prepare for slingshot burn.” She turns off the 1MC. “Helm, stand by on main engines,” she orders. “Full burn, on my mark. Give me a twenty-second burn.”
“Standing by on main engines, for twenty-second burn,” the helmsman confirms.
“Twenty seconds to burn.”
“Tactical, please tell me we still have a clear path ahead,” Colonel Campbell says.
“Optical shows clear to the periapsis,” the tactical officer replies. “There’s a ton of floating wreckage twenty degrees off our starboard bow, but we’ll clear it by five kilometers at least.”
“Let’s hope they don’t have any roadblocks stacked up on the other side. XO, take us around.”
“Ten seconds to burn,” Major Renner announces. “Helm, on my mark. In six . . . five . . . four . . . three . . . two . . . one. Burn.”
The hull shudders again as the main engines light off at full thrust. We are trading acceleration with Mars, using the gravity of the planet to bend our trajectory around and toward Earth, and stepping on the accelerator at the same time. The plot curve on the holotable display updates as we reach the periapsis point of our Mars approach. We are just far enough away from the planet’s surface to avoid the upper atmosphere and the Lanky minefields that will be scattered in low orbit to catch approaching intruders.
“Five seconds,” the XO calls out. “Stay on the throttle. Ten seconds.”
“Tactical, I want a full sweep on the active kit once we’re out of the parabolic and on our way,” Colonel Campbell orders. “We’re a huge IR flare right now. If they spot us, they’ll spot us, active gear or not.”
“Aye, sir,” the tactical officer replies. “Warming up the active. Sensor sweep in forty-five seconds.”
With Indy in the iron grip of physics, there isn’t much for anyone to do other than wait and look at the holotable’s display. The icon representing Indy shoots around Mars at what seems an agonizingly slow pace. I know that we’re going much faster than anyone who has done an orbital skip of Mars in at least the last fifty years, but I wish that little blue icon could make its way around the holographic orb much quicker.
“Fifteen seconds,” the XO calls. “Coming around the bend. Cut main engines in three . . . two . . . one . . . now. Steady as she goes.”
We shoot out from the dark side of Mars and onto our projected course toward Earth. I watch the optical feeds still live on the holotable, which still show mostly swirling cloud cover and the very occasional patch of red Martian soil. I don’t know the details of the Lanky takeover, but I doubt they had any more warning than any of the colony planets we have lost over the last five years. That means the pole-to-pole blanket of clouds below is now a funeral shroud for over twenty million people, most of them civilians.
“Sen
sors online,” the tactical officer says. “Active sweep commencing.”
The holotable display updates with information. Lanky ships or minefields don’t show up on radar, but the optics can spot them at short to medium range. Everything man-made shows up on radar just fine, however. The combined inputs from the optical lenses and Indy’s active sensors paints a grim picture on the holographic sphere and shows us just how blind we have been flying these past few minutes.
“Son of a bitch,” Colonel Campbell says.
The space around Mars is littered with wreckage parts, dozens of spaceship hulls drifting in the void, some still bleeding air and frozen fluids from their shattered hulls. I’ve seen the damage the salvos from a Lanky seed ship can do to our fleet, but I’ve never seen carnage at this scale. The computer collates the information from the sensors and the transmissions from the crash beacons that are wailing their repetitive little distress tunes, and marks each wreck with its name and hull number. The Lankies were equal-opportunity exterminators—the sea of icons before and below us is a mixed cluster of red and blue colors, SRA and NAC ships united in destruction.
“Two bogeys inbound, closing in fast from bearings zero-four-eight and one-one-five. Designate Lima-11 and Lima-13. They’re on an intercept course, sir.” The tactical officer updates the holotable display, and two orange icons appear on the plot, steadily moving toward our trajectory.
“We’re going too fast for them, but let’s increase the margins a bit. Helm, full burn on main engines. Make it a five-second burn.”
“Five-second burn, aye,” the helmsman acknowledges.
The blue icon marked “OCS-1 INDIANAPOLIS” inches away from Mars, and the two orange icons representing the Lanky ships fall behind. We have too much of an acceleration advantage, and they spotted us too late for the seed ships to intercept us on our racetrack loop around Mars. It’s a small comfort to know that even their ships have limitations.
“Cut the active gear and go cold on the main engines,” Colonel Campbell orders. “Full EMCON. Let’s become a fast-moving hole in space again.”