“I know you and Colonel Burke were close,” he has to say.
“You don’t need to pay that back for me. You’re good—do your job. We’ll watch your flanks.”
“So will I, sir,” a voice comes from behind me. It’s Lieutenant Jane. His flight suit has been modified to expose his prosthetic right hand. I remember he’s been training on the Lancer’s guns as part of his rehab (and as part of a protocol to get more gunners trained so that the Lancer wouldn’t be exclusive to the command team, because losing Matthew was too expensive).
“I’d ask you if you were ready for this, Lieutenant,” I give him, “but I know the answer. What I told Captain Smith goes for you, too.”
“Yes, sir. I’m in no hurry to see Doc Ryder again, sir.”
“Go,” I tell them. Then I check in with Acaveda, Hanson, Soto and Jeffers—the crews of my remaining two ASVs. I want to send them all off face-to-face, not over a Link.
Rios and Thomas confirm their H-A units are ready. Rios has taken the advance team himself: four squads with chain guns and launchers ready to surface from the greenhouse, which will put them close up under the enemy. Tru has added a dozen of her own to this little foray.
Tru is with me up in the Command Tower for this one, something I agreed to since she’s put so many of her own people into this fight.
“You hate this part as much as I do?” she asks me as we wait.
“You have no idea,” I say, too quickly to regret it.
“I might,” Tru coolly reminds me of her experience sending her friends against my guns.
Sakina is also with me. I want her to watch, learn, assess. This kind of fight is so far beyond what she’s used to, what she’s trained for. I hope she can adapt somehow.
True to his word, Chang’s fleet hasn’t budged. The clock is running down on his ultimatum.
We have nine minutes left when I get confirmation that everything is spun up and ready. I hesitate for one long breath, give Tru a nod, then:
“Hit ‘em.”
The blast shields slam down over the ports on the towers. The only view I’ll get now is on the screens. And I immediately feel the burning frustration of being removed from the fight yet again.
The launch bay doors open fast, and our three ships burn straight up out of the bays. They fire a brace of missiles as soon as they’re up off the deck, locked on the big airships. Our base batteries spin and fire, and our launchers start emptying downrange.
Chang’s display of force makes for an easy target. The Discs immediately dart for the base in response, but they’re designed to evade incoming fire, not stop it.
The pirate airships don’t move fast, and they get caught hard. I see multiple explosions on their gun decks and gas hulls, and masts of sails start dropping in flames. I think I can see bodies fall as well.
Rios gets me a better view. The small fighters are starting to detach from the underside of the airships in twos and threes, but probably not as orderly as they would if hell wasn’t breaking loose above them. His troopers dash out and dig in, and start popping rockets up into the underbellies of the pirate ships, trying to chew up as many of the small fighters as they can before they can break away. And almost immediately I read fire coming up from the direction of the Nomad campsite—they were ready and waiting to throw their guns in with ours. The sky begins raining scrap and bodies.
Chang’s new ship isn’t nearly so easy. The big cross-shape tips hard and turns its big lift fans into props. Despite its size, it moves very much like an attack helicopter. I can almost see the deck crews hanging on by some kind of harness, reminding me of stuntmen that would stand on flying biplane wings. And the crews are much quicker on the guns (assuming the guns are aimed by people and not AI). Rios’ troopers start getting hammered by return fire and have to grab the limited cover of the terrain. I watch as three H-A suits show breaches and vitals crashing. I don’t take time to look at their names.
The pirate ships manage to get a volley back at us, but their cannons got thrown off by the pounding. I feel strikes into the exposed concrete of this tower, and Battery One loses a gun. Kastl sends another brace of rockets into them as fast as the racks can reload. Unfortunately for the Zodangans, as they turn to evade, they present bigger targets. The ship on their left flank starts to sag, fold, and sink slowly towards ground.
Our aircraft burn fast right at them. The Discs spray them as they intersect, but seem confused when the pilots just ignore them. The flips and reversals they do to pursue look almost sloppy. It takes them a full two seconds to rethink their strategy, breaking off half their number to focus on our batteries.
“Thomas, go!” I order. More H-A suits pour out of our airlocks, firing as they go, laying a storm of chain rounds for the Discs to fly into. The battery guns ignore the incoming Discs and spray at the ones chasing our aircraft. I hear Kastl whoop victoriously as he knocks one off Acaveda’s tail.
Thomas’ troopers manage to score another one as it dives at Battery Two. But they can’t save Battery One, which gets busted by Disc charges. MAI reads it offline. The Discs then shift targets and start spraying at the troopers, hunkered down behind the makeshift skirmish lines Thomasen had plowed when he started reburying the base. I hear shouting and cursing, and two more suits go dead. The math that we’ve probably killed a lot more pirates isn’t at all comforting.
Smith is burning fast to try to shake the Disc on his tail. Jane can’t get a shot, so he turns his guns into the growing swarm of light fighters—MAI counts eighteen so far that have gotten air without getting chewed in our crossfire. Their wings have folded out, giving them the appearance of a bee with Icarus wings and swim fins: two big fat wings on pivoting struts and two tail wings on a smaller frame. The way the wings move makes the little fighter dart and bob like a swallow in flight, or the way I’ve seen penguins swim. Jane is lucky to hit two of them before Smith has to veer off to avoid getting peppered by their nose guns.
The Disc is still on his tail. Then he has to shoot skyward because Chang’s ship suddenly comes up in his path. MAI records hits to the Lancer’s wings and midsection. One of the VTOL engines threatens to fail. Jane hits back at the cross ship, strafing the decks. I see a few bodies jerk and tumble from its decks, but the ship itself looks unhurt.
“Cross!” Acaveda shouts at him, and Smith jerks hard to port, letting Acaveda’s ASV cut under him. She pounds two rockets into Chang’s starboard wing, punching sizable holes in it but not destabilizing it.
Smith still has his Disc on his tail, and is now starting to lose a rear engine. Jane is cursing as he tries to get a target. In the Lancer’s forward feed, I suddenly see the other pirate ship come up broadside. Fast.
“Smith!” I try.
“Sorry, Colonel,” he comes back, breathless. “I may need to break your ship…”
He fires his last missiles into the pirate’s gas hull, then dives almost directly into the resulting fireball. In his feed, I see fire and smoke and debris. From below, Rios shows me the dart-like Lancer pierce the side of the airship on full burn. Then in an instant, it bursts out the other side. Still flying.
Smith is laughing like a maniac. Jane is calling him some choice names.
The Disc went into the airship with him—too tight on his tail to anticipate what was coming—but did not come out. The airship begins to break up, collapse, and as it does a lazy spin it drops into the path of three of the little fighters. Rios watches them smash into their “mother” and fall in pieces.
Soto isn’t so lucky: The Disc on his ASV is avoiding Jeffer’s guns, and is clinging too close for ground fire to try to knock it off of him. I watch the starboard wing blow apart, watch one of the fuel tanks flame. Soto tries to keep the ship under control, but is losing it. Acaveda comes down on him, and Hanson manages to clip the Disc that’s killing him. But the drone chooses its fate and slams itself into Soto’s tail. The detonation blows away the entire aft section of the ship. The cockpit goes tumbling into the dunes.<
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Battery Three blows up before I can pay attention to anything else. MAI’s reconstruct flashes me a Disc taking a beating from Thomas’ ground fire and deciding to go down with a price.
Chang’s ship is starting to take hits from below, but isn’t limping yet. It pivots and sprays at Rios’ troopers, then concentrates fire on the ridge of plowed dirt that covers the tubeway from the base to the greenhouse. MAI’s alarms tell me the tubeway is holed, damaged. Chang is trying to keep more of our suits from sneaking up under him, or trying to cut off their retreat. Then he slides south and comes at us from a weaker flank, where we’re shorter on guns.
Metzger is hitting at him with the small AP turrets on Aircom, and Thomas is sending rockets, but Chang’s ship keeps weaving. It slides over the base to the east, and pounds the aircraft bays with charges—he must not know we’re out of ships anyway. The blast doors hold, but take a beating that may take them offline. Our rockets burst on his hull, shredding his ship by bits, but it still isn’t visibly suffering.
Acaveda is getting swarmed by the little fighters. They’re almost as hard to hit as the Discs. It’s like shooting into a swarm of mosquitoes. The big pirate ships are down, burning in the sand—I can see survivors running for cover. Overhead, the thick billowing smoke flattens into pseudo-thunderheads as it hits the atmosphere net.
Smith tries to get back to the fight, back to help Acaveda, but the Lancer isn’t turning well, and two engines have flamed out. This makes him and easy target for the swarm of fighters, and I watch the hull and wings get peppered. MAI flashes me more alarms.
“I’m empty!” Jane shouts, a mix of terror and rage as his turrets are spent.
“Acaveda, get clear!” Smith orders.
“Clear is where, Captain?” she spits back, her own systems beginning to quit.
“Up, out, don’t care,” Smith tells her. “Just not in the middle. Burn it.”
“Burning,” she tells him, blasting her engines and jerking up out of the swarm of fighters. Smith is bearing down into the middle of them. He’s charged his EMP gun.
“We’re done here,” he announces. “Last call…”
When the EMP blows, it swats a good handful of the incoming fighters out of control, tumbling dead into the dunes. Two more limp away, their controls apparently compromised. But Smith has lost the Lancer. The remaining fighters cost him his last engine and most of his starboard wing. He struggles to hold on, using his maneuvering jets as brakes, half gliding and half tumbling into the dunes.
“Hope I’ve gotten better with practice…” I hear him joke. Two seconds later, his hull is skidding through the dunes, throwing up waves of sand and gravel. It finally comes to a stop, mostly buried—only the tail is visible. His systems are all dead. No feed.
Acaveda banks and heads back for the base, trailing fighters like angry wasps. She’s hoping to bring them into range of our ground guns, and she comes low over Rios’ positions. The troopers manage to cut two off her tail. The swarm breaks up—I count eleven left in the air—and like the Discs, split forces to hit the ground troops and the remaining ASV.
Battery One goes offline. I’ve also got thirteen H-A suits reading as dead, and cold Links from seven of Tru’s civilian soldiers. Six more have been dragged back inside with various gunshot and shrapnel wounds. Ryder’s trauma team is already busy.
The remaining Disc is holding Thomas and her troopers at bay, adapting tactics to keep them from getting a decent shot, toying with them. More suits go dead. I want to tell her to fall back, get inside, but Chang is still flying, his ship’s guns picking off our remaining batteries.
Rios has nowhere to go, pinned down by Chang’s light fighters. His troopers can’t score them, the shifting wings riding the winds like fighting kites. MAI tells me ammo is running low. I’m hoping Chang’s ships run empty before we do. But if he can just send for more…
Rockets suddenly arc over the base from the ridgeline to the north, and Chang’s ship gets pounded. The Disc harassing Thomas gets blindsided by a hail of chain fire, and blows in midair before it can kamikaze anyone.
“What…” Tru gasps. I turn MAI’s eyes to the ridgeline.
I see armor and red cloaks—bulky shapes hunkered down in the rocks, adding their guns to ours.
“Nomads?” Kastl wants to know.
I try to get a better look. It isn’t Abbas sending reinforcements. I see what looks like a lot of heavy plate welded onto partial H-A and LA gear, even though their cloaks look like Nomad Mars camo. They carry UNMAC guns: ICWs, heavy chain guns, snipers, launchers. But I also see swords, spears, crossbows.
“UNMAC Base,” I hear a scratchy call on our Ops channel. “We’re here to help.”
“Can we call out?” I ask Kastl.
“Not yet. Only local boosted Link, the gear we retuned before we launched. No one else can hear us. Whatever’s jamming us must be in that last ship.”
“We understand you are being jammed,” the voice comes back. “If you don’t shoot at us, I’ll assume we’re welcome.”
The newcomers turn and concentrate fire on the light fighters. This gives Rios and Thomas enough breathing room to get back in the fight. Four of the flyers get shot apart. Another limps off missing a wing—it tips and uses its remaining wing overhead like a paraglider.
Chang sends his big ship after our mysterious rescuers, his guns hammering the ridge. Our ground fire isn’t hurting him. And Acaveda grimly lets us know she’s out of bullets.
But once Chang gets his ship in close over the newcomers, his hull gets slammed by big charges—they were trying to draw him in close. They manage to cripple one of his big props, but jets seem to compensate in keeping the cross ship airborne. And Chang isn’t running out of bullets. He cuts into the newcomers’ positions.
“Incoming!” Metzger announces urgently. “Two contacts. Bearing…”
Missiles arc over the base from the south and slam Chang’s ship. MAI zooms in on two incoming ASVs.
“Melas Two, this is Melas Three Flight,” I hear Jen Samuels on the Link. “Looks like you could use some help. Hope the quiet doesn’t mean we’re too late to this party…”
Chang turns at the incoming aircraft. Another missile slams the nose of his ship, and a second blows his port rotor clean off. The ship staggers, but stays up. The incoming ASVs split, making him choose which to pursue. Samuels’ gunner takes a few opportunistic shots at the dwindling swarm of fighters. One of the little flyers either sacrifices itself or gets in the way, and the ASV’s wing shears off its tail assembly. This also takes out whatever small engine it had, so it tumbles out of the sky. The ASV is not too much the worse for the collision.
“Samuels to Colonel Ava,” I can hear her report. “I’ve engaged one unknown bogie. It’s big, but it looks like we made it hurt. There are also a handful of little flapping-bird pocket fighters darting around. Bunkers look intact. Batteries are all down. Troops are on the ground, exchanging fire with the unknowns. I can see one ASV in the air, but she’s not firing—I think she’s empty. Still no contact on Link. There’s a lot of wreckage outside the perimeter—can’t tell what’s what.”
Whatever reply she gets is lost in static. The ASVs must have just slipped inside whatever jamming field Chang has dropped on us. Samuels figures it out and slides her ship in close over the Command Tower.
“Melas Two, this is Samuels. Can anybody hear me?”
“Loud and clear, Lieutenant,” I call out.
“Good to hear your voice, sir,” she confirms. “I assume we shot at the right target?”
“Affirmative. Remaining targets include those pocket fighters. We’ve got friendlies on the north ridge. Be alert for additional Discs.”
“Discs, sir?” she almost spits it out.
“The big ship you just shot at is their mom,” I tell her, “or claims to be. Take it down, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, sir!”
Chang is already trying to get back on the offensive. His big fans have failed
, but his ship is still up, either on jets or something else. The port wing is almost hanging off. The tail section is on fire and raining scrap. There’s another fire in the midsection. But he lets us know he still has guns. He turns his ship for Samuels. She dances on her jets to make a slippery target, but takes hits in her forward engines. I can see her nose dip as she starts to lose thrust. Her guns hit him back, but they just seem to chew metal. I think I see one of Chang’s turrets pop—it doesn’t fire anymore after that. She sends her remaining missiles into what looks like the cockpit or bridge of the thing. Her wingman comes in and slams it from the flank, aiming for the aft section, hoping to take out engines or fuel tanks. But it’s like blowing holes in a derelict—it makes a mess, but doesn’t seem to hurt anything critical.
“Pull back, Lieutenant,” I order. “See if it still has the juice to chase you.”
She turns tail and runs, her wingman paralleling her as she cuts westward. Chang’s ship limps, but starts moving after her.
Acaveda takes a hint from Samuels and burns into the remaining light fighters, playing a game of aerial “chicken.” She manages to slam another one out of the air.
Chang focuses his guns on Samuels, tearing up her tail section. She starts to flame out.
“Acaveda to Command. I’m no good out here, but I just got my best boneheaded idea ever…”
MAI flashes alarms a few seconds later as her ASV reads sudden fuel drains from her forward tanks. Then the atmosphere in her cargo module goes all wrong. Fuel lines to the module that feed backup lifters read as cut. The container is flooding with Hydrox mix.
“You have got to be kidding me…” I hear Metzger mutter. Acaveda turns and climbs, then dives down at Chang’s ship. He doesn’t fire on her—he may not have anything that can shoot at such a steep angle.
“Hope this works,” I hear Acaveda say to no one in particular. Then: “Merry Christmas, motherfucker!”
The God Mars Book Two: Lost Worlds Page 23