“Sierra-Two, Alpha-One—lift off. I’m going with Papa-Five.”
Without even waiting for Lahko’s response, she crouched down by Wei’s body, tore off his helmet, tore off her own, and slammed his down on her head.
“All units, Sierra-Five,” she said over Fifth Platoon’s unique circuit. “Withdraw! Withdraw!”
She grabbed Wei by the shoulders and dragged him up the ramp. Troopers came running and helped her lift his body in.
Ignoring the startled expressions, she surveyed the rapidly filling aft compartment. She noticed one of the sergeants and grabbed his arm. “Wei’s dead. I’m Lieutenant Emmes, taking command. Tell me when everyone’s on board.”
To his credit, the sergeant accepted her words with little more than a moment’s pause. “Yes, ma’am.”
She reached the cockpit and strapped in. Through the windows she saw Lahko’s drop ship lift off.
Both platoon sergeants came forward and took their seats on either side of her. The one she’d spoken to reported, “Fifth Platoon aboard. All personnel, plus four supers.”
As the drop ship pushed up into the sky, she looked over at the sergeant. “Four supernumeraries?”
He nodded. “Chang, Sakiyama, Alayan, Cohen. Are they with us?”
She smiled. “They’re with me.”
Her smile hardened to a grimace as the drop ship jinked right. Her stomach hit her throat and she bit down hard as the ship rolled left and dove. Through the windows she saw a not-too-distant explosion.
“We’re under fire!” one of the pilots said.
Another explosion shook her seat. Shockwave only.
“Drop Command,” she said over the comms. “This is Papa-Five, airborne. We are under fire.”
“Drop Command, roger.” The voice at the other end of the radio was no longer calm. Katja went cold. The orbital battle must not have been going well.
One pilot was shouting instructions. Both struggled with their controls. Through the windows, Katja could see a forest of explosions in the air all around them. Anti-aircraft flak. Primitive, but damned effective. Fill the sky with explosions and sooner or later your target flies into one of them.
“All units, Alpha-One,” she said on the platoon freq. “We are withdrawing under heavy ground fire. Normandy is under attack. Stand by for a rough ride.”
It was hard to tell if they were climbing. The drop ship was jinking left and right, and seemed to be diving under explosions a lot. Shockwaves rocked them every few seconds.
A deafening crack assaulted her ears as her seat slammed up into her body. She grunted and shut her eyes at the pain. Her head swam as she was thrown to the left.
She dimly heard one of the pilots screaming.
“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Papa-Five hit! We’re going down! We’re going down!”
She was jolted suddenly, and felt her mind clear. She looked back over her shoulder and saw a huge buckle in the port-side hull. The sergeant next to her was slumped back in his seat. Both pilots were fighting their controls. Through the window, she could see the familiar, hated red of the Cerberan surface getting closer and closer.
“All units,” she shouted into the comms. “Stand by for emergency landing in hostile territory!”
All the troopers were by design facing aft in their seats—easier for rapid exit and safer for crash landings. She and her sergeants were facing forward to maintain command appraisal.
The ground was getting close. She reached down and activated the emergency switch on her seat. It swiveled to face aft and locked into place. The sergeant to starboard did the same.
Drop Command freq. “Drop Command, Papa-Five. We’re going down! Request immediate retrieval!”
“Drop Command, roger.”
Her back was turned to the pilots, but she could hear them shouting.
“Oh my God! Oh my God!”
“Climb, you bitch!”
She leaned back in her chair and grabbed the armrests.
Platoon freq. “All units! Brace for shock!”
The first hit was a glancing blow, and they were airborne again. A second later her seat slammed into her back so hard she saw stars. Her ears filled with a roar. An unseen force pulled her slowly but inexorably starboard. The deck shuddered.
She couldn’t say exactly when the drop ship became still. But suddenly she realized that it was.
Katja forced herself to unbuckle and stand. Her legs wobbled but held. To her left, the sergeant was slowly rising. To her right, the forward-facing body hung lifelessly in its straps. She leaned on her seat and looked forward. Both pilots were slumped over their consoles under the cracked windows.
She turned to the surviving sergeant. He was the one to whom she had spoken earlier. “What’s your name, Sergeant?”
“Rao, ma’am.”
“Sergeant Rao, we’re deep in hostile territory. Get the troops ready to defend our position. Check on the ship’s turrets. Sergeant Chang can assist you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She leaned over the unmoving sergeant as Rao struggled to slide open the door to the main cabin. She vaguely heard him barking orders as she checked the casualty. It didn’t take long to figure out that this sergeant was dead, probably from the flak impact. With a stony heart she examined the pilots as well. They had both died ensuring that their passengers would live. Katja quickly checked their tags and typed their names into her forearm display.
Like Alpha Team over Laika, they would not be forgotten.
The flight consoles had buckled from the impact. The entire drop ship was listing to port. Through the windows, she could see that they were in a field in a narrow valley. She tried the comms. There was no response from Drop Command.
She clambered through the tilted cockpit and into the main cabin. The rear door was already lowered, she saw, and troopers were busy gathering up all the emergency gear.
Chang approached her. “Ma’am, all four turrets are operational and manned. Two heavy fire teams are taking covered positions forward and aft of the ship. Two dead, including Sublieutenant Wei. Three walking wounded. No joy comms with Drop Command.”
She jerked her thumb back toward the cockpit. “No comms with the ship systems either. The jamming must be in place again. Three dead up front. This ship can’t fly.”
No expression clouded his olive features. “Recommend you assess the terrain, ma’am.”
She nodded. Together they descended the aft ramp and stepped onto Cerberan soil. Once again she breathed in the harsh, hot air with its odd, metallic tang.
The drop ship had crashed in a long river valley with flat farmland stretching several kilometers either side of the slow-moving waterway. Steep hills rose up in the distance, with terraced farms cutting long steps right to the top. At a glance, Katja guessed that at least a thousand people had seen them land.
An ugly trench ploughed back from the ship, curving slightly away to the right for hundreds of meters through fields of some kind of grain crop. Scraps of metal and twisted polymers littered the trench. A group of troopers were hunkering down in the ditch fifty meters away, taking advantage of the only cover available.
She walked around to the front of the ship, noting the manned turrets above her as she did, and briefly inspected the half-buried nose and the shattered port-side hull just aft of the cockpit. Not that it mattered—the drop ship was wreckage now.
Ahead in the distance, she saw the other group of troopers spreading out in a defensive line in the waist-high grain. With no cover to speak of, they were scattering to minimize the possibility of mass casualties. One trooper was jogging through the field toward her. Beyond, she could see some kind of settlement, about half a kilometer distant.
The approaching trooper revealed himself as Sergeant Rao. He was breathing heavily but seemed otherwise unaffected by his run in full armor.
“Defensive positions in place, ma’am,” he reported. “But we’re sitting ducks if there’s an air attack.”
She no
dded, feeling very exposed.
“There’s at least another five hours until dusk,” she said. “Anywhere we go right now will be seen by all these civilians. But we can’t stay here.”
“There’s more cover in the hills,” Chang offered.
Katja pursed her lips as she looked up and down the valley. She was loath to abandon the drop ship, with its technology and the dead inside. She also appreciated the four turrets, which represented the only really heavy firepower the platoon had available. But Rao was right.
They were sitting ducks.
“The turret cannons are easy to remove,” she said, thinking out loud. “I’ve seen it done for maintenance. Chang, check to see if it’s viable for us to carry the guns with us, and enough ammo to make them useful.
“Rao,” she said, turning, “see if you can booby-trap the drop ship. First, blow up the flight consoles. Then put the dead in the cockpit and trap the door. Once we’ve taken everything we need out of the ship, trap every entrance to the main cabin.”
The sergeants moved off without question.
Standing alone amidst the alien grain, partly shielded from the blinding light by the wreckage of her drop ship, Katja felt the familiar feeling of uncertainty well up in her gut. Two hours ago she had been safely aboard Normandy. Now she was commanding a platoon of strangers in the middle of a hostile nation. Was it really best to leave this position? Where would they go? How would the EF find them?
She forced down the uncertainty with a cold slam. There was no time for doubt. Tactically, they had to move or they’d wind up dead or captured. And she knew well what Cerberans did to their prisoners. A quick image of Jack Mallory’s face was all the motivation she needed.
35
Thomas instinctively shielded his eyes as explosions blossomed at close range. The projection of space outside the ship was so realistic against Normandy’s bridge that he might as well have been looking at the actual battle itself.
Normandy’s point defense cannons blazed to life again. Another pair of incoming missiles exploded.
Thomas forced his eyes down to his display, and to the battle he was supposed to be directing. At least twelve hostiles had popped up out of nowhere amidst the orbital traffic. The destroyer Baghdad had taken the brunt of the initial attack, and was still struggling to clear to deep space. The cruiser King Alfred had plunged into the battle at point blank range, scattering the Cerberan gunboats.
The lone battleship Jutland was still twenty thousand kilometers distant, and not in a position to engage. Artemis had scrambled her star fighters. The other two cruisers, Admiral Nelson and Admiral Halsey, were providing close support to the three invasion ships.
His display flashed with new, red symbols. The Centauri frigates had fired another volley from their positions over the Cerberan pole. At that distance none of the EF’s weapons could reach them.
“Halsey, this is Echo-Victor,” he said on the AVW circuit. “Break from close support and take hostiles one-zero to one-two!” It was a risk, stripping the main body of one of its two escorts. But the Centauri weapons were just too dangerous to ignore.
Acknowledging his signal, Halsey broke formation and accelerated to flank speed, firing missiles as soon as she was in range. The Centauri frigates turned and disappeared over the Cerberan horizon.
Predictably, several Cerberan gunboats made a charge for the opening in the EF’s defensive wall. Nelson opened fire, but the little boats were hard to hit.
“Drop Command,” he heard Chandler saying from his position nearby, “what’s the ground situation?”
The ground battle was being directed from the separate command center known as Drop Command, located in a chamber abaft the bridge. Thomas heard the harried reply.
“Still no comms. Assess ground forces under fire. We are launching the backup platoon and a spare drop ship for retrieval.”
“Roger,” Chandler replied. “We’re pulling back for high orbit.”
On one speaker, Thomas could hear the repeated hails from Drop Command as they tried to connect with the troops on the ground. The raid had been progressing well until comms went silent. Moments later Cerberan aircraft had attacked the strike fighters in atmo and the orbital battle had exploded into existence.
On the large 3-D display that formed the centerpiece of the command station, Thomas noted the position of the EF’s assets. Six individual stations like his wrapped around the base of the display. Commodore Chandler sat in the seventh seat, raised higher than the others to give him the overall perspective.
Normandy had put a hundred thousand kilometers between herself and Cerberus. She was likely out of range of any planetary weapons, but she was more vulnerable to stealth attack. Not that stealth was Thomas’s concern. The EF had other specialists to deal with that threat. His job was to coordinate anti-vessel warfare. For now his life revolved around a pack of Cerberan gunboats and the three Centauri frigates which had turned this entire raid into a debacle.
The gunboats were a nuisance, but they were only dangerous if they came really close. King Alfred was still in low orbit trying to hunt them down one by one.
“Alfred, this is Echo-Victor. Break off your pursuit and take station as main body close support.”
Thomas watched the 3-D display as the blue symbols of missiles sped away from King Alfred and impacted with the red hostile of a gunboat. The hostile symbol flashed for several seconds, then disappeared. The cruiser then rose swiftly to move deeper into space. Her weapons engaged the gunboats still trying to get past Nelson.
Another hail went out from Drop Command. Thomas’s ears pricked as he heard a scratchy, familiar female voice respond.
“This is Papa-Two. We are under heavy fire from Alpha-Papa-Romeos! Our drop ship is broken—request immediate fire support and pickup!”
Katja? Where was the platoon leader, Scott Lahko? Thomas listened as Drop Command gave a quick sitrep and she responded.
“This is Papa-Two, roger. We will hold position and await retrieval.”
Flashes to the left caught his eye, and he watched as a gunboat raced past Normandy at visual range, guns blazing. Bigger tracers chased it as Nelson rolled in to attack. The gunboat took several hits and broke apart.
Admiral Halsey had almost disappeared over the horizon in pursuit of the Centauri frigates. Thomas didn’t want to lose them, but he didn’t want to stretch his forces, either.
“Halsey, this is Echo-Victor,” he said. “Do you still hold hostiles one-zero to one-two?”
“This is Halsey, negative. They’ve gone low and silent and are mixing in with orbital traffic. I am dropping to archons one-zero-zero to sweep.” The cruiser was dropping nearly into the atmosphere to continue the hunt. Thomas knew a thing about going low into atmo during a battle.
“This is Echo-Victor. Negative. Break engage and return to main body close support.” A long pause preceded the sullen acknowledgement. Halsey turned and began to climb.
The battleship Jutland was nearly in range, Thomas noted. With the EF’s massed firepower they’d be able to close Cerberus again and recover the troopers. The drop ships would be vulnerable crossing a hundred thousand kilometers of open space. The troopers were already in the air, so he vectored a squadron of star fighters to guard the extraction corridor over the strike target.
“This is Papa-Two,” he heard, “atmo free and climbing.”
That sounded like Lahko. So at least Katja and her strike team were clear. He felt himself relax slightly. The last of the gunboats were running for cover and there was no sign of returning Centauri frigates.
“Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Papa-Five hit! We’re going down! We’re going down!”
The panicked call got everyone’s attention. Thomas quickly scanned his display. Had the gunboats attacked the second drop ship? Katja and the first drop ship were safely clear and under fighter escort, but the second drop ship had never even cleared atmo.
A new voice crackled over the radio from the doomed drop shi
p.
“Drop Command, Papa-Five! We’re going down! Request immediate retrieval!”
Thomas’s eyes snapped to the console. He knew that voice only too well. What was she doing on the wrong ship? He looked up at Chandler. The commodore was grim, though apparently unmoved by Katja’s final call.
“Sir,” he said, “the extraction corridor is clear. Recommend we move in for a full bombardment while we retrieve Fifth Platoon.”
From across the console, the operations officer stabbed a finger at Thomas. “That’s not your call, Lieutenant. Keep your eye on those gunboats and those frigates!”
Chandler didn’t look at him, or acknowledge the exchange.
“Fleet, Drop Command,” a strong female voice said, “request full cover for a retrieval of Papa-Five.”
Chandler keyed his circuit. “Negative, Drop Command.”
“Fleet, Drop Command, we assess that the drop ship landed and that there may be survivors.”
“Orbital defenses are too strong to risk another closure. Request denied.”
Thomas squeezed his console and bit his lip. There were troopers on the ground! With a full force of fighting ships to provide cover, what threat could possibly be too much?
Over his shoulder he could still see the red disk of Cerberus, clear among the stars. A small cluster of blue symbols was visible along almost the same bearing—the lone surviving drop ship and its star fighter escort.
A Corps officer suddenly appeared at Thomas’s side. He glanced up and recognized her as Commander Vici, commander of the Saracens and thus of both platoons that had dropped. Her sharp features were taut and her eyes burned past Thomas toward his boss.
“Commodore, Drop Command,” she declared loudly.
Everyone around the command console looked up in surprise. Usually communications between the two command centers were over the circuit.
Chandler looked up from his discussion with the ASW controller. His expression was cold. “Yes, Drop Command?”
Virtues of War Page 27