by Craig Allen
“Shit!” Sonja struggled with the controls as the hopper pitched around and then broke the surface.
“Everything all right?” Cody asked.
“Yeah.” Sonja stabilized the hopper just below the surface. “I overcompensated, trying not to crash.” The hopper broke the surface partially and rotated. “Did the torpedoes impact?”
“Not reading a detonation.” Sinclair’s hopper surfaced next to them. “What the hell was that, anyway?”
Near the shore was Francis. Watching three-meter power armor jump up and down like a little kid was odd, to say the least. The bodies of toads in broken power armor littered the landscape around him.
“Heads up!” he shouted as he pointed. “The torpedoes were destroyed midflight.”
“What?” Cody read the sensors. “There’s something displacing huge amounts of water.”
Sonja smiled and increased the hopper’s altitude until they were out of the water. Hundreds of meters off shore, the Kali vessel sank below the surface. Cody examined the cross section on lidar. The main engine struts hung uselessly with no sign of the actual engines. Upon zooming in, he saw the struts had been blackened and torn apart. Gravimetrics and electromagnetics showed the ship was dead.
“Looks like someone blew off her main drives,” Sinclair said. “I guess the cavalry does arrive just in time.”
Cody pointed gravimetrics, lidar, and every system he had skyward. A maze of ships filled the hopper’s HUD, many sitting in a low orbit, a dozen at least. Many of them had UEAF transponder signals. Others were Kali ships, which were not doing well, to Cody’s delight.
Some Kali vessels attempted to fight but were quickly grased or torpedoed out of the sky. Most fled, even as tacs bore down on them. A handful of ships were reduced to vapor while the rest vanished over the horizon.
Sinclair whistled over the comm. “Christ, I almost feel bad for the poor bastards.”
“Almost,” Cody said.
Behind him, Stripe and two other fliers had inserted their heads into the cockpit.
“It’s over,” Cody told them.
Their heads bounced up and down several times, after which Stripe produced a handheld viewer. It looked new, which meant they’d probably pulled it out of a storage locker.
Our home is still there and so we return for we wish to be home again to care for our young and live.
“Yes,” Cody said. “Don’t we all.”
Sonja increased their altitude and spun the hopper around. The island had a few extra craters from the pods that had landed, but it was otherwise intact. All that was left of the armored toads were bodies and debris.
Cody sent the message to the other hopper. “Lieutenant, what do you think?”
“Sounds good to me,” Sinclair said. “Let’s dump our cargo and contact the ships above.”
“Roger that.” Sonja brought the hopper in for a landing.
As the hopper maneuvered toward the island, Sinclair sent a signal to the fleet above. Cody gave the fliers a thumbs-up, one human gesture they understood, but they had already darted back into the hopper’s bay. They bounced up and down in pure joy.
Chapter Nineteen
On the island, Cody helped Francis lock the last strut in place then popped open a panel on the side of the G-1 turret. “Same as last, right?”
“Yep.” Francis closed up the case as it sat on a hover field, ready to be glided back into the waiting hopper. “You can just copy the targeting parameters from the other five turrets.”
“Will do,” Cody said as he did so. When the indicator light went green, he stepped back. “Looks like we’re live.”
Francis inspected the setup then closed the panel. The turret angled the G-1 upward. With luck, they wouldn’t need it again but better safe than sorry.
“All in a day’s work, huh?”
“Yeah.” For Cody, a day’s work didn’t include getting attacked by aliens.
Above, the fliers circled the island in wide arcs, which they’d been doing for an hour. Stripe had been leading them in a sort of formation, venturing a few kilometers away then returning. Most didn’t go farther than that, but Cody was sure one or two would go on recon, which for the fliers, could be a thousand kilometers or more.
Cody couldn’t find Sonja. She was probably aboard one of the hoppers. Three more had landed with more turrets, additional camo-nets, and so on.
Five men in envirosuits emerged from the cave. They had been strengthening the tunnels with supports and a material that, once sprayed on the rock walls, would harden them to a point they could withstand shockwaves from an earthquake, such as those caused by a nuclear blast.
Cody let out a deep sigh as he watched the fliers circle the island. He hadn’t the heart to tell them what might still happen to their world. He didn’t want to imagine what would happen to them if the UET or the Spicans decided a final solution was for the best.
Sonja emerged from one of the hoppers. When she saw Cody, she waved, and he waved back.
Francis snorted. “Go see her, Doc.”
Cody patted Francis on the shoulder and headed down the slope, passing the rotten-meat fields. He stopped at the foot of the hopper’s ramp by Sonja. He was desperate for a PDA, but both the suit and regulations made that unlikely.
“How you doing?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Strange what you can get used to.”
“Yeah.” She clasped her hands in front of herself. “I’m supposed to be at Bernard’s Star this time next week.”
Cody pursed his lips for a moment. “They got you in fast, didn’t they?”
“Yeah.” Sonja switched over to a private channel. “When I get out, what if I’m not stationed here?”
Cody didn’t want to answer. He had agreed to act as an ambassador to the fliers. He couldn’t just walk away from that. “I thought we covered this.”
“We did. It’s just…” Her eyes watered. “I need you to be there for me.”
He wanted that, too, but she’d be gone for a while, and if she were stationed elsewhere, that probably meant they were through. That was the last thing he wanted.
“I want to be there with you, Sonja. Why can’t you see that?”
She sniffled then switched back to the main channel before Cody could say more. “We’re going to depart soon, but I’m not sure which ship we’re going to.”
“The Tokugawa.” Sinclair approached, carrying a belt of coil rounds. “Just got the word. The admiral of that fleet up there wants to talk to the two of you personally.” He chuckled. “Better you than me.”
“That’s a warship, isn’t it?” Cody asked.
“Yep. Same design as the Washington. We’re leaving in five mikes.” Sinclair pointed at Sonja. “Gunny, you can handle that thing pretty well, but you are not authorized to fly a hopper. So you two will be flying with me.”
“Yes, sir,” Sonja said.
“And Francis?” Cody asked.
Sinclair pointed at the four power-armor suits sitting in their portable docking bays. “He volunteered to stay down here to defend this island.” He snickered. “You know, those fliers are hard on the eyes, but they grow on you.”
“Yeah.” Cody watched a few fliers land. “They do.”
~~~
The atmosphere vanished behind them, and the hopper modified its shape and engine orientation for space flight. They accelerated toward the bulk of the fleet, which sat half a million kilometers from the planet.
Cody broke the silence that had been maintained since they left the surface. “Hope we’re done.”
“Yeah.” Sonja grinned. “I like the fliers, but the planet can go to hell.”
“I think it already is hell,” Cody said. “I mean, we haven’t seen any signs of them since the fleet arrived but for how long? What if they have more ships or… or something else?”
“War’s not clear-cut.” Sonja took his hand. “For the most part, it’s dealing with one surprise after another.”
“T
hat’s what I’m afraid of,” Cody said. “What’s the next surprise they have for us?”
At full burn, they didn’t take long to reach the fleet. Cody pulled up the exterior view on the flat viewer in the hopper’s bay. A large ship similar to the Washington appeared.
Cody zoomed in on it. “That’s the Tokugawa?”
“No, it’s not.” Sonja reached for the globe and adjusted the view. “That’s the Joan of Arc. And look here.” She focused on a ship farther to port. “That’s the Hannibal over there.”
“How many warships are there in the fleet?” Cody asked.
“Twelve. Well, eleven.” Sonja’s expression drooped, but she recovered and continued, “There used to be thirty, but the war changed that. And it looks like we have three of them here.”
Sonja panned farther toward the port side of the hopper. Dozens of more ships appeared. A particularly large one appeared, one larger than the Washington had been. “Which one is that?”
“That’s the Berlin. She’s a carrier, probably loaded with hoppers.” Sonja frowned. “There’s a lot of cruisers out there. The Odin, the Shiva… a bunch of others.”
“That’s the Churchill,” Cody said. “She’s a battleship. Not as big as a warship, but I wouldn’t want to get in her way. There are others like her out there.”
“Some destroyers, too.” Sonja zoomed in on two of them. “The Texas and the Olympus Mons and a bunch more.” She leaned away from the flat viewer. “A fleet like this has only one purpose.”
“War.” Cody leaned back. “Think the UET council is plain sick of this place?”
“Could be,” Sonja said. “They did violate the terms of the agreement, though. And in a big way, that got a lot of people killed.”
Cody hoped they’d at least have the opportunity to evacuate the fliers. What to do with them would still be a problem. He just hoped the UET didn’t decide to forget the fliers altogether. He’d raise hell for the rest of his days if they did that.
“Approaching Tokugawa,” Sinclair said. “We’ll be docking before long.” He whistled. “Sure is crowded out here.”
Cody took one last look at the external view before swiping it off. “It is.”
~~~
The interior of the Tokugawa was virtually the same as the Washington’s. A group of officers escorted Cody and Sonja down a main passageway full of people, all of whom stepped aside to avoid their little procession. Sonja kept her eyes forward. Meeting the admiral could be good or bad—no way to tell. Maybe he just wanted to debrief them personally, as Rodriguez had done when they’d first been rescued from Kali.
After a few moments, they went down a side passage that ended in doors that opened automatically. Beyond was a room with a long table. Cody couldn’t decide if it was a conference room or a dining hall.
“The admiral will be with you shortly,” one of the officers said.
“Thank you, sir,” Sonja said, though the officer had already departed.
The doors hissed closed behind them, and they were alone in the conference room. A plaque on one wall read Tokugawa, with smaller lettering detailing the date of construction, which was sometime during the war. No windows or decorations were on the walls. The lighting was just enough to illuminate the table and the plaque.
Cody was about to ask how long they would have to wait when a door opened on the other side of the room. Two men walked in, both wearing officers’ uniforms. The shorter, brown-haired one had the rank of an ensign while the other had enough insignia to make him the admiral. The lankier one had short-cropped blond hair and a young, almost boyish appearance, but his gait and his expression told Cody he was much older, which had to be the case if he was an admiral. He strode straight toward them while the ensign stood near the far end of the table.
Sonja snapped to attention. “Sir.”
“At ease.” The admiral’s voice had a singsong quality to it. “I’m Admiral Jericho. Welcome aboard.”
Sonja went to parade rest. “Thank you, sir.”
“Thank you,” Cody echoed.
Admiral Jericho had a slight smile on his face. What lines the man had were born of experience. Rejuv would have corrected any age lines.
“Well,” Jericho said, “for starters, we secured that exotic matter you extracted. All one point eight kilograms of it. My engineers can’t believe you had that with you the whole time.”
“It seemed well shielded, sir,” Sonja said.
“Obviously, or it would’ve destroyed the hopper. And you.” He tapped his fingers on the table. “I think they find the technology encasing the ex-mat more interesting than the ex-mat itself.”
“I’m curious about it myself, Admiral,” Cody said. “I hope there were no casualties during our rescue. The toads seemed to have a lot of ships.”
Jericho gave a smile, as if to a child. “We are fine, thank you for asking. We had the advantage of numbers and surprise. Our casualties were very light. We even found one of those creatures, those toads, floating in space. We’re doing an autopsy right now.”
Cody nodded, afraid to bring up what he was thinking. “I’m assuming a fleet is here because the United Earth Treaty Council is perturbed.”
“That is a good assumption.” Jericho gestured toward the chairs. “Please sit.” As Sonja and Cody both sat, he took a seat himself a few seats away. “This is Ensign Greer.”
The ensign was stockier than the admiral, and he seemed graver, as if taking the deposition of doomed men. He sat without acknowledging either Cody or Sonja.
“He’ll be documenting our conversation.” Jericho straightened his uniform and crossed his legs. “The Washington squawked a message to Camp Murray after they received your message from the globular cluster. They made another transmission after that, which was garbled. However, we did receive all of your data regarding this… unusual star.”
“Have you found any survivors, Admiral?” Cody asked.
“We have hoppers scouring the planet now. So far, all we’ve found is the body of one of the planet’s locals floating in space. But if anyone survived the Washington, we’ll find them. You have my sympathies regarding the Washington and her crew, by the way. And Sergeant Lance Bodin.”
“Thank you, Admiral. They were good people.” That was an understatement, but Cody couldn’t phrase it better. He didn’t have the words.
“Indeed.” Jericho steepled his fingers. “Losing that many hands at once hasn’t happened since the war. Obviously, everyone wants answers.”
“As do we, sir,” Sonja said.
“Good.” Jericho took a deep breath. “I need to hear what happened in the cluster and what happened after. More importantly, I need to know what happened after the Washington was destroyed.”
Cody resisted the urge to smile, which didn’t seem appropriate in front of an admiral. That was the same thing Admiral Rodriguez had asked of him, Sonja, and Bodin after they had been rescued two months prior.
Cody and Sonja both traded off as they explained their side of things. Cody let Sonja talk about how Bodin died. He couldn’t bring himself to talk about it, still wondering how he could have done things differently. When Sonja choked up, though, he took over. He wasn’t the only one who had trouble processing the loss of life. He couldn’t imagine how soldiers during the war had managed to function like normal people after so much death, after losing so many friends.
After that, he talked about the toads and what they had done, how the Washington died, and how they had stayed with the fliers. He tried to frame the fliers in as positive a light as he could without gushing. Maybe, just maybe, he could buy the fliers time before extreme measures were taken. He couldn’t tell from Jericho’s face if he had succeeded or not.
Jericho waited for them to finish before speaking. “Did you suspect at all that Private Ann Salyard would be a threat to the Washington?”
“No, sir.” Sonja gripped the sides of her pants with her fingers though Cody doubted Jericho would have seen it. “If we had, we
would have left her on the planet.”
“Ann was a friend, sir, but the creature we brought back wasn’t really Ann.” Cody frowned. “That probably doesn’t make sense, Admiral. I just know the real Ann would never have done what she did.”
Jericho stared at Cody for a moment, as if gauging his reaction or not believing Cody.
Finally, Jericho spoke. “There’s something you should see.”
At a nod from Jericho, the ensign activated holocontrols on the table. An image materialized in the center of the table, covering the table’s width. Several fusion bottles were in the background, along with the main ex-mat chamber in the center of engineering. People were frozen midrun within the image. Near the edge, a red light blazed.
A second later, the people flew into action as the visual began. Klaxons blared as Admiral Rodriguez’s voice warned of an intruder in engineering. A crack echoed through the compartment, the sound of coilgun fire, and people took shelter.
“Brace yourself.” Admiral Jericho spoke to Cody directly.
A figure emerged, whom Cody recognized even before she turned around. Watching a coil round pierce Ann’s midsection made him recoil. The shot should’ve disabled her there, but instead she hurled something toward the nearest fusion bottle.
“Grenade!”
Cody had no idea who had said it. Two people darted toward the grenade, as if they could somehow keep it from exploding. The rest ran, as if there was somewhere to go.
The image froze as the grenade detonated, just before the two people near it were vaporized and before the explosion pierced the magnetic bottle of the closest fusion-containment chamber. Cody recalled what had happened next. He and Sonja, Hayes—and Bodin—had witnessed it from space. The explosion breached the bottle and fused the hydrogen inside, causing an explosion that disabled the Washington.
Jericho tilted his head toward the viewing globe. “On the contrary, Doctor. I concur with your conclusion. Nothing in Private Salyard’s psych eval indicates suicidal or traitorous behavior. So either she had a sudden change of heart, or…”