“A number of vessels have appeared around the asteroid’s edges,” said Browning. “They must have launched from the opposite side.”
Metis’ irregular horizon came into view as Ritter kept pace with the retreating shuttle’s acceleration. The unimaginably huge rocket engines blazed at the lumpy oval’s center. He suppressed thoughts of Zane’s final moments and scanned the asteroid’s perimeter. His screen lit up with contacts. There are hundreds of them!
Through filters that dimmed the furious engines’ glare, Ritter saw rigid constellations of smaller rockets spreading out from Metis. Each point of light marked a shuttle larger than the vessel he guarded. The whole armada formed up on either side of the asteroid, matching its speed as it advanced on a bright blue ball in the distance. Two shuttles broke off from the rest and raced ahead.
“Two Soc shuttles are heading for Earth,” Ritter radioed to the King of Hearts. “Based on their weight, each one’s carrying six CFs. We have to go back and help the EGE!”
“They’re all heading for Earth,” said Browning, “and so is Metis. The shuttles will most likely hold position in Earth’s orbit until after impact; then deploy combat frames to finish off the survivors. Earth is the last place we want to go.”
“Seconded,” said Max. “I’m flying to L1 if I have to hijack this bird to get there. Megami has Wen, and the space bitch won’t be happy when she hears what we pulled.”
Sieg’s there too. The memory of popping up from a hole in the desert and mowing down the thugs who’d meant to whack Zane surged to the front of Ritter’s mind. Nuclear fire whited out the image. I bet you’d do anything to make up for that mistake, he remembered Sieg saying in what felt like a past life.
“Contact the EGE and warn them about what’s coming,” ordered Ritter. “Set course for Byzantium colony.”
“Not to question your decision,” said Browning, “but Byzantium is no less a death trap than Earth. There’s a small fueling station near the edge of L1 operated by a former ZoDiaC associate. He can arrange transport to L3 for anyone who’d rather not take part in a suicide mission.”
The shuttle’s cargo door opened, and Ritter guided the XSeed inside. “I’ve taken suicide missions before. Change course to stop at the fueling station. Browning and his team will debark there with Dorothy. Young, Thompson, Phillips, Green, and Roth will escort them. Captain Darving and I will continue on to Byzantium.”
“Corporal,” said Young, “I suggest you send two of us with the civilians while the rest of the squad accompanies you to the operation zone.”
“No offense,” said Ritter, “but you guys will be easy targets without combat frames. Keep an eye on Dorothy and Browning till the heat dies down.”
“Are you sure about this, kid?” Max radioed to Ritter on a private channel.
Ritter closed the cargo door and lined the XSeed up against the wall beside Max’s Grento. “Absolutely,” Ritter said. “I have a mistake to make up for.”
36
Naryal gathered her black mane in one fist and clutched it tight in the helicopter’s rotor wash. Her green pilot’s jumpsuit rippled but stayed mostly in place. The same couldn’t be said for the dark blue business suit worn by Mr. Huang, the Kisangani Spaceport’s manager. His jacket flaps spread out and fluttered like the wings of a nervous bird. The left flap brushed against Naryal’s hip.
The helo landed in the shadow of the last shuttle’s launch tower. Four men in EGE combat uniforms debarked as Major Collins looked down from the aircraft’s upper canopy. Two soldiers carried a metal box the size of a mini fridge. They stepped clear of the whirring rotors and carefully set their burden down on the sun-bleached concrete.
One soldier strode directly up to Naryal. His light blue eyes held her gaze without blinking, and his neat white beard framed a mouth as thin and straight as a razor.
“Colonel Larson,” she shouted over the rotors’ whine, “I’m surprised General McCaskey chose you.”
“I can turn around and fly back to the fleet if that’s a problem,” Larson said.
“No problem.” Naryal motioned to the slight, middle-aged man beside her. “This is Francis Huang, manager of Kisangani Spaceport. He’s agreed to supply a shuttle for the operation.”
Larson looked down at Huang. “Does this Soc know who he’s getting in bed with?”
“I know there is a two hundred-kilometer asteroid on a collision course with Earth,” said Huang. “I also know that only the EGE have both the means and the inclination to avert this catastrophe. Now, Colonel, since I will be executed if the current Secretary-General remains in office, I’ll thank you to refrain from using such crude slurs.”
“This son of a bitch is alright,” Larson said. He turned to Collins, gave a thumbs up, and pointed to the eastern sky. The helo lifted off and departed in the indicated direction.
“You brought the package?” asked Naryal.
Larson glanced over his shoulder at the sturdy metal box. “If by ‘package’ you mean a two megaton nuclear bomb, then yeah. Special delivery, courtesy of our friend Carlos.”
“To think that civilization on Earth decayed to the point that a common arms dealer could possess such a weapon,” said Huang.
“If I’d had confirmation before now,” said Larson, “I’d probably have had him killed.”
Huang smoothed his coat. “All the more unfortunate that Governor Troy went rogue. He has an arsenal of nuclear ICBM’s at New Ramstein.”
“And you can bet Megami’s got a cutting edge missile defense system,” Larson said. “A manned flight is our only shot.”
“Will two megatons suffice to destroy Metis?” asked Naryal.
“No,” said Larson. “That’s why my team and I will need to fly inside the rock, close enough for the blast to set off the main reactor. When that sucker goes, it’ll break Metis into fragments that should burn up in the atmosphere.” He stepped in front of Huang. “That’s what I brought for show and tell. You got my shuttle?”
Huang pointed up at the antiquated white and black spacecraft affixed to a cluster of solid rocket engines on the launch pad above them. “The Secretary-General ordered most of our equipment transferred to Metis. She left us only two shuttles. Corporal Ritter’s team took one yesterday. I’m entrusting you with the last.”
“I have difficulty believing Megami would make so large an oversight,” said Naryal. “Why not take all the shuttles—or at least destroy those left behind?”
“Leaving the Coalition’s biggest spaceport with no working shuttles would’ve tipped her hand,” said Larson. “Leaving two gets everybody in a huff over the inconvenience instead of up in arms over a betrayal. And she probably figures two shuttles are easy enough to shoot down.”
The color drained from Huang’s square face. “Does the Secretary-General really consider her own people living on Earth the enemy?”
“She considers the whole human race her enemy, pal.” Larson gestured to the three soldiers guarding the box. “Get that nuke loaded on Huang’s shuttle. And be gentle. It’s his last one.”
“On final approach to Byzantium colony,” NORMA announced over Ritter’s comm.
“How many CFs between us and the colony?” Max inquired from the Grento standing beside the XSeed in the shuttle’s cargo hold.
“No combat frames, fighters, battleships, or craft of any kind detected,” NORMA said.
Ritter patched Prometheus into NORMA’s sensor feed. His screens showed only the thirty kilometer-long cylinder and its three hinged mirrors rotating slowly in space. “Maybe they don’t know we’re coming.”
“And maybe I’m the Supreme Patriarch,” scoffed Max. “If the Kaks didn’t report our little escapade at Metis, chances are they flipped Browning and company five minutes after we dropped them off at that fuel depot.”
“Dr. Browning wouldn’t snitch on us,” Ritter said. “Would he?”
“Browning looks out for Browning, kid,” said Max. “If not for him, Wen would be safe back
on Earth, and so would we.”
“Could they be hiding inside the colony?”
“It’s the perfect place for an ambush,” said Max, “but I don’t know. Looks pretty quiet in there.”
Ritter aimed NORMA’s main camera at one of the colony’s window strips and zoomed in. No traffic moved on the roadways crisscrossing the green fields inside. He saw no combat frames and no signs of life at all. “Isn’t Megami supposed to be meeting with diplomats from L3?”
Max snorted. “Megami’s concept of diplomacy is getting their unconditional surrender at gunpoint and shooting them anyway. I wouldn’t put it past her to murder the whole damn colony just to spite us.”
“Do you think Li Wen is…?” Ritter fumbled for the right combination of clarity and tact.
Max tightened his Grento’s grip on its machine gun. “I’ll never know unless I go in and see for myself. And I have to know.”
Ritter thought back to the Coalition’s invasion of his hometown. Seeing friends and loved ones gunned down had been a nightmare. Having some of them simply disappear had been hell. I’ll find you when this is over, Zane. No marker without a grave for you. Of all the Socs, you deserve a resting place on Earth.
“I understand,” Ritter told Max. He checked the XSeed’s empty capacitor and his rifle’s full mag and racked the hefty weapon inside his shield. “We’ll go in together. Stay right behind me, and they won’t see us coming.”
A golden flash lit Ritter’s screen. The cargo hold filled with fire. Alarms blared as chaotic forces clawed at Ritter. Only his safety harness kept him from being flung around the cockpit.
The shaking stopped. Prometheus’s readout showed no significant damage to the XSeed, but the shuttle’s glowing wreckage spun through a spreading particulate cloud.
“Max,” Ritter shouted over the comm. “Max, come in!”
“I’m here,” said a strained voice. “Good call telling me to fall in behind Prometheus. That mechanical monster absorbed most of the blast.”
Ritter pulled up his rearview camera feed. Max’s Grento—or most of it—floated amid the debris. The green CF’s grilled dome had been blown off, leaving a squat cylinder like a black halo above its headless shoulders. Only a couple of sparking cables remained of its left arm below the biceps, and both its thighs ended in mangled stumps.
The XSeed’s capacitor had absorbed enough energy for a single shot.
“Can you make it?” Ritter asked.
“Half my drives are gone,” said Max, “but I’m carrying less weight, so it evens out.”
“Spoken like an engineer,” Ritter chuckled, “always the problem solver.”
“Right now, what I want solved is the mystery of who hit us. I’ve got nothing on radar.”
“Me, either.” Ritter swept his main camera over the space around them. The particulate cloud cleared, and a scarlet speck caught his eye. He magnified the view of space between him and the colony, and his breath caught in his throat.
“What is it, kid?”
Ritter struggled to process what he saw. Familiarity, not strangeness, robbed him of speech. The burly, soft-edged frame and human yet inhuman eyes at first convinced Ritter he saw a reflection in the colony mirror. But the apparition staring back at him across the void carried an even larger gun with four barrels arranged in the shape of a cross, and its entire outer surface gleamed red.
“Oh shit,” said Max. “She built another one.”
The red XSeed leveled its four-barreled gun at its white doppelganger. Ritter grabbed the Grento’s good arm and poured all his thrust into a vertical dive. A yellow plasma beam as wide as a CF’s torso passed over Ritter and Max’s heads, annihilating the leftover debris.
“Get to the colony,” Ritter ordered Max. “I’ll cover you!” Unable to get a target lock, he aimed his plasma rifle by sight. The Red XSeed zipped away from the line of fire the instant Ritter pressed the trigger. The blue flash punched a hole in the colony mirror big enough to fly a shuttle through.
The Grento jetted toward Byzantium on its two remaining thrusters. “Good luck, kid,” said Max. “That thieving bitch stole me and Browning’s CF design, but there’s no way she copied Prometheus. He’ll trounce that wannabe’s off-the-shelf OS.”
Fear loosened its grip on Ritter’s heart. “Okay. All I have to worry about is the pilot.”
The red XSeed popped up in front of Ritter out of nowhere. It pressed its four-barreled gun to his cockpit door.
“Yes,” said a deep airy voice. “You do.”
“Sieg!?”
The four muzzles flashed.
Naryal noticed her foot tapping on the launch control room floor and forced herself to be still. Jean-Claude must have noticed her agitation because his nimble yet callused hand clasped hers. She spared a smile for the Prince in his tan flight suit with two angels holding a crown on a white field adorning the shoulder. The king of hearts stood in for a unit patch.
“Five minutes to launch,” a nasal voice announced over the PA. From the riser at the back of the control room, Naryal looked over the rows of technicians in white shirts who labored over glowing screens. Mr. Huang paced nervously up and down the center aisle.
The central monitor on the far wall showed Kisangani’s last shuttle standing upright on the launch pad. A screen to the right displayed a live feed of Colonel Larson and his spacesuited team waiting for clearance to blast off for Metis, now visible to the naked eye as a bright star in the western sky.
“What bravery,” Jean-Claude whispered. “I should be going with them.”
“Men like you are needed here,” said Naryal.
“Oh? What need could be greater than averting a global catastrophe?”
“Rebuilding after.”
Jean-Claude chuckled darkly. “Are their chances so poor?”
“Setting aside risks of every space launch, Larson and his men must fly an unarmed shuttle through a gauntlet of Kazoku, navigate Metis’ mine tunnels to its reactor, and detonate a nuclear device. Even if they accomplish each of these tasks, they are unlikely to escape with their lives.”
“Their courage in the face of such odds only magnifies their glory,” Jean-Claude said.
A commotion arose on the floor below. Hunag rushed to a bank of consoles in the room’s front left corner where a group of technicians were pointing at their screens and arguing.
“What’s wrong?” Naryal shouted over the din.
“Six combat frames are approaching our position from the west at high speed,” shouted Huang.
“Give me a visual,” said Naryal.
The screen on the main monitor’s left switched to a view of six shining blue dots flying over a sea of trees. The camera zoomed in, and the dots resolved into boxy combat frames with flared pauldrons and black v-shaped visors. Each CF carried a plasma rifle and a shield.
“Zwei Dolphs,” said Naryal. “Megami’s attack dogs have come to stop the launch.”
“I’ll be dead before I give those Socs the satisfaction,” Griff said over the shuttle’s comm. “Wrap up the launch prep and get us in the air.”
“We must defend the shuttle,” said Huang. “Fire anti-air batteries!”
“Those guns will shoot down Grentos,” said Naryal, “but not Dolphs. What forces can you deploy to intercept the enemy?”
“Megami moved this base’s combat frames to Metis,” said Huang. “We only have the four Shenlongs that escorted your cargo plane.”
“Scramble them,” ordered Naryal.
“It won’t be enough,” Jean-Claude said.
Naryal eyed him coolly. “I take it you mean to sortie in Veillantif?”
“The enemy is on our doorstep,” said Jean-Claude. “Would you begrudge my duty to protect those in my charge?”
“Not at all,” Naryal said. “If there’s no one to protect us, we must defend ourselves.”
Jean-Claude hurried from the room. Naryal followed him. Huang’s voice echoed down the hall. “Request help from the EGE. They
may still have aircraft in range.”
Not even a fighter could make it from the coast in time, thought Naryal. She and Jean-Claude burst out of the dim control tower and into the humid African day. Only the sun surpassed the light of Metis hanging low over the jungle. And time is running out!
Max flew down the colony maintenance corridor, fighting to keep his battered Grento from slamming into the steel walls. After several close calls he came to a combat frame-sized hatch.
Not much longer now, he promised Wen. I’ll take you far away from the colonies, the Earth, and their pointless wars. Extending the Grento’s remaining hand, he opened the hatch.
A dizzying view spread out beyond the door. Max looked down from a sheer rock face to a green strip of land that called to mind his many flights over the Illinois countryside. But here, no cars sped along the roads and no air traffic flew above. Two rectangular lakes flanked the strip of land. Stars twinkled in their depths. A searing green burst lit the right lakebed window.
“The Secretary-General’s compound is located at the center of the land strip below,” Marilyn said from the breast pocket of Max’s flight suit.
I’m coming, Wen. Max urged the Grento forward. He eased the legless combat frame’s descent with a controlled burn from his two functional rockets.
“Altitude: one hundred meters,” Marilyn said, compensating for the readout Max’s helmet had cracked when the shuttle blew. Max held tight to the control stick and poured all his concentration into landing the damaged CF in a tree-ringed clearing below.
The right engine sputtered and died. Even missing three limbs, the Grento’s weight exceeded its lone rocket’s thrust. Max fought a hopeless battle with the controls as his stomach turned and the rocky slope rushed up to meet him.
Max silently petitioned the God he’d always considered an esoteric concept. The Grento’s leg stumps slammed into the hillside. He threw the CF back onto its rear skirt armor in an attempt to glissade and dug its hand into the slope above to arrest his fall. The Grento’s protracted crash slowed, but it continued sliding toward the dense tree line.
Combat Frame XSeed Page 27