Alpha strike, p.19
Alpha Strike, page 19
Christine rolled her eyes. “You don’t have enough computerized parts to interest her. She’s a nice enough girl—pretty too—but her hormones get elevated around overclocked processors, not guys. You’re not getting out of this that easily.” Then she frowned. “Why is she going?”
Alan hefted the bag over his shoulder and sighed when she took it away from him and threw it over her own. He headed for the door, trying to move a little faster than he was comfortable with because her shot about not being able to get around without his cane had struck a nerve.
“There will be electronic security on these facilities. No one knows the codes to get in, and you can rest assured no one would be storing something on the order of a hundred million tactical nuclear warheads anywhere easy to get into. Time is a very serious factor.”
Christine shot him a look as they walked, obviously assaying how mobile he was. “I suppose that makes sense, but I still wouldn’t count on her getting inside. Even if we accept she’s the best thing since sliced bread when it comes to hacking, there have to be other kinds of physical lockouts to keep people from getting in. This isn’t going to be a walk in the park.”
He didn’t say anything for a few minutes as they headed for the nearest lift. He responded when they exited at the correct deck and dodged through the crowd of crew members heading to unknown destinations.
“No one said it would be easy. With any luck, there will be someone on-site that can assist us with at least some of the obstacles. So long as we’re able to convince them that we are who we say we are, they may be able to unlock the outer doors for us. Once we get to where the weapons themselves are stored, that may become more problematic, and that’s where Lisa comes into play.”
Rather than heading to the small craft bay they were primarily using, Alan led Christine to the Marine barracks and the attached small craft bay there. That’s where Mac Turner and the Marines should be just about ready to go. They’d make an expeditious exit for the planet’s atmosphere when word came to depart.
Alan had anticipated a bumpy ride and taken an antinausea pill. This would be rougher than the worst roller coaster ever. Or, he supposed, the best roller coaster ever, depending on your point of view.
He found the small craft bay packed with people loading themselves aboard pinnaces when they arrived. Everyone was in body armor and armed with rifles. They also had other weapons scattered across their bodies and looked like they were prepared to dig in and hold whatever positions they took against an all-out assault.
He hoped that wasn’t something they had to endure, but if it was, he was glad to have these young men and women there to make sure he was as well protected as possible. Or, just to be truthful, that Christine was well protected. He’d lived a full life, and even though things were very interesting now, if the worst came for him, he could accept that.
Mac was directing traffic and making sure everyone was getting where they needed to go. The Marine officer waved them over and continued to issue orders to those standing around him. Once he’d finished speaking, he turned toward them and frowned. “What are you doing here?”
Alan smiled. “You must not have gotten the word. We’re going down with you. Lisa Gane should be along shortly as well.”
“I figured she’d be coming with us. Why are you here?”
“Don’t you need someone with experience dealing with fissile material? I’m your man. It’s been many years, but I helped recycle spent radioactive materials and even some disassembled nuclear warheads identical to these as a graduate student. It’s been a long time, but I was able to dig up the equipment I need to do this safely. You do want kids someday, don’t you?”
“I have kids,” he said, gesturing around at the Marines. “That’s all I need these days.”
Lisa jogged up with a backpack slung over her shoulder. “Sorry I’m late.”
Mac shook his head and pointed toward one of the pinnaces. “The three of you can strap in over there. This isn’t going to be a pleasure cruise. Everything must be stored away because we’re going down fast and landing hard. Once we’re on the ground, let the Marines out first to set up a perimeter, then grab your gear and follow us out. The pinnace will take off as soon as you’re clear, so don’t dawdle.”
Alan didn’t say anything, merely nodding his head and heading into the pinnace. He found an open seat and began looking for where he could store his gear. One of the Marine instructors appeared out of nowhere and took his bag from Christine, then found a panel he hadn’t even noticed and stuffed it inside the compartment. The rest of the packs and gear went in right behind it.
Two minutes later, they were all strapped into their seats and ready to go. That same Marine double-checked their restraints and then moved through the rest of the compartment, making sure everyone was taken care of.
“How hard do you think getting into a facility like this will be?” he asked Lisa. “You have more experience than I do at getting into difficult places, and this seems like it would be on the order of bank vault difficult.”
The young woman laughed. “You are so naïve. This will be far more difficult than breaking into a bank, but there is hope because everything is so old.”
“If this doesn’t work, we could blast our way in, right?” Christine asked.
“We could,” he agreed, “but that would be significantly more dangerous as it could put radioactive material into the air. The Marines seem well protected against physical threats, but radiation is a different matter. There’s a lot of material down there that can hurt us if we cut the wrong corners. I understand we’re under draconian time constraints, but we don’t want this to be a suicide mission.”
Mac strode into the pinnace ten minutes later and sat down next to him. He stowed his weapon behind his seat in a rack that was obviously made for it and then quickly and efficiently secured himself.
Once he was done, he turned to the scientist and raised an eyebrow. “At this point, all we can do is sit and wait. The commodore indicates we’re going to enter orbit and probably exchange shots with those elevator stations. We should get released sooner than that, but we won’t know until it happens.”
“That’s a damned shame,” Alan said, shaking his head. “Taking them intact might give us a lot of information. Particularly if there are more living aliens aboard them. I suppose we can’t take any chances, though. My sympathy for these creatures is low after what they’ve done to us.”
Mac was about to respond when Tina Chen and Mark Connor entered the cutter. Their sudden arrival made the officer frown ferociously. “Now what?”
“It’s not my fault,” Tina said immediately, raising one hand. “Jack ordered us to come along after Connor got a response from one of his contacts. They’ve guessed where we’re going and have promised to meet us with critical information they’ll only give to him.”
“Personally, I’d rather they just gave it to you,” Connor said, “but the person we’re talking about doesn’t exactly love authority figures. So, I’m doing my part.”
Mac stood, sent two Marines scurrying out of the pinnace to look for rides elsewhere, and saw the newcomers strapped in. He was visibly frustrated but wasn’t going to argue with Jack’s orders.
Alan smiled somewhat wryly at Tina. “I think we’ll have to buy Mac a drink by the time this is done.”
“By the time this is done, you’re going to have driven me to drink,” Mac said in a sour tone. “If anyone gives you an order, obey it, no matter who that person is. Clear?”
They indicated their agreement, and Mac returned to his seat, then strapped himself in.
They’d been heading toward this moment for so long that Alan felt a sense of inevitability. Once the Locusts had attacked the cluster, it had been foreordained that they’d strike back. He only hoped he could do his part to see that their fight was a win rather than a last stand.
24
Mac monitored the command channel as Hunter approached New Copenhagen. He had his usual pre-drop jitters, but they were under control, which was good. It wouldn’t do to let the young ones see he was nervous.
There was a lot riding on this mission. In fact, everything was riding on it. This was a “must succeed” objective. The commodore hadn’t said so, but Mac knew everyone on this drop was expendable so long as they achieved mission success.
They weren’t fighting for just themselves. The entirety of the Confederation was at stake, and the cluster was doomed if they didn’t get what they needed. He and his people wouldn’t fail. They might die, but they wouldn’t fail.
He was more than a bit irked at having civilians along, but he could see the logic for them being there, and he’d do his best to keep them alive, but his eyes had to be on the priorities.
“You taking a nap, Colonel?” Jack asked over the command channel.
“I wouldn’t call it a nap, but I am resting my eyes,” he lied. “What can I do for you, sir? Need me to take some more civilians along for a tour?”
Jack chuckled. “No, I think you’ve got more than enough on your hands already. We’re coming up on our orbital insertion point. I understand your folks aren’t trained for this, but we need to pre-position you outside the hull and behind the ship. I don’t believe there’s any way the Locusts can see you with the planet between them and us, but I want to be sure they have no idea we’ve dropped you off, so start moving your forces out and prepare to head down on my command.”
“Will do, sir. Good luck.”
“The same to you. Take care of our people, but get this done. Be ready in fifteen minutes.”
“Copy that. Turner out.”
He started giving orders over the pilots’ channel. They’d already discussed exactly how they’d need to make this happen, and even though they hadn’t practiced any of the maneuvers, he felt confident they could all be in position by the deadline.
Moments after he gave the instructions, his pinnace lifted off the deck and headed for the hatch. He couldn’t see what it was doing, of course, but he could feel the change in how it sat and knew they were on their way.
“You’re committed now,” he said to the civilians around him. “Reach under your seats, find the barf bags, and have one ready. This will be a rough entry, and you’ve never trained for anything like this. For that matter, neither have most of the people under my command. I’d much rather have whatever comes out of you end up in that bag than all over me. Understand?”
Almost surprisingly, he didn’t get any argument. In fact, everyone else in the compartment was getting their bags. His people might be green, but they weren’t stupid.
Mac retrieved his bag as well. He didn’t think he’d need it, but it had been a long time since he’d done anything like this, and he wasn’t going to embarrass himself.
The pilots reported themselves ready as soon as they made their way into Hunter’s shadow. The only danger of them being spotted was via the incoming Locust ships, and Jack had taken the precaution of putting New Copenhagen between them and the swarm so they couldn’t see what was happening.
He watched the timer, and the order came for them to go right on the mark. Just as they’d planned, the pilots began veering away from Hunter and accelerating hard for the atmosphere.
Things would get hot inside the small craft because they had no way of shedding the heat they generated until they were on the ground. Those of them that made it down.
He hoped they wouldn’t run into any kind of air defenses once they’d made it into the atmosphere, but it would be stupid to count that out. The worst-case scenario would be that the Locusts had some type of atmospheric interceptor, and they were in a position to intercept them.
Ground forces would be a more limited threat, considering they were going to a huge island. Getting the enemy forces where they could fight would be a challenge for the Locusts, but it wasn’t out of the question, so they’d planned for it as well.
The riskiest unknown was the defenders he expected to find there. What if they opened fire on the pinnaces? The commodore was transmitting to them that friendly forces were on the way, but Mac wouldn’t know if the people there believed him until they either opened fire or didn’t.
Right on schedule, the pinnace began twitching as it entered the atmosphere, and the crosswinds tried to shunt it aside with increasing strength the deeper they got. The heat inside the small craft rapidly rose to the point where they were all sweating.
“Detecting inbound contacts, bearing zero nine five,” one of the pilots said. “Five contacts moving at high speed. They’re painting us with sensors that read as Locust.”
“Defensive pattern Gamma,” Mac ordered. “Kill them before they get to us.”
He turned his attention to the civilians. “We’ve got inbound hostiles. Hang on to your shorts.”
“If you could get sensor readings off of these things, that would be helpful in planning for future engagements,” Tina said. “I’m not asking you to take any risks, but record the data and spread it around so that maybe it survives if we don’t.”
He nodded and passed the order along to the pinnaces moving to intercept. If this is what they found on the far side of the planet from the space elevators, they’d run into many more when they got to the occupied portions.
The pinnaces were designed to go head-to-head in both space and atmosphere, but the civilian pilots he had doing the flying didn’t have any combat training or experience. They seemed willing enough, but they were hesitant when they should be confident.
Sadly, that cost them.
The incoming hostiles fired short-range missiles that mostly missed, but not completely. He could hear the pilots’ consternation as they dodged around the incoming fire and began returning it. It quickly turned into an old-fashioned dogfight, and only the fact that his pinnaces outnumbered the intruders gave them an edge.
By the time it was done, all five of the intruders had been destroyed, but they’d lost a pinnace in the process. Thankfully, they were defensive patrollers and weren’t packed with people. He lost the pilot and gunner—which was bad enough—but he hadn’t lost a pinnace full of Marines.
“We’d hoped to slip in unnoticed, but it doesn’t look like that’s on the menu anymore,” he said over the command channel. “When we get on the ground, set up a defensive perimeter and look for more incursions. Now that they know we’re here, they’ll come after us with everything they have. Let’s be ready for it.”
They reached the heaviest air just after that, and the turbulence became almost unbearable. Everyone inside the pinnace bounced back and forth and up and down. First one and then a dozen of the inexperienced people had to use those barf bags. So did the civilians, every single one of them. That was not a shock.
What surprised him was that he almost had to use his own. He’d thought he’d burned that particular issue out of this system, but apparently, being retired long enough let weakness slip back in.
The pinnace came down fast and hard, flaring at the last moment to come in for a very heavy landing. Everyone inside bounced around when the pinnace settled on the ground, and the ramp came down.
In an instant, the instructor in charge of the Marines was up and ordering everyone out. Some of the Marines were a bit disoriented, but they grabbed their weapons and gear and rushed out in a preplanned pattern to set up defensive positions along the perimeter. They had no idea who or what they’d find in this place, and he wanted to be sure they were ready for all potential outcomes.
The wind coming off the water was frigid, something that would sap a person’s body heat right out. The Marines wore cold-weather gear underneath their armor, but it occurred to him that he hadn’t planned on the civilians, and they had nothing.
Thankfully, there was more cold-weather gear aboard the pinnace. He yanked open one of the cabinets and started handing the protective clothing to them even as they began shivering.
“Sorry about that. I wasn’t thinking about the landing conditions. Get these on over your clothes, and they’ll keep you warm enough. Be sure and grab some boots of the appropriate size to replace your shoes. You’ll need the extra insulation.”
He stepped onto the ramp and looked out over the desolate landscape as they were getting dressed. The rocky terrain looked volcanic. In fact, a massive cone thrust into the sky off in the distance.
As he understood it, the nuclear weapons were stored under that extinct volcano. It was almost an evil villain’s lair if he allowed himself that artistic flourish.
The pinnaces had landed in a massive semi-circle and disgorged their Marines. They were near what seemed like the main entrance to the storage facility, so they could protect that from incoming fire, though they couldn’t protect the entire island except by sending the pinnaces back up to provide air protection.
As the ground fighters got off, the pinnaces launched back into the air to join the swarm of defenders circling the island. If any more interceptors came looking for trouble, they’d find it.
He was about to give more specific orders to his people about how they should get themselves oriented when one of the unused channels came to life. “Unknown personnel on our perimeter, identify yourselves.”
“Defenders, this is Lieutenant Colonel Mac Turner of the Confederation Marines. We’re assigned to the battleship Delta Orionis, which is in orbit right now. Not to seem unneighborly, but we’ve come to pick up some warheads for our missiles. We figured you wouldn’t mind as it means we get to kick some Locust ass.”
“Since we saw you shoot down some of their aircraft, I’m willing to give you the benefit of the doubt until we can settle your identities,” the speaker said. “We’ve been keeping our heads down because we didn’t want to invite any unwelcome attention, but now that you’ve sent up a flare, I suppose we’ll have to work with you to make sure we don’t get hit.”
Moments later, one of the pilots in the defensive force circling the island broke in on a different channel. “We have active sensors coming out of the volcano. That’s not us, is it?”
