Alpha strike, p.25
Alpha Strike, page 25
She turned to face him, her left cheek covered with a bandage to protect the sewed-up cut she’d received. The injury hadn’t been terrible, but she’d bled all over herself, and her uniform still showed the results. That and the dust and grime that coated her clothes, hair, and skin.
“I can’t believe we got out of there,” she murmured. “It was a nightmare. We were sure everything would collapse, even as we were running toward the side exits, and that was before the power went out. Thank God your hacker had a flashlight. We took the emergency stairs up and had to deal with a couple of collapsed areas. Your Marines helped get us out, and I’m very grateful.”
“I’m happy we could help. Are all your people accounted for?”
She shook her head with a haunted expression. “Most of them were at the defensive emplacements on the volcano itself, so they’re gone. The remainder were in the facility near the entrance, and the collapse killed them. We’re still searching for any survivors, but we’re not going to be able to clear the debris fast enough to find anyone that might still be alive before they’re gone. The scale of this disaster is just outside our ability to deal with.”
“Unless the Locusts send more units to attack us, I’ll have my Marines assist. Depending on how unstable things look, we may not be able to fully search your facility, but we’ll do what we can.”
He turned and stared out over the ocean. The cold wind was stiff enough to blow the tops of the waves, which made it look pretty, though he wouldn’t want to be out on it.
“The problem is that we don’t know what comes next,” he said. “Do they have more aircraft? I didn’t see them bringing the volcano down ahead of time, and that puts a crimp in our plans. At least we got almost enough warheads out to go in the missiles we had ready.”
“If they were going to send more aircraft, they’d have already done so,” she said. “The fact they haven’t either means they’re hoarding them for other uses, or they consider this facility out of action.”
She looked up into the light blue sky. “How long until the fight in orbit? Once that’s decided, we’ll know what comes next. If you win, we’ve got to hook up with what’s left of the planetary defense forces and start making moves on the alien facilities. If not, we still have to get off this island and find someplace to hide before they reconstitute their forces and come after us again. Do you think your ship has a chance?”
“Hunter has pulled off the impossible before, so I’m not going to rule victory out, but you’re right that it’ll be a tough fight. The warheads we got may very well make a difference, and we’ll find out in about half an hour. Orbital mechanics is definitely not my specialty, but I think they’ll be overhead for at least part of the battle. The exploding fusion plants on the drones and motherships should be visible even down here. If something worse happens, that should be visible too.”
He took a deep breath and focused his attention on her. “Let’s start working out what we do if we win. Focusing on the negative outcomes isn’t going to help us right now. We can clear enough of the emergency stairwell to get down and check some of the lower floors in the facility. Without power, are the hatches going to work?”
“They should,” Dufaux said, facing the volcano again. “They’ve got internal power, but with the volcano collapsed, there’s no way to get any of the nuclear weapons out. If the levels below it have partially collapsed, there will be significant radiation leakage, too.”
He nodded. “There are suits down there that will help with that, but we’ve got to figure out a means of getting some of those warheads out. Will the cases they’re stored in be able to go up the emergency stairs?”
She laughed. “Yes, but only one at a time, and they’ll be a huge pain in the ass to move. Everything is cumbersome, and you can’t take the weapons out of the cases because they’re radioactive.” She shook her head. “If you want your ship rearmed in a timely fashion, we’ll have to excavate the rubble out of what’s left of the cone. I can’t imagine that happening any time soon. How quickly could we see reinforcements from the Locusts?”
“If they sent for help when we came through the first time, it’s possible we’ll see reinforcements in something like half a year. That seems like enough time to clear the debris and start putting facilities in orbit to use some of those weapons. The problem is that you don’t have any missiles for them. Those are all at Port Royale. We brought some with us, but if our ship doesn’t make it, those are gone too.”
She shook her head. “I still can’t believe a bunch of smugglers and misfits took over an old Navy facility like that. It’s crazy. And that Connor guy, I’m not sure what to make of him. The way he dresses and acts, you’d think he’s an old-time pirate. Who could take that seriously?”
“He may dress the part of a buffoon, but he’s not,” Mac warned her. “Underestimate him at your peril. I can’t say I understand the governmental structure they’ve chosen, but it seems to work. They’ve got a fair amount of people, too, and their assistance in making all this happen is the only reason we were able to even make an attempt to save you.”
He looked around for Connor but didn’t see him. “He seems to have some morals, though obviously, they’re not the same as what we have. He’s probably more than willing to lie, cheat, and steal, but he draws the line at letting the Locusts subjugate humanity. That has to count for something. Your government and his will have to work together if we make it.”
That made her chuckle and shake her head again. “I want to see that. There are a lot of stuffed shirts in our government, and they’ll lose their little minds having to deal with someone like him. If, of course, they’ve survived the invasion. I’ve got to be honest, even if you win the fight in orbit, I can’t imagine how we get to the point where we free the entire cluster. This is just a small system. The bigger ones will have a lot more Locusts.”
He was about to agree with her when the sound of someone approaching from the side made him look over. It was Lisa Gane. Mac turned to face the hacker. She was, if anything, even filthier than Dufaux. “Please tell me there’s not another problem. I’ve got more than enough on my plate already.”
Gane shook her head. “More of curiosity and potentially an exploit we can use. Do you have time to come look at something?”
“If you think it’s important, I’ll make time. What are we talking about?”
“I’m not much use at clearing rock and stuff, so I’ve been looking at the war machines scattered around the battlefield. I found something interesting.”
When she turned and headed off, he shared a glance with the planetary defense forces captain, and the two of them headed after her. Even with the dead and wounded removed from the battlefield, there was still plenty to remind him of what had happened here.
The ground was broken up by explosions, and there was the wreckage of both aircraft and the war machines scattered around in various places, often still smoking. There were also bits and pieces of armor and weapons discarded or lost during the chaos.
Lisa led them to a mostly intact war machine. It looked like someone had gotten a lucky hit right through the sensor unit in the front and took out the controls because it was otherwise untouched.
He wasn’t sure how, but she’d found a way to open the machine’s side. That exposed the mechanical components and the weapons system. The latter looked like a Gauss gun, using a magnetic field to drive the slugs rather than an explosive propellant.
That was one way to get the job done, and you didn’t have to worry about trying to dispose of spent brass, but it wasn’t something that humanity had decided was worthwhile. Too expensive to construct when old-school alternatives worked perfectly fine.
“So, what are we talking about?” he asked as he squatted down beside her.
“This is a machine made for war, right?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Then why are none of these components hardened? I’ve got a lot of experience working with hardened computer parts. A good electromagnetic pulse would knock this thing out.” She threw up a hand. “Hell, I’m not even sure it would stand up to some solid signal jamming or even focused microwaves. While this is alien technology, it doesn’t look like military technology. If we’d had a nuke to pop at the right altitude, we could’ve taken them all out in one go with the EMP.”
The insides of this machine did look a bit fragile. He’d thought it odd that the armor behind the sensor was so thin that he could take it out with a rifle. Now he could see other inconsistencies in the way it had been built.
This machine was a weapon, but it was an improvised one. The Gauss gun was the most military part of it, and it seemed to have been wedged in almost as an afterthought. It was as if the machine had been designed for a different purpose and retasked to this one at some later date.
“Okay, I’ll grant that this is interesting. We don’t have to explode a nuke to create an EMP, though. There are specific munitions that can do that. I’m not sure we brought any with us, but we might have. Is it just me, or does this thing look like it was repurposed? I don’t think this was supposed to be a fighting machine before they added the Gauss gun.”
She shrugged and stood. “I’m not much for military hardware, but it seems kludged. Why would they do something like this during an invasion? Wouldn’t they have brought purpose-built weapons?”
“One would think so, but it’s obvious that we’re not seeing the entire picture. Their aircraft were hostile enough, but now this has me wondering if those were repurposed too. They’re nothing but smoking piles of wreckage, though, so it might take a while to figure that out.”
He stood and resisted the urge to kick the machine. Repurposed or not, these things had killed or wounded his people. If it was susceptible to an EMP, he’d use that to make their job easier in the next engagement. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Mac checked his chronometer and saw they were down to less than fifteen minutes before the attack in orbit kicked off. Within an hour, their fate would be decided.
“It may seem kind of stupid at this point, but we need to get under cover. It’s always possible that some of the drones will bypass Hunter and make a run into the atmosphere. If they come for us here, we need to be ready.”
Not that he thought the foxholes would provide much protection if that happened, but it was his job to make sure as many people survived whatever came next as possible. Once the fighting was done, he could worry about the next steps in retaking the planet.
33
Jack sat in his command chair and watched as the Locusts made their final approach. As his officers predicted, about a third of the drones had sprinted ahead and were racing to meet them. Behind them came a larger swath of drones, followed by a large cluster of motherships.
They’d covered that eventuality in their planning, but that still didn’t mean their ideas would work out in practice. This was shaping up to be the largest and most intense battle Hunter had been involved in since Jack had assumed command.
He pressed the button on the arm of his chair to open an all hands channel throughout the ship. “All hands, this is Commodore Romanoff. We are about to engage the Locusts infesting the New Copenhagen system, and I wanted to take a moment to let you know how proud you’ve made me. Your efforts have made our victory possible. Remember the oaths we swore because it’s time to honor them. Romanoff out.”
He looked over his bridge crew and saw his people focused on their tasks, preparing for the battle that was about to crash over them. The young people before him were dedicated to the defense of the Confederation, and the few mature officers among them would try to help.
It made his heart swell with pride. This was everything he could’ve hoped for in the beginning. No. It was more than he could’ve hoped for. They’d delivered in ways he couldn’t have conceived of just a month ago.
He leaned forward. “What’s our status, Amanda?”
The young tactical officer turned in her seat just long enough to make eye contact before swiveling back toward her console and continuing to work. “They’ve finished loading the nuclear missiles into the launchers, sir. We’ll have six salvos of five hundred, though around three hundred of them don’t have warheads. We’ll fire four salvos with nuclear warheads at the second wave of drones and save the last two for the motherships.”
“What about the first wave?”
“Since the first group only has about one-third the number of drones, I’m recommending we save the missiles for the larger group. If they’re clustered together, we’ll get significantly more kills than if we don’t warn them what’s coming.”
He’d more than half expected her to go with this battle plan, and he agreed with her reasoning, but it was his job as the commanding officer to pour cold water on what she was saying and see if it held up.
“Some of those drones coming in the first wave will probably knock out missile launchers. Aren’t we taking too big of a risk by holding our most powerful weapons when we might lose them early? In fact, the missiles have a greater range than our lasers. Shouldn’t we fire them first?”
This time she did turn around and face him squarely. “It’s a risk, sir, but I think it’s reasonable. We’ll lose too many missiles to their defensive fire if we attempt a longer range. Are we going to lose some of the launchers because of that? Yes, but if we open fire too early, we blunt the impact we’ll have on the second and third waves. This is the only chance we have to sucker punch them.”
She pursed her lips and plowed on. “It would be a different story if we had all our launchers and lasers online. That would be a complete game-changer, but that’s not where we are, sir. We’ve got to marshal our resources and use them where they’re most effective.”
“Won’t they just open up the range between one another once we open fire?”
“They might try, but they’re not going to have enough time to be completely successful. It won’t matter much with as few salvos as we’ll be firing.”
He nodded, satisfied with the defense of her plan. “Understood. Your plan is a go. Derek, what do you have in mind for our maneuvering?”
“I’ll coordinate with the tactical department to spin the ship when needed and bring as many lasers on target as we can. We’ve put the nuclear weapons on the planet-facing side of the ship for this initial exchange. As soon as we’ve dealt with the first wave, I’ll rotate the ship, and Amanda can begin firing.”
“How long until they enter extreme laser range?”
“Seven minutes, thirty-two seconds,” Amanda said crisply. “We’ll begin firing the moment we can start achieving kills. By the time we’re ready to start firing missiles, we should have mostly dealt with that first wave, though there’ll be some leakers.”
Jack nodded. “I appreciate all the hard work you’ve put into this. It will be perhaps the biggest upset victory in Confederation history if we can carry this off. That’s something to look forward to.”
He didn’t mention that it would be one of the most ignominious defeats in Confederation history if they lost. That was something he’d rather avoid.
Watching the timer count down on the tactical map as the first swarm came at them was nerve-racking, but it was a situation he’d spent years practicing. He kept thinking about what they were doing, but he had no better ideas before the enemy came into range. They were just going to have to go with their guts and pray.
Just as the timer reached zero, Amanda pressed a button on her console. “Firing now. We’re achieving some hits, but our accuracy isn’t great at this range. I’d imagine they’ll open fire before we take out more than a third of them.”
There were far too many drones on the tactical screen to see individual kills, but some of the counters on the side of the screen estimated the number of enemies in the first wave, and he watched it begin spinning downward. Every one they could take out before it fired was a little less damage they’d have to suffer through.
“Enemy drones firing,” Amanda said. “Their accuracy is crap at this range, but they’re hitting us because we’re as big as a barn door.”
He almost laughed at her description of their ship. It was certainly accurate.
Because the first wave of drones had opened the gap between themselves and their brethren, they would have an opportunity to deal with them. It wasn’t going to be clean or without risk, but they needed to reduce the number of drones that would threaten the nuclear missiles before they opened fire.
“They’re inside our primary laser envelope, and accuracy is improving,” Amanda said. “They’ve fired on the remaining space elevator ship, and they’re cutting it to ribbons. The first wave is down below fifty percent. The second wave is deep inside missile range, and we’ll be able to rip them up pretty good. Now, Derek.”
“Rotating the ship,” his helm officer said. “The missile launchers will be in position to open fire in twenty seconds.”
“It will take us ten seconds to fire each salvo, so we have clearance to safely fire again,” Amanda said. “We’ll get this series off before they ram us, but not much before. We’ll need to brace for their reaction almost immediately after that.”
When the tactical screen showed that the ship had rotated and the first missile salvo launched, Jack couldn’t help but grin. This was them finally giving the enemy something to chew on.
“First salvo away,” Amanda said. “Several launchers have failed mechanically, but most of the birds got clear. Second launch away.”
They cycled through all four of the initial salvos, and the vast majority of the nuclear-tipped missiles raced through what remained of the first wave. The drones tried to shoot them down and in some cases succeeded, but the electronic countermeasures protecting the weapons, and their evasive maneuvers, got most of them through.
The second wave of drones reacted to the missile launches, but they were slow. All four salvos were in space before they began trying to spread out, which was far too late to save many of them.
