Judgment day, p.27
Judgment Day, page 27
part #2 of Holy War Series
“Yes, subcommander,” Tan Kin ground out. “I can count. Navigation, reduce acceleration to two gravities.”
“Reduce…sir?” The navigator looked as if he was about to shit himself, and it wasn’t just the high-gravity burn.
“Must I repeat every order, subcommander?”
“No, my lord general. Reducing boost, my lord general.”
The weight fell away, and Tan Kin allowed himself the luxury of a deep breath. He didn’t want to show weakness, but there were few warriors who actually enjoyed boost and he wasn’t one of them. He speared Tay Ker with a glare.
“Note this, Group Commander. This is a captain worthy of respect.” Unlike you. “He has seen my plan and countered it the only way he could. He has thrown his whole heart and soul into this tactic, knowing it may cost him and his ship their very lives, yet willing to do anything to deny us this world. It will be an honor to kill this warrior.”
“Sir!” the weapons officer reminded him. “The missiles!”
“I see them. Have you noted their acceleration?” He motioned to the sensor readings. “They’re barely at eight gravities of boost. He isn’t simply trying to destroy us, he’s trying to occupy us while he takes on the others. And it’s going to work. But he’s not going to save this planet from us. Group Commander, launch the landers and their fighter escorts.”
“We’re too far, sir!” Tay Ker protested. “They’ll be exposed, vulnerable to the enemy for too long….”
“To what enemy, Group Commander? Their space-fighters are entangled with ours, their cutters with our corvettes, their cruiser with our destroyers. There is no one to oppose them. Now do as I say before I lose my patience and have you cycled through the airlock without a vacuum suit.”
Tay Ker stiffened, a flicker of rage passing across his face, and Tan Kin thought perhaps he’d found the key to putting some iron in the male’s spine.
“As you command, Lord General.” The words were respectful, but the set of his shoulders, the creases at the corners of his eyes were anything but. “Flight officer, launch troop carriers and scramble the covering fighters. I want them off our ship in thirty seconds.”
“Yes, Group Commander!”
The weapons officer was watching the interplay with obvious impatience, his fingers twitching beside his controls.
“Estimated time to missile intercept is eleven minutes!” he finally exploded. “Permission to launch countermeasures?”
“By all means, Subcommander,” Tan Kin said, suppressing his amusement at the man’s discomfort. “And navigation, once our landers launch, prepare for high-gravity acceleration.” He finally let the pleasure show through, as a comfort to the others…or perhaps, an irritant. “I’m afraid, comrades, that we will be burning at high Gs for some time, thanks to our masterful human friend. Perhaps it will be less an honor to kill him and more a pleasure.”
Chapter 24
“I designate the destroyers Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie,” Rousseau droned, repeating rote procedures they’d trained for thousands of times, but no less crucial for all that. And no less impressive at six gravities. “Alpha is the flagship, Bravo and Charlie are the two heading for orbital insertion.”
“I acknowledge,” Travis said, his own reply no less a tradition, though he had to go deep into his aching gut muscles to say it. “Status?”
“Alpha has launched smaller craft.” A deep breath, because for all Rousseau’s stern refusal to let the acceleration bother her, she was still only human. “Landers. Dual-environment fighters. They’re pretty far out, but they’ll reach orbit in an hour.”
Damn. The Tahni commander was smart. He realized exactly what Travis was trying to do and had the moral courage to adjust his plans. Someone like that was dangerous.
“Bravo,” Rousseau went on, “is changing course, preparing to intercept us. Charlie is maintaining course and speed for orbit.”
“Bracketing fire with the railgun,” he ordered. “On Charlie. Keep it between him and orbit. Force him out.”
“Aye, sir,” she acknowledged. “Helm, I need maneuver control.”
“Maneuver to Tactical,” Meyer acknowledged.
Travis couldn’t see her hands, couldn’t risk turning his head far enough, but on the Tactical display, the results were clear. The nose of the ship turned slightly, the banging of the steering jets coming in a distant second to the roaring in his ears, but he felt the railgun when it fired. It was a flutter in his stomach, like when he’d made the mistake of eating too much of the carnitas on Persephone. Or much like whenever he found himself alone with Jessica Leer.
God, how romantic. Next time I see her, I’ll recite my own version of Shakespeare. Shall I compare thee to a railgun discharge in a space battle?
Next time. As if there would be a next time.
“Laser,” Rousseau said. There was no alarm in her voice, but the one sounding from the speakers on the bridge spoke for itself. “From Bravo. Extreme range still. Burn-through estimated in ten minutes.”
“Radiation dispersal, Helm.” There were few words Travis hated so much as “radiation dispersal,” because it always meant pain and nausea and the inevitable stench of vomit, usually from Lake. At first he’d held it against the Comms officer, but at this point, he just felt guilty about making the young man go through it again.
“Radiation dispersal, aye.” Meyer didn’t sound too happy about it either.
The spin and the boost and the continuing fire from the railgun were a combination seemingly designed to push the envelope of human endurance, and Travis found himself questioning the laws against allowing autonomous computer systems to operate armed ships. This would have been so much easier if they could have just dunked themselves in a tank of liquid and let a computer do the work. Or, hell, just send computers out to fight the war for us.
Franny, his sister, would have been horrified at the thought, would have scolded him for an hour with horror stories about the automated defenses at the German borders slaughtering refugees by the tens of thousands during the Collapse, of the rumors that the war had started because China’s automated nuclear launch system had mistaken a Russian space launch for an ICBM attack. She would have told him that the laws every member nation of the Commonwealth had passed banning automated weapons systems were for the protection of the people.
But the Tahni weren’t humans, and if they hadn’t been fanatical weirdo purists who didn’t believe in letting machines control their ships or their weapons because it went against the Holy Spirit or some such thing, they would have already kicked the Commonwealth’s ass.
Or maybe we would have changed our mind about computer-controlled weapons if they were using them on us.
It was probably better this way. Letting machines do their fighting would make going to war too easy, would make people forget that war was about death and destruction. Though it would have been easier to think that way if the impending death and destruction hadn’t been his own.
“Charlie has launched landers and fighter cover,” Rousseau said, and Travis’ own frustration was mirrored in her tone. “She’s still a good way from orbit, but I guess she’s getting tired of dodging railgun rounds. She’s hitting maneuvering jets, heading back for us.”
“Helm, cease spin,” he said, keeping the sentences short so he didn’t lose control of his stomach and pull a Lake. “Cut thrust. Adjust to thirty-five degrees north of the ecliptic and take us to three gravities.”
“Cease spin and cut thrust, aye. Thirty-five degrees north, three gravities.” Meyer sounded relieved at both the first two orders, and if the rest of the bridge crew had the breath to do it, they might have sighed collectively.
“Comms, send to the assault shuttles, let them know about the two waves of landers.”
“Not sure if our signal is going to penetrate the jamming,” Lake warned him, “but aye, sir.”
Travis had fallen silent for a moment, just feeling the pulse of the ship, the groan of relief in her superstructure as the drive cut off and the maneuvering jets stopped the spin, and Patrice Damiani stepped into that silence.
“Why north?” she wondered. At his curious glance, she went on. “Why do they use the cardinal directions? I mean…it’s space. Shouldn’t we be using some sort of three-dimensional, spherical coordinates or something?”
He grinned. Answering the question made him feel like he was back in the Academy.
“They tried that, originally. But the bottom line is, everyone knows what north, south, east, west, forward and backward are. When you’re in combat, it’s more important that people know what you’re saying than trying to be scientifically accurate. Every system has an ecliptic, an orbital plane where the planets formed from the star’s accretion disk.” He shrugged, pausing as the steering jets banged against the hull too loudly for conversation. “At least, every system with planets, every system the jumpgates connect us to. North and south, east and west are the easiest way for people to understand commands without having to think about them for too long.”
“Laser again,” Rousseau told him. “Getting closer. Eight minutes until burn-through.”
“Maintain course and speed.” There was nothing to be done about it. They couldn’t spin while they were changing course.
“They’re getting close enough,” she mused. “It’s only going to be…yeah, here it is. Missiles launching from Charlie. Two of them. Two more from Bravo.”
Here we go. The show’s starting.
“Countermeasures,” Travis said. He grunted as the drive kicked in, three times his normal weight pressing him into his acceleration couch. “Launch all tubes. Point-defense turrets to auto-fire. Maintain course and acceleration. We’re going to draw them away from Hermes, get them too busy fighting us to provide orbital support for their troops or their fighters.”
The last should have been obvious, but it was part of his job to state the obvious, to make sure if he was dead or incapacitated, anyone on the bridge could take command. That was the theory, anyway. In reality, if he was killed, likely not just the bridge but everyone on the ship would be in just as bad a shape.
On the main screen, Hermes shrank behind and beneath them, the blue curve of the world turning into a circle. It wasn’t a bad last view, if that was what it was.
“Sir,” Lake reported, “I got a reply from Commander Miles, the assault shuttle squadron leader, just before we got out of range. He acknowledged my transmission, nothing else.”
Travis cast a last glance at the planet, guilt knotting his stomach.
“That’s all we can do for them,” he said, not sure whether he was trying to justify his actions to Lake or to himself. “Heads in the fight, ladies and gentlemen. Their war is down there. Ours is up here…and if we lose, they lose. And if we lose…the whole Commonwealth goes down with us.”
“You know how many hours I’ve been in this thing, Sarge?” Greg Franks whined. Being fair to the man, it wasn’t actually formed in the shape of a whine, but Ryan Hendrix knew what was coming.
“Three hours, fifty-four minutes, and thirty-six seconds, Franks,” Ryan said, not even attempting to keep the dull, morose resentment out of his tone. “Same as the rest of us.” He shrugged, even though the Corporal couldn’t see it. “Depending on how early you suited up, of course.”
“You know how many times I’ve peed my fucking pants in that time?”
“Jesus, Franks, I don’t know.” He wished he could rub his eyes. He really wanted to rub his eyes. “Why? Are we having a contest to see who can guess closest? Is there a fucking prize?”
“Sarge, my point is, I gotta take a shit.”
Well, there was something Ryan could sympathize with.
“You haven’t done that yet?” he wondered. After the training and the last battle they’d gone through, he thought everyone would have experienced that particular unpleasantness by now.
“No, man…I mean, Sergeant. I been able to hold out. I like, took anti-diarrheal meds. But I can’t hold it anymore.”
“Then just go,” Ryan told him. “It’s gonna be gross, but the undersuit is designed to break it down. It’ll be gone in a few minutes.”
“But dude…I mean, Sergeant! I ain’t shit my pants since I was like, two years old! It’s not right!”
“Franks, isn’t this something you’d rather talk to your squad leader about? I think dealing with something like this is an important part of her professional development.” He touched a control on his wrist and looped Kusama into the conversation. “Corporal Kusama, Lance Corporal Franks has a very important issue he needs solved and I think you should talk to him about it. Without me.”
He cut himself out of the connection and closed his eyes. Maybe he could still get some sleep…damn. Now that Franks had gotten him thinking about it, Ryan had to take a dump too.
“Heads up, Alpha.” It was Whistler. Ryan wasn’t used to being looped into the company command net and it still felt like he was snooping, sticking his junior-NCO nose where it didn’t belong. “We got word. The Tahni landers are inbound, heading for orbit. Our assault shuttles and the ones stationed at Hermes base are going to break off and try to take down their Hellhawks.”
Hellhawks. What a stupid-ass name. Ryan wasn’t sure who’d come up with the nickname for the Tahni dual-environment fighters, but his eyes rolled involuntarily every time anyone used the name. Though, he supposed, it was better than saying dual-environment fighter every time they mentioned the things.
“Once they break off,” Whistler went on, “that means we’re on our own. Our dropships will be taking on theirs, so we’ll have no air support until and unless we gain air superiority. On the ground, the colonists are going into their shelters, at least the ones in the city. The farmers and ranchers are hunkering down on their own spreads, but everyone in Sanctuary and the surrounding towns has moved to the central shelters. The local militia and the Marine garrison platoon are going to be dug into defensive positions around the shelters and if the Tahni make it past us, they’ll be the last stand.”
“Sir,” Dornan interrupted, and Ryan almost cringed out of instinct. He didn’t think he’d have the nerve to interrupt the Skipper. “What if the Tahni don’t care about the shelter? If I were them, I’d set up a perimeter around the Marine positions and try to pin them in until their ships gain the orbital space. At that point, they can call in orbital fire support and the whole planet’s theirs.”
“Possible. Your point, Lieutenant?” Whistler sounded irritated.
“Sir, I was wondering if the Marines might not be better off attached to us, and we could leave guarding the shelter to the militia.”
“Not a bad idea, Lieutenant,” Whistler admitted. “But they’re not equipped with Aegis suits, and my theory for this operation is to stay mobile. The Tahni don’t seem to have a full understanding of how to use their Shock Troopers to their best capability, and I believe that’s because their warfare has been so formalized and ritualistic. I propose to give them a crash course. We’re going to do something I have been told not to do all the way from NCO school through Officer Advanced Course, and that’s split our forces in the face of a numerically superior enemy, but I don’t see that we have much choice. The enemy is going to land as close to the town as they can, and Lt. Dornan is probably right. They’re going to try to make a perimeter around the local defenses. And we’re going to hit them from both sides at once.
“First and Second platoons are striking from the north. Dornan, you’re in charge of that group. I’m going with Third and Fourth and hitting from the south. Top and Lt. Karanja….” That was the company XO, who Ryan sometimes forgot even existed for all he actually did. “…will take the Headquarters Platoon and run supporting fires from the western edge of town. We don’t have much ammo for the launchers, so don’t count on support unless I approve it.”
He paused, and Ryan wasn’t sure if it was meant to be dramatic or thoughtful.
“I’m not going to bullshit you, boys and girls,” he went on. “We’re going to be facing at least three companies of Tahni, maybe more, unless the assault shuttles can take any of them down. It’s not going to be pretty, and we’re not all going home after this. In fact, none of us might. We’re counting on help coming from Earth, but it might not come in time, or might not come at all. This isn’t a suicide mission though. If we get to the point where what’s left of us has no chance against their forces, we’re going to pull back to a rally point outside Sanctuary and regroup. Worst-case scenario, we start hitting and running, working with the locals.”
Ryan swallowed hard. He’d never heard Whistler go this far into contingencies. It wasn’t comforting, but he supposed it wasn’t meant to be.
“The first wave of Tahni landers is coming in,” he announced, the words hesitant and halting, and Ryan thought he was relaying the report from the flight crew as he received it. “They’re going in at a steep angle…they must see our assault shuttles and are trying to reduce the intercept time we’d have before they land.”
It was faster than Ryan had expected. As with everything else in his life, he’d thought there’d be more time. “We’re going to have to do one more orbit,” Whistler informed them, “then catch them on the way back around. The good news is, we’ll be able to see where they landed. The bad news is, they’re going to see us coming.” He sighed. “Prepare yourselves, Marines.”
The CO’s transmission cut off and Ryan heard only his own breath in his ears. Should he say something to the platoon? Or would Dornan do that?
“Sgt. Hendrix,” the platoon leader said as if he’d been reading Ryan’s thoughts. “We’ve got ninety minutes.”
Shit. An hour and a half?
“Why does everything take so damned long out here, sir?” he complained.
“It’s space, Hendrix. Everything’s big and everything takes forever. And it leaves us with way too much time to think. Let’s wait until we’re a half-hour out before we pass this on to the platoon, okay? It’s bad enough that you and I have to sit here and stew, no use letting them do the same.”
