Homeworld united, p.5
Homeworld United, page 5
Issac raised an eyebrow.
“A defense mechanism? Like being brightly colored or something?”
“Something like that,” Five replied. “It’s more psionic in nature. That way, it could beat predators with different sensory adaptations, and if we’re really distressed, it can induce paralysis. Granted, at this point, I wouldn’t make much of a meal for anything.”
After a long walk down the corridors, they arrived at the lab space. Henry took a long look around the room. Vast portions of it were inactive, but he could identify the stations they’d used to test the blood samples, as well as computer stations and 3-D projectors.
“So you can make people who look at you uncomfortable. What else?” Issac asked.
“Well, there’s tactile telekinesis. I can move objects with my mind, but only if I’m touching them or if they’re touching a surface I’m touching.”
As Five spoke, Issac nodded and took notes on his pad.
“If you could stand . . . here.” The younger Wells brother gestured for where he wanted Five to stand. “Gway is going to take your measurements, and Tyr’s going to modify a spare set of armor to fit you. You mentioned you can heal fast?”
“I can,” Five replied. “I also know I’m more durable than the rest of the scout ship crew, though how durable that is relative to you humans and M’Nok is unknown.”
Issac looked up from his notes.
“You have a very . . . formal? Direct? I’m not sure what I wanna call it, but your manner of speaking is . . . off.”
Five shifted uncomfortably.
“I wasn’t exactly made with downtime in mind,” the alien said. “I did my job, then I went back into stasis until I was needed again.”
Henry scowled.
“Like a tool in a toolbox,” he said. “Who was in charge? There’s no way your whole species operated like that.”
“There were rumors, sure,” Five said. “One, our ship commander, interacted with the tall ones. I think they were more like your people, with goals and ambitions and things.”
His comment provoked some curiosity from Henry.
“What are your people like?” he asked. “In case more turn up and become a threat?”
“I couldn’t tell you much more,” Five admitted. “The tall ones worked out of a mothership, not too different from what we’re on now. Our ships had crews of five, with spares in stasis in case something happened. The crew would be, in order of precedence, commander, pilot, analyst, engineer, security.”
Henry folded his arms. I wish I had Carlos with me, or one of Issac’s grad students. They probably know enough about this UFO and alien nonsense to sus out more details. Well, I guess at this point, it isn’t just nonsense.
“What did these ships do?” Henry asked. “What was their purpose?
“I couldn’t tell you, mainly because I don’t know.” Five looked at the ground. “I stood with the analyst, in case a subject attacked them or came out of stasis.”
“What kind of subjects?” Henry frowned.
“Mostly humans, sometimes animals. The humans were subjected to a biometric analysis, but the animals had samples harvested from them for use by the tall ones.” The short alien shrugged. “I don’t know what or why.”
Henry nodded.
“I think I get it.” He paused before he left. He’d seen Astreia talking to Five before, but he had a feeling it would be a bad idea to push the issue now. Whatever their connection, it would have to wait. “Hurry up with your tests, Issac. We’re about to resupply.”
1300 (Mountain time), 8 October 2025
Aboard the Relentless, over the Inner Sea Military Base, Inner Sea, Montana
Henry stared at the bulky suit they’d set before him. It looked like a typical NASA spacesuit at first glance. Then he noticed that, instead of white, the suit was a dark grey and the arms were longer than his. When he asked about it, Gene provided the explanation.
“So, I had to get the rundown when we drew these. The arms are long because these gloves aren’t actually gloves. You’ll stick your hands into slots, and that will let you operate these mechanical hands.” The big man paused to demonstrate with his own hands.
“They’re an older design. Marine corps wanted a spacesuit in the 80s, especially if a space station got taken over by terrorists, but we’ve given them some Midnight-flavored, tender love and care. Specifically, we’ve reinforced it with some M’Nok alloys. Oh, and the visors aren’t glass, they’re transparent aluminum.”
Henry furrowed his brow.
“Huh, that’s a neat feature, but these gloves look too cumbersome to use our spike rifles. We can’t exactly roll out without weapons.”
With a grunt, Gene lifted a large white case and dropped it on the ground. Undoing the latches, he opened it to reveal a device that resembled a jackhammer, save for a slot for the mechanical glove.
“My friend, I give you the Mark 9. Same concept as the spike rifles, uses magnets to propel a depleted uranium slug at high speeds.” The big engineering sergeant waved a hand across the weapon. “With all the typical 80s flair.”
Henry chuckled.
“I hope these have been overhauled as well? Otherwise I’d need to find a spot to hook up a car battery to this suit.”
Gene chuckled.
“Not quite big enough.” He pointed to the jackhammer-like weapons. “You would have needed a couple car batteries, and they would have only given you five shots, assuming they were at peak performance. No, we got M’Nok accelerators and power cells at play here.” He hefted one in his own large meaty hands. “They actually managed to increase the effective range and ammo capacity, so we’ll be rolling with forty shots a magazine instead of five.”
He pointed at the spacesuit.
“Going back to the suit, your spare magazines are going to be fed to you by a little arm at the top of your backpack. The backpack itself also has compressed gas for you to maneuver outside of the ship.”
Henry raised an eyebrow.
“Maneuver outside the ship? I thought we were going to fly the Sugar Mama onto this thing?”
Gene shook his head.
“No dice. I talked to Tyr, and he won’t be done refurbishing her by the time we need to make contact.”
“But the plan was for the Sugar Mama to drop us off in the docking bays,” Henry protested. “Now we’re just supposed to jump?”
“More or less.” Gene folded his arms. “I’ve looked at the specs, and I’ve talked to H’Kai and Gway about it. The way I see it, we have a couple options: We could jump for the docking bays, similar to how we planned, or since the Lost Light has such a patchwork hull, we could jump onto the hull, rally on the outside, and cut through one of the seams there. Gway gives it thirty minutes before the shipboard AI realizes there’s a problem and deals with the hole.”
Henry leaned against the bulkhead behind him and folded his arms.
“I don’t like any of this,” he finally said. “We don’t have any opportunity to test these or train in them. The first time we use them is going to be it. We’re using unfamiliar equipment in an unfamiliar environment without training or testing it.” He let out a slow sigh.
“But that’s just how it goes, right? The people who would have tested these, if they tested them at all, would be in their sixties and seventies, and no one else has been through what we’ve been through. We’ve got to make things happen because no one else will.”
Gene shrugged.
“On the bright side, we’ll be wearing them while we break orbit, so you should be used to the feel of it by the time we have to operate.”
Before Henry could reply, H’Kai’s voice came over the shipboard intercom.
“Attention all crew, we will begin our ascent in T minus forty-five minutes.”
With a pair of curses, they hurriedly began changing into the bulky armored spacesuits.
1325 (Mountain time), 8 October 2025
Aboard the Relentless, somewhere above the Rocky Mountains
Henry tensed in his seat. H’Kai sat on a couch ahead of him in a standard M’Nok spacesuit while Henry, Qrora, Midnight November, and their enablers wore the grey armored suits. Bort stood awkwardly between the seats, yammering away in his odd language that Henry’s odd translator refused to pick up. I really need to see Tyr about this.
He looked behind him to see Astreia in the next row. She seemed cool and confident in her NASA suit, in her element, but in a different way than the shiplord. Whereas H’Kai seemed to be at home commanding a ship, Astreia’s comfort was the unknown and riding the edge of it. Henry still found her suspicious, though.
An annoyed hiss escaped his lips. The under-suit—the orange layer that made contact with his skin—was already chafing in the crotch and beginning to make his feet sweat. He hated that feeling, peeling off his boots only to see his feet and ankles deformed. Topping it all off, that feeling normally went with one of the most uncomfortable things a human being could experience: having to walk in wet socks.
“These suits are unpleasant,” Qrora said next to him. The smaller M’Nok’s hair-like proto-feathers were slick with sweat. “I take it you’re not pleased either?”
Henry shook his head.
“No, I’m not. This is going to be worse than MOPP gear because, instead of an irritant or crippling gas, it’s hard vacuum, radiation, the complete absence of air or anything to absorb heat. We’ll freeze and burn and suffocate if we’re compromised.”
Qrora stared at him blankly as he spoke, and it dawned on Henry that, until recently, what he had described was more or less just life to the M’Nok as a whole.
“Do you remember that huge thunderstorm that rolled in a few weeks after First Contact?” Qrora asked. Henry nodded slowly. The storm in question gave the M’Nok a crash course in something they hadn’t experienced in some time: weather. The roar of thunder and the crack of lightning terrified the M’Nok settlers as wind and rain battered their structures. “Ari was convinced he would die until Mike senior told him how low the odds were that he would be hit by lightning.”
“Yeah, I remember,” Henry said. “That led to him explaining car crashes, that sharks were indeed still a thing, and what the lottery was.”
Qrora nodded.
“Hard space isn’t instant death. You have a few minutes to save yourself,” the M’Nok commander replied. “But the odds your suit fails and is breached randomly are lower than being hit by lightning.”
Before Henry could reply, Solomon came over the PA.
“Escorts for stage one are inbound,” the dry AI said. “Prepare for ascent in one minute.”
Henry steeled himself and relaxed. Or rather, he tried to. It’s alright, Henry, you signed off on this.
F-35s from the 191st would serve as their primary escorts, with standard F-35s and F-22s supporting them. It hadn’t been as hard to wrangle them as Henry expected. Landers had touched down in major cities along the east coast. Terror Rexes and Runners, herded by killbots, rampaged through the remains of Washington D.C., while similar scenes played out up and down the east coast. Greith’s attacks had absorbed the attention of armies around the world.
Much to Henry’s surprise, however, the squadrons that attacked the assault lander were being repaired and refitted at Inner Sea. Since they’d been told to stand by, they hadn’t been called up to fight any of a hundred fires across the continent.
The monitors and maps showed them gently picking up speed, but it felt like they weren’t even moving. The various fighters roared into view, and as the Relentless angled skyward, the fighters angled up with her, ascending to the heavens. For the ancient ship, she had taken her foot off the brake and was rolling, while her escorts opened their throttles entirely as they climbed.
“Solomon, are we on track to make escape velocity?” H’Kai asked.
A new graphic opened up where their map table would normally be. It showed the arc of the Relentless towards her target, with the ancient vessel identified by a circle on the arc.
“We’ll break orbit, Shiplord. However, there is a complication.”
The shiplord cocked his head.
“What kind of complication?”
“There appears to be a swarm of gunships on an intercept course with the Relentless. Shall I fire the ion cannon?”
H’Kai nodded.
“Indeed, fire,” the Shiplord commanded.
A stream of multi-colored orbs emerged from the front of the vessel and arced towards the oncoming gunships. Solomon enhanced the image and augmented the projection so they could clearly see the ion pulses wreaking havoc on the gunships. Several began tumbling as their drives went dead.
It was a long way down, and Henry was sure the inertial dampeners cutting out would kill the pilot and copilot long before the fall did. However, the initial burst swept away maybe a third of the gunship swarm.
“Adjust angle and fire again,” H’Kai said.
“Negative, Shiplord,” Solomon replied. “We’ve already used the ion cannon to its fullest. Any adjustments will bring some of our escorts into the affected area.”
H’Kai hissed and checked on the escorts.
All fighters were launching their long-range missiles. Henry could make out the light of the rocket motors driving the weapons as hordes of them streaked towards the approaching gunships. Some struck gunships that had already been disabled by the Relentless’s ion weapon. Explosions filled the optical monitors as the gunships returned fire with their own armaments.
Solomon announced he was deploying countermeasures as the fighters launched chaff and attempted to evade the incoming return fire. M’Nok missiles struck the hull of the ancient vessel, eliciting groans from the hull. Point defenses came to life, firing solid slugs and bursts of energy in an attempt to destroy incoming missiles.
Unfortunately, the gunships closed with the escorts at just the wrong moment. The stock F-35s were the first to approach their service ceiling, leveling off before they accidentally hit their stall height. That only left the F-22s and F-35Ms, but those were struggling to maintain their speed in the thinning atmosphere. The gunships had the advantage of gravity working with them, and that speed advantage allowed them to cut paths through the escorts.
H’Kai hissed and looked toward the ceiling.
“Solomon, full ahead,” the shiplord ordered. “Break through the gunships, and get us into orbit.”
“As you wish, Shiplord,” the dry AI replied.
Henry suddenly felt pushed back into the couch on which he sat. Even with the inertia dampeners, he felt the increase in pressure on his body. The gunships faded behind them, and suddenly, their aggressive dive came back to haunt them.
The gunships, while possessing incredible acceleration, were far from the most navigable craft. They required a lot of space to maneuver and maintain their speed, or they could slow down to turn more tightly. This left them vulnerable to the more maneuverable fighter jets.
The F-35s and F-22s, designed entirely around dominating anything in the atmosphere, sprang into action. Pilots who’d heard of the Red Baron and the stories of the Battle of Britain and Midway, who grew up with stars like Tom Cruise and Mark Hamill playing daring pilots, now faced a challenge they’d waited their whole lives for.
The Returned, flying ground attack craft meant to support a landing against a hostile force, found themselves caught up in a kind of battle their collective kind hadn’t seen in millennia: dogfights. Henry’s eyes danced across the monitors displaying the battle below.
Gunships struggled to keep their opponents below and in front of them. The allied pilots were twisting out of their firing lines or opening their flaps, allowing the gunships to shoot past them. Vulcan guns tore at engine housings, and the gunships struggled to get away.
The deadly dance below them shrank into the distance, and Henry directed his attention to the object coming into focus on the main monitor.
Solar cells spread like an umbrella at the crown of a large patchwork cylinder. Vast sections of the hull were discolored and pitted, with various bits of kibble from section to section. The pressure on his body let up, and in front of him, H’Kai undid his restraints to face him.
“Sergeant Henry, Commander Qrora, prepare Midnight November for breach operations.”
1345 (Mountain time), 8 October 2025
Aboard the Relentless, near the starboard airlock, near the M’Nok generation ship Lost Light
“Are those torches secure?” Henry asked. Walking felt odd to him. Magnetic boots kept him anchored to the deck while an exoskeleton in the middle layer enhanced his movements. The suit itself didn’t feel heavy, but it was awkward to move in. The odd half-waddle the rest of Midnight did told him none of them really felt comfortable in the bulky suits.
“Ozzie and Gene have them,” Astreia said. “They have enough fuel that you’ll only have one shot to enter once things get going.” She motioned at Bort and one of his Cyclops buddies standing near the airlock. “We need you guys in peak shape once you’re inside. Bort and his buddy . . . we’ll just call him Buddy for now. They have your gear. Once you’re inside, secure a defendable area and switch into your regular attire.” She rested a hand on the Mark-93. “You’ll probably have to use these before you can change.”
Henry nodded and faced the rest of his team.
“Listen up. Our objectives are twofold: rescue the hostages Greith has taken and kill Greith himself. We’re going to get in and out as fast as possible.” He looked at Qrora and nodded.
“Commander Qrora is going to be joining us for this mission. He has a lot of experience training for hostage rescue and recovery operations. Swayze, Ozzie, Five, and Buddy will join him.” Henry spared a look towards the smaller alien. Despite swimming in his suit, Five’s head seemed to fill the helmet. “We believe Qaroww will be guarding the prisoners. You’ll go as a hard counter to him.”
