Virtues of War E-Book

Bennett R. Coles

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

The Centauri Attack may have been contained, but not before widespread death and destruction crippled the Earth. Now Terra is in all-out war with Centauria and the colonies. Jack Mallory is on the front lines, leading a flight of Hawks into the battle zone. His mission is a desperate, last-ditch attempt to rescue Thomas Kane, whose Astral forces are being overrun under heavy fire. Meanwhile, Katja Emmes works behind the scenes to secure Terra's flank from the most dangerous of Centauria's attacks. The Astral Force must establish a bridgehead in Centauri territory, in preparation for a daring mission which could end the war. Emmes and Mallory find themselves an unlikely duo on the advance force, while Kane must grapple with his loyalty to Terra when he discovers what the true cost of this attack may be. The ultimate showdown between Terra and Centauria looms, and with it the fate of all humanity.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Also by Bennett R. Coles and Available from Titan Books

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Dramatis Personae

Glossary

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

Acknowledgements

About the Author

ALSO BY BENNETT R. COLES AND AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS

Virtues of War Ghosts of War

March Of War Print edition ISBN: 9781783294275 Electronic edition ISBN: 9781783294282

Published by Titan Books A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd 144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition: October 2017 2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

This is a work of fiction. Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2017 by Bennett R. Coles. All Rights Reserved.

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TO MY MUM AND TO ALL MOTHERS WHO HAVE WATCHED THEIR CHILDREN GO OFF TO WAR

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

ASTRAL SPECIAL FORCES PERSONNEL

Brigadier Alexander Korolev (head of Astral Special Forces)

Katja Emmes

Suleiman Chang

Ali al-Jamil

Shin Mun-Hee

ADMIRAL BOWEN CREW MEMBERS

Commander Hu (captain)

Lieutenant Perry (executive officer)

Lieutenant Gillgren (combat officer)

Lieutenant Jack Mallory (Hawk pilot)

Lieutenant John Micah (anti-stealth warfare director)

Sublieutenant Thomas Kane (strike officer)

Sublieutenant Wi Chen

Sublieutenant Hayley Oaks

Master Rating Daisy Singh

OTHER PERSONNEL

Admiral Eric Chandler

Commander Sean Duncan

Valeria Moretti (covert Centauri agent)

Vijay Shah (Minister of Natural Resources, Progressive Party)

Charity Shah (Vijay Shah’s wife)

Christopher Sheridan (leader of the Federalist Party)

GLOSSARY

AAR

anti-armor robot

AAW

anti-attack warfare

AF

Astral Force

AG

artificial gravity

APR

anti-personnel robot

CO

commanding officer (or captain)

FAC

fast-attack craft

XO

executive officer

OFFICER TRADES

Line officer

in charge of the general operations of the Astral Force warships, this trade is exclusive to the Fleet

Strike officer

commanding AF ground operations, this trade is exclusive to the Corps

Pilot officer

operators of the Astral Force small craft, this trade exists in both Fleet and Corps, depending on the craft being piloted

Support officer

divided into three distinct sub-trades—Supply, Engineering, and Intelligence—this trade fulfills the Astral Force non-combat roles for both Fleet and Corps

EXTRA-DIMENSIONAL

Brane

a region of spacetime which consists of three spatial dimensions and one time dimension; humans exist in one of several known branes

Bulk

an area of spacetime which consists of FOUR spatial dimensions and one time dimension

Peet

the unit of measurement to describe how far away into the fourth dimension something is from the brane in which humans exist

SHIPBOARD

Aft

toward the back of the ship

Bow

front of the ship

Bridge

the command center of the ship

Bulkhead

wall

Deck

floor

Deckhead

ceiling

Forward

toward the front of the ship

Flats

corridor

Frame

an air-tight bulkhead which divides one section of the ship from another

Galley

kitchen

Hatch

a permanent access point built into a deck (as opposed to a door which is built into a bulkhead)

Heads

toilet

Ladder

a steep stairway leading from one deck to another

Main cave

main cafeteria

Passageway

corridor

Port

left

Rack

bed; also a verb meaning to sleep

Starboard

right

Stern

back of the ship

Washplace

sink, shower

1

Burning up in the atmosphere was becoming routine. It was the crossfire that made him nervous.

Lieutenant Jack Mallory nudged his control stick to the right. The Hawk shuddered as the thunderous vector of superheated air fought the movement. Visual reckoning was useless through the orange halo enveloping his ship and flight controls did little to warn him of the relentless exchange of firepower between the Terran warships in orbit and the rebel batteries on the surface.

The battle for control of the Asgard system wasn’t going well, and Jack seemed to find himself at the center of these situations with an increasing frequency, which alarmed him.

“Altitude one-seven archons,” Master Rating Singh shouted. The tactical operator was in the seat over his left shoulder. “Still on full descent!” The panic in the young woman’s voice echoed vaguely in Jack’s ears. The Hawk was dropping like a stone through the planet’s thick atmo, and he was still pushing the throttle forward.

“Send to flight,” he ordered. “Break at archons ten to scatter delta and regroup at rally point one.”

She repeated his command to the flight of five other Hawks descending in mad obedience, flying in wedge formation astern. They’d started their drop thirty seconds ago, and Jack knew the ground batteries were already starting to track them.

“Fire control shining,” she cried. “They’re locking us up!”

Jack held the stick steady as his altimeter flashed through ten kilometers.

“Break formation!” he cried as he wrenched back the throttle to idle and leaned the stick forward. His stomach lurched into his throat as the Hawk dove and pounded without thrust into the wall of thickening air. On his flight display he watched as the rest of his flight fanned out and dropped their speeds, just as they fell into range of the rebel anti-aircraft weapons.

Bolts of energy flashed ahead of him, dimly visible through the fading heat cone. The scatter had foiled the initial targeting by the ground batteries, but Jack had come under fire too many times to underestimate the abilities of his enemy. Another glance at his display showed the other Hawks vectoring outward in a classic delta pattern, and he hoped their pilots knew enough to get low.

“Archons five,” Singh warned.

As fire control radars locked on again, Jack did a random jink to port, changing his vector, but he kept the throttle idled and let gravity accelerate him downward. His target landing zone was only sixty seconds away at maximum thrust, but it was currently under a maelstrom of orbital bombardment, and his flight had just three safe routes in. If they didn’t adhere to the Fleet’s battlespace management plan, the rebel ground weapons would be the least of his worries.

Not that he wasn’t scared shitless by the fifty thousand rebel troops located in the hills ahead of him, each squad carrying some kind of anti-aircraft weapon, and each of them linked into that damned Centauri uber-mind which seemed to reveal every Terran movement.

Air resistance slowed the Hawk to hypersonic speed, and as he dropped below one kilometer he pushed the throttle forward again, watching the rolling landscape rise to meet him. The other Hawks flitted in and out of sensor reach among the mountains. They cruised at two kilometers altitude, staying below the approaching peaks but giving themselves some room for error.

They were probably low enough to stay under the rebel tracking systems, but he didn’t want to give the enemy a chance for pot-shots at his own bird. He nudged his vessel down, feeling the rumble of ground resistance in the air beneath him.

Ahead, he could see the rain of fire pounding away at the rebel positions that encircled the Terran base. He flashed over a ridge and scanned the wasteland of military equipment that had been the battle of New Trondheim barely a week ago. A flash to the left caught his eye, but the weapon was already falling astern. He heard Singh report it and launch countermeasures, but he kept his eyes on the mayhem coming into view ahead.

At least twenty orbital batteries were hammering down on the rebels, but the rain of fire was countered by dozens of mobile defense guns, their energy weapons lancing upward to intercept the Terran meteor swarm. The sky crackled with explosions seen through thick smoke, and the ground was barely visible amid the mad dance of scattered light and shadows.

“Project battlespace,” he ordered.

A faint hologram flickered into existence, projecting onto the canopy as an overlay to the world before him. Rally point one glowed as a beacon off the starboard bow. Beyond it was the narrow corridor of extraction route one, straight through the maelstrom. In his peripheral he noted the symbols of his flight of Hawks as they emerged from the hills and converged, local anti-aircraft fire trailing their hypersonic passages.

“Time to corridor sweep?”

“Sixteen seconds.”

“Send to flight,” he said, leaning his stick to the right and lining up on rally point one. “Formation alpha—execute.”

Singh relayed the order and the vectors of the Hawks changed as they altered to close him. Holding his own course steady put him at the greatest risk, out here on the open plain, but for these few seconds he needed to give his flight a target toward which to steer. The glowing hologram of rally point one loomed ahead of him, and beyond that the desperate rebel ground defenses countered the bombardment.

As he flashed through rally point one and nudged left to aim at the extraction corridor, Jack saw a sudden dimming of the sky as all orbital bombardment momentarily ceased. An eerie calm settled over the battlefield, but Jack knew what was coming next. His flight remained in formation behind him, single file, extraction corridor entry ten seconds away. He kept his eyes down, away from the sky.

The curtain of fire that suddenly burned down from orbit was brighter than Asgard itself. This was no new super weapon attacking the rebels—just the concentrated, coordinated fire of every orbital battery, all at once, all targeting the extraction corridor ahead of him.

For nine long seconds the Terran weapons slammed into a single line of rebel forces, overwhelming any defenses and smashing any exposed positions. Jack didn’t slow his approach, aiming directly for the center of the fire.

A second before he entered the corridor, the focused bombardment ceased. The Hawk bucked as it slammed into the furnace of tortured air. He eased upward just enough to clear the thick smoke. His passage cut a wake through the debris that from orbit would look like God’s finger pointing at his position, but the rebels below him—those still alive—would spend the next few minutes digging themselves out. By the time they succeeded, he and his flight would be long gone.

They were through the main rebel line. Ahead of him he could see the blackened, smoking remains of a Terran base. Eyes narrowing, he pushed the throttle forward even more. There were troopers in those remains, and it was his job to get them out.

* * *

“There’s no way out!”

Behind his visor, Sublieutenant Thomas Kane winced at the distant words of Sergeant Bunyasiriphant, his senior surviving soldier, as she clambered back toward him. Smoke was filling the half-collapsed hallway too quickly, and there was no time to try to dig or blast through the blockage.

Escape through the hangar wasn’t an option.

“Get back down here,” he barked at Buns—as the sergeant was known—before turning back to the rest of his “troop.” A motley gang of Terrans, but they were alive, for the moment, and they were his fighting force. More important, they were his responsibility. He checked his forearm display, scrolling through the internal structure of the base. He needed an area large enough for the Hawks to land, but one which wasn’t yet controlled by the advancing rebels.

One of the section weapons thudded to life. His rifle snapped up even as he crouched and moved forward, pushing past the wounded and the terrified civilians. He heard Buns scrambling to follow him.

Trooper Furmek was on the section weapon. She leaned over a mound of collapsed wall and loosed another short burst of heavy rounds as Thomas approached. Through the constant ringing in his ears he heard the ripple of destruction as the explosive rounds hit their distant marks. He crouched next to Furmek, glancing around the wall into the wreckage of what had been the main control center.

“Another probe,” she growled, eyes not wavering from her scan outward. “I discouraged them.”

“Another milly?”

“Nope, just humans.”

The millies had been chewing up Terran troopers of late. Their official designation was UCR—urban combat robot, or something—but they looked for all the worlds like mechanical millipedes, and Thomas hadn’t ever heard one called anything but a milly. War simplified things. He remembered once upon a time when the primary rebel infantry robot had actually been called an APR, rather than an “appy,” and the flying “airy” had been referred to by its official designation of AAR.

Thomas glanced out again. No movement among the debris. He checked his map, reorienting himself. This was a big establishment, designed to be the planetary headquarters both for the Terran campaign here on Thor and for the Asgard system in general. Too bad the rebels had found it before it had been garrisoned properly.

Fucking Army.

The hallway to his left headed toward the workshops and some storage bays. Not much there. He scanned the tactical center again. Furmek might have forced the rebels to duck their heads down, but there was no way he could get this group of wounded and civilians across that large an open space.

“Sir.” Trooper McDonald tapped his shoulder, still pressing one hand over an ear. “Fleet says the extraction force is on final approach. Request our location for pickup.”

Thomas scanned his display. The Hawks would be coming under heavy fire—he couldn’t leave them loitering. All he needed was a flat space they could access. He scrolled up through the base diagram… The roof. It was dangerously exposed, but it was open and flat. He traced back the path from one of the rooftop guard posts, and saw that the stairs that led upward were only twenty meters away.

“Tell them we’ll be on the roof, near guard post seven,” he said, before tapping Furmek’s armored shoulder. “We’re going to move the group across this opening and back into the hallway, heading for the first set of stairs. We’re going all the way to the top.”

Furmek flexed her grip on the trigger. “I got you covered, skipper.”

Thomas edged back and motioned for the group to rise. There were five troopers still in fighting form, and four others being carried between the six civilians.

“Hawks are inbound—we’re heading for the roof. O’Hara, Unrau, and I will lead. Stay close.” He hefted his rifle again and nodded to Furmek.

She opened up with the section weapon, pounding the far side of the tactical center with sweeps of explosive rounds.

Thomas dashed across the exposed opening where part of the wall had collapsed, eyes already on the dim hallway which angled off to the left. Emergency lamps cast narrow arcs of light through the thin, drifting smoke—enough to see by in natural vision as Thomas loped forward, rifle up at his eyeline.

At the junction to the wide stairwell he paused, fist held up to signal a stop. Still behind the corner he activated the infra-red in his visor, scanning through the wall and up to the next floor. No heat signatures. He motioned his team forward and rounded the corner, rifle sweeping up the stairs.

He took the steps two at a time, reaching the landing and swinging his rifle across the next climb. No visible resistance. He dashed up again. The clatter of boots behind him indicated the team following, loud enough for the dead to hear. Speed was more important than stealth, though, and without pause he scanned the corridor in both directions before charging up the next flight of stairs.

At the fourth floor he paused, signaling Subtrooper O’Hara to cover the left corridor while he covered the right. Unrau had kept pace, emerging up the latest set of stairs, but the civilians were lagging under their burden of carrying the wounded. Thomas glanced back, grimacing as the clutter of gasping figures extended back more than a flight of stairs.

“Hold here,” he ordered O’Hara. He motioned for Unrau to move back down, and then followed, keeping against the outer wall to make room for the wounded. To their credit, none of the civvies were complaining, their faces fixed in grim determination as they helped their charges to climb.

The metal panel of a ventilation duct exploded from its frame and smashed into the group on the landing. A silvery machine lashed out from the exposed duct like a giant metallic snake. Thomas snapped his weapon up and fired. Explosive bullets thudded into the dust-covered armor, knocking the milly in mid-air as the impacts dispersed over its armored form. The robot’s forward claws clamped onto the head of a civilian and wrenched.

The human was dead even before he hit the floor.

Unrau leapt back and fired at the milly slithering at his feet, but the robot’s long body rippled to the side as its hundreds of tiny legs reacted with inhuman swiftness. In a heartbeat the robot was up to strike, grasping Unrau’s helmet and launching multiple tungsten darts from its underbelly. The point-blank shots punched through Unrau’s lowered weapon, and his armor. He dropped the rifle as smoke and coolant leaked from the multiple holes, grabbing the milly with his armored hands and throwing them both down the stairs.

“Go, go, go!” Thomas shouted, gesturing up the stairs.

He aimed at the milly, but Unrau’s massive frame blocked the shot as he kept the robot beneath him for the fall. Man and machine crashed into the lower floor. Thomas heard the muffled bangs of further darts punching into Unrau’s torso. He motioned for the rest of his charges to keep ascending as he leapt down to aid his trooper.

The milly shuddered free of Unrau, the trooper rolling off as blood began to flow freely. Thomas fired. The bullets exploded against the robot’s armor—enough to knock it back but still doing no real damage—and the thing was so damn fast. Already it was scuttling back on itself and moving to strike against him. Before Thomas could jump aside he saw the puff of darts and felt the sting of impacts against his chest.

He fell backward from the sheer force.

Even before he hit the landing floor he squeezed the trigger for his grenade launcher. From beneath the rifle’s main barrel the shot rocketed outward. The explosion hurled the milly backward. Thomas crashed down into the floor and wall, vision blurring.

In the corridor below, the milly skittered up, an entire section of its feet either missing or hanging limply amid the charred wreckage. Its forward claws still operated, though, as did the lower half of its body.

Thomas tried to focus.

Another explosion tore into the milly’s lower half, flipping it backward. Sergeant Bunyasiriphant stepped into Thomas’s view and fired a final grenade into the milly’s head. It collapsed in a smoldering heap. Thomas righted his vision as Buns crouched over Unrau, tearing a wound-sealant pack from his belt and reaching repeatedly into the shattered armor. Trooper McDonald appeared next to her, followed by Trooper Furmek swinging the section weapon in a slow, covering arc.

Thomas leaned against the wall and pushed himself to his feet. The civilians and wounded were clustered at the top of the stairwell above him, watching anxiously.

“Is he alive?” he called down to Buns.

“Yes,” Buns replied, not looking up as she continued to apply first aid. Thomas checked his forearm display. One more floor up to the rooftop guard post.

“McDonald,” he said over his helmet radio, “take point with O’Hara, and get everyone up the next set of stairs. Find guard post seven and get everyone inside. Hawks are inbound to land on the roof.”

Trooper McDonald hustled up the stairs past him to comply.

Thomas descended and helped Buns lift Unrau’s heavy form. Furmek maintained rearguard as they struggled to ascend.

2

Jack checked his descent vector. His Hawk would bottom out at thirty meters before leveling on final approach, but the billowing clouds of black smoke rising from what had once been the base’s main hangar were problematic. He couldn’t climb—not unless he wanted to re-enter the shooting gallery of the scattered rebel forces which continued to evade the orbital bombardment blasts—but flying through zero visibility toward a structure that wasn’t really maintaining its official shape was just begging for a crash.

The rest of his flight had loosely formed up in the forgiving echo pattern which allowed each Hawk the flexibility to dodge individual ground attacks. To the right of his approach was the rest of the base, a tortured pile of rebel-occupied wreckage he wasn’t going anywhere near. To the left was open ground, but it was covered by mobile anti-aircraft batteries that continued to evade the slower-reacting orbital bombardment. A fist of tanks would have made short work of those bastards, but the whole point of this operation was to get Terran troops off the surface.

His flight had to avoid the smoke, and that meant taking on the AA batteries. So he calmly ordered the flight to shift vector left, instinctively dropping his own Hawk even lower. Ground resistance was a steady force rattling his craft, but he fought it almost absently as he scanned ahead for the two enemy defenders. At this altitude they’d have big trouble tracking him, but likewise his own sensors couldn’t pinpoint them.

“Relay orbital ground picture to my projection,” he said.

His holographic battlespace lit up with hundreds of contacts—an overwhelming array of tactical info as every single contact being tracked by the ships in orbit flooded his display. He ignored everything except for the two hostile symbols on the ground in front of him. He reached up and tapped the camera on his helmet, locking onto one symbol, then the other.

“Clear orbital ground picture.”

The galaxy of symbols disappeared, except for the two he’d personally targeted. The orbital feed continued to update his holographic image as the rebel batteries moved. His flight wouldn’t be able to get past those weapons without taking casualties, unless the weapons were taken out first. Bombardment clearly couldn’t do it, and there were no Terran ground assets that could help.

His Hawk, however, had two self-defense missiles tucked up under its stubby wings, and there was nothing that said he couldn’t employ them for aggressive self-defense. He leaned forward in his seat and smiled. In training, he’d always wanted to be a strike fighter pilot.

“Troopers say they’re at the roof,” Singh reported. Jack checked the relative position of the landing zone and the smoke from the hangar. His flight had a clear run now.

“Send to flight,” he said. “Commence landing run, Axe-Two leading. I’m taking out the AA batteries.”

There was the briefest of pauses from behind him, but Singh dutifully relayed the order. Above him, the other Hawks broke right and headed for the extraction. Jack armed both his missiles and linked their targeting to the orbital feed. They growled ready in his ear. He designated one each to the rebel batteries, which were even now repositioning.

“Tell Fleet to hold fire on surface hostiles alpha-two-eight and alpha-two-niner,” he said. “Axe-One is taking them.”

Orbital bombardment was a blunt instrument, and was as likely to hit his Hawk as the enemy at these ranges. Assuming the ships above him would comply, Jack closed on the first battery. The rolling landscape flashed beneath him as a pale blur. He fought to keep the Hawk steady, then pressed the trigger.

The first missile burst forth, ringing in his ear with its positive lock.

Jack nudged his stick to the right and pressed the trigger again. The second weapon blazed ahead, just as an explosion on the ground to his left erupted upward, instantly flashing astern. A second later another explosion lit up a shallow depression ahead.

He pulled back to gain altitude and hard right to head for the extraction.

* * *

The heavy thud of the section weapon was a beautiful sound to a trooper. It meant somebody was covering your ass.

Thomas knew Furmek was still holding off the rebels in the corridor, and he stayed focused on his task of getting his troop out onto the roof. He heaved Unrau’s massive form up through the gun port of the guard post, where two of his troopers took the limp body and struggled forward onto the open surface. Buns was already topside, arranging the few combat-ready assets they still had in a thin perimeter around the weak and wounded.

The thudding of the weapon abruptly died.

Thomas swung around, raising his rifle at the door. Beside him, Subtrooper O’Hara followed suit. She’d held up well throughout this entire incident, but he could see the strain on her too-young face. She was barely old enough to drink—she wasn’t old enough to die.

Trooper Furmek dove through the door, snapping it shut behind her. The section weapon was nowhere in sight.

“Ammo spent,” she gasped.

“How many approaching?” Thomas asked.

“Probably a dozen. Humans, small arms only.”

He glanced up through the gun port. His troop was hunkered down, waiting, and completely exposed if the rebels could gain access to the roof.

“We hold them here,” he said. He snapped out his pistol and handed it to Furmek. She took it in one hand and hefted her own pistol in the other.

O’Hara, beyond Furmek, crouched lower and pointed her rifle at the door.

He spoke into his comms. “McDonald, what’s the ETA on the Hawks?”

“Two-zero seconds.” And another twenty seconds to load the wounded, he knew. Something pounded against the door, and he heard shouting on the other side.

“Once the packages are aboard, get the troopers back here to cover our withdrawal. Heavy fire imminent.”

“Roger.”

There wasn’t much to offer cover in the small, round room, but Thomas crouched behind a status board. Another, larger thump impacted the door, buckling it against its reinforced frame.

“Don’t fire until you see a target,” he called out. “Our own rounds will blow a hole open in the wall.”

A mechanical roar echoed through the door, and something massive struck it so that it cracked inward. A rifle poked through the gap. Thomas fired. A wet explosion mixed with shouts, and the rifle fell back. Amid the cacophony he made out a single word being repeated beyond the door.

“Grenade.”

If a single grenade got dropped through that opening, it was over for him and his troopers. They had no choice but to attack.

“Open fire!” he shouted.

His own assault rifle burst to life on automatic, the reinforced wall of the guard post crumbling backward under the hail of explosive rounds. O’Hara’s own fire joined his, thundering into the crowd of stunned rebels located beyond the shattered wall. Limbs and blood flew in all directions as dust choked the corridor.

His rifle clicked silent. Quick check—empty mag. He jettisoned the magazine and slapped in another.

O’Hara and Furmek both advanced, firing into the chaos.

“Get back!” Thomas roared.

A flash of silver rose up from the rubble, bowling into Furmek. She tumbled backward even as the milly rolled in mid-air and stabbed out at O’Hara with its main claws. The young trooper screamed as blood splashed out from her shoulder. She dropped her weapon and clutched at the gash in her armor, dropping instantly.

Furmek pulled herself to her knees and fired with both pistols, the rounds bouncing harmlessly off the milly’s back. It spun again, firing darts even as Furmek threw herself down.

Thomas reached for his grenade trigger, but the milly was scuttling right over Furmek’s slumping form. He switched back to bullets and charged forward, looking to bury his rifle into the fucker’s underside. He fired on automatic, relishing the power as the explosive rounds thundered into the milly’s legs and knocked it backward.

The robot staggered back against the wall, flailing against the onslaught. Thomas felt darts slamming into his front torso armor, felt white-hot burning mixed with liquid next to his skin. But he stepped forward again, emptying the last of his magazine into the milly’s head. The robot slumped down and was still.

Something hard hit him from behind, and he vaguely heard the sound of a gunshot. He turned to face the wreckage of the wall and corridor, and saw rebel troops advancing. Another impact-only bullet pinged off his helmet, shaking his vision. He brought his rifle to bear and squeezed the trigger, but heard only the awful click of another empty mag.

More rounds struck him, knocking him back against the wall and burning his torso. The rebels closed in. O’Hara and Furmek lay motionless at his feet. His hand dropped to the grenade launcher and he started firing. As his vision faded, he wondered if the rest of his troops had made it to the Hawks.

* * *

As he slowed for landing on the roof, Jack spotted three of his Hawks already lifting off. Wounded and non-combatants were loaded, and the first wave of the flight were bugging out.

“Tell Axe-Two to use the primary exit corridor,” he ordered as he thrusted to a hover and swung around to point his stern loading ramp toward the guard post. “We’ll use the secondary.”

His bird thumped down and he started to lower the ramp. A rush of heat swept through the cabin and the distant sounds of battle penetrated through his helmet. He looked back over his shoulder, and dimly saw two troopers hustling with a limp companion carried between them. He leaned to scan out of his port canopy and saw two others carrying another casualty.

“Get back there,” he barked at Singh, “and help them get on board!”

She unbuckled and hurried aft, taking the load of the casualty as the troopers staggered up the ramp and swung their rifles back toward the base. One of them fired off a few rounds toward the guard post, the other watched their companions climb aboard the other Hawk. Jack caught the motion as that Hawk’s ramp started to rise, and he turned his attention back to the troopers. They were climbing up into his main cabin.

“That’s everyone,” one of them shouted. “Go, go, go!”

He started closing his own ramp and pulled up into a hover, drifting forward and turning so that the other Hawk could take station on his port quarter. The ramp sealed. He pushed the throttle forward and started to climb. His wingman followed.

The abandoned base disappeared astern as he increased to hypersonic speed, and he surveyed the tortured landscape looming ahead of him again. Orbital bombardment pounded down on all sides, but the rebel forces continued their determined defense.

“Tell Fleet to open the secondary exit corridor,” he said. He heard a brief exchange by Singh, then a report back.

“Fleet ready to clear secondary corridor, but be advised orbital battle is intensifying.”

Jack frowned. Apparently a surface battle wasn’t enough of a challenge for one day, and he’d already expended his two self-defense missiles.

“Tell Frankfurt we’re going to need cover on our approach.”

His own mothership, the destroyer Frankfurt, needed to clear a path that would enable him to sneak through the orbital battle. Hawks were flexible, nifty little craft, but starfighters they were not.

As before, the ominous silence fell over the battlefield, and Jack nudged his course to starboard to line up with the secondary exit corridor. Then Fleet once again came together to lay waste to the narrow path through the main rebel line, and he followed the firestorm through. He and his wingman emerged and separated into the rising mountains, cutting individual paths out to a range where enemy fire was minimal. Jack pulled back on his stick and pushed the throttle to maximum power, activating his external boosters to assist in the climb.

The gray atmosphere of the planet Thor began to fade into the blackness of orbital space. After barely thirty seconds the boosters expended their fuel and fell silent. He jettisoned them and continued to climb with his own engines.

“Bring up orbital battlespace,” he gasped. A moment later the darkness beyond his canopy lit up with a new galaxy of contacts. He found Frankfurt’s unique beacon and pulled hard over to point for home.

Right away, he could see trouble.

The blue symbol of his destroyer was in the middle of a cluster of red hostiles, and even at this distance he could make out the flashes of combat, if not the combatants themselves. Other Terran ships were scattered across the near sky, and he could see them starting to pull back from low orbit. Their bombardment batteries were going silent, but their defense weapons blazed.

Jack made sure his own beacon was shining, knowing that at this speed Frankfurt’s sensors could easily interpret his direct approach as a missile threat. Off the starboard bow he could see the big cruiser Admiral Bowen closing Frankfurt, weapons already firing at the hostiles.

“Do we have an approach vector?” he asked.

“Negative,” Singh replied. “She’s all over the place.”

Jack maintained his speed, reckoning it was the only thing that might keep his Hawk out of the enemy crosshairs. Frankfurt wasn’t yet visible, but the rapidly changing vector of her blue symbol indicated heavy, erratic maneuvering. Jack took a deep breath. He’d landed his bird during combat before, and at least this time he had functioning thrusters. No problem.

In the darkness ahead, he saw a bright series of flashes. The blue symbol of Frankfurt blinked, then disappeared.

“What the hell?” Singh cried out behind him. Jack just stared ahead at the empty space where his mothership, his home for the past year, had been. This, he realized as a cold pit formed in his stomach, was a problem.

Alarms flashed, and he spotted several enemy contacts vectoring toward him. He jinked automatically. No missiles inbound yet, but his Hawk was awfully alone out here. He scanned the battlespace—the nearest friendly was the cruiser Admiral Bowen, which was even now engaging the closest rebel ships. Without thinking, he hauled his stick over to point at the blue symbol and tapped in Fleet Craft Control to his own comms.

“Windmill, Windmill, Windmill,” he said clearly, using Bowen’s callsign, “this is Axe-One, Axe-One, Axe-One, three k off your port quarter, inbound. Request emergency recovery, over.”

There was only a slight pause before the steady voice of the cruiser’s small craft controller came over the circuit.

“Axe-One, this is Windmill, roger. I am disengaging hostiles and closing your position. Take delta for port-side automated recovery.”

“This is Axe-One, wilco.”

He killed his throttle and angled to starboard, swinging slowly around to match the cruiser’s course and speed as she closed, weapons still peppering the rebel forces as they fell astern. Her charcoal hull was impossible to see against the blackness, but Jack watched the relative vectors converge as he bled off his own velocity and lined up. Just as the dim hull of the Terran warship started to emerge against the background, he felt the shudder of the gravity beams grab his Hawk and start to pull him in.

Killing his thrusters, he let the computers do the rest of the work.

As soon as his Hawk set down inside the airlock, he requested a medical team to meet them in the hangar. Receiving acknowledgement, he unstrapped and climbed past the exhausted Singh, patting her shoulder with a smile, then moving toward the troopers. One of them was laid out on the deck, the effects of first-aid packs still bubbling all over the armor. The other two sat slumped against each bulkhead, just pulling off their helmets. Two women, they cast heavy, exhausted eyes up at him.

“Lieutenant Mallory,” he said, crouching down at the feet of the casualty. “We have a medical team en route.”

“Sergeant Bunyasiriphant,” the older woman growled before nodding at her peer, “and Trooper McDonald.”

Jack glanced at the wounds on the casualty, realizing quickly that he had no way of knowing how serious they were.

“What ship are you from?” he asked the troopers.

“Admiral Bowen.”

Jack saw the dents and cracks in the casualty’s helmet, and through the broken visor he could actually see the man’s pale face—and his heart clenched. He pressed his fingers against the man’s neck, then was relieved to feel a faint pulse.

There was a knock at the side airlock hatch, and he stepped up to open it for the medical team before looking back down at the casualty and speaking.

“Welcome home, Thomas.”

3

Apparently some citizens of Terra thought the war against the rebels was going badly. Parliament didn’t like that fact, but until now they’d only employed gentle measures to try to dissuade those few citizens of their misconceptions.

A sterner lesson needed to be taught.

Operative Katja Emmes felt the icy breeze across her uncovered face as she strolled across the dark boulevard. The soft rustle of the snow-covered pine needles masked her gentle footfalls, but there was no particular need for stealth. Her targets were inside the pub just ahead, and even from this distance she could hear the faint voice of the orator, interrupted by occasional cheers.

This group of dissidents planned to settle upon a name for their movement this evening, and that the footage from their little gathering would be sent out to all the news networks. It was a group just on the cusp of causing real trouble.

Strolling up to the pub entrance, she noted the attractive young woman minding the door, as well as the two burly men standing just inside the threshold, eyes toward the interior but their attention on the entranceway. They hardly worried her— big men never considered small women a threat.

Wearing her thick winter jacket, Katja knew she looked almost portly. This made her appear even less threatening, and easily hid the array of weapons tucked into her belt. A black tuque was pressed down on her head, long blonde hair spilling out haphazardly. Contact lenses transformed her dark-brown eyes into brilliant blues, but more importantly they gave her infra-red and quantum-flux vision as needed.

“Hi,” she said shyly, looking at the woman then peering through the door. “Is this where the meeting is?” Her accent wasn’t perfect, she knew, but it had enough of a local twang to make her sound as if she’d lived some years in Scotland. With all the noise coming from within, she doubted the pub’s greeter even gave it a thought.

“It sure is,” the woman replied. “It’s already started, but come on in.”

Katja stepped inside, noting the quick glances from both burly men as she paused to take in the scene. She waited for any sudden or unusual moments from either of them, but neither paid her more than a moment’s attention.

Noting that many people near her were standing on chairs to see across the crowd, she climbed up on one herself, smiling as a young man offered a hand and then climbed onto the chair next to hers. He grinned back with youthful excitement before returning his gaze to the speaker. Katja peered over the rows of crowded tables to the small stage where a handsome, middle-aged man had just paused in his speech as a new roar of approval erupted from the assembled crowd.

She clapped absently, scanning the room.

The man on the stage was one of her targets, a local businessman who had the wealth to fund a considerable smear campaign against Parliament. He was well-known as a generous community member here in Inverness, and was involved in many local projects to help the poor.

The second target she spotted to the right of the stage—a stern, middle-aged woman who had for years been a State lawyer but who recently had set up her own practice in this, her home town. Her recent articles on the “quasi-legality” of Parliament’s position on the war could become quite embarrassing, if they received wide distribution.

The third target wasn’t immediately visible. A woman of no significant professional history, intelligence suggested that she was little more than a rabble-rouser capable of using the social networks for recruitment. There were no confirmed images of her on the nets, which by itself raised considerable suspicion. Katja also doubted she would speak at this gathering—her role in the movement was that of connector, not leader.

Personal devices abounded as people recorded what they assumed was a great beginning to their glorious revolution. Katja reached out tentatively into the Cloud, quietly probing the various accounts for any unusual signals or encryptions. It took several long moments for her to work her mind through the crowded electronic space, but nothing jumped out as odd. She recorded each user ID anyway, just in case Parliament felt it necessary to track any of these people after tonight.

What was that?

Among the cacophony of noise, she noticed something different. Something encrypted. It was barely a pulse within the waves of energy, with no repeats. She focused her mind in the Cloud, listening, but detected nothing else. She might have imagined it, but experience with the enemy had taught her more than enough about paying attention to “imagined” things.

She would need to move fast, as soon as opportunity allowed.

Target One thundered on for at least fifteen minutes more, rallying the crowd. Katja continued to clap as appropriate, even cheering once toward the very end. His words were socialist drivel, but she played her role of excited naïf, even returning the occasional grins of the kid next to her. But the speech eventually came to an end.

Target Two joined her companion on the stage just long enough to explain that there would be a half hour of mingling time, when everyone was welcome to come forward and cast their vote on the three names which had been put forward to identify this movement. She pointed up at the pub’s menu board where the three options appeared.

The two leaders stepped down, a band took the stage, and a general hubbub of excited chatter rumbled through the room. Katja glanced around again from her perch, assessing the likelihood that she would be able to get close to her targets amid this throng of admirers. Both seemed to be positioning themselves near the bar, where the open floor space gave them room to mingle.

A hand gripped her elbow, and she almost jerked away. The boy next to her had stepped down and was reaching up to assist her.

“Can I help you down?” he asked.

She placed her own tiny hand into his, and stepped down to the hard floor. The noise from the band crashed over them and he leaned in to her ear to speak.

“Isn’t this awesome?”

She gave him a shy smile. “It’s really exciting. I’ve never been to anything like this before.”

“Me neither,” he admitted. “But it’s great to be part of something so worthwhile.”

“I’ve never met the leaders—I was hoping to tonight, but there are so many people here!”

He looked over the crowd toward the bar, then grinned again, taking her hand and pushing forward between the tables. She tucked in behind him and followed, letting him take all the notice as they gently pressed through the mass. Soon enough they’d made it past the tables and jostled in among the crowd of admirers.

He let go of her hand long enough to grab a couple of beers from the line of free drinks being offered on the bar.

“Thanks,” she said.

“I’m Will,” he said, clinking glasses with her.

“Kelly,” she replied, holding his gaze and giving him a wink with her right eye. The wink activated her quantum-flux vision and she dropped her gaze, scanning the long wooden panels of the bar for any hidden weapons or devices. There was nothing of note beyond the usual plumbing and cold storage. A glance up to the ceiling revealed the usual network and power connections.

Target Two was almost within arm’s reach. Katja dropped her gaze again and unzipped her thick coat.

“It’s roasting in here,” she said, making a show of being hot before taking another big gulp of beer. “I think we’re going to need more of these.” Her pet teenager willingly obliged, downing the last of his own drink and stepping away to fetch more.

Katja made as if to loosen her coat, and in a quick motion reached inside to her belt. Her palm pressed against a tiny square, and she felt the patch adhere to her palm, then slip free of the belt.

Target Two was wilting under all the attention of her admirers, her severe face looking less friendly with each person who pressed forward to speak to her. She wasn’t going to last much longer, Katja thought as she slipped through the last row of admirers and right into the target’s face.

“I know you’re so busy,” Katja gushed, reaching out and clasping the target’s hand in both of her own, “but I just wanted to thank you for everything you’re doing.”

The patch needed less than a second to take effect, but Katja held on tightly for as long as she could. The target managed a faint smile and thanked her.

The poison from the patch would leave her dead within six hours, with no visible symptoms. She would appear to have died in her sleep. Nothing could ever be traced back to Parliament.

Katja stepped back and turned toward Target One, but young Will stepped into her path with another pair of drinks. She had no choice but to stop and accept, and flirt away with the eager pup amid the noise of the band. After a few minutes she noticed that Target One was retreating from the well-wishers, surrounded by a serious group of citizens who appeared to be some sort of inner cadre. Getting close to him now would be impossible.

Time for a less direct method.

“I am totally roasting,” she said. “I might just step outside and get some air for a moment.”

“Yeah, good idea,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

Katja sighed inwardly—she should have thought that through better. She needed to shake this kid.

“Just give me a sec,” she smiled. “I need to visit the little girls’ room first.” He pointed her in the right direction, assuring her he’d be there when she got back.