Hammerhead Resurrection (22 page)

“What is it then?”

Leif said nothing, and in that silence Jeffrey took his chance. “She was pregnant.”

Leif nodded, and his eyes rose to meet Jeffrey’s, a helplessness in them, as if he had no idea what to do with the pain he felt. “How did you know?”

Jeffrey shrugged. “I put it together.”

Leif’s voice lowered, “How?”

“I know my son. I know when he’s hurting and how badly.” At this tears welled in Jeffrey’s eyes. He tapped the center of his chest. “I’ve felt every bruised knee and broken heart you’ve ever had, felt it like it was my own.” He shook his head. “You can’t hold up the world Leif. You have to let those around you help.”

“You’ll help me kill them?”

“Yes.”

Leif nodded. “Good.” His emotions appeared to cement back over. “Then we have work to do.” He stood and opened the container. Inside, set in black foam, lay a blank onyx disk about a the size of a man’s chest. Kicking the case closed, he set the object on it.

Jeffrey asked, “Is that what I think it is?”

“Yes. A remote Nav-Con and communications console.”

…

As the sixth hour from crash landing passed, Captain Donovan approached Jeffrey in a clearing. “I have the last of the troops moving to our location now.”

“Good. Have you got those folks working on shelter?”

Donovan said, “I was tasked with getting supplies off the ship. I’ve done that. Maybe instead of glad-handing your pets you should have had some setting up shelter.”

In that moment Jeffrey imagined hitting Donovan in the jaw hard enough to lift him off his feet. Instead, he drew a breath and said, “Captain Donovan, please task your men and women with setting up shelter. When you’ve done that, come back and talk with me.”

Donovan stared just long enough to show resistance, but not long enough to be insubordinate, and walked away without acknowledging the order.

While he understood Donovan represented a danger to his command, he knew that forcing him to comply wasn’t enough. He needed Donovan to believe in him and follow him.

Thirty minutes later Donovan returned, his expression closed off. As he came to stand in front of Jeffrey, he crossed his arms. “The shelters are being prepared.”

Beyond Donovan, through the trees, Jeffrey could see the back of the Lacedaemon broken in three buckled creases. Sunlight caught the metal along it’s welded seams in glittering lines.

“Donovan,” Jeffrey asked in a matter of fact tone, “exactly what is your problem with me?” He felt the air supercharge between them.

“You want to know what my problem is?”

“Yes.”

“Off the record.”

“Sure.”

“I’ve said it before. You’re nothing but a pilot. Cantwell was a full blown military commander with experience leading a destroyer and a fleet. He had experience leading battle groups. You were in the military what… six years? That man served for fifty.”

“So you respect experience.”

“Yes.”

“And you respect ability.”

“Yes.”

“Good. So here’s how we’re going to work this. We’re going to need a lot of different experience and ability to survive, and I do sincerely believe that the survival of the human race is on the line here. I’m operating on the assumption that the Sthenos have no desire to rule us.”

At that, Donovan’s expression softened. “We’d be better off if that was their goal.”

“Exactly. We’d have more time. At least in that, we have a point of agreement.”

Donovan’s expression remained unreadable.

“Individually,” Jeffrey continued unfazed, “we’re each limited. To succeed, we’re going to need Commander Zack’s guerilla expertise, my flight group and dog fighting expertise, and your large-scale operations expertise. I agree when you tell me that we need applied experience, but tell me honestly, what is your area of proficiency?”

Looking out on the hulk of the Lacedaemon, Donovan said, “Destroyer and fleet operations.”

“Captain, you’ve forgotten more than I’ll ever know on fleet battle tactics, but,” Jeffrey held his hand out to the Lacedaemon where a flight of white birds now crossed over the broken spars of the bridge, “what use is it to us now?”

Sofía Fields sat on the couch in her small apartment running her fingertips across its crosshatched fabric. The sun glittered off the stainless steel patio railings. Beyond, the skyline of downtown Los Angeles stood against a broad, blue sky. Cool summer air blew through the open patio door carrying the scent of the pine trees from the hills. Her children, Emilia and Luciano lay on their bellies on the white carpeting playing with a fractal hologram.

While such a beautiful day should bring contentment, she felt troubled. She hadn’t received a message from Marco in two weeks. While long separations without explanation were part of the life of a Special Warfare spouse, he’d always been able to warn her that he’d be out of touch. In his last video message, all had seemed well. He’d said he was off the shoulder of Saturn on the Rhadamanthus, that he was bored, and he loved her. She recorded a return message, having both Luciano and Emilia show him pictures they’d drawn of him wearing his flight suits.

At three years old, Luciano held no greater hero in his heart than his father, and to Emilia at four, there was no greater prince. While she felt equally proud of her husband, she had difficulty sleeping in a lonely bed. During the months-long deployments, dark circles would form under her eyes. When he returned, she would hold his shoulder in the quiet darkness of their bedroom and sleep so deeply her body ached when she awoke.

Luciano looked from the toy to the patio as a faint rumbling formed at the edge of Sofía’s awareness. The little boy went out onto the patio followed by his sister. Emilia pointed upward and said, “Mama, la
astronave de padre.”

“What are you talking about Emilia?” Sofía said as she rose and walked across the living room.

With high-pitched excitement, the little girl said, “He’s come home! With his whole ship!”

As she jumped up and down, Luciano caught up in her excitement, punched her. She slapped him across the face, which made him scream in anger.

Sofía ran onto the patio, saying, “Stop it the both of—”

She fell silent, staring at the glittering black spike dropping out of the sky on a tail of blue flame. What looked like black smoke poured from its upper reaches, but as the smoke dispersed it was granular, individual small things, which began spreading out.

The rumbling grew as the ship descended. Struts extended from its sides as it set down among the dwarfed skyscrapers. The small, dark particles began flying over the city. Green bolts of power lashed out at buildings. One of the sky scrapers, perhaps shoved aside by the base of the ship, tipped sideways, dust trailing off its edges as it collapsed in a billowing cloud, glittering with shattered glass.

Despite having no idea what she was seeing, as she watched the building fall, two instinctual thoughts came to Sofía’s mind.
Hide or run.
Her gut told her to run. She looked to the cabinet by the entryway where Marco, the consummate soldier, kept his bug out bag. She’d given him a hard time about it countless times, had called him paranoid. Now all she could think was how grateful she was for him.

Going to the cabinet, she pulled out the big pack and threw it on her back.

“Put your shoes on,” she said to Luciano and Emilia.

“Where are we going?” Emilia asked.

“But,” Luciano said pointing to the ship.

“There’s no time to explain, mijo.”

As if sensing her mother’s fear, Emilia’s eyes widened and reddened.

“All is well Emilia,” she said with a warm smile, “but we must go
now
.”

The children did as they were told, and they left the apartment thirty seconds later. With both children stacked in her son’s stroller, she ran up the street, past the balconies of the wealthier homes with people pointing out into the valley. It took her twenty minutes to reach the last street.

“We have to play a game with your father.”

“Hide and seek?”

“Yes, but we must be very serious. He will be proud of you if he cannot find you.”

Luciano nodded with a definitive downward bend to his mouth, and they left the stroller at the curb, climbing the steep slope between two houses to enter the tinder, dry pine trees of Mt. Lee. When they were halfway up the hill, a ship unlike any she’d seen came racing by the edge of the street, spraying down a glittering liquid, which solidified as a crosshatched barrier. If she’d hesitated a moment longer, they’d have been trapped inside it.

Jeffrey set up a shelter in a hollow of trees with a partial view of the Lacedaemon. That night sparks of fire lanced across the star-deep sky trailing moonlit smoke—debris from the fleet and razed satellites.

The next morning, Jeffrey stood outside his shelter looking through the trees. The Lacedaemon’s back glowed copper in the early light.

He’d set his shelter down a small trail to be off by himself. Footfalls came down that trail now. In a few moments Samantha emerged through the broad leafed plants.

“They never came,” she said. “What does that mean?”

“It means they don’t care. They know they’ve won. It tells me they’re used to easy victories. It also means they’ve spent the last 12 hours focusing on other targets.”

“What do you suppose they’ve done?”

Before he could answer, Jeffrey heard the thudding of boots and the rush of leaves as someone ran toward them. A moment later, Stacy leapt over the nearby teak roots. “Come quick, we’re communicating with a space station.”

…

In the command area they found an operations specialist sitting on a crate, leaning over a portable communications unit. He had headphones on with one ear uncovered. The command staff stood around him.

The young man looked at Jeffrey with exhausted eyes and said, “I’ve got a low frequency connection with the space station. I haven’t attempted to communicate yet. My guess is that the moment they fire up their power, they’ll be destroyed.”

“That’s a good bet based on what we know of Sthenos tactics.” Donovan said. “Any idea how they’ve survived?”

“It looks like they’re running on extremely low power. No lights, minimal life support.” He looked to Jeffrey, “Admiral, may I send the message?”

Jeffrey waited for
the admiral
to respond. He felt Donovan, Holloway, and the other ranking officers’ eyes all on him. Samantha nudged Jeffrey with her elbow.

“I assume,” Jeffrey said with a start, only then realizing he was the
admiral
to whom the young man was speaking, “you aren’t going to expose our position?”

“No sir.” The officer pointed to a black antenna cone strapped high in the trees. “I’m using an x-ray laser transmitter aimed directly at the station, not broadcasting it. They however—if I understand their communications equipment well enough—cannot direct their signal back at us in a similar fashion. They’ll have to expose themselves if they want to respond.”

“Okay,” Jeffrey said, “What’s the planned message content?”

The officer read from his screen, “We are a military force in need of logistical information on invading forces. If you have anything of value, please send. If not, remain dark.”

Donovan nodded his approval to Jeffrey. “I’m good with that.”

“So am I,” Stacy said.

“As am I,” Holloway said.

Samantha also nodded.

Jeffrey looked up beyond the antenna. Clouds had risen in the morning’s heat, stark white against the blue sky. “Okay, send it off.”

The officer tapped his keyboard. “It’s away, sir.”

They waited.

A breeze, heavy with the scent of rubber trees and rain, rustled through the leaves above as branches all around them swayed.
Jeffrey worried the antenna might be thrown off target by the movement.

The officer kept his eyes on his display.

“Anything?” Donovan asked.

“Nothing yet.”

They waited for almost thirty minutes. Jeffrey was about to direct the O.S. to inform him of any changes when the console squawked, and the screen scrolled with black bars. The scrolling slowed, stopped, and the center bar expanded to reveal a woman’s face lit by a dim lamp. She had short, gray hair, which floated slightly. The zero-G effect on her face, gave her a slightly humored look. Crow’s feet framed her brown eyes.

“Do we have you?” She asked.

“Yes,” the O.S. said.

She smiled sincerely, “A handsome man to talk with, I’m so pleased. It’s funny when you know you’re going to die what matters.”

“You aren’t dead yet.”

“Son, you aren’t seeing what we’re seeing.”

“And what’s that?”

She looked to her side, saying, “I’m going to send you some details—images, maps… documented locations of attacking ships.”

“So the ships have touched down?” Jeffrey asked.

The woman had kept talking, not having heard Jeffrey, “…had several updates from broadcast military recon satellites before they were destroyed. A ship simply entered the low earth belt and flew through them all. There’s a band of garbage that’s going to be raining down on you folks for many years. They came up here to
geosynch orbit as well. We completely shut down as they passed through the Clarke belt. They had several fighters attacking targets. Apparently we shut down in time. If this station hadn’t been placed in such a unique orbit, we wouldn’t be talking now.”

Jeffrey crouched down beside the communications officer and asked into the screen. “Have the Sthenos ships touched down?”

“Sthenos?” The woman gave a humorless laugh, “I suppose that’s as good a name as any. Yes, all but one has touched down. They land, stern down and appear to root themselves to the ground. They’ve landed in the largest population centers.” She looked for a moment as though she might cry but pursed her lips, smiled, and said, “You men and women down there need to be careful. Stay sharp and stay safe.”

Jeffrey said, “We’ll do what
we can, ma’am.” He felt obligated to say something more. “We might be able to get a transport up to you.”

“Don’t you dare waste military hardware on us,” she said. “We knew responding would mark us. We delayed to come to a unanimous decision. We hope you’ll understand.”

“Of course,” Jeffrey said.

She looked to her right. “We’ve had alien fighters enroute since the beginning of this communication. They’re only a few moments away now.” She looked back to the O.S. with a resignedly peaceful expression. “Young man, there’s nothing left to say, and I have a death sentence on my head. Give me some hope. Tell me, do you have a girlfriend?”

“A wife. We’ve been married six months now.”

That brought a sincere smile to her face. “Beautiful?”

The communications officer smiled. “Yes. Really pretty…” his voice faltered, “…dark hair… wonderful smile. She has a great sense of humor.”

The woman pursed her lips before saying, “Tell her you love her. We have no idea how much time we have left. Ironically we never did, but our fate is clearly more immediate now.”

The O.S. said in a quiet tone, “Yes, ma’am.”

When the screen flashed to static, he clicked the keyboard, killing the feed. He remained with his head down too long.

Jeffrey put his hand on the young man’s back. “Youre wife?”

“Was on the
Oestres, sir.”

“I’m sorry,” was all Jeffrey could say.

“I’m fine,” the young man said with a dishonest smile. He typed for a moment on his keyboard before handing Jeffrey a pocket sized tablet. “That has the files she sent over.”

Jeffrey tapped a document icon, skimmed it, and said, “The remaining Sthenos destroyers returned to Earth twelve hours after destroying the fleet… just as we predicted. Twenty-two have touched down in major cities. Only one remains in a ten-hour transit Earth orbit.”

“Why are they orbiting that high?” Commander Holloway asked.

“Probably,” Donovan said, “so they can respond quickly to threats high and low as they just did with the space station.”

“That’s true, and it gives us an advantage,” Jeffrey said, “a longer window without observation.”

“Observation?” Donovan asked. “What are you planning?”

“We need different aircraft… namely not spacecraft. The Wraiths won’t serve us well in atmosphere. We need to get our hands on different hardware to give ourselves a fighting chance.”

“You’re hoping,” Commander Holloway said, her voice showing some of the mettle she had before the first battle, “that the Sthenos fighters have similar limitations in atmosphere.”

“Yes, absolutely. Look at their design.” He tapped on the tablet and brought up a schematic on the Sthenos fighters and held it out. “They have massive directional thrusters for zero G, vacuum based dog fighting, but there are only cursory control surfaces. Directional thrusters can only help a ship so much at speed in atmosphere. Nothing takes the place of excellent, old-fashioned control surfaces—big wings and tail fins.”

He tapped the stumpy shape of the Sthenos fighter. “I’m hoping these things will be as big a pig in
atmo as our Wraiths are. If they are, and we can get our hands on good, dedicated aircraft, our pilots will eat them alive.”

Captain Donovan shook his head. “What about the destroyers? We can’t stand for long against those. The moment we begin attacks, they’ll come right here, wipe us out.”

“That’s why we have to lay low and do it all at once.”

Samantha asked, “Do what all at once?”

He turned to Stacy. “Commander Zack has that all worked out.”