On Silver Wings (19 page)

Environmental energy converters are causing the cold,
she thought with certainty,
I’ve seen them before. Never anything this efficient, though, or this portable. But what is this terror? I’ve never felt anything like it, not while I was awake.

She, for the first time in her life, let terror rule her. Let it freeze in her in place. For once, perhaps the only time she’d ever heard of, being frozen with fear was the right thing to do. Her heart pounded, the blood rushed through her, but she only moved her eyes as the alien units went about their business.

They tore up the jungle, destroying the few traps left untripped, and leveled the jungle around in an impressive display of power. It was over in just a few minutes, ending with several acres of the jungle razed to the ground before the four legged units were finished and began to withdraw just before Sorilla saw new Golem and Goblin units approaching.

“Huh.” She said softly as she too began to pull back, inching slowly away from her position. She’d learned what she needed to learn.

That didn’t mean she was quite finished, however. Sorilla paused near the crest of the hill she was sheltering behind and slung her rifle. She’d left her assault rifle back in camp for this mission, instead opting to pack one of the M900s. She accessed its systems through her implants and killed the safety, bringing the ballistics computer online as she edged the long gun out ahead of her.

The barrel just pushed past the brush she was covering under, only enough to bring the optics into the clear. Sniping wasn’t her specialty, but she was sharpshooter qualified and knew her way around a long rifle. It wasn’t just about being a good shot, you had to be able to do calculations in your head that would make some math savants cry for mercy. Shooting was the easy part.

Luckily this was a chip shot, barely two hundred meters, practically point blank for the sniper system she had to her shoulder. Sorilla stretched out a little, now forcing her breathing to calm down as she tried to bring her heart rate under control. There were fifteen units below her, and she methodically tagged each one on her HUD, ‘haloing’ each in the ballistics computer with priority. The system used optical parallax to determine exact range, and calculated all the basics automatically. Gravity was adjusted for Hayden normal, air density measured, the computer even took the time to input the data on the curvature of Hayden though at these ranges it wouldn’t make any difference at all.

That left wind speed and other more esoteric calculations to be made by Sorilla. Again, however, at the ranges she was dealing with those wouldn’t be enough of an issue to really mess her up. She activated flight guidance on the rounds, though she didn’t think it would have time to make a difference, then confirmed the lock on all the targets below.

Fifteen targets, ten rounds in the mag, and no time to reload. Sorilla let out her breath, squeezed the trigger, and unlocked the final safe on the rifle letting the computer fire as she bore. She swept the barrel along the crest of the hill, acquire one target after another and letting the computer pulse the rounds as it came to bear. The electromagnetic launcher spat a round at just under supersonic velocity, unloading the entire mag in one sweep of her field of view.

She didn’t bother to watch the results, instead Sorilla popped to her feet and bolted around the hill without even looking over her shoulder. She heard explosions in the distance, and knew that her rounds had struck, but that was the past and she had the immediate future to worry about. Jungle vines whipped past her face, branches of the ground hugging brush grabbing at her legs as she pumped them as hard as she could.

The stealth portion of the exercise was officially over.

She didn’t stop for well over a kilometer, closing on two, but finally slowed to a fast walk when no nuclear reaction was forthcoming. She paused, listening for signs of pursuit, but again there was nothing to indicate that any of the units were on to her.

Were they unable to get a zero on my position?
She wondered, starting to walk again. She circled North, away from camp. It looked like everyone got away clean, even her, so now wasn’t the time to screw things up.
Was it the rifle? Maybe they can’t track military grade tech after all.

She couldn’t count on that, not yet, she knew. If it were true, however, the game on Hayden might just be moving out of the minors. She slung her rifle, checked her bearings again, and started to jog North.

*****

Sorilla jogged back into camp a little over three days later, having circled around and come in from the back side compared to the current location of the enemy in relation to the camp. She greeted the few children out gathering what plant life was partially digestible to humans, with proper supplements, but didn’t slow her pace until she reached the makeshift array of huts and tents that made up the camp proper.

“Ho, Sarge.”

“Hey, Mark.” She nodded to a sentry as she went past.

She’d passed several already and, not attempting to sneak her way in, had been spotted and let past without comment each time. Poor security on Earth, probably, but their enemy here on Hayden was something else entirely.

That was something that had been bothering her, actually. The Golems and Goblins were originally the only face of the enemy they had. Contrary to appearances, neither were made of rock of course. When they’d hacked them open, it had become clear that both were nano-assembled drones constructed largely of silicon allotropes much the way the Solari technology base built largely out of carbon allotropes.

They were probably significantly stronger in the face of compressive forces than most of Earth’s technology, which tended to focus on tensile strength. Certainly they were more mobile than any comparatively massive construction or military units she had seen, able to maneuver remarkably well for bipedal drones in uneven terrain.

What was bothering her, however, was something else entirely.

Sorilla pushed open the flap of the command tent she’d set up over a week ago and collapsed into a folding chair that was leaning up against the camouflaged Osh Kosh transport truck the tent was draped off of. It had been a long run in the jungle, and it was good to be under shade in a moderately secure area again.

So she relaxed, but her mind stayed on the single fact that was bothering her most of all.

“Sarge?”

“Ho, Reed.” She said, eyes closed. “In here.”

Jerry stepped in, pushing the tent flap back and nodding in her direction. “Good to see you back. How’d it go?”

“Mission was a qualified success.”

“Qualified?” He asked, one eyebrow raised questioningly.

“We got most of the Golems and Goblins in the traps,” she told him, “Forced them to reveal air support and a new class of drones.”

“That’s good, right?”

“Yes and no. Good that we got to see them, but I wish they didn’t have them,” Sorilla told him tiredly.

“Ok…”

“The Goblins and Golems, Jerry, they’re not enemy military.” Sorilla sighed, “We just blew the ever living crap out of some enemy bulldozers and forklifts. They sent in the military units to clean up…”

She trailed off, considering, then shook her head. “We don’t want to get in a firefight with them.”

He sighed, shaking his head and pulled up another folding chair. “Well… crap.”

“Well crap indeed.” She said, taking a deep breath. “It’s going to be a long war, Jer.”

Jerry sighed, slumping a little in his chair. Honestly he hadn’t expected anything else, but it was still discouraging to hear it put into words. “Great.”

“You want the good news?”

“I could do with some good news, yeah.”

Sorilla opened her eyes, “Before it’s done, they’re going to pay Hayden’s worth a hundred times over. You have my word on that.”

HMS Hood, Lagrange 4

Earth Orbit

“Coded impulse from the Cheyenne, Captain.”

“Time stamp?” Captain Jane Mackey demanded softly.

“Three seconds ago.”

A low whistle sounded across the ship’s bridge, and even Jane herself had to admit it was impressive. A three second signal delay from Mars to Earth Orbit was a huge technological jump, considering the limited power and mobile nature of the transmitters. First generation Casimir transmitters were the size of apartment complexes, and drew enough power to run a city.

“Confirm receipt, send to Captain Blake.” Jane said, turning on her personal panel, “decode and direct the message to me.”

“Roger.”

The new technology was being integrated as quickly as possible into the next generation of ships coming out of The Alamo facility, all the while the First Deep Space Tactical Fleet was being organized under the Command of Admiral Brookes.

Events were flying along at breakneck speeds, even for someone like Jane Mackay who was used to hurtling between the stars. Admiral Nadine Brookes was one of the most experienced deep space commanders in the world, and thee most experienced deep space military commander. Jane had modeled much of her career on the American woman, actually, having admired her climb through the UNS ranks from early childhood. It was both a dream and a nightmare to serve under her, given the circumstances.

Her panel flashed and she focused her attention on the decoded message, which basically amounted to a location and time. They still couldn’t transmit much information over Casimir systems, so brevity was a virtue.

“Helm,” She spoke up, “plot a course to the coordinates I’m sending you, eight hour transit time.”

“Aye Ma’am.”

Just enough information to coordinate over stellar distances, she hoped. They were going to need every advantage they could scrape up.

*****

Hayden

Sorilla hit the ground running, her men around her as they raced away from the location of their latest strike. Behind them the chaos of their latest attack was ranging with fire and explosions.

She paused, rifle braced in the crook of her arm as he made sure everyone was still with her.

“Move! Move!” She ordered, slapping Dean on the shoulder as the young man ran past her. In the distance she could see the flitting blips of the enemy air support approaching. “Into the jungle!”

The approaching aircraft didn’t make a sound, so she kept her eye on them as she covered her team’s rush to vanish into the jungle’s depths.

A flash in the distance caused her to close her eyes and looked away, “Nuke Flash! Hit the dirt!”

Sorilla tagged a running man who didn’t dive fast enough and threw him to the ground, “Cover your eyes!”

The nuke flash illuminated the area like a camera flash, Sorilla’s ocular implants adjusting to block out the light as much as possible before she turned her back and took a knee. The thunder of the explosion in the distance shook the ground just before the wind ripped through the jungle around them and the light began to fade.

Sorilla opened her eyes as she rose back to her feet and glanced back behind her, eyeing the rising mushroom cloud in the distance.

“Reed!”

“Over here.”

Sorilla walked in the direction of the voice and found Reed helping Dean to his feet.

“Alright, we should be clear. Get everyone together and make a headcount.” She ordered, “Did everyone get clear?”

“I’m on it.”

Sorilla nodded and then turned away as she jumped up on a crook in a nearby tree, kneeling there as she scanned the skies around the cloud that was forming behind them. The enemy fliers were actually charging through the cloud, apparently having ridden the shockwave out while still in there air.

She shook her head.
Damn that’s impressive.

If they had the capacity to fly through that kind of shock front, not to mention the heat and shrapnel they’d encounter, then the flyers would be tough to take down. There were a few advanced mechs back on Earth that could possibly match it, though she didn’t know of any tested to that extreme.

Sorilla kept an eye on the flyers as she took notes and checked off the mission objectives.

“Sor.”

“What is it?” She asked, turning to see Reed approaching.

“We’re missing two. Mathew and Roderick aren’t around.” He said, his face grim.

Her lips tightened, but Sorilla just nodded. “Send the men back by the planned route. You and I will wait until things calm down here and scout around, see if we can’t riff their implants.”

“Right, thanks.” He said before turning to relay the orders.

Two losses.

Sorilla considered that in her checklist and sighed. Overall it was still a good mission, but they didn’t have enough men to lose recklessly. She hoped they’d find the two missing men, but somehow doubted it. If they’d been caught up in the retreat and were within range of that nuke, well their odds weren’t great.

She continued to watch and take notes on enemy movements as the men regroups around her and took off. Reed settled in at the base of her tree and soon she heard his breathing even out, bringing a smile to her lips.

Like many of the best soldiers she’d worked with, Reed had quickly picked up the ability to sleep when possible because once they were on the move it was anyone’s guess as to when he’d get the next chance.

They’d wait for nightfall at least, she decided, then judge the level of enemy movement. If things were calm enough, they’d try and get into range of the colonist’s implants so she could pulse them.

It was going to be another long day.

*****

Four days later Sorilla and Reed trudged back into camp, filth covering them from head to toe, looking like the entire world had come crashing down on them at some point in the intervening days. Carried between them, however, was one of their missing men.

Roderick Kane was still breathing, but not a whole lot more than that. Sorilla and Reed dropped him unceremoniously on a bunk in Tara’s tender care before they stumbled back out and made it most of the way back to their own cots before they collapsed themselves.

Sorilla woke up on her own floor a few hours later, about three feet from her bed, and wasn’t sure if she had fallen asleep before getting there or simply didn’t want to mess up her bed kit with the filth encrusted on her gear and body. She sighed and stripped down before staggering into her gravity shower and washing down.