On Silver Wings (28 page)

She snarled under her helm as the blasted door sealed shut before she could reach it, her shoulder screaming as she again planted it into solid stone, and again the stone gave way before her.

She stepped through the shattered stonework door, leading with her weapon as she scanned the room. This one was what she’d been looking for, a ramp leading deeper down into the bowels of the plateau, into the heart of the base she had to penetrate.

Below her the sounds of men running were easily picked up by her armor, bringing a dry smirk to her lips.

Sonic analysis couldn’t give her an exact number, just estimating the enemy total at better than ten men coming her way in a hurry. Against those weapons she couldn’t stand, not in the tight spaces the base provided.

Sorilla knew she could only fall back, which wasn’t an option if she wanted to achieve her mission, or do something more than a little insane.

She charged.

Armor levels amped up to full enhancement, her speed hit ninety kilometers an hour in the space of seconds. She rounded the corner, not on the ramp itself, but with feet planted on the walls as she launched herself down the next partition with knees bent and leading just as the rushing guards turned the next corner below.

Sorilla hit them in full flight, ramming her knees into the flat nose of the first and driving him back into the rest. Her rifle barked, at such insane proximity she didn’t even bother to aim. She simply ordered the computer to discharge a round every time the muzzle crossed a target’s path.

Her weight drove them all back into a heap of tangled limbs and the occasionally frying body as one of the particle weapons went off unexpectedly. It became clear quickly, however, that in that press of flesh mobility was a major issue as the dead began to impede her movements even more than the living.

She broke her rifle free of the mess for a moment and came to a fast decision, electing to continue with the bold actions that were so far keeping her alive.

Bold, insane. Same thing really.

She tossed her weapon into the air, imparting a spin to the rifle as she twisted about and planted her elbow into the throat of the closest guard that was still kicking. It continued to fire on full automatic as she moved, her left hard drawing her knife as she kicked out with a full power kick that lifted another of the aliens off the ground and threw him down the ramp like a rag doll.

The furred aliens were twice her size and mass, even accounting for the armor, but with all the limiters removed Sorilla moved like a demon in the blood spattered mass. Her knife, its monomolecular edge powered, relived her enemies of their limbs as she slashed. Her armored fists broke bones and ruptured internal organs with every blow, and above them her rifle continued its job and slew every enemy that crossed its barrel as it flipped and spin through the air.

When the weapon clattered to the ground, its magazine spent, the only thing standing on the blood slick ramp was its owner.

Sorilla kicked a body away from her so she could get her legs free of the press, then walked over to the rifle and calmly picked it up. The spent magazine hit the ground, or rather a cooling corpse at her feet, with a wet sounding splatter as she clicked another in its place.

Weapon primed, and knife returned to its sheath, Sorilla walked over the bodies laid out around her and walked to the bottom of the ramp before heading in the direction her armor estimated as the location of the high pitched whining.

She was reevaluating the entire situation almost constantly, every minute she was inside the enemy facility it became clearer and clearer that her original assumptions weren’t remotely on target. Whatever the hell this was, it wasn’t a military invasion any more than she was currently within a military base.

Oh, they had what any sane person would regard as military weapons, but their tactics were pure civilian contractor. Security was first rate, if you were looking to keep out anything up to hostile protestors and the like. Big, strong, decently armed, but dumb as a brick. Just what you wanted if you were looking to intimidate locals, but about as effective as tissue paper against a military response.

Which, of course, led her to her next big question.

Who in the name of all that was good and sane in the universe would give nuclear capability to a bunch of corporate rent-a-cops?

Ok, she had to stop thinking like that.

The ships that initiated the first strike had military capacity, and at least someone on board knew enough to take out the Tether in their initial hit. That on its own was suggestive, but not solid enough to say one way or another. Their follow up invasion had been fast, brutal, and effective by all accounts, however.

That spoke to her of split personalities in the enemy command. On one side an effective military organization, with effective tactics, clear goals, and highly capable execution. On the other, well this base. Ambulatory meat slabs as guards, no clear goals for winning the little war she’d launched, and yet armed with nuclear response capability.

Sorilla moved through the base, following her computer’s guidance toward the source of the whine she’d heard earlier. That was her best lead for the moment, her best chance to put a little paid to the invaders directly instead of through indirect actions as she had been doing.

Besides, with the relief column coming in she had to make sure that the Valve didn’t have orbital targeting capability.

That would be one hell of a rude welcome for the column.

*****

USV Socrates

Approaching Hayden Orbit

“Sir… Captain?”

Alexi glanced over to see Commander Ashley drifting up close to his bolster, whispering so as not to be overheard.

“What is it, Commander?” He asked, glancing back between the Commander and the acceleration bolster the man had vacated.

It wasn’t strictly a violation of safety protocols, but unstrapping in the middle of a maneuver was a mite reckless. Even when they weren’t scheduled to fire the engines again for some time.

“Aren’t we approaching Hayden a little… fast, Sir?”

Alexi glanced curiously at the man for a moment, “What’s your specialty, Commander?”

“Weapons and tactical systems, Sir.”

“And how many hours do you have logged?” Alexi was curious now, what he was doing wasn’t common practice but most experienced spacers had at least some inkling of it.

“Over five hundred, Sir.”

Five hundred?
Alexi blinked in shock. The only way you got numbers that low was if you never left Sol system. “I thought you were a spacer, Commander.”

Ashley grimaced slightly, but merely shrugged, “I’m a weapons and tactical systems specialist, Captain. My training in fleet was only started when you brought back the intel from the Majesty.”

Alexi nodded, hiding a grimace of his own. Well, he supposed it was of less concern than he might normally exhibit. At least the man wasn’t in charge of the helm or something vital.

He sighed, “We’ll use atmospheric braking to slow us, Commander. I don’t want to give anyone a clean shot at us if I can avoid it, and since there isn’t anything to hide behind up here I’ll have to settle for making myself a moving target. A
fast
moving target.”

Ashley nodded, though still looked a little nervous as he pushed off and drifted back toward his station.

Alexi didn’t blame him for that, in all truth. The man clearly had just enough knowledge to know that they were going far too fast for any sane attempt at orbital insertion, but not enough to really know what ships like the Socrates were made of.

He’d learn.

In about another thirty minutes, he’d learn.

Alexi grinned to himself, atmospheric braking was about the most fun part of being on this whole damned mission. It wasn’t often he was given clearance to run his ship through that kind of stress.

Of course, technically he hadn’t been given clearance for it this time. But with full strategic and tactical command of the relief column came some benefits, and he knew all the Captains under him were more than capable of the move.

Luckily, they were also just as crazy as he was.

“Twenty minutes to retro burn, Captain.”

“Understood. Sound the first warning.”

“Aye Captain, Twenty minute warning sounding now.”

A soft chime echoed through the ship, echoing across all decks to give any crewmembers up and about time to wrap up their business before Alexi ordered the ship brought about for retro firing.

The trick was going to be letting Hayden’s gravity do most of the deceleration, otherwise they’d be forced to dump too much Delta V to make the target arrival point. Doing that would crush everyone on board, which was precisely what he was hoping to prevent with the maneuver in the first place.

On arrival, well that was when the game was going to enter sudden death.

He just hoped that wasn’t a literal event.

The whole run was measurably insane by most standards, Alexi was sure of that. Even with Task Force Three keeping the enemy ships at bay, there was every likelihood of planetary defenses waiting for them. Flying into the teeth of such things was something only the very insane would even attempt, but then of course you didn’t go out into space by being sane in the first place.

Alexi’s mission, and that of his Column, was to deliver relief supplies to the planet and extract a few key personnel as they did. That meant entering Hayden orbit, there was no other way to land a ship on planet and retrieve it in any reasonable time without holding some sort of orbit of the world.

The military briefing made it clear that stealth wasn’t an option, the special operations team that went in first had been blown out of the skies and their stealth systems where so far beyond anything the Socrates could manage that it wasn’t even an amusing comparison.

So if sneaking in wasn’t an option, Alexi had opted for kicking in the front door and stomping all over the poor sod’s living room carpet.

He consulted the telemetry plot he’d been keeping on Shepherd and the Task Force, noting that they’d lost another ship since he’d last looked.

That makes three.
He thought grimly.

Three for one so far, though he could see Sheperd’s Montana and the Indiana closing in on another of the Bandits. At three for one, the cost of fighting this war could… no, almost certainly would, prove prohibitively high. Alexi didn’t know how many ships the enemy had on tap, but if they were a star faring civilization that was prepared to engage in warfare with others then they certainly had far more hulls than Sol did.

There was no chance in hell that Earth, even on a wartime footing, could hope to slug it out at the wrong end of three to one odds.

“Five minutes, Captain.”

Alexi looked up, startled by the voice for a moment, then nodded. “Sound general quarters then, get everyone strapped in.”

“Aye Sir, general quarters.”

As the alarm sounded, Alexi checked the plot himself. With the Socrates leading, the relief column was bearing down on the planet like the proverbial bats out of hell. He’d had every Captain send their navigation plots over so he could look them over. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust their work, but none of them were exactly team players.

You didn’t get command of a survey ship because you were an expert on fleet maneuvers.

After confirming that none of their intended trajectories was likely to cross paths with another ship or, less likely, dip too deep into Hayden’s atmosphere and burn up Alexi pushed the plots aside and opened a shipwide comm.

“All hands, this is the Captain.” He said, sounding a lot calmer over the intercom than he felt actually. “We’re approaching Hayden and are about to begin retro firing. Please ensure that everything is locked down. I know I don’t need to tell you your jobs, but this is going to be a rough one. Triple check.”

He closed the comm and nodded, “Alright. Final checks people. Let’s not take any chances, shall we?”

The crew agreed apparently, as they all bent to the task of ensuring that the Socrates was ready for what was coming.

Five minutes passed quickly, and Alexi was soon giving the final warning and waiting for confirmation that everyone was strapped in. He was pleased when everything went smoothly, leaving him no reason to be forced to call an abort. Missing their entry window at current speeds would require the better part of a full day to recover, and that wasn’t an option.

“All boards green, Captain.”

“Very good. Bring us about. One Hundred and Eighty.”

“Aye Sir, coming about. One Hundred and Eighty.”

The thrusters flared, first on the Socrates, and the one by one on the other ships of the relief column. Slowly the heavy ships spun in space, positioning their main engines toward the looming face of Hayden.

“Coming up on the changeover, Sir.”

“Fire main engines on my command… Ten standard gravities.”

“Ten Standard, Aye.”

“Fire in T-Minus… five, four, three, two… one… Mark!” Alexi called out, his voice echoing across the relief column.

“Main engines firing!”

The low hum of the VASIMR drive erupted into a powerful roar that slammed them all back into their bolsters, the bridge becoming filled with the low grunts of men working hard to keep their blood from being forced away from their brains. The pressure suits helped, using constant active pressure to massage the blood through their bodies. With the suits they could survive and operate at extreme gravities, well beyond anything normal humans could remain coherent at.

Of course, not even the best pressure suit could let a person withstand the insane gravities the alien ships routinely endured.

With that cheerful thought, Alexi turned his full focus onto commanding his ship through what he was certain was going to be one of the more harrowing moments of his career. They had to survive pulling a solid ten gees for the entire approach, an uncomfortable yet doable requirement. It was at the end of their approach, however, that things got rough.

*****