Son of Justice (32 page)

“Yes, but now we need all hands on deck.”

“We’re ready, Captain. Give the word and I’ll have every Shiale Ranger on that tiny rock called Rhino-3 here in less than an hour.”

“That’s exactly what we need, Tenney,” Eli explained. His mind raced with possibilities, scenarios, and contingencies as the plan took form. “We’re also going to need every non-ranger who’s healthy enough to join us.”

“The troops we just rescued?”

“The very ones. Most aren’t ground forces, but they’ve been trained in standard tactics and know how to fire a weapon, so get them ready.”

“That might take more than an hour, but we’ll get it done,” she replied with a furrowed brow.

Eli knew it seemed like an odd request, so he tried to explain what was happening in as few words as possible. When Tenney turned to leave, she understood the situation well enough. The Minith on Telgora were probably in revolt. The Zrthn battle carrier was preparing to land. Their presence on planet was needed.

“It has to be Drah, Captain,” Twigg whispered to Eli when Tenney had gone.

“You’re probably right, First Sergeant,” Eli agreed.

He had been thinking the same thing. In a way, it was good to have a second opinion that mirrored his own. On another level, it caused Eli some grief. He trusted Twigg and felt strongly the first sergeant would remain loyal to the Alliance. He couldn’t say the same for any other four-hundred-plus Minith he had under his present command. They needed to discuss this issue, and the timing wouldn’t get any better.

“We need to talk about your fellow warriors.”

Colonel Conway assembled her five hundred young troops, many who were still in the process of getting kitted up.

After securing the first training battalion, she and that group had moved to the next battalion a kilometer farther west. They had encountered a similar situation as she and Boyle found earlier: the human recruits were huddled in the center of their quad, guarded by a small contingent of Minith. Before taking aim, Becca recognized the Minith guards as the training sergeants who had previously been tasked with looking after the young men and women. That fact apparently did not go unnoticed by the recruits. It certainly didn’t go unpunished. The anger they displayed at the betrayal when the shooting began worked in their favor and the conspirators were quickly dispatched. Unfortunately, two recruits were also lost before the last Minith was taken down.

All Shiale Alliance defense units, including those going through initial basic training, are equipped to support full combat loads for the troops assigned to them, including comms gear, which Conway had quickly latched onto and put to work. Her efforts to reach out to other fighting units were more successful than not, but they hadn’t resulted in overly positive news. All across the planet, Minith forces were either standing down, like her own Minith battalion of Rangers, or they were actively attacking human units and taking control of key facilities. The spacecraft landing base that stood twenty kilometers to the west was the first to be overrun. The agsel mines, defense force headquarters, and supply depots had quickly followed.

She had just made contact with a pilot with the Shiale Air Force, and the initial reports from that quarter weren’t good. The air bases scattered around the planet, and the jets located at those bases, had been decimated. Minith didn’t fly jets.
Because they’re too stupid
, she angrily mused. As a result, they had no reason to capture the bases and every reason to destroy them.

“Alpha-21, how many pilots made it off the ground?” she keyed the comm set and asked. Alpha-21’s pilot, Captain Gurney, was the only pilot she had managed to successfully contact, so far. She paced back and forth along her place on the quad and mentally pushed the troopers before her to hurry. They had work to do, and not much time to get it done. The longer they dallied, the more of their fellow humans would fall under a Minith boot.

“Colonel,” Gurney replied in a calm-sounding voice that Conway knew was a front. She had been in enough battles to know what emotions the pilot was probably feeling right now. Calm wasn’t one. “I’ve been able to reach twelve other pilots so far. Two from the local base, the remainder are scattered around the ring.”

Twelve. Out of more than four hundred jets and pilots, only twelve remained?

“Roger, Captain,” Conway acknowledged, struggling to match Gurneys calm demeanor. “What type of loads are you carrying?”

“It’s a mix, Colonel. I’m carrying a full load of pulse and bombardment ammunition, but I was getting ready for my annual live-fire training mission. Three others have a lot less, but they can deliver some punch, if needed. The remaining eight have the jets they’re flying and the fuel in their tanks. Sorry. . .”

Conway smacked her hand angrily against her thigh and bit her tongue.

“It’s all right, Captain. Not your fault.” She rubbed her eyes and thought through the problem. They were seriously outnumbered. She was leading a small force of half-trained soldiers. She had no idea how many humans were still combat capable elsewhere on the planet. Her most deadly unit was currently on a mission light years away. Her only real advantage—air superiority—wasn’t much of an advantage. “How long can you stay airborne on the fuel you have?”

“With the new engines and fuel units we put into use a year ago, we can stay up for days, Colonel. We’ll fall asleep in our seats before we need to land.”

“Well, that’s positive news.” Conway had to smile at the captain’s outlook. “Here’s what I need. Save your ammo and avoid engagement with hostile forces. What I need is intel, so put the word out to your fellow pilots. Reconnaissance and reporting for now. We need to find out where we have units still capable of fighting, so I can direct their efforts. I also need to know what these green clowns have planned.”

“I understand, Colonel. I’ll— what the flock!”

“What is it, Gurney? Talk to me!”

“Do you have a line of sight to the west, Colonel? You’ll want to see this.” The calm voice and demeanor showed an initial, tiny crack.

Becca didn’t have a view in that direction. It was obscured by one of the training buildings, so she sprinted for the corner of the building and looked to the west.

Holy Flock
.

Approximately twenty kilometers distant, above the spaceport, a giant ship filled the sky. It was easily twice as large as a Shiale mothership and didn’t have the standard features of one of their own. It was obviously alien. And it was landing.

She keyed the comms. “Recon, Gurney. Recon.”

She received an affirmative from the pilot and looked up to see the small jet turn to the west. Two others followed close behind. In seconds, the trio of airborne fighters disappeared into the distant sky. The large, descending ship created an anomalous backdrop.

She raced back to the soldiers assembling in the quad behind her. The need for speed had suddenly been amped up even higher.

“Sergeant Boyle,” she snapped into the comm set, her attention swiveling now to the Ranger NCO. “How are you coming on finding those carriers?”

“We’re set, Colonel. Headed your way with the first group now.”

“Excellent, Sergeant,” she replied, glad that
something
was going right. He sounded much more at ease than she would have thought, and guessed why. “You haven’t had a chance to look west, lately, have you?”

* * *

Oinoo rubbed his tentacles together in excited wonder as the ship settled into place. They encountered no resistance and he grudgingly afforded the Minith steward a silent, though pod-felt, moment of reflection. A reward might be in order. Though not the one the toady expected. Appearances would have to be maintained, however. He still needed assistance. For now.

He felt the ship tremble under his tentacles. The motion was an indication the dozen large ramps were descending into place. He felt somewhat lightheaded with excitement.

Moments later, ten thousand Zrthn soldiers and their equipment began a slow but steady exodus from the bowels of the battle carrier.

* * *

In seconds, the group of jets halved the distance to the Zrthn carrier.

“Alpha-22, cut speed to ten percent and proceed north around the alien ship,” Gurney instructed his fellow pilot, a new lieutenant who had been in the squadron less than a month. “Maintain a five kilometer distance, and keep your eyes peeled. We don’t know what these guys are armed with.”

“Roger, Alpha-21.”

“Alpha-23,” Gurney addressed the third pilot in their tiny formation. The call signs had been assigned only moments before, and designated their new roles. “Maintain station here and observe. I’m going to proceed south and circle the ship from three kilometers.”

“Roger, Alpha-21. Maintaining current station.”

Gurney then tilted his command stick to the left, reduced his own speed to three hundred kilometers an hour, and peeled away, headed around the alien ship in a clockwise direction.

The ship was huge and, as the pilot looked on, it settled firmly onto Terra Telgora. As soon as it landed, Gurney noticed several openings appear in the side of the ship. They were spaced evenly apart and ramps descended quickly from each. Once the ramps hit the ground, the first Zrthn appeared.

Gurney dialed up the magnification feature built into his face mask as high as it would go and focused on the creature, which was quickly joined by a score of others. They waddle-walked down the ramp on four strange leglike tentacles. In their two arm-tentacles, each alien carried a long, tubelike weapon, which he assumed to be their version of a battle rifle. A ring of mist—from his vantage point, Gurney couldn’t tell if it was water or some other clear, wet liquid—surrounded each of their bodies. A closer look indicated the mist originated from a series of spouts that were attached to external harnesses that each of the Zrthns wore. As the crowd of aliens exiting the ship grew, the individual mist clouds joined together to form a giant, moving cloud of drizzle that surrounded the horde.
Interesting
.

He received a report from Alpha-22 that a similar crowd was making their exit on the far side of the ship, then radioed his observances back to Colonel Conway.

“That mist is likely water, Gurney. From what I know of these guys, they like it wet.”

“Understood, Colonel. What would you like to do?”

“Hold on, Captain.”

The pilot couldn’t stop the light tapping motion his fingers insisted on making against the control panel. He barely resisted the urge to act on his own as the wait for her response dragged from seconds into a half-minute. He wondered what kind of leader this ground colonel was, and considered the thought process she was undoubtedly going through. Personally, he wanted to drop a load of high explosive plasma into the nearest cloud of squids, but this was her show. Despite his urgent desire to splash the forms below with plasma, he knew he’d follow whatever orders she provided.

“Captain, how many plasma drops do you have on board?” Gurney smiled. He was glad she was back with some direction, and he smiled at what the question seemed to imply.

“Three. Plus a full load of strafing rounds.”

“Can you hit them with a drop and observe the results without getting your hind quarters shot down?”

Gurney had no idea what the Zrthn weapons were capable of, but he didn’t say that. Instead he offered a simple, “Yes, Colonel. Not a problem.”

“Do it, then retreat. We need you all in the sky if we’re going to have any chance to repel these guys.”

“You got it,” Gurney replied and switched to the Alpha frequency. “Alpha-22, break contact and join Alpha-23. I’m going to see what a load of plasma does to our friends on the ground.”

“What? I’d like to stick around and watch that!”

“Tune into my vid frequency then. You’ll see what I see. But do it from ten kilometers away.”

“Roger that, Alpha-22 moving back to ten kilometers.”

Gurney waited impatiently for the seconds to tick by while Alpha-22 moved away from the ship. Finally, he got the word, then turned the nose of his own jet toward the growing crowd of aliens below. They were still pouring out of the ship, but the leading edge of the circle was almost half a kilometer in front, and they were now engaging with scattered, small groups of humans on the ground. As he watched, the small groups were quickly overrun, and he knew the timing wouldn’t get any better. At a kilometer from the ship, he hit the targeting mechanism and released a single plasma bomb.

He watched as the bomb arced away from his aircraft and into the center of the alien crowd below.

The results were every bit as spectacular as he’d hoped. The blast turned every individual cloud of clear mist within a hundred meters of impact into a single, combined cloud of grisly gray blood and body parts.

If they only had a hundred more bombs, instead of just two, they could end this engagement in minutes. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case, Gurney rued. This battle would have to be won or lost on the ground.

He radioed the results of the drop to the ranger colonel, then turned his nose toward his two fellow pilots.

“What you’re saying is we can use these portals to reach the other Zrthn ships?” Tenney sounded incredulous, and Eli understood why. The room where they stood was round. Doorways, like the one they had stepped through to reach the ship, were spaced evenly around its perimeter. How could she expect them to know this room of portals led to the other ships in the alien armada? He couldn’t tell her that Aank had read the mind of the ship’s captain, so he told her the next best thing.

“Aank interrogated the ship’s captain, Ah-loon,” he said, and pointed to the squid seated across the control room. The Waa engineer stood close by the Zrthn captain, along with two Rangers who acted as guards. “He was very forthcoming. We learned a lot about the ship and how its systems work. We could land the thing, if we wanted. But that may not be necessary.”

“And you trust this . . . Ah-loon? How do we know we won’t end up back on Rhino-3 or—even worse—somewhere in the middle of open space?”