Virtues of War (45 page)

She stared in awe at its silver, ovoid body, tiny thrusters visible between multiple weapon points and sensors. It was no bigger than her, doubtless relying on speed to avoid being hit, but she’d already seen swarm-bots go down. Now it was hovering before her like a metallic watermelon. She raised her Army rifle and fired.

The burst of explosive rounds punched through the bot’s outer hull and detonated among its innards. It crashed to the ground like a dead weight. Katja pushed up to run for the house.

Searing heat struck her from dead ahead, knocking her backward. She gasped as the ground fell away from her feet. Then it slammed up against her back, just as the darkness closed over her.

Thomas stared at the screen. “Sergeant, look at this.”

Chang appeared again at his shoulder. Thomas pointed to the dark energy of the target jump gate, and then at a new reading several kilometers south.

“That looks like another jump gate forming,” he said. I don’t know where our Hawk is—it should have taken out the first gate by now. But we need to bombard that site.”

“We don’t think bombardment can destroy a jump gate, sir,” Chang replied. “We’ll just chew up the land around it.”

“Then we need more Hawks. As many as we can muster.”

“Astral comms are still down—all I have is
Bowen
.”

Thomas turned angrily. “Then get
Bowen
to launch her three Hawks with as many modified torpedoes as they can carry. Secrecy doesn’t matter anymore, Sergeant. Bring that fucking cruiser to action stations, and get her moving.”

Chang’s stoic expression didn’t change, but he nodded.

“Yes, sir.”

With a crackling shimmer he disappeared into the Bulk. Thomas looked back to his screen. The AARs had stopped their southern progress and were now hovering over a densely populated residential area. Nearly half of the swarm had broken off, and were buzzing angrily over the Astral College. Most likely the AARs didn’t want to move too far from their full cover, especially as Terran air assets were even now launching from a base outside of Brisbane. Quick mental math told him that the Terran fighters wouldn’t be in range for another five minutes, which gave him exactly that much time to take out the swarm.

He didn’t know how the Astral College was drawing so much of the swarm into a targetable area for him, but he wasn’t going to question it. But what the hell had happened to his Hawk?

* * *

Jack wasn’t sure if it was him, Amanda, or the Hawk groaning against the g-forces of the turn, but it was clear the inertial dampeners were failing. With the number of energy shots they’d already taken from the swarm, he was thankful they were still airborne.

Straining his head back to look over his shoulder in the hard-right turn, he caught a glimpse of the blinking elevator lights as they passed through his line of sight. Using them as a visual cue, he eased back on the stick and fought the air currents to line up on a course.

The first gate—his original target—was weakening, and seemed to be collapsing. The second jump gate was still growing, and was already more than twice the size of the first. This had to be his new target, but it meant an attack run right over the Centauri invasion force. The torpedo would be safe a quarter peet in the Bulk, but his Hawk didn’t have such stealth abilities. Up ahead, he could clearly see the sunlight flashing off the silver hulls of the enemy.

Amanda tapped his arm. “The new gate is steady in its position, but we can’t get close enough to fire.”

“Yes we can.” He checked his range. “Ten seconds.” As he flicked off the safety and assigned the weapon, he heard Amanda frantically tapping at her console.

“We’ll fly right into the Centauris!”

He leaned forward against his straps, thumb poised on the release button.

“But the weapon goes first. Just hang on.” He heard her gasp, but she shut up as he concentrated on lining up the shot. At this range, this deep into a gravity well, the torpedo wouldn’t be able to adjust its course at all. The silver flashes were growing larger ahead. He wondered abstractly what the range was of the swarm’s energy weapons.

In range.

Fire.

The Hawk’s outer hull banged as the torpedo launched. He just caught a glimpse of it to the left as it shrank away into the Bulk.

Another flash—not silver—flickered in his vision. The Hawk shuddered again. Warning lights began blinking on his console. He punched the throttle forward, locking it as he released his hand to slam against the countermeasures button. Multiple bangs indicated the steady release of chaff and flares as he pulled back on the stick as far as he could before g-forces began to overwhelm him.

The Hawk shuddered again. He began to smell something burning below him. One engine failed. Then a second. He felt the Hawk lean to port and he fought to keep it level. The horizon ahead tilted, then began to spin.

As his vision faded to gray, and then black, he thought abstractly how nice it was to have had Amanda with him. At least now she’d understand.

* * *

Katja opened her eyes, saw low smoke wisping through a choked sky. Again checking her limbs, she looked around at where she lay on her back in the crater. She was intact, but the rifle she’d held was a red-hot pile of molten slag on the ground beside her. Listening, she could still hear bursts of automatic fire peppering amidst the constant buzz of the swarm.

Her tactical pad was partially melted and non-functional. Slowly she crawled up to the lip of the crater and looked toward the boat house. The swarm-bot she’d killed still lay in its heap, and she could make out two others crashed in the dirt around the Army position. Gunfire still streamed from the broken windows, and she heard the
ping-ping-crack
in the air behind her that suggested another swarm-bot going down.

The Army apes were tough, she admitted.

Useless here, she needed to get back to the command position to assess the situation and report back to Korolev. As much as she hated to run from a fight, she knew there was only one way to move across this killing ground. Quickly checking the integrity of her suit, she lowered her faceplate, activated her forearm controls, and entered the Bulk.

This time the formless gray looked little different from the smoke-filled grounds of the brane, but the silence was a relief. Until she probed the Cloud. Then the Centauri jamming was as deafening as before, and even fighting through it she couldn’t make contact with Korolev or any other operative.

The virtual images of the once-intact Astral College formed around her, and she propelled her suit forward along the line she knew to be the Army defensive barrier. The eerie calm of these familiar shapes hinted at days long ago when she’d gone for runs alone around the College grounds, wanting to escape the competitive society and relentless pressure of the school, just for a few minutes.

Back then she’d retreated into her own private world, ignoring the chaos around her and wondering why she’d chosen such a life for herself. As she moved through the Bulk, sheltered from the slaughter just half a peet away, she felt the new calm descend on her once again, and she reflected on what her choices back then had led to now. She could never again, she knew, go back to that opera-singing girl who wanted nothing more than to be liked by her friends, and loved by her father.

Here in the Bulk, Katja let go of that dream, and felt that girl finally die.

A lot of Terrans were dying as well, and she had some Centauri machines to wipe out. She embraced the hot, comforting anger and closed in on her target position. Watching the horror of the brane grow ahead of her, she heard the sounds of violence. The Army command position was still fighting, but the dead were everywhere.

A gust of wind knocked her the moment she emerged fully from the Bulk. She staggered to her left, feet slipping on uneven ground.

A powerful hand steadied her. The Voice was in her ear.

“Good to see you. We’ve drawn nearly two thirds of the swarm, and the heavies have halted.” She looked up into her father’s face. Burns had mutilated his left ear and scorched away hair. Dirt, blood, and sweat covered most of the rest, but his eyes were the same—stern, penetrating, and calm.

“Your positions are fighting well,” she said. “Do you have any comms with the outside?”

“No.” He broke off to fire a sustained burst into the air. “You?”

“No.”

He nodded grimly. “With this much of the swarm over us, that strike will be coming soon.” He tapped her suit. “You have a way out of here. You better go while you can.”

The anger swelled within.

“I’m not a coward. I’m not going to run.”

He fired again, and shouted orders to his soldiers. They sprayed the air to the west with automatic fire. She heard several swarm-bots fall and just caught sight of others as they returned fire before veering off into the smoke. One soldier was hit, but his armor took the blast and he was quickly helped back to his feet. No further attacks came, but the buzz of the swarm was continuous… and loud.

The Voice pulled her attention back.

“There’s nothing brave about dying, Katja Andreia, and there’s nothing cowardly about living. You’ve done your job well, now get out of here.”

Other emotions struggled within her, but the anger pushed them all down. She looked him straight in the eyes.

“I hate you,” she said. “I hate you for controlling my life, and I hate you for what I’ve become.”

He stared back at her. “Then hate me, if that’s what makes you excel.” He raised his voice to issue orders. Soldiers pulled more ammo out of the nearby troop carrier and began passing it around. He turned back to her, the voice lowering.

“It’s a shame. You’re the only child I have who’s worth something.”

Above her, the sky tore open. She spun around in time to see the first orange meteors of orbital bombardment strike down on the Astral College grounds. She gasped in terror, frozen at the nightmare sight. The thick smoke above her began to glow with a false, orange dawn, and the air began to sizzle and roar.

She barely felt the pressure of his hand on her forearm display.

“Goodbye, Katja.”

The world became as bright and hot as the sun.

Everything disappeared into the gray silence of the Bulk. She screamed inside her faceplate. Screamed at an uncaring dimension where nothing lived, where things only died.

Then, suddenly, she was falling. Chang had said that couldn’t happen. She scrambled with flailing limbs, reaching vainly for any purchase. Then her virtual map activated and she saw that she wasn’t falling downward, toward the center of the Earth. She was falling sideways. Something massive was pulling her toward the edge of Lake Sapphire.

* * *

Kete looked vainly at the obscure feedback on the bronze horseshoe again. Three lights blinked in seemingly random patterns. Their progressive changes went from red through yellow and now, at least one of them, to green. While that suggested progress, he had no idea when the final jump gate would open.

The device was far too well shielded for his usual electronic queries to penetrate it, and he found himself in the unusual, frustrating position of not knowing. His watch told him he was only twenty seconds away. The dim roar of fires and chaos in Longreach still echoed around the waterfront, and he glanced around again to ensure no one was approaching.

Breeze had finally risen from her resting spot against the tree, and was moving toward the copse. The only other people he could see were civilians fleeing on foot along the main road. None of them paid attention to him.

He no longer needed Breeze for the plan, but he still wanted to get his hands on that pistol, just in case. But he couldn’t allow her to see the jump gate activate—not while she still carried a weapon. Emerging from his shelter of trees, he jogged across the grass.

She smiled at him and stopped where she was. He kept his expression steady, even while he noted any movement of her hand toward the holster.

Sudden, rapid-fire bangs cracked through the air above them. In the vivid blue sky he saw brilliant flashes of white-hot flares, exploding outward in repeating patterns. The sound from their discharges rippled down seconds later. Defensive countermeasures, he recognized immediately, probably from a Terran craft on an attack run. Sure enough, he saw brilliant energy beams lance across the sky and puff against a dark gray flying machine at the center of the flares.

Traces of smoke seemed to bounce of it, until finally a steady stream of black started trailing from the hull. The craft—a Hawk—was moving fast but still descending as Centauri weapons stripped it to pieces.

He reached Breeze just as the doomed Hawk roared low overhead, spiraling madly with corkscrews of smoke wrapping behind it. The shock wave knocked them both to their knees, and Breeze clutched against him. From his crouch he saw the craft shatter the still water near the center of the lake, a huge wall of white blasted upward. Pleasure boats were flipped by the waves, their occupants sent flying through the air.

He ran his hand gently down Breeze’s side, toward that holster. Abruptly he felt the air off to their left begin to burn. He looked over and saw, beyond the trees that lined the park, the same hellish sight that had haunted him since the day his family died. Orbital bombardment struck an unseen part of the city. Blast after fiery orange blast rained down with relentless precision. The very ground shook under the onslaught, knocking him down to all fours.

“You’re shooting your own people,” he said, unable to believe his eyes.

“Oh, sweet Mother of God,” Breeze muttered, still clutching him. “We’ve got to get out of here.” There was real fear in her voice, and he realized she felt more threatened by her own State than the attacking Centauri force. He stared at her, and suddenly considered something completely new.

Maybe he could bring her through the jump gate with him. She had no loyalty, and perhaps she could work for Centauri Intelligence. At the very least she had terabytes of valuable knowledge hiding in that pretty little head of hers. So he pulled her to her feet, his gaze turning toward the copse of trees. The jump gate should be open by now.