She grabbed Tim on the way through, hauling him back from the blast zone, took cover and activated. The blast rocked them, then an external feed from tacnet showed another GI’s perspective, half this building wall collapsing on the tank and AMAPS position on the corner. They vanished in a crash of debris and dust . . . the tank would be fine, but the AMAPS wouldn’t. Missile fire followed immediately, and the tank, without anti-missile protection, took multiple hits and detonated with a blast that made the demolitions seem small. Yells and victorious swearing over tacnet. Sandy had never heard GIs do that before in combat, either.
“That’s for you, Gunter,” said Sandy. And to Tim, “Come on, let’s get some.”
The crossroads were less well defended than the roads that lead straight to Chancelry. GIs now leaped across this part of the last crossroad, from building to building, and only received a little crossfire. That changed as Chancelry defences realised their line had been breached, and began pulling units off the line elsewhere. A tank appeared from Chancelry’s wall, AMAPS support sprinting alongside. Sandy sat in the rubble of her demolished building corner and picked off multiple AMAPS from several hundred meters, joined by fire from other buildings. The tank fired at someone else, who leaped as rapid cannon fire tore the building facade in half, but others further up the street were already firing missiles that accelerated to Mach two in just two seconds, tipped with mod-uranium heads that melted any armour yet devised on high velocity contact. This tank, too, exploded.
Chancelry pulled several tanks off their intersection positions further up the cross street, but again, GIs had time to fire here with less risk along the cross street, picked off the AMAPS with rifles, then blew the tanks with missiles. Another tank made a slow advance with AMAPS walking, shooting down incoming missiles while the tank’s rapid turrets backed by bots on high rooves further along, made sniping uncomfortable. GIs aimed missiles for the walls, trying to bring them down, but the missiles were anti-armour and couldn’t bring down the structural supports required to collapse an entire facade. But by this time GIs had made enough progress within adjoining buildings to blow a wall onto the advancing tank from within, and missiles did the rest.
With tanks lost and defensive positions crumbling, missile artillery began to rain down. GIs retreated into building interiors and pushed forward. The artillery lacked penetration, blowing off top floors where it hit buildings, or landing on roads to keep them clear. It killed mostly bots, something that no doubt registered on Chancelry tacnet, and artillery paused once more. Combat flyers tried to engage, but missile tech had made that tactic obsolete two centuries ago, and soon any that strayed from above the Chancelry wall’s built in anti-missile defences were almost instantly shot down. Worse yet for them, GIs were now close enough to target flyers with rifles, and even without Sandy’s degree of accuracy, that was often lethal.
Soon Sandy found herself with a third-story view directly over the Chancelry wall itself. There had been apartment buildings here once, but only the faint outline of foundations remained visible, having been razed years ago. In their place was a wall, three stories high, reinforced concrete within a steel frame, topped with electrified wire and heavy guardposts. It might have been impressive to a Droze non-corporate resident, or a scavenging street kid, but to three companies of advancing high-des combat GIs, not so much. But the wall itself was not the problem. It was the seventy meters of open, featureless ground before the wall that made things difficult.
“
Big kill zone,
” someone suggested, viewing what she was seeing on tacnet. There was just no getting across that with the guard towers operational, to say nothing of artillery raining down from above. They’d be lucky to make it ten meters, let alone seventy. The guard towers were largely immune to missiles—their own anti-missile systems were high-tech and functional, and the GIs didn’t have enough projectile weaponry to knock them off at this range.
Behind the wall were tall buildings. Those nearest the wall were squat and ugly, with few windows—a defensive precaution no doubt. But shortly behind them rose buildings of glass and bright lights, and beyond them, genuine towers. Like one of Tanusha’s many urban districts, but heavily defended, an island of propriety in a sea of poverty. So close.
“
What’s the plan?
” someone asked. They hadn’t come this far just to turn back.
“Corey,” said Sandy, “is that tank at grid 35-42 still working?”
“
Yeah, I think so.
”
“Let’s see if we can get it running, take out a few of those guard posts . . .”
She stopped, seeing something strange. A new round of missile artillery, five missiles climbing up together. Something in their spacing looked odd. Five simultaneous targets? Someone called warning on tacnet; several GIs retreating from viewpoints, assuming they’d been spotted . . . but Sandy stayed where she was. Obviously the missiles weren’t tracking for her location near the wall. In fact, they were following no pre-programmed trajectory that seemed logical . . .
They dropped, all five together. Straight onto the Chancelry wall, with no fore warning. The wall disappeared in a series of rapid flashes, concrete debris and steel frames cartwheeling away.
“Rishi!” Sandy shouted in delight.
“
She must have hacked and acquired fire control for one artillery unit,
” someone observed.
“
Let’s go!
” said Kiet. “
Before the smoke clears! Full sprint, then straight for HQ!
”
Vanessa could hear laser cutters over surveillance microphones, as Antibe Station crews tried to get through lowered defensive doors and retake their bridge. It was going to take them longer than they had available.
Most of her attention remained on the ghostie’s orbit. Multiple ground missiles had been fired at it so far, none acquired. It had counter measures, and had once even dipped into an aerobraking manoeuver that generated a heat signature so intense an incoming missile had become utterly confused, hit the atmosphere too shallow and detonated short. Anti-ship missiles were a deep space or mid-orbit defence. Big ships weren’t supposed to skim the atmosphere, and most captains avoided planets like ocean ships avoided reefs. But having missed once, this League captain was determined not to miss a second time.
Now they had eight minutes. He couldn’t fire until he was right over Droze. Orbital artillery was supposed to be fired far further out, giving it time to equalise with planetary orbit so it wouldn’t burn up in reentry. If it did enter the atmosphere too soon and decelerated to manageable velocities, it would run out of fuel in slower atmospheric flight before it reached the target.
“Come on,” Vanessa muttered, seated in the station master’s chair, hooked into multiple displays and nav systems. The stationmaster lay in a pile with others further down the row, still unconscious, as were they all. Cai admitted it might be doing them damage by now, but she had other things to worry about.
“Should be coming in any moment now,” said Ari, also plugged into navcomp and calculating possible intercept trajectories—not strictly Ari’s speciality, but Vanessa had never seen him fail at these mathematical simulations yet. “That’s actually a pretty rare thing, to see the lightwave of arrival get here before the departure.”
“That’s great, Ari,” said Vanessa, staring at her display.
Suddenly it appeared, jump entry, a massive wave of energy dangerously close to the planet. Alarms wailed, automated bridge systems putting the station into emergency modes. Ships weren’t supposed to come in this fast, this close to planet. Normally an arrival would jump into the outer system and coast in over several days.
“He’s carrying . . .” Ari did some fast calculations, “. . . point zero six L, God damn that’s fast.” Trajectory lines calculated, adjusting for the curve of planetary gravity . . . missing the planet’s atmosphere, but not by much.
“Can he make it?” Vanessa asked, heart hammering as she tried to read the frantic scroll of data across the feed. “Is he short?”
The data wave hit them now, just behind the initial light wave . . . “
This is Captain Reichardt of Federation warship
Mekong
. This is an emergency manoeuver! All vessels stay clear, this is an emergency manoeuver, all vessels stay clear . . . !
” And repeated, over and over.
From navcomp’s seat, Ari’s eyes were wide, calculating furiously. “I think he’s short! Fuck it, I think he’s short!”
“What about weapons V?” Rhian pressed.
“No he’s six percent of light speed, weapons V won’t make a damn bit of difference . . .”
“Oh, God,” said Vanessa, hands to her face. “Oh, God, what can we do?” Ari’s intercept line was showing
Mekong
definitely short, one minute and thirteen seconds so. As soon as the ghostie had launched, it would manoeuver and jump, and possibly kill itself doing it so close to the planet, but that was no comfort for anyone on Droze. The mathematics of trajectories in space were pure and simple: Reichardt had carried as much velocity from the energy of jump as physically possible, but still it was not enough. Jump speeds were a function of jump engines; burning the regular mains at full power would make no observable difference now. “Get me that damn channel to the ship again!”
“He won’t answer,” Rhian said quietly.
“I don’t care, we have to try!”
“New arrival!” Ari shouted, as something else flashed on the nav screen. A big surge of energy, a unique signature. “He’s close, real fucking close!”
Navcomp didn’t recognise the signature, nor the data wave that followed. Because there was no data wave.
“He’s heading straight for the ghostie, shallow approach, projected V . . . seventeen percent!”
“Fuck me,” Rhian breathed. Rhian had spent a lot of time on ships. “We can’t do that. That’s Talee.”
Vanessa turned to stare at Cai. Cai sat at the auxillary post, staring intently, unspeaking. Navcomp was giving them strange readings, trying to make sense of an alien ship jumping into close planetary proximity at a fraction of light speed that should have turned them all to mush.
“What the hell?” Ari muttered. “I think . . . I think he’s fired? I can’t tell, but it looks like the signal’s fracturing, he’s on intercept and . . .”
“
Antibe Station, Antibe Station, this is
Mekong
!
” came Reichardt’s voice on coms. “
What the fuck is that?
”
“
Mekong
, this is Antibe Station!” Vanessa called back. “New contact not hostile, not hostile!”
She had no idea if it was true, but it was the only chance they had.
“Intercept in ten!” Ari called. “Five! Mark!” The alien trajectory skimmed the atmosphere, tangentially. Dear God, if he actually hit the atmosphere at that speed . . .
“What happened?” Vanessa asked. “Where’s the target?”
“Navcomp’s not sure,” said Ari, sifting furiously through incoming data from multiple satellites. “Hang on just a minute, he might have manoeuvered.”
There was a long, deathly silent pause.
Then, “
Antibe Station this is
Mekong
. We read that ship as dead, there’s a big reentry cloud just short of projected line. No other reading available—he’s gone.
”
There followed a huge surge of energy, a ship jumping. No one had to ask whose. For a moment, they all just sat and stared at the screens, dumbly.
Vanessa’s com crackled. “
Uh . . . Antibe Station, this is
Mekong
.
” Captain Reichardt’s voice, an understated Texan drawl, warped by massive velocity shift in the light wave. “
Was that thing what I think it was?
”
A Talee ship had just killed a human ship. Even in the relief that she felt, and her utter disdain for the lives just lost, Vanessa could feel the enormity of what they’d just witnessed. And furthermore . . . what the hell was so important down in Droze that the Talee would violate all established norms of their interaction with humanity to protect it?
She took a deep breath. “Antibe Station to
Mekong
. Good shot, Captain. Congratulations on a first class piece of manoeuvering.”
A pause from Reichardt. “
Yeah, copy that, Antibe Station.
” Reichardt was not a politically stupid man. He’d understand why this should not be talked about. “
Now pardon us while we slow down before we hit something tiny and die.
”
“Well, shit,” Ari remarked. “Talk about first contact.”
Inside Chancelry Quarter, it was a rout. Sandy kept to the inside of buildings, then running on rooftops, then crashing through windows to run through hallways and open plan offices. It was early morning now, all streets deserted of civilians in the pale yellow glow. There were security vehicles and domestic police, and some AMAPS and tanks, but without the coordination and overlapping capabilities of the outer defences. Tacnet identified targets and eliminated them, mini-missiles whizzing along streets and turning corners, setting streets aflame as tank ammunition detonated, shattering every window within a hundred meters.
Police and domestic security had position on rooftops, but wasn’t prepared for GIs running through the center of buildings, then leaping across roads to neighbouring buildings, without needing the roof or the ground floor. From within buildings, GIs paused to shoot anyone on a rooftop with a head raised high enough, and vehicle reinforcements rushing along streets ahead were missile-struck with terrible results, bodies strewn across the road. Sandy had barely progressed three blocks into Chancelry Quarter and already she could see the defensive coordination breaking down.
She paused at the edge of another office building, shot down a UAV trying to move along the street beyond, fast scanned the skyline for defences and saw three soldiers two hundred meters away and a bit below, trying to set up a defensive position on a rooftop. Three quick shots dropped all of them, and with a mental signal to her armour, she amped leg myomer to maximum and leaped across the thirty-meter space to the opposing glass office wall, and smashed through. Tim followed, moving fast down the next hallway, bashing through doors that got in the way, not taking any fire from adjoining buildings. Tacnet showed their strength at ninety. They’d lost about forty on the way through, though some wounded remained behind with a few others to care for them. Chancelry Quarter had maybe fifty thousand inhabitants, but by appearances, they’d become very reliant on bots and heavy weapons around the external perimeter. Bots were strictly not allowed inside the safe zone; no one trusted dumb AI with that much firepower around civvies. Opposition here was all human, and simply not trained for the task, whatever their weapons.