Ep.#8 - "Celestia: CV-02" (16 page)

“Just keep your eyes and ears open, and shout out anything you see that you don’t think I’m aware of. That’s why you’re here.”

“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant answered.

Captain Christopoulos could tell by the sound of the lieutenant’s voice that his words of encouragement had done little to boost the young man’s confidence, but he also knew that a few minutes of combat would help him get going.

* * *

“Orders from Fleet, sir!” the Orbital Assembly Platform’s communications officer reported. “All unassigned fleet personnel still on the OAP are to report to the Celestia for duty immediately.”

The officer of the watch looked at the comm officer. “They’re going to take her out?”

“I don’t know, sir,” the comm officer admitted. “The orders just say to send them to her, sir.”

“Very well,” the officer of the watch said. “Pass the word to all decks. Repeat the message every few minutes until the Celestia either departs or Fleet tells us otherwise.”

“Yes, sir.”

CHAPTER SIX

High above the Earth, a flash of light appeared against the background of distant stars. A moment later, another flash appeared, and then another. Within seconds, a dozen flashes had appeared. Each flash streaked forward slightly as it appeared, revealing an object that rapidly grew larger as they approached high orbit over the planet.

“Admiral!” the lead tracking officer called. “New contacts! Twelve Jung ships just appeared in high Earth orbit, opposite side from the OAP!”

“Twelve?” the admiral exclaimed. “What type of ships?”

“Four heavy cruisers, four frigates, and four ships that we have never seen before,” the tracking officer exclaimed. “They’re massive, not as large as the battle platforms, but much bigger than…” The commander stopped mid-sentence. He turned to face the admiral, a look of disbelief on his face. “I think it’s an invasion force, Admiral.”

“Why didn’t we see them approach?” the admiral asked, irritation in his voice.

“They must have just come out of FTL, sir,” the tracking officer surmised.

“Their FTLs are not that accurate,” Rear Admiral Duncan insisted.

“Apparently they are,” the admiral commented, his irritation turning to frustration. “Despite what our intelligence showed.”

“None of our extra-solar sources reported Jung ships coming out of FTL this close to a planet,” Rear Admiral Novikoff, the commander of Fleet intelligence, defended. “In fact, every witnessed transition has occurred farther out, like those cruisers.”

“Well, now we know otherwise,” the admiral mumbled.

“New contacts are separating,” the tracking officer reported. “They’re splitting off into four groups. Three ships per group, sir: the big one, a cruiser, and a gunboat.”

“What are they doing?” Rear Admiral Duncan wondered.

“They’re going to spread out, surround the planet,” the admiral said. “If I were invading a world, that’s what I’d do: hit everything at once from all around the globe.”

“We should contact the Intrepid,” Rear Admiral Duncan said. “She is still closer to the Earth than the moon. She can turn around and attack the new contacts.”

“Eight warships?” the admiral said. “She could handle the gunboats fine, but the four cruisers as well? No, the Intrepid has to protect the OAP until the Celestia can make her escape, and those frigates coming from the moon will have a clear line of fire in minutes.”

“But sir, those ships…”

“We’ll have to deal with them from the surface,” the admiral said, cutting off his friend. “Have our guns and missiles engage the cruisers and gunboats. Launch our fighters and order them to attack the transports. With so much firepower as escorts, I suspect they have little in the way of their own defenses.”

“Will that be enough?” Rear Admiral Duncan wondered.

“Probably not,” Admiral Galiardi admitted. “But maybe we can slow them down a bit until we can get one of our ships in position.”

“And if they start sending down troops?” Rear Admiral Duncan asked.

“Pass the word to all nations to expect incoming forces. Each nation’s military will have to deal with whatever Jung forces invade their territories. Their command centers will coordinate through us so we can keep all nations apprised of the global situation as it changes.” Admiral Galiardi looked at Rear Admiral Duncan. All hope appeared to have left his friend’s face. “We knew it would come to this, Marty. We knew it all along. We just didn’t want to admit it.”

* * *

“She’s not there!” Kyle exclaimed as he looked out his window on the shuttle.

“What?” Devyn said in disbelief. “What do you mean, ‘She’s not there’?”

“Bay number one is empty!” Kyle answered. “She was in bay number one. I’m sure of it!”

“Maybe they just moved her out,” Tilly said as he leaned in closer to Kyle to see for himself.

Luis moved his head about the small window next to his seat, trying every angle in a hope of spotting the Intrepid. “I don’t see her anywhere.”

“Hey!” Devyn called out to the shuttle’s crew chief. “Ask the pilot where the Intrepid went!”

The crew chief touched his comm-set button on his helmet to communicate with the shuttle’s flight crew.

“They can’t be too far out yet, can they?” Kyle asked.

“Are you kidding?” Luis said. Sometimes his friend’s lack of knowledge about spaceflight amazed him. “We left an hour ago. They could be halfway to Mars by now.”

“The Intrepid left port ten minutes ago,” the crew chief told them. “She’s headed for the moon.”

“Can we catch up to her?” Devyn asked.

The crew chief shook his head. “We don’t have the fuel.”

“Shit!” Kyle cursed in frustration.

“Can we get more fuel at the OAP and then go after her?” Devyn suggested.

“No can do,” the crew chief explained. “OAP says that all unassigned personnel are to report to the Celestia immediately.”

“The Celestia isn’t finished,” Luis exclaimed. “Can she even fly?”

“We’re assigned to the Intrepid,” Devyn told the crew chief, “all four of us.” She looked behind her as several more passengers raised their hands as well to indicate that they, too, were assigned to the Intrepid.

“Sorry, sir,” the crew chief told her, “not anymore.”

* * *

“Numerous new contacts!” Fleet Command’s tracking officer reported. “All four battle groups are launching smaller ships.”

“Type and count, Commander,” the admiral reminded him.

“Several different types,” the tracking officer reported as he listened to the chatter from the tracking stations over his comm-set and sorted out the details as they were reported to him. “Fighters, bombers, landing craft… We count at least fifty ships and rising.”

“All national defense command centers are linked in with us, Admiral,” Rear Admiral Duncan reported. “You now effectively command all Earth forces from all nations: land, sea, air, and space.”

Admiral Galiardi took a deep breath. He knew that such a command was possible, as he had been the primary architect of Earth’s defense strategy. Even so, the sudden increase in responsibility was daunting. He looked at his friend. “Are all your people in place, Marty?”

“Yes, sir,” Rear Admiral Duncan assured him. “You tell me what you want to happen, and my people will figure out which national asset is best suited for the task and activate it.”

The admiral let out a long, slow breath. “Very well. Are all our surface-to-orbit defenses ready?”

“Yes, sir.”

“All surface-to-orbit rail guns, open fire on the cruisers and gunboats. Lock all surface-to-orbit missiles on the troop carriers. Launch one wave and reassess.”

“Yes, sir,” Rear Admiral Duncan acknowledged. He turned away and starting giving orders to his subordinates over his comm-set in order to turn the admiral’s orders into actions.

Admiral Galiardi looked at the tactical display on the wall. There were now hundreds of red icons of various shapes and sizes spreading out from the twelve original contacts that had appeared above their world only ten minutes ago. The enemy had come in at just the right moment and from several different angles. This was not an invasion of overwhelming force as they had witnessed in the Alpha Centauri system. This was a well-planned, multi-pronged attack designed to achieve maximum results with minimum forces. He almost laughed at the thought, as the efforts of the Jung, while tactically impressive, were unnecessary. They could have come in all at once at the same point, and they would not have had the firepower to stop them. By splitting their forces in such ways, they were actually making themselves somewhat weaker. They were giving the people of Earth a fighting chance. He was sure, however, that it was not their intent.

* * *

Yanni sat on the long bench seat next to the EDF troops in the shuttle as it approached the Orbital Assembly Platform. He dared not look out the window behind him, as he had never been in an airplane, let alone a spacecraft. The moment they had achieved orbit and weightlessness had set in, he thought his lunch was going to come back up for all to see. Instead, he stared at the stack of data core cases secured in the middle of the compartment, reminding himself how important his assignment was in the grand scheme of his world. He was to ensure the safety of all the world’s pre-plague knowledge and history, or at least make sure it was handled in such a way that it was not damaged during its transport.

The inside of the shuttle suddenly darkened, as if a dark cloud had passed overhead, blocking out the light of the sun. His eyes widened as he looked about.

“We’re landing at the OAP,” the shuttle’s crew chief said to him as he floated past, noticing the fear in Yanni’s face.

Yanni closed his eyes, finding it unsettling to see someone floating about in such an unnatural fashion. Without warning, there was a loud clunk that rocked the shuttle. Yanni almost yelled out in fear, but noticed that no one else aboard the shuttle seemed concerned. He felt a wave of gravity sweep back over him, his hair settling back down onto his head and his pant legs hanging straight once more. He had read that the artificial gravity produced on spaceships was not fully that of Earth and wondered exactly what percentage of normal gravity he was feeling at the moment. It seemed light to him.

“Careful when you get up, kid,” the crew chief told him, this time walking past. “The gravity is lighter up here. Get up too fast, and you’ll jump up and hit your head on the ceiling.”

Yanni swallowed hard. He looked around and saw that, while the others were unbuckling their flight harnesses, none of them stood. He unbuckled his shoulder straps but waited on his lap belt for the moment.

A minute later, the lighting inside the shuttle reverted back to the plain, white lighting used when the ship was not in flight. The other men all stood, preparing to disembark. Yanni unbuckled his lap belt and stood, remembering to rise slowly. Despite his best efforts, he still felt as if his feet were about to come off the deck of the shuttle and instinctively reached one arm up to keep himself from rising into the overhead.

The man next to Yanni smiled. “Don’t worry. It’s only this light on the flight deck. It’s nearly normal when you get inside. Just don’t jump in the hangar, or you’ll go flying.”

“Really?” Yanni answered. “Why is it so much lighter on the flight deck?”

“Makes it easier to handle cargo, and it’s easier for the shuttles to take off and land. The outer transfer airlocks are only ten percent gravity. It’s twenty-five in here.”

“What is it inside?”

“Seventy-five, I think,” the man told him as the rear cargo ramp came down.

“Let’s go, people!” the crew chief yelled. “We’ve got to move this cargo to the Celestia, now!”

Yanni stood silently, watching as the crews moved the cases containing the data cores from the shuttle to the waiting carts outside. All he could think about was that the Celestia was the sister ship of the ill-fated Aurora, and as far as he knew, she wasn’t even half finished. Again, Yanni wished he had eaten a lighter lunch.

* * *

Workers out on the tarmac at the North American Fleet Academy Spaceport ran for cover as alert sirens blared in the distance. Ground crews scrambled to get the last of the shuttles off the ground before it was too late. The sound of something moving through the air at an incredible speed roared in the distance, causing many people to pause and look upward. They reacted in surprise when a massive explosion on the far side of the spaceport rocked the ground under them. More explosions followed as precision Jung ordnance rained down on them from orbit. The blasts walked their way across the spaceport, striking buildings, storage tanks, parking lots, and the mostly empty tarmac. The remaining shuttles began launching, regardless of the fuel state, in the hopes of escaping the horrific bombardment. One cargo shuttle accidentally maneuvered into the path of an incoming weapon and was blown out of the sky a mere one hundred meters above the spaceport, sending a shower of burning debris and fuel raining down onto the fleeing workers below.

Within a minute, the bombardment was over. Little of the spaceport remained standing, most of it a pile of burning rubble. Screams of the injured could be heard in between the roar of the burning fires and the secondary explosions of fuel tanks and stored ordnance. The afternoon sky overhead was blackened by the rising smoke, and the sirens of approaching fire and rescue vehicles could be heard in the distance.

A worker rose from behind the tow vehicle where he had taken cover. His face was covered with dust and soot from nearby fires, and his overalls were torn and bloodied where flying pieces of debris had cut through both his clothing and skin. He looked himself over briefly. He suffered from several deep lacerations and a burn on his arm where burning fuel had caught his clothing on fire. He was amazed that he was still alive.

He looked out over the devastation: the craters, the burning wreckage of vehicles that had not made it to safety, and the shuttles that had never gotten off the ground. The bodies of his fellow workers were everywhere and in various states of dismemberment, their blood staining the tarmac beneath them. Many scrambled to help the injured survivors while others stood like him, staring at the carnage before them. This was unbridled aggression. This was the face of war. “My God,” he exclaimed.

* * *

“Admiral,” Rear Admiral Duncan called, “the cruisers have begun orbital bombardment of surface targets, starting with the Fleet Academy spaceports.”

“Get all ships off the ground, Marty, before we lose them all.”

“Most of them are already in the process of launching, sir. The fighters all took off a few minutes ago.”

“Good,” the admiral said. “Get those shuttles up as well. Short-hop them to nearby fields or parking lots if you have to; just get them out of harm’s way. If we lose all our shuttles, we won’t be able to support our warships in orbit even if we stop this invasion.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What about those troop landers?” the admiral asked, pointing at the tactical display. “Where are they headed?”

“Most of them appear to be following the fighters and bombers in. They are headed primarily for main seats of government.”

“What about our facility? How are we doing on the surface?”

“We’re taking our first strikes now, sir. They’ve already taken out our rail guns, but our missiles have all launched, and our fighters are already on their way up.”