Homeworld (Odyssey One) (69 page)

STATION LIBERTY

“COMMODORE WOLFE REPORTS all personnel cleared from Barsoom base.”

“Good. Direct them to receiving areas on Earth. We won’t have room for them up here,” Gracen said as she walked across the war room of the station.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Earth orbit was rapidly becoming a very crowded place to be, she noted wearily. Ships were coming in from every corner of the solar system. Almost eighty percent of the shipping tonnage floating around the system was now parked in Earth orbitals, hoping to hell that the defense grid could protect them.

What was left was hiding out in stations floating around the system, one out by Jupiter, one by Saturn, another out in the Oort cloud. She wished them luck, but none of them were FTL capable, so if Earth fell they had less chance than a snowball in the corona of the sun itself.

She wished them luck, but unless the Priminae took mercy on them, no one else would be alive to.

The signals she was getting from the
Odyssey
were now around twenty minutes old, but getting closer to real time
in a hurry as the ship took its task force and plunged toward Mars while the Priminae towed the crippled Block ship Earthward.

Weston had managed to get the whole damned armada glaring at him or, rather, his fighters. It was a skill he’d picked up in years of working for the U.S. and, later, the Confederacy. The man certainly knew how to piss people off with an inordinate talent.

Interesting to note that it carries over to completely alien minds as well,
she supposed.

“How are orbital defenses shaping up?” she asked, walking back to the other side of the war room.

“We’re putting the new satellites in low orbit as fast as we can build them, but even as simple as the cut-down models are, it’s taking time.”

“We don’t have any more time,” Graven growled. “Tell ground control to put more birds in the air or I swear to God I’ll drop some old ones on their corporate headquarters and let the workers in the factories cut out the middlemen.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

N.A.C.S.
ODYSSEY

THE RED PLANET was looming large in their screens by the time the Archangels touched down in the
Odyssey
’s main flight deck, the airlock moving them up into the pressurized section of the ship with smooth and efficient speed.

Steph popped his canopy after equalizing pressure and swung himself over the lip of the cockpit, pushing down so he wound up locking down on the floor as the chief of the flight crew stomped up.

“Get them reloaded for bear,” he said. “I want to be able to relaunch ASAP.”

“You’ve got it, sir. Splash any new ones?”

“You’ll have to pull the records to tally the marks, Chief,” Steph said. “I was too busy for counting coups.”

“Right you are, sir. I’ll get right on that.”

“After you load us,” Steph repeated. “What’s the TO&E from the captain on the next mission?”

“Orders from above are to leave the ship killers behind and load you for a furball, sir.”

“Figured,” Steph grinned. “That’s gonna be fun.”

“Yes, sir.”

Steph patted the man on the back as he stomped forward, the magnetic boots locking in place with each awkward step he made toward the elevator. He knew that he and the rest might have an hour downtime before they had to go back out, so it was time to make the most of it.

God, I need some chocolate.

On the bridge of the starship, Eric Weston was eying the red planet wearily. He had half a planet’s population worth of enemy craft chasing him, and the red desert he was looking at was the last line of defense before Earth itself.

“Put us in a low orbit,” he ordered. “Low and fast. I want Mars between us and the enemy as quickly as possible.”

“Aye, sir,” Daniels replied. “They’re holding formation. Fighters are keeping pace with their cruisers.”

Eric nodded. He knew that. If they hadn’t been, then the fighters would have swarmed them long before the Archangels made it back. He hadn’t really been worried about that happening, however. Mobs didn’t break up into smaller groups. They didn’t spread like that. They swarmed as a group. The primal mentality of the mob could no more survive in small groups than your average human could chop his own hand off and order it to do his bidding afterwards.

They were going to swarm him as a group, try to overrun his defenses, and take him apart piece by piece.

The real hell of it, though, was that it was going to work.

PLANETARY SPACE, APPROACHING MARS