The Desert of Stars (The Human Reach) (31 page)

CSS Weisheng

Rear Admiral Kong Ruchang was a self-assured man, his confidence
built on prior victories against his country’s enemies. He had faith in his
abilities and believed on a deep level he was part of his homeland’s success.
So the message from Beijing offended him on a deep level.

YOUR NEW PRIMARY OBJECTIVE IS TO PRESERVE YOUR FORCE.

If only the damned comm buoys had failed! I have spent so
many lives and ships, and they send me this.
His commanders were operating
off old information, from before he had achieved the breakthrough. He wanted to
argue, to tell them he was on the cusp of a great victory, a suitable revenge
against the Americans for what happened at Kennedy Station. Under normal
circumstances he would have both the seniority and cachet to contest the orders,
but a message and a response would take half an hour to bounce between the
stars.
By then, the battle will have turned in one direction, or another,
and I will have defied my superiors. And what they’ve done to Captain Qin’s
reputation, all because she didn’t take her crew on a suicide mission …

Defiance would mean the end of his contribution to the
defense of China and its people.
My country will need me in the future, so I
must comply.

He only wished the orders had explained why.

USS Apache

On the large holo in the center of the CIC the red arrow
representing vector of the
Maqiang
suddenly shortened, and winked out.
Then it appeared again, stretching in the opposite direction. Similar vector
markers appeared on the other Chinese ships. New coilgun shell markers appeared
near several of them, but their patterns of fire had changed. They were now simply
firing at the nearest enemy, instead of trying to prevent the Americans from
pursuing the remaining runners.

They’re all turning to head back to Long Nu and the
wormhole,
Neil realized.
It’s a full-on retreat
.
Somehow, we won.

TOKYO – Hailing the bravery of the Japanese
Self-Defense Force, Prime Minister Katsura confirmed reports from the Pentagon
that the Chinese space forces around Saturn have withdrawn after a brief battle
there, leaving the planet’s valuable fusion fuel resources back in allied
hands. The retreating Chinese forces are said to be vectoring to join their fleet
in Venus’ Trailing Trojan point. Katsura declined to discuss any losses or the
contribution of American forces in the battle, and he refused to answer
questions about the condition of the helium-three and deuterium extraction
platforms in low Saturn orbit. Nor did he address reports of heavy British
losses in a separate battle near Entente.

Near Sycamore, Sequoia Continent, Kuan Yin

“Patterson’s squad just came back,” Aguirre told Rand.
“Looks like they got into another scrape.”

Rand shook his head.
She was supposed to be scouting
likely LZs for our troops, not engaging the enemy. If she can’t follow orders,
I should relieve her. But maybe she’s just unlucky.

“Any casualties?” he asked.

“Got a PFC with a twisted ankle, but nothing worse. Patterson’s
eager to talk to you, Cap.”

“All right, send her in.”

She must have been waiting right behind Aguirre, because she
strode past him and laid a heavy green metal tube on his desk.

“What do you got there, Sergeant?” Rand asked.

“Part of a Han rocket launcher, sir.”

“I can see that. Why is it on my desk?”

“Sir, I know you said to avoid contact, but we came on a
squad of Hans setting these up in our patrol area. I was in brigade intel
before everything went up, and we had some reports these were close to
deploying before the war. This is a booster for what we call an LC-3 Stoat.
It’s a crew-served surface-to-orbit rocket.”

Aguirre said, “Nice little ambush they’re setting up for our
landing forces.”

“Not just the drop pods, Sergeant. These things have a range
of three-hundred-fifty klicks or so. They can hit the assault carriers.”

Why don’t we have any Stoats of our own?
Rand
thought. He was silent for a moment.
We’re still out of contact with the
fleet, so we can’t warn them. That leaves only one choice, and it’s not one I
want to make.

“Anybody know what kind of predator hunts stoats?” he asked.

“No idea, sir,” Patterson said seriously. Aguirre suppressed
a smile and shook his head.

“Well, whatever it is, we’re now one of those. We’ve got
maybe three or four days before the landings start. Let’s get the word out that
we need to take these down. And Patterson, nice work.”

Her face lighted up.

One more fight, and then we’re done,
Rand thought.

USS Javier Benavidez y Diaz

“A legendary victory,” Komarov said. “I deeply regret we
did not take part in it.”

Donovan grunted.
Must be diplomatic, even now. We still
need them.
“War is a matter of self-interest, isn’t it?”

“And not noble causes? That’s a cynical view, Mister Calvin,
but based on my commanders’ behavior of late, one I must agree with,” the
Russian officer said. “Ah, but now the Chinese have truly fled, and we’re a
fully reformed fleet, ready to advance against the enemy planet. So all’s well,
isn’t it?”

Except for seven hundred Space Forcers who were killed in
the battle, and the losses of so many ships,
Donovan thought
. No, all’s
not well, and
claiming so is the first mistake Komarov has made in our
verbal jousting. He must be under a lot of pressure to let slip like that. Is
he truly unhappy the Russian fleet broke off and is trying to mend fences? Or
is there something else on his mind?

“What,” asked Donovan, “do you think caused the Chinese to
retreat? They seemed to have the advantage when they bolted for the keyhole.”

“That is an excellent question. Most likely they were more
pessimistic about their chances than you were. They did suffer grievous losses.
Perhaps the enemy admiral decided not to sacrifice any more ships for that
questionable piece of territory we are fighting over.”

USS Valley Forge

“Thrust holding at twelve milligees,” announced the
engineering officer in the CIC. “We’re back in play.”

Erin didn’t join in the weak cheer. Her whole body hurt; the
docs thought she might have suffered some lung damage during the explosive
decompression that threw her from the ship. Captain Mallett had offered to take
her off duty to recover, but she refused.

The ship’s hurt, but we’re still in the fight. Valley
Forge
had taken a devastating hit during the battle, but the repair teams
had patched the hole, and she was able to stay with the fleet. Unlike
Olympic, Concord, Ramage, Sprague, Chinook
and
Kiowa,
who wouldn’t
make it home
. Cayo Muerto
and
San Francisco
were not combat
effective, and the final casualty – the light cruiser
Chicago –
was
being abandoned. Something was wrong with her fusion candle; it was putting out
dangerous levels of radiation, and the repair team was eating rads and couldn’t
stop it. The ship would remain a piece of interplanetary flotsam until the
danger abated and a repair ship could rendezvous – if anyone bothered, way out
here on the frontier.

USS Apache

One of the big assault ships was close enough that Neil could
watch, without any magnification, dozens of little lights flitting away from
its launch bay.

The lancers were going in.

Their target was a constellation of reflector microsatellites
in low or medium Kuan Yin orbit. The sats could redirect Chinese laser beams
from their territory on the surface to almost any target in below a certain
altitude. Destroying them was a necessary prelude to invasion; once they were
shot down, the American and Russian ships could set up orbits that avoided
passing low over the eastern portion of Fengsheng continent, where the Chinese
defenses were concentrated.

The lancers were simple in design: a meter-long needle with
a chemical thruster on one end and a small coilgun on the other, with four
cylindrical fuel tanks arrayed along the shaft.

The robotic drones were efficient if indiscriminate hunters,
shooting or ramming anything that passed over Fengsheng. Entertainment, weather
and research satellites died alongside scores of reflectors. The operation took
some time, but eventually Fengsheng’s skies were cleared.

Some part of this operation is actually going the way it
should,
Neil thought.

Marines boarded manned installations next, in increasingly
lower orbits. The civilian stations surrendered without a fight, and most of the
military ones had already been abandoned. After a week, only the lowest
transfer stations, and one other set of targets, remained in Chinese hands.

“Mercer, respond.”

Neil didn’t recognize the voice, but only a higher-ranked
officer could override the “ring” on his handheld and just start speaking to
him remotely.

“Go ahead, ma’am,” Neil said.

“This is Major Amanda Clark, XO of the Second MOAB,” a
Georgia-flavored voice said.
That’s the Marine Orbital Assault Battalion on
Pontchartrain
.
“I’ve got a gunnery sergeant in one of my companies who speaks well of you,
so we’re tapping you for our next mission. Get over here pronto.”

“Aye aye, ma’am,” Neil said. “What’s the mission, if I may
ask?”

“We’re boarding
Eagle
,” she said. “Need some of you brainiacs
along to see what the Hans might have done to your old flagship, maybe grab
that software that fucked up your fleet so badly. We should have you back in
less than a watch.”

Jessica was asleep, her first rack time in more than twenty-four
hours, so he decided against waking her before the mission.

The jumper, still in the launch bay on
Pontchartrain,
blinked
into darkness as it shifted from ship’s power to its own.

“Careful, Bobby’s gonna start cryin’. He’s afraid of the
dark,” the engineering tech sitting next to Neil said.

“Frank, get your hand off my knee.”

“That’s not my hand.”

“And that’s not his knee.”

The lights came on, and Neil joined the laughter.
Maybe
morale is coming back.

Their craft launched and pulled in behind a line of six
assault jumpers, carrying between them two platoons of Marines specializing in
zero-gravity combat. They had no direct evidence anyone was on board
Eagle
,
the ship was emitting heat from its cooling fins, suggesting life support was
still turned on inside.

The battleship was otherwise in bad shape. She had taken a
pounding in the Second Battle of Kuan Yin and been captured and towed back to
the planet’s orbit. Her coilgun turrets had been removed, presumably for study.
But she was a valuable hull, one of America’s five largest, and, with enough
time, she could be restored to the fight.

Two assault jumpers landed first. Their Marines found no
defenders waiting for them, and they quickly gave the all-clear for their
immediate environs.

As Neil’s jumper rotated to dock, he had a brief glimpse of
Kuan Yin’s equatorial ocean, glittering blue some three hundred klicks beneath
them, and he thought of fishing with Tippy on Entente.
That was a better
day. I hope Tippy made it.

The bay’s electromagnets were responding to the jumper’s
commands, and the craft docked. The other four jumpers would remain outside to
serve as a reserve force in case their boarding was suddenly contested.

That doesn’t seem likely,
Neil thought as he pushed
off through the tube connecting the jumper to the bay’s ready room. He exited
and grabbed a handhold above his head, twisting and flipping over backward to
clear the way for a sandy-haired engineer from the
Texas,
who was right
behind him.

The ready room was an expansive space, with connections for
no less than six small spacecraft. The “floor” was well below Neil, but the
room lacked a clear down because the jumpers had to park at a different
orientation to fit inside the bay.

Immediately across from Neil was a sideways red-headed
Marine, who was grinning lopsidedly.

“Gunnery Sergeant Harkins, good to see you again,” Neil
said. Tradition was in the absence of a clear down, lower ranks had to orient
themselves to those who ranked higher, but Neil respectfully pulled himself
over to Harkins’ angle. “I guess I have you to thank for my being here.”

“You bet, sir,” she said. “I told Major Clark you were a
quiet guy, but the fun always seemed to find you.”

Neil gave a half-laugh. “What does …”

The engineer from the
Texas
floated into him. “Sorry,
Lieutenant,” he said. “I wasn’t watching where I was going. Trying to figure
out what that thing is.” He pointed to a small metal box in one corner of the
ready room, apparently bolted to the wall. It didn’t look out of place,
exactly, but there was no discernible logic behind its presence.

Neil recognized it immediately, from his visit to the wreck
of the
Gan Ying
. Something clenched deep in his gut.

“We have to go, right now,” he said evenly.

“What?” Harkins asked.

“That’s the casing for a Chinese scuttling charge. They can
blow the ship any time they want.”

The engineer from the
Texas
turned pale. Harkins put
a hand to her ear and thumbed her handheld.

“Everybody out!” she said fiercely. “Get to the jumpers,
now!”

Neil, Harkins and the engineer were the first back into
their jumper. Others poured in: mostly other engineers, plus a few Marines who
hadn’t ridden over with them. When in it was full, the pilot unlatched from the
electromagnet and thrust away.

Eagle
exploded.

The jumper’s pilot thrust and turned, but a chunk of the
battleship
struck it anyway, sending it into a spin on two axes. Alarms
screamed from the cockpit. Neil’s shoulders pressed painfully against his
straps; the engineer from the
Texas
was thrown from his seat and into
the opposite wall, his arms and legs flailing. A loose box of ammunition
slammed into the shoulder of a Marine captain sitting at the front of the compartment,
and he howled in pain, and then passed out.

Over and over the jumper flipped and rolled, until Neil felt
some counterpressure as the pilot tried to correct the spins. Eventually she
got most of it. Neil could at last look at who else made it on board; he saw a
dozen faces through the yellow haze of the ship’s emergency lights. Harkins was
there, looking angry; she unstrapped and began to tie down the body of the dead
engineer.

Neil scanned everyone’s collars. He unstrapped and went up
to the cockpit.

“Can you talk?” he asked the pilot, whose nametag read
“Salter.”

She looked at his single silver bar. “You in charge here?”

“’Fraid so.”

“I can talk. Thanks for asking first, by the way.”

“Shove me aside whenever you need to do your thing,” Neil
said. “And I was a pilot before I was an intel guy, so I can drive one of these
if necessary.”

She relaxed a little, Neil saw, but her eyes were dead. “Meantime,
how we doing?” he asked.

“Bad. The main thruster’s dead. We need a rescue, soon.”

“I thought these jumpers had something like two days of air
reserves?”

“Yep, but that’s not our problem,” she said. “Our problem is
that when I punched it away from the
Eagle
, I didn’t care much about our
trajectory. We’re deorbiting, and with the rocket gone, I can’t stop it. I
screwed up, and we’ve got all of two hours.”

“You didn’t screw up,” Neil said. “You bought us two hours.
Did anyone else make it out?”

“I don’t know. What the hell happened?”

“The ship was a trap. They must have been watching us on a
telescope, hoping we’d put more people on board before they blew it up. When
they saw us launch, they pulled the trigger.”
I should have thought of that,
and had her wait until all three jumpers were loaded. Unless they were
listening to our comms …