The Stars Came Back (42 page)

Aid Worker1 looks at him in open-mouthed dismay. Then he closes his mouth, squares his shoulders, nods, looks at his tablet, then critically at the remaining refugees on the ship. He
nods decisively.

Aid Worker1: How long do we have before the next load?

Lag: Four hours, give or take. We’ll let you know if otherwise.

Aid Worker1 gets a pained expression, nods, turns, and heads off fast, shouting.

Aid Worker1: DODSON! SINGH! PIERSON! TANTRA! Got a
SITUATION
!

FADE TO BLACK

ManPADS

FADE IN

INT - DAY -
Tajemnica
Bridge

Helton, Cooper, Quiritis, Allonia, and Bipasha are at stations
studying screens.

Helton: (
Thinking aloud) Where, where, where… Best hiding, or best visibility? In the zone, or visible from here? Big battery or lone shoulder mount? What, what, what… Hmmm…

Quiritis: I’d hide
troops outside the declared zone, keep the big stuff inside.

Helton: Good point. Soooo… stick a ManPAD with a shorter range close in here, with good visibility and no witnesses
, like a hill in the woods.

In front of Helton is a map.
An icon on it starts flashing in red slightly off the center of the map.

Helton: Found something! Four klicks west! Bare hilltop! Zoom in.

The map zooms in. It shows a synthetic image version of a hilltop with a half-dozen dim icons for people. One suddenly snaps brighter. Then another, an icon with an extra symbol over it.

Ship AI: (OC, brisk male voice) Multiple incoming data sources. Confidence good. Three-man ManPAD teams. Launcher.

Two more icons pop into sharp, bright focus. Then another one with an extra symbol.

Ship AI: (OC) More confirming sources. Two teams. Confidence high.

Helton: Ah, good! Now we just go around them!

Allonia: Something to the north, too!

Helton: Let’s keep looking, then… That other hilltop to the southeast. Anything?

Ship AI: (OC) Thermals show four heat signatures. No electronics detected.

Helton: Nothing at all?

Ahip AI: (OC) Negative.

Allonia: Looks like the north side has six people, too.

Ship AI: (OC)
Confirmed. North hill, six people. Two launchers. Confidence high.

Cooper: Ah, shit. Surrounded.

Helton: We came in right over the southeast hill. Why didn’t they shoot at us?

Quiritis: Maybe they didn’t get word we’d slipped out?
We should minimize our profile, fly low to give them few clear shots.

Allonia: Four
. One team and a leader?

Helton: Hmm…
As soon as we can lift, start knocking treetops off. Head straight at the four. When we get closer, we’ll have a better look. If they have missiles, we leave a furrow with the bow where they’re standing; if not, we just part their hair and scare the crap out of them.

Cooper: You want to hit the ground ON PURPOSE?! At SPEED?

Helton: Only if we have no choice.

Cooper: You’re crazy. Interceptors are one thing
, planets are different. Bigger.

Quiritis: Just grazing shouldn’t be a problem.

Helton: Note to self; screw weapons regs, we need armaments ASAP.

DISSOLVE TO

EXT - DAY - North hill
top

A grassy
hilltop with some scrubby bushes. Hunkered down between and behind some of the bushes are six men in camouflage, small packs and equipment around them on the ground. One of the men has binoculars and is watching the refugee center.

ManPAD1: LIFTING! They are LIFTING! Shit! Southeast again! Shoz! Check range!

Another man shoulders a missile launcher and aims it toward
Tajemnica
in the distance.

ManPAD2: No dice!
At limit, going away!

ManPAD3: Shit. Call it in, we
have to redeploy. One team from each hill. Box ‘em for when they come back.

CUT TO

EXT - DAY - Southeast hilltop

Another grassy hill with small trees and scattered brush. A foursome on a nature outing, two couples, one older, one younger, sit partially concealed with binoculars watching birds.

Watcher
1: Oh, look at that one! A female!

Watcher
2 : Very pretty!

CUT TO

View through binoculars of a brightly colored bird on a branch. The bird is in focus, and everything else, branches, twigs, and a bright sky, is blurred.
Looming abruptly into view a blurred dark spot covers the background. The binoculars come down, and focus goes from the bird to
Tajemnica
flying in directly at them, huge and closing fast.

Watcher3: AAHHHHHHHHH!

All four throw themselves flat on the ground.
Tajemnica
roars past just over them, the wind of its passing flattening bushes and trees like a hurricane, her hull seriously clipping the taller ones. The older man lifts his head and stares at the retreating ship as it angles up and climbs fast, then at the destruction around him, eyes wide. The birds are gone.

CUT TO

INT
- DAY - Bridge of
Tajemnica

Cooper, Helton, Allonia, Bipasha all wear expressions of
relief as they give a collective exhalation.

Cooper: Now they’ll move to cover all points. Coming back’ll be a bitch.

Helton: Yeah… unless we circle around, hunt them now while they’re not expecting us.

Bipasha: Hunt them with
what?

Helton: Just what we planned on doing here. Cooper, hit the deck, circle around to the north hill.

Cooper: Seriously!?

Helton: Never a better time. Do it.

Cooper turns sour and stubborn, and does nothing.

Cooper: I can’t believe you want to
try
running into the ground! Risk is too high!

Quiritis: Just a
little
hill. No problem.

Lag
enters the bridge.

Lag: Colliding with things
again
?

Helton: If they’re still on the
hilltop. Quiri, you just got promoted to first pilot. Do it!

Cooper
is surprised, Quiri’s face sets in a bland, focused look as she pushes the yoke forward.

Quiritis: (
Calmly) Aye-aye, sir. You might want to tell people to brace for impact; it may be more than the inertial compensators can handle.

Lag: Wha
t if they have moved down to redeploy? Then you’ll be back inside the circle, in range.

There is a moment of tense silence as they consider that.

Helton: Cornhole ‘em.

Lag: (
Skeptical, as if he must not have heard right) Excuse me?

Helton: (
Into mic, voice echoing on the ship) All personnel! Clear the cargo bay, secure all middeck windows, close all hatches onto the cargo bay! (To Ship AI)
Tajemnica
, open forward and aft cargo bay airlock doors. Prepare to fast-drop the bow ramp and
lower the stern partially now. If they are on the hilltop, we level the hilltop with the bow ramp up. If they are down where we can’t turn ‘em into road kill, we drop the ramps, bump the ship, and the wind blowing through will knock the bags off the aft ramp. A few hundred fifty-kilo beanbags at four hundred kph should flatten a pretty good area, and one of those things will take out anyone it lands on.

Lag: Are you serious?

Helton: Quiritis, can you do it if
Taj
can time the ballistics of a “bombing run” right?

Q
uiritis: (Still very calm) Beanbags are not in the ground assault combat manual, but gravity bombing is simple.

Helton: Good thing I never read that manual.

Her hands start running over the controls, figuring the right speeds and angles.

Cooper: (
Sarcastically) Sure, why not? Run into hills on purpose, fight missiles with beanbags. Makes perfect sense. In
someone’s
universe.

Helton:
Taj
, can you do it?

Ship AI: (OC) The physics of falling objects are well understood. The details of moving that much mass
by wind tunnel effect will be… a bit more complex.

Lag:
Use the loading arms to make it a more controlled ejection?

Cooper: Hill’s coming up fast!

Ship AI: (OC) Three men. One launcher confirmed. Three men downhill two hundred fifty meters.

CUT TO

EXT
- DAY - North Hilltop

Three men in camo stand, heads just above the brush silhouetted on the skyline, looking into the distance. One points
at something of interest. A rising rush of air, and behind them
Tajemnica
surges rapidly into view, hull partially below the horizon. They whirl around and stand motionless in shock at seeing a wall of metal rushing towards them.
Tajemnica’s
hull grazes the ground, leveling a flat spot where the men were standing, not slowing at all. As it passes over the hilltop, the bow clears the crest, the ramp drops.
Tajemnica
screams past, dirt splashing away like water in a barge’s bow wave. The view follows it past, the back ramp is down, piles of beanbags clearly visible. The fast-moving ship suddenly jumps a bit, like it’s going over a speed bump at high speed, and noses up sharply.

CUT TO

INT
- DAY - Cargo bay

V
iew of the aft ramp, looking forward. Pallets of bags cover most of the ramp. The cargo bay is swept clean, all hatches and windows shut tight. With a WHUMP the bow ramp at the far end drops open and there is the roar of rushing air. The two loading arms with forklift attachments are extended, one holding a stack of pallets down, the other is in front, ready to push others back and over the edge. The corners of the bags lift and ruffle, threatening to move under the wind pressure put on them. There is a bump, everything jumps, and only sky is seen through the bow door. The beanbags on one side get a shove and fly off the ramp.

CUT TO

EXT
- DAY - Side of the north hill

Amid the brush, small trees, and grass, three men in camo trudge
quickly and quietly, all with packs and gear, one carrying a launcher, the others with extra missile tubes. The sound of crashing trees, flying earth and ringing metal makes them spin around to look uphill where they had just left.
Tajemnica
plows through the hill crest trailing debris, passing directly overhead. As she tips up they reflexively throw themselves flat on the ground even though
Taj
is too high to hit them. Falling from the stern ramp a waterfall of bags tumbles out in a disorderly line, falling much more sideways than down, like grazing fire nearly parallel to the ground, picking up downward speed fast. The soldiers are near the leading edge of the cascade as the bags fall past and on them, crashing through the brush and small trees like a blast from a titanic shotgun. One man is hit squarely on the body, another in the head. The third screams in pain as bags crush his legs.
Tajemnica
roars off, turning and arcing up and away from the other hill with a ManPAD team. The survivor rolls back and forth a bit, struggling to get the bags off his shattered legs, grimacing in pain. He manages to roll over and sees his motionless comrades, the obviously broken launcher next to one of them, and the ten meter wide swath of destruction surrounding him. He looks up the hill. He reaches for his com unit.

CUT TO

Wooded hillside down from the west hill

A three-man team in camo walks hurriedly though the trees, equipped similarly as the beanbagged team. Coms squawk.

Survivor1: (OC though com, sounding pained and desperate) Team 3 down! Team 3 Down! Come in Team 4!

The men freeze and bring rifles up, looking for unseen enemies.

Survivor1: (OC
over com) Team 3 down! Team 3 Down! No response Team 4! Come in Team 2!

One of the soldiers carrying spare missile tubes thumbs his throat
mic.

Team2 Leader: Team 2
here. Sitrep!

Survivor1: They dropped shit on us! They came back over the hill! Broke my legs! They hit the hill, then
dropped some sort of bags on us! Delatam and Poya are dead! The launcher’s broken! I can’t walk!

Team2 Leader: (
Thumbing throat mic) We’ll do what we can. (Releases mic, angry) SHIT!
Shit-shit-shit
! He’s screwed. Only two, now… SHIT!

The three look at each other,
uncertainty written on their faces.

Team1 Leader: (OC,
over com unit) Now what?

Team2 Launcher: I say we-

Ship AI: (OC, over their com units, deep, malevolent voice)
Run
. The bag limit on ManPAD teams is four a day. We still have two tags to punch. If you are within eight kilometers of the Center when we return, we will kill
you
as well.
Any
use of these com units will be understood as continued hostile intent and you will
all
die. You have two hours.
Tajemnica
out.