Authors: Bennett R. Coles
Breeze couldn’t pry her eyes away, though. Abeona. The first planet colonized by humans outside of Sol’s nurturing warmth. The beginning of a new era. Apparently a near-twin to Earth, the planet when first surveyed three hundred years ago had caused such an uprising of enthusiasm that the first group of ark ships had been built in an amazing five years, and five years after that the colonists had seen exactly what she was seeing now.
The blue-green disk grew larger, and within thirty minutes she could clearly see the three-quarter crescent on the orb. There were other lights in the sky as well, as traffic became denser in the planet’s outer gravitational reaches.
Vici appeared beside her again. “What kind of orbital defenses, Lieutenant Kane?”
“The three orbital platforms are active,” Thomas replied. “They’re equatorial, one-twenty degrees spread in geostationary orbit. From this far south, all three have line of fire on us. The EF will definitely want to approach along the ecliptic.”
“What about ships?”
“EM is picking up two, maybe three Space Guard radars, but otherwise nothing obviously military.”
“Docked at the stations?”
“Impossible to say at this range. I’ll get a better look when we’re in closer.”
Vici leaned in to Jack. “How close can you get me to the surface without risking a visual ID?”
“Our legal distance is forty thousand klicks, but at that range I’ll have to play it by eye, based on other traffic.”
“I’ll want to take control of your camera.”
Jack paused in thought, lips pursed. He scanned his console.
“Did you hear me?” Vici asked.
He nodded. “Yeah, yeah. I’m just trying to figure out how to give you control.”
The orb of Abeona grew into a real planet, with brilliant, swirling cloud patterns over a green, brown and blue surface. The night side was pure black, with surprisingly few lights for such an important world. Compared to Earth, which still sagged under its billions of inhabitants, this was a wilderness paradise.
An extremely sophisticated and dangerous wilderness paradise, Breeze reminded herself as Ali fielded another call from Traffic. There were dozens of lights moving slowly across her field of view.
“Getting crowded,” she said.
“I’m going to switch on our nav lights,” Jack said, “so that we’re not doing anything overtly illegal.”
“Keep us on a steady course,” Thomas said, eyes on his console, “and keep us out of visual range. We’re being tracked, but I think it’s just civilian.”
Breeze pushed back out of the cockpit, suddenly feeling exposed as the shining face of Abeona grew larger. Vici and Katja were focused on their screens, which were zoomed in far enough to make out major geographic features.
“They have auto-defenses here and here,” Katja said, pointing, “and a fighter base here.”
“It’s not pretty,” Vici said, “but it’s the clearest run and it keeps us under the horizon of their big guns until we’re on the ground. Orbital bombardment should pave the road for us, and strike fighter support can take whatever they get into the air.”
Breeze pushed forward to hover by Thomas’s chair. “How are the orbital defenses looking?”
He glanced up, then returned to his work. “Strong enough. Besides the three bases, I count maybe five Space Guard ships in the area. Most of them are just for local defense, but Centauris don’t build cheap, and a missile still hurts whether it’s fired from a battleship or a patrol boat.”
“Will they have much chance to see the EF during the approach?”
“Plenty. If we don’t get challenged, we go all the way into low orbit for the drop. If we do get challenged, we charge, open fire, and drop on the run.”
“Is there a lot that can hit us from the ground?”
He glanced up again. “I’m working on it,” he said irritably.
Her stomach churned. Abeona was looming large now, beautiful in the sunlight. Her earlier fascination had faded, though, as she imagined all the weapons that were hidden from her view in plain sight. This was insane.
“Okay, we’re approaching perigee,” Jack said. “Do you need me to alter north or south?”
“North,” Vici said, “as close to forty-five degrees as you can.”
Jack leaned his stick to port slightly.
There were ships all over the sky now. Breeze tightened her grip on Jack’s chair.
“Can any of those ships see what we are?” she asked.
Jack glanced around. “Can you see what they are?”
She was surprised at the question.
“Neither can I,” he said. “And we’re
really
small. They can see our nav lights but that’s it. If anybody even cares, we look just like any other ship doing its thing.”
She wasn’t convinced. Both Jack and Ali seemed completely at ease, though, so she held her tongue.
The planet now filled a quarter of the sky. Lights moved below them. Breeze watched and waited for the telltale flash of missiles.
“Okay, that’s it,” Jack said. “We’re past perigee and climbing. Take your last look, folks.”
“I need you to turn around and go back for another sweep,” Vici said.
“No-can,” Jack replied. “I skimmed forty thousand as it is. If we descend any more, we’re inside their safe distance.”
“Then don’t descend. Turn around and do a northwest diagonal cross. We didn’t have time to get all the images we need.”
Jack paused at his controls, in a pose Breeze was coming to recognize as deep thought. Then he pursed his lips and did nothing.
“Sorry, ma’am, but I can’t do that,” he said, his voice neutral. “We’re stretched for fuel as it is, and I don’t have the reserves to do heavy maneuvering. If I turn us around, I’m in effect putting on the brakes, and we’ll drop fast into the geostationary zone.”
Vici appeared next to Breeze, eyes blazing. “I don’t give a rat’s ass what zone we’re in. My troopers are landing on that planet in twenty-four hours, and I need to see the landscape.”
Jack and Thomas exchanged a glance. The tension in the little cockpit was suddenly thick. Breeze knew enough about orbital physics from her fast-attack training to know that Jack was protesting for a good reason.
“Uhh, ma’am…” Thomas began.
Vici stabbed a finger at him. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“Ma’am,” Jack said, still looking forward, “Abeona Traffic cleared us for an observation orbit. If I drop any lower I’m going to cross into the zone where all their satellites and orbiting defenses sit. This is my first time to Centauria, but I know in Terra the local authorities get real upset when strangers drift into that zone.”
Vici made to speak, but Jack plunged on.
“Also, even if I
could
turn us around and stay out of the geo-zone, we’re still being plotted by Traffic and they’re going to get suspicious at our sudden and dramatic change in flight plan. That will cause someone to investigate, and there’s an orbital platform not too far from here.” He pointed out the windows, to where a large, distant, silvery object was flashing in the sunlight. “If anybody identifies us, we’re fucked. And then they’ll know the EF is here, and the EF is fucked.”
Breeze had never heard Jack swear before.
His words seemed to have an impact. Vici’s features relaxed.
“Very well,” she said. “We’ll go with what we have. Take us back to
Normandy
.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The commander returned to the console with Katja. Jack kept his eyes forward, as he had through the entire exchange.
Breeze glanced at Thomas. He gave her a shrug and turned back to his console. She looked back at Jack.
The puppy had teeth after all.
She was impressed.
She watched the surface of the planet slip by beneath her as the Hawk slowly began to pull away. They were on their way back to the EF with their precious information. In twenty-four hours this peaceful, beautiful, unsuspecting world would learn the consequences of picking a fight with Terra.
T
homas’s display showed the ships of the Expeditionary Force as they moved like shadows through Centauri space, and each one was preparing to strike. As the AVW controller he had issued the orders only hours before, and he couldn’t ignore the knot in his stomach as the final minutes ticked away.
Normandy
’s spherical bridge gave a front-row view. Centauri A was a brilliant, yellow-orange disk low off the bow, so much like Terra’s own Sol that it was easy to pretend the ship was making the final approach for home. After months of averting his eyes from the dazzling orb of Sirius, Centauri A was a welcome relief.
Centauri B was a dim, heavy orb high over the stern, larger and redder than its companion but equally capable of supporting life. Thousands of human settlements dotted the worlds orbiting each star.
One such world was growing brighter off the port bow—a dazzling, blue-green point of light. Abeona was their next stop, but first there was an immediate matter to which they had to attend.
Moving against the stars above him was a brightly lit tug and its three barges. It was called the
Starspan Rose
, bound for Orbital Platform Three with a cargo of unrefined iron ore. It looked almost close enough to touch, so close that to Abeona Traffic the radar images practically melded with
Normandy
and her sister ships. If anyone was even looking. The tug and barges all had blinking yellow beacons and floodlights on their hulls, intended to ensure excellent visibility as the cumbersome train approached the busy space lanes.
Behind them, visible only for the occasional stars it eclipsed, was the massive shape of the battleship
Jutland
. She approached her prey in the blind spot astern, like a giant shark in the ink-black sea. A new symbol momentarily lit up on the display, but nothing appeared visually as
Jutland
fired.
The tug imploded, winked out of existence by the torpedo.
Across the 3-D display, spread over six million kilometers, torpedo symbols flashed from EF ships as they singularized their targets. Civilian beacons vanished, then reappeared as the hunters took the identities of their prey. There was a slight acceleration as
Normandy
maneuvered to take station astern of
Jutland
. She was now the first of the three barges.
All around her, the ships of EF 15 took on their assumed roles and continued to close Abeona. Thomas kept watch on the radar emissions from Traffic, waiting for the pinpoint beams of interrogation radar.
There was no change to the weak, steady pulse of the distant surveillance radar. There was no sudden chatter on the Traffic channels. He took a deep breath, trying to loosen the knot. So far, the ruse was working.
Jutland
and the three invasion ships formed up as the tug and tow
Starspan Rose
. The carrier
Artemis
became the luxury liner
Nebula
, and the cruisers, destroyers, and supply ships morphed into a variety of cargo ships, yachts, and a cluster of mining vessels returning home. Thomas willfully banished from his mind the hundreds of innocent people who had just died. Their blood would be nothing compared to what was about to come.
“Commodore, Echo-Victor,” he said, “deception completed. All units in place, no response from Abeona Traffic.”
“Roger. Time to controlled zone?” Chandler sat very still in his raised seat, eyes fixed on the central display.
Thomas quickly manipulated his controls. “
King Alfred
will reach it first, ETA seventeen minutes.
Normandy
’s ETA is thirty-five minutes.”
Chandler nodded slowly. “Very well.”
The command team was quiet, each controller focused on his display. Around them,
Normandy
’s bridge crew moved like ghosts across the transparent deck.
One circuit crackled with myriad reports of the Levantine Regiment. Thomas recognized the routine drop preparations from his own days as a platoon commander. The troopers would have all formed up for a stirring speech by the colonel, then broken into troops for final instructions from each commander. By this time, the troopers of the first wave were loading into their drop ships.
Katja would be there, floating down the line of her platoon, her large, dark eyes taking in every detail, her voice carried over the rumble of machines, instilling confidence. She was probably afraid—who wouldn’t be?—but hiding it behind her polished mask of command.
He wished that he’d made the effort to visit her, to make peace with her so that she could focus on her mission. Those hours in the Hawk had been brutal. She’d been closed and hostile the entire trip.
Thomas refocused on his display. His job was to make sure she could get to the planet, to do hers. He just hoped she’d be all right.
Abeona grew larger. He pinpointed the three separate emissions of the orbital platforms. At this range all three still had line of sight on the invasion ships, but if all went according to plan, two of the stations would be masked behind the planet itself when the drop occurred.
Three of the EF’s stealth ships had been sent ahead of the attacking force in absolute emission silence to target the platforms, but maneuvering in the Bulk so close to a massive body like Abeona was a tricky business. No one would know if they’d reached their objectives until the fighting started.
The fourth stealth ship was in close support to the invasion ships, but had gone silent hours ago in preparation for the attack.
There was heavy emission traffic near Abeona, as civilian ships blared away with their beacons, radars, and radios. Through the noise, Thomas was fairly certain he could detect two distinct Space Guard cutters in the vicinity. These ships were small and designed for local operations, but they were heavily armed and maneuverable. With
Jutland
and the cruisers dedicated to providing orbital bombardment for the drop, anti-vessel warfare would fall to the destroyers.
AVW wasn’t the forte of these smaller ships. Thomas feared the cutters might have the advantage.
None of the surface batteries were actively scanning, he noted, and there was no obvious sign of surface-based fighters in orbit. His survey in the Hawk had given a good indication of where these threats lay, but there was no way to know if he’d found them all.