Accord of Mars (Accord Series Book 2) (19 page)

I
t had been
good to see Dad, but disturbing as well. He’d always been a bastion of strength in my life. The proverbial unmovable object: always there, rigid, inflexible, but constant. Seeing him so weak that he could barely move, his mind dulled by painkillers… It was a jarring experience.

And he’d given me a lot to think about during the flight over to Earth. Just what was I going to accomplish, coming out here? How far was I willing to go? Where should I - and could I - draw the line in what force was reasonable?

I knew that I had all the advantages this time. If Earth had any ships left to defend her, they should be few in number and weak. That was the whole point of our rushed departure from Mars. If we could get to Earth before the UN was able to commandeer a bunch of civilian ships and toss weapons on them, we would have a good chance of winning. But that line of thinking invariable led me back to the harder questions. Like, what was winning going to look like? And how far was I willing to go to save Mars?

Earth was still just a blue marble floating on black velvet at this range. We were closing fast, though. And they’d been trying to hail us for hours as we sped closer. I ignored the radio traffic.

The Connie was fit to fight. Or mostly fit, anyway. Once everyone had assembled in the bay we got to work. Much of the remaining refit involved improvements to the crew sections and missile bays. I’d solved the issue by simply putting up temporary seals over the sections that weren’t finished. They’d be open to space for this trip. We weren’t going to need crew comforts for this run, anyway.

With a handful of volunteers, the ship made a record speed crossing between the worlds. My crew spent the entire trip in the goop-suits so that we could accelerate the whole time. Half the trip was spent accelerating at twenty gravities, the other half spent decelerating at close to the same rate. We crossed the distance in less than twenty-four hours.

Earth’s leaders had good reason to be shitting themselves right now. They had an armed warship approaching from a planet that had every reason to be pissed at them. And we’d crossed the gap more quickly than anyone had thought possible.

Not that I wanted to go through that again. Ever. Even a few hours of breathing liquid still felt strange. Doing it for an entire day was a horrible experience. None of us were in a good mood. The suits mitigated the strain of acceleration, but it still meant poor sleep, and the short breaks we’d taken for food and water hadn’t refreshed anyone very well.

“They’re still hailing,” Glenn said. He’d survived the Hermes bridge exploding, and I’d brought him aboard as XO the instant he volunteered. He was one of a small handful of people with as much experience at this as I had.

“Let them hail,” I said. The full day of travel with nothing to do but simmer had turned my hot anger into something of a cold rage instead. I wasn’t out to punish Earth for what they’d done. Not anymore. My aim was much more simple. I was going to make damned sure they wouldn’t be able to launch a second attack.

The Connie had a small bridge. I was running the show. Glenn was managing radio and signals in addition to being my go-to for someone to bounce ideas off. I had a woman who’d served alongside him on the Hermes named Diaz. Glenn swore she was superb at radar and a deft hand with the defense systems, which she’d run so well for Dad. For this trip she was in charge of our fire control as well.

I wished more than anything that I could have had Kel for my pilot. We could really have used her. But she had a much more valuable part to play in this. Instead the Connie was being flown by someone I hadn’t seen in quite a long time. Scott Wilson was the pilot on the transport ship I was commanding, way back when the pirates first attacked. The pirates took us completely by surprise. No one had seen weapons in space since the Accord was first signed. When they fired missiles at us Wilson froze, and he’d never been able to live it down. I heard people called him ‘Iceman’ now - as a joke, because he’d panicked.

Hell, we’d all panicked that day. He’d just been a little more thorough about it than most of us.

Wilson came up to me before we left and begged for a shot. He’d been left on station duty since that debacle. Nobody wanted him flying their ship. I hesitated, but when I saw the fire in his eyes I thought I ought to give him a chance. He wanted this. He wasn’t going to let anyone down again. And if anyone knew all about the drive to prove yourself, it was me.

“We’ll be coming into orbit in a minute, sir,” Wilson said. “Earth’s Spacedock will be in sight in forty-five seconds.”

“Diaz, I want a firing solution the moment it comes into view,” I said.

“Aye, sir.”

Glenn leaned back and looked at me. “We going to warn them before we fire?”

I shrugged. “Anybody aboard that station is military personnel, or civilians on a military base making ships for the UN Navy.”

“Just asking,” he said.

“Multiple contacts coming up ahead,” Diaz said.

Multiple? What else did they have out here? It was one worry I’d had about this mission. We didn’t know if Earth had held back any ships when they attacked Mars. It was possible they still had something out here waiting for us.

“Getting a better picture now, sir,” Diaz said. “Three ships. They’ve separated from the Spacedock and are maneuvering to intercept us.”

“Game on,” I said. “Drop the Hawks.”

I’d rather liked Dad’s idea of an aircraft carrier in space. But with the Hermes out of action, getting them all the way to Earth was going to be a problem. It wasn’t one without a solution, and I looked to history to find mine. Although the original Hermes was the first design for a wet ship purpose-made for launching fighters, it wasn’t the first ship to ever carry them. Lots of bigger vessels would have a plane or two they could launch from a tower or special deck. The Connie was missing fully half her missile tubes. I had to make up for that loss somehow.

We’d rigged two of the surviving Hawks with couplings that strapped them to the Connie’s hull. We had explosive bolts in place to blow them clear when they needed to launch. Collecting them again after this was over would be a pain, but I figured we’d cross that bridge when we got to it.

Kel was out there, flying Hawk One. With her was a guy she swore was one of the best pilots she’d ever seen, seated in Hawk Three. That was high praise, coming from her. But I figured each of the pilots who made it back from the battle against the Dreadnought had to be excellent. Only five of the fighters had survived. I’d have loved to haul them all along, but there simply wasn’t space to attach them all to the Connie. Two would have to be enough.

I was worried for Kel. Even knowing just how good she was, I also knew that sometimes it didn’t matter. They say it’s not the bullet with your name on it that you have to worry about, when you’re the best. It’s the bullets that are marked ‘to whom it may concern’. Even someone as good as Kel could get unlucky, and all it would take would be one bad break.

The fighters were our best weapons, and she was our best pilot. If we wanted to do this right, I needed her out there. And if I’d tried to have it any other way she would have skinned me alive.

There was a loud pinging sound as the explosive bolts blew. Two new icons showed up on my small holotank, and began accelerating rapidly away from us.

“Let’s give them some cover. Diaz, fire at will. One volley at each ship,” I said.

The Connie rocked as our missile bays unloaded death. My screen showed the enemy ships doing the same.

“Let’s dance,” I said.

O
ur first volley was away
. Diaz had targeted all twelve missiles at a single target. If we could overwhelm their defenses and hammer them to bits one at a time, they’d have a harder time stopping all the missiles. And each ship we took out would be one fewer shooting at us.

Their return fire was surprisingly ragged and light. Each of the ships launched only four missiles, matching our total output missile for missile.

“Wilson, bring us up at forty five degrees from the ecliptic, and run perpendicular to the incoming missiles vector at five gees,” I said.

“Aye sir,” he replied, and the ship immediately lurched forward into the maneuver. I smiled inside my suit. He was taking his duties damned seriously. I’d made a good choice.

The missiles tried to turn and chase us, but they were moving fast by the time their little computer brains detected our course change. They managed, but now they were following us, struggling to catch up with our acceleration. Meanwhile, our anti-missile guns were picking them off.

Another volley launched - from them and from us. Now we had two sets of missiles bearing down on us from two different directions. Diaz was firing off new sets as quickly as our launchers reloaded, but the enemy was firing just as quickly.

Then two of the enemy ships exploded, vanishing from my screen entirely.

“This is Hawk One,” Kel said over our radio. “Two enemy ships splashed.”

“Well done,” I replied. “We’ve got the third. Get me eyes on that station.”

“Aye sir,” the pilot replied.

Our missiles struck home on the last beleaguered ship. It took down half of them, but the other half left it a gutted, powerless wreck. These weren’t combat ships at all. These were the barest combat refits of shipping vessels. They were a lot like the Connie, only smaller and without even the light armor Dad’s engineers had added to my ship.

They still had teeth, though. And I watched my screen as those jaws closed in on us. We’d be just as dead as they were, if enough of those missiles landed.

“Bring our nose down ninety degrees from the ecliptic now,” I ordered. “And increase acceleration to ten gees.” That wasn’t the fastest we could go, but it should make it that much harder for the missiles to track us.

“All hands stand by for rapid acceleration,” I said, I keying the PA system so my words would be heard throughout the ship. For the sort of maneuver we were about to pull, everyone needed to be strapped down.

“Glenn, drop a decoy buoy,” I said.

“Aye, sir,” he replied automatically. I raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. Glenn was my Dad’s age. It felt a little odd having men who’d been in space since before I was born snapping to it when I gave a command. Would I ever be so used to it that I took it for granted? I wondered if Dad still had that sort of issue.

The buoys were a leftover from the last war. They hadn’t been updated much, and I didn’t know if the Hermes had even used them, relying on armor instead. I preferred a little finesse to taking it on the chin. The buoy sat in the space we left behind as we rocketed on our new course. It was giving out a fake radar and radio signal that made it seem like it was really us.

The two volleys of missiles converged and unleashed hell...on the buoy. A handful of the slower missiles escaped the conflagration and spotted their actual target zipping away from them, but our guns took them out without trouble.

We hadn’t taken a single hit in the entire engagement.

“Let’s stay alert. We’re doing great, but this isn’t over yet,” I said. Then, because I knew he needed it, I added a more specific compliment. “Excellent work on those turns, Wilson.”

“Thanks, sir,” he replied.

“Bring us back down to one gravity of acceleration, on an intercept course with the space dock,” I said.

“Aye sir,” Wilson replied.

We started into an arcing course that would bring us back near the station’s orbital path. The fast sprints we’d had to make to avoid the missiles had taken us way off course, so we had a few moments for me to think.

Was that really all they had? I’d taken the Connie to Earth at the best possible speed. Partly that was to inspire a little fear in the enemy. If we could make the crossing that quickly, what else could we do?

But part of my motivation had been to take out their ship production before they could rebuild and launch another offensive. Now my race to arrive here seemed like overkill. All they had three small, mostly toothless ships guarding their only major space station.

“Hawk One, report,” I said.

“We have eyes on,” Kel replied. “They don’t seem to be tracking us, or haven’t fired yet anyway. Detecting over three dozen missile batteries on the station though. Might be a tough nut to crack.”

Not if we never came close enough for them to shoot at us. The station was moving in a slow, regular orbit. In spaceflight terms that meant it was a sitting duck.

“Can you drop a laser on it?” I asked over the radio.

“Yup,” she replied.

“Do it.” I sucked in a deep breath. “Diaz, set our missiles to home on her laser target.”

“Already done, sir,” she replied.

“I want a firing solution that powers down the first six volleys for part of the trip,” I said. “No ragged volleys here. We have the time to hit them with everything at once. Fire once you have it set.”

“Aye, sir,” she replied.

The station was still out of our direct radar range, hidden around the curve of the planet. Which meant we couldn’t get a direct lock on it with our missiles. But using the Hawks as forward observers, we didn’t need to. The Connie shuddered a little as each volley of missiles flew out, streaking into the distance. The first two volleys would pause a little, waiting for their fellows to catch up before re-engaging their engines. Instead of six sets of twelve missiles, the station would face seventy-two incoming rounds all at the same time.

Their defenses shouldn’t be able to stop them all.

“Hawk Three, can you give me a video feed?” I asked.

“Yes sir, sending now.”

Our missiles had already gathered into a huge mass, steaming in toward the enemy station on full thrust. The station was shooting back. It was also disgorging escape pods like mad. Someone had given the order to abandon the place, and I was glad. No sense killing people if we didn’t have to. Some of them might get clear enough before the missiles hit that they would survive.

The Spacedock had good defenses, but I’d seen the place up close. It was too big to defend very well. They only managed to hit two dozen of the missiles before the rest impacted. Scores of fiery nuclear explosions lit up the video feed brilliantly. When the flashes cleared, I got a good look at the devastation I’d wrought.

The space dock had been torn in half. One side was gutted, almost shredded. The other half was more or less intact, but the flames and air venting from it implied that might not last much longer. I called up a computer projection of its new orbit, which showed it in rapid decay. The entire mess was going to hit somewhere in the Indian Ocean with a day or so.

“Time to finish the job,” I said. “Our orders are to ensure they aren’t able to repeat their attack again.”

“Thomas?” Glenn asked. His eyes looked worried. I could see it there, the unasked question: was I about to follow in my father’s footsteps and end a war through nuclear devastation?

“We’re going to minimize civilian deaths,” I said. But there would be some casualties from what I was about to do. I was going to return Earth to a pre-spaceflight era. Abruptly and without notice. It was going to cause problems, even some deaths. I knew that, and it hurt. But I didn’t have a wealth of better options.

Was this how Dad had felt, when he sent those nukes home with the Chinese ship and killed a hundred million people?

“Target every satellite and spacefaring object in orbit around Earth,” I said. “We’re destroying them. All of them.”

“Glenn, send messages to the space commands in Florida, Mohave, Melbourne, Kourou, and Dongfeng,” I said. “Tell them they have six hours to evacuate all personnel before those bases are destroyed.”

He stared at me for a long moment. That was every spaceport Earth had left. All of their remaining launch facilities would be gone. Oh, there were some craft that could take off on a regular runway. But they’d lose all of their heavy lifting ability. No chance to replace the space dock we’d destroyed until they could rebuild those launch pads, which would take years. I was effectively taking Earth out of the equation, at least as far as getting into space was concerned.

“Then contact the UN,” I said. “Tell them to get Choi on the line. It’s time he and I discussed a new set of Accords.”

T
hanks for reading
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