Earth Strike (30 page)

For the moment, at least, the invaders were gone. Force Alpha, the ships that had hit Triton, had turned around and fled once news of the defeat of Force Bravo had reached them, out across on the far edge of the solar system. Almost contemptuously, they had demolished the surface of Triton, giving it a thick but short-lived atmosphere of gaseous nitrogen, and erasing all traces of the human presence on the frigid surface. The nitrogen would freeze out as snow soon enough; the question was why they had done it. A show of force? A fit of pique?

How did you interpret the emotions of an entity so alien as the Turusch?

A battlefleet was on its way out to Neptune now, partly to secure the region and make sure the enemy was gone, partly to dispatch SAR vessels to look for the five High Guard ships lost out there. There’d been weak radio signals picked up hours ago, signals that suggested that the
Gallagher
might have survived. That would be excellent, if true, and if the survivors could be rescued. Those men and women were as much heroes as anyone in
America
’s fighter wing. They’d pulled that close flyby of the enemy fleet unarmed, knowing that they probably wouldn’t survive.

And they’d transmitted everything they’d seen, information vital to the final battle all the way across on the other side of the solar system.

“Admiral? Dr. Wilkerson wishes to speak with you.”

Koenig sighed as he opened the mental window. He would have to deal with the Turusch POWs after all.

“Yes, Doctor?”

“Excuse the interruption, Admiral. I just wanted to know how many more Turusch you were sending us.”

“Unknown, Doctor. We may have a few thousand of them sitting in that battleship hulk out there.”

“We have eighteen on board now,” Wilkerson told him. “That’s pushing our capacity here in the research lab.”

“Don’t worry, Dr. Wilkerson. I have a request on its way to Earth. They should have a high-acceleration transport out here within the next day or so. The prisoners will probably end up in a special facility on Luna.”

“Ah, good.”

“How’s the communication project going so far?”

“Surprisingly well, Admiral. Our…guests
are
talking, and we
are
understanding them. Or at least we think we are.”

“I understand.” With the Turusch, it was difficult to tell, sometimes, whether you were getting a straight answer to a question or not. Even now, with the AI interrogators pulling third-level LG messages out of twinned Turusch sentences, the aliens’ communications tended to be somewhat enigmatic. The xenopsych people hadn’t yet been able to determine whether that was because they were playing it coy and mysterious, or simply because their psychology
was
genuinely alien. “Just try to keep them alive this time.”

“Ah. Yes. We don’t think that will be a problem now, Admiral. We’ve been talking to them about it. Apparently they require a community.”

“How big of a community?”

“It seems to vary. We think they develop a need for others close by just because of the internal dialogue, the separate brains talking to one another.”

“I’d think that would just mean they could never be alone.”

“Maybe. But they tend to form close pair bonds, two individuals who identify with one another so closely they share the same name, the same job, identify with one another very strongly. They always have a crowd around them…to the point that their philosophy seems to be the more, the merrier. Those first two—Falling Droplet—they…it…” He shook his head in frustration. “
Whatever
the damned pronoun should be. The two organisms apparently died of loneliness.”

“I thought they stabbed each other.”

“Used their caudal probosci to inject one another with digestive juices, actually. But suicide, yes. Whether it was a mutual suicide by two individuals or a single suicide is a very interesting question. We don’t understand their psychology yet, but we think we’re seeing all the earmarks of profound depression brought on by separation anxiety.”

“But that won’t happen again?”

“Not with eighteen of them. Funny thing. When you talk to one, they all get to buzzing and humming in the background…and it’s like the one you’re talking to gets smarter and smarter, quicker, more reactive. They really do have a multiple mind, a gestalt, one that probably works on several levels.”

“Well, keep me informed, Doctor.” He thought of something else. “Oh. Any reaction when you’re questioned them about Alphekka?”

“No, sir. The fact of it is…we don’t share a common mapping system, a common set of coordinates. We don’t know what they call Alphekka, and they wouldn’t know what we meant by that name. We’re hoping to teach them enough astronomy that we can find the right way to ask the question.”

“Well, it was probably too much to expect an answer immediately. Like I said, keep me informed. And good luck with the project.”

“Thank you, Admiral.”

The window closed, and Koenig was alone with his thoughts.

He would be talking to the Military Directorate about Crown Arrow soon—as soon as the battlegroup returned to Mars. The one thing Koenig knew beyond any shadow of a doubt was that the Confederation had to strike back, and strike hard. If they didn’t, the Turusch would be back, this time with an even larger force.

The only way to stop that from happening that Koenig could see was to assemble a large and powerful strike force and take the war to the enemy. Alphekka. That had to be the key.

And perhaps some of the prisoners would be able to add to the Confederation’s understanding of the strategic picture. Who were the Sh’daar? What was it they feared about human technology, and why?

Why were they determined to keep humankind from following their current technological path?

Already, Koenig was mustering his arguments. His next battle, he knew, would not be one of starships and nuclear warheads. It would be the far harder war, the sort of battle he detested, a political war fought with members of his own species.

Battles with alien empires he could understand. It was his own people, and, most especially, the
politicians
that left him wondering if humanity could even hope to survive.

Pilots’ Lounge
TC/USNA CVS
America
Outer System, Sol System
2214 hours, TFT

“Hey, Collins,” Gray said. “I’m glad you made it.”

The woman looked through him, stared past him as though he wasn’t even there, then coldly brushed past on her way out the compartment door. Gray shrugged at the snub. She blamed him still, somehow, for Spaas’ death…or for his not being there when Spaas had been killed out at Eta Boötis. He understood that. With luck, the reorganization of the
America
’s strike fighter squadrons would end with him and Collins in different squadrons, and they wouldn’t have to deal with each other at all. And that would suit Gray just fine.

Despite her bitterness, his prestige within the carrier fighter wing, he had to admit, had gone up considerably since the Defense of Earth, as the reporters were calling the battle now.

He was still a bit in shock by the reception down up in the landing bay, the reporters, the shouted questions. There was even talk of a formal interview later. So far, he’d been able to push that back into the background, to put it off for another day or two. Damn it, he was
tired
after the long trip out from Oceana, after the battle, after the recovery on board the
America
.

And as for his squadron mates…

Not a word about him being a Prim or a squattie, not a word about his not fitting in. And not a word, he was happy to realize, about his not being on flight-approved status.

Even more to the point…he now felt like he
belonged
.

He still wasn’t entirely sure what he thought about that. If what they’d said about Old Manhattan was true, he would be grieving when the realization finally hit him. There were rumors, even, that new New York had been hurt as well, that Morningside Heights and the Columbia Arcology were gone, along with so much else.

Angela
…

But Earth and the people he’d left behind now felt very far away, felt like a part of another life, one lived long ago, separated from the now by light years and by years.

His life now was centered on board the Star Carrier
America
.

Koenig’s Quarters
TC/USNA CVS
America
Outer System, Sol System
2255 hours, TFT

“Admiral Koenig?”

“It’s late, damn it.” His personal AI could pick the damnedest times to break into his thoughts with incoming communications, data, or unimportant details. He’d only just left his office, come down to his low-G quarters where his bed awaited him.

“I know. But it’s fourteen fifty-five in Mecca, and I thought you’d want to know.”

“Know what?”

“You’ve officially been declared a Grand Hero of the Islamic Theocracy. For your rescue of those civilians from Eta Boötis.”

“Ah. I would imagine that saving the Earth had something to do with that. I’m more pleased by the decision of the Directorate.”

“You should know, Admiral, that the Fleet’s political liaison, John Quintanilla, is still trying to have that blocked…at least to have the Military Board reconsider its decision.”

“Quintanilla is an asshole.”

The AI, designed to provide information rather than to hold conversations, remained silent. “He
is
an asshole with power and with friends,” Koenig added. “We’ll have to watch our backs. But…I think we can discuss Mr. Quintanilla’s shortcomings in the morning, don’t you think?”

He was exhausted. He’d not slept since the alert had sounded, and he’d left Karyn’s side for the ship…had that
only
been early this morning?

The memory gnawed at him, sharp and biting.

He began undressing, getting ready for bed.

“We
will
be going out there, again,” he told his AI after a moment. “Arcturus. Alphekka. And as deep into the Beyond as we need to go to keep the Turusch from doing this again. They got entirely too close today.”

“Twenty-nine astronomical units from Earth,” the AI said. “Approximately.”

“We got lucky. That young pilot, Lieutenant Gray. His idea was brilliant…and it almost didn’t work. The AMSO warheads were triggered early by the Turusch impactor salvo. The sand clouds were so scattered by the time they hit the enemy fleet, it’s a miracle they did any damage at all.”

“Enough sand grains impacted enemy targets to destroy shields and cause ablative damage,” the AI said. “There was sufficient damage to render the enemy fleet vulnerable to conventional attack.”

“Like I said. We got lucky.”

“I suggest,” the AI told him, “that you get some sleep. You will have a heavy agenda in the morning, both with fleet affairs and with conferences with Military Directorate personnel.”

“Yes, Mother. Lights.”

He fell asleep thinking about Karyn, and the savage tragedy of war.

He
would
take this war to the enemy. And soon.

5 November 2404

Liberty Column
North American Periphery
0915 hours, local time

Trevor Gray sat once again upon the head of Lady Liberty. Just how the ancient icon had managed to survive the tidal wave coming up the Narrows of New York Harbor was still something of a minor mystery. Witnesses had said the wave had engulfed the statue, submerging her completely, before it had rolled on to smash across the vine-choked ruins of Old Manhattan. Likely, the geometry of the Narrows to the south had deflected the wave somewhat. Most of the unimaginable force of that wave had swept north across Brooklyn, and the green islands of the Manhattan Ruins.

Some of those islands still stood, stripped of their vegetation, looking naked and broken in the morning sun.

There was talk that they would be refurbishing Lady Liberty. They’d found her arm somewhere at the bottom of the harbor; there were rumors that the arm would at last be raised, that a nanocladding technique would be used to restore her coppery skin, to strengthen her, to rebuild her.

And the same rumors said that they would be rebuilding Old Manhattan as well.

The Turusch impactor had been a hell of an urban redevelopment program. But Gray was glad that people were at least talking again about rebuilding. To ignore the Periphery was to ignore one’s own advancing illness. It was time that the Authority acknowledged the rights and the talents of
all
of its citizens.

With
America
back in port at SupraQuito, Gray had grabbed a precious couple of days ashore, had come back to this spot to do his grieving. So many people he’d known—his family in the Ruins—gone.

And Angela, too. There was no word on her, nothing definite, so there was still, he supposed, hope…

But he knew she was dead.

In fact, she’d been dead to him since her stroke, since the medtechs had tinkered with her brain. He knew that now. And, slowly, he was coming to
feel
it as well. The psych office had cleared him a week ago, officially put him back on flight status. Marissa Allyn had been working him like a dog ever since the Defense of Earth, using him as her deputy CAG to hammer out a new strike wing organizational chart…and to break in the newbies coming in each day from Oceana.

But it wouldn’t be lasting much longer. Rumors were swirling through the fleet at faster-than-light speeds. Something called Operation Crown Arrow…a deep strike into Turusch space.

Good. He was ready. Ready to strike back at the bastards, ready to hit them, hit them
hard
wherever among the stars they tried to run.

A tone sounded in his mind. “All hands, now hear this, now hear this. This is a ship deployment update. Star Carrier
America
will be leaving space dock at 0700 hours tomorrow, shipboard time. You should be back on board and ready for space no later than two hours prior to debarkation.”

He’d be up the space elevator tether and back on board long before that deadline.

Back home.