Homeworld: A Military Science Fiction Novel (30 page)

The Last Stand

“Citizens of the Earth Republic!” bellowed out Admiral Clarkson as he stood atop the plasticrete walls of the spaceport. “Now is the moment when you must make what very well may be your final decision. We know for a fact that at least three companies of Coalition armor are inbound on our position. We don’t know how many Coalitionists follow after them or what they will be arriving in. From last report, we estimate that they are approximately fifteen minutes out.”

Clarkson paused and let what he had just said set in before continuing. “For those of you who wish to stay and help defend this port, you are welcome to do so. However, I will hold it against no man nor woman who chooses to leave and that includes you lot who are still serving your compulsory time. I cannot sugar coat the situation for you. If what we sent up into orbit fails to provide the edge our Fleet needs to achieve victory, then this is the end. I will choose to stay and defend these walls till no breath is left within me or victory is ours but you may choose for yourselves what you will do. I give each and everyone one of you one minute to make your decision and then Colonel Miller will assign you a position in the defense.”

With that said, the admiral turned his back on the assembled crowd and knelt down beneath what little protection the wall’s parapet offered and scanned the edge of the city. He made his peace with the creator then, knowing that he would most likely not survive the hour to come. He had lived a good life and if he had regrets, it would be that he could not spend more time with his family but at least he was trying to leave a chance at a life worth living behind for them

Some few minutes later Colonel Miller came up behind him and said, “I just thought you’d be glad to hear, sir, that not a soul decided to leave. We are with you till the end of this fight, however it may turn out.” Then the good Colonel sprinted off to deliver his orders leaving a smiling Clarkson ready to go into the beyond if necessary but hoping he could at least take a few Coalitionists with him.

There was stillness all throughout the spaceport as if every woman and man was doing nothing but breathing and looking. Colonel Miller had ordered the Infantry, whose armor was in the best condition, along the wall whose defensive turrets would never fire again in the hopes that their combined firepower and what few grenades and anti-tank weaponry, they had managed to salvage from the Coalition’s own supply from the battle earlier, would somehow slow down one hundred tons of rolling thunder. Along the other three walls were placed the Infantrymen. Their reserves were gathered below by the ramps and stairs that would rush to take the place of the fallen till only the civilians remained to take their place on the wall and hold out as long as they could.

After everyone was in place and waiting, they did not have to wait long before they heard the tanks roaring and rumbling down the streets in the city leading to the spaceport. If there is one thing that is not in known space it is a stealthy Coalition tank. Soon they could see them, and as the battle scarred Coalition tanks entered their line from all sides of the spaceport, both Republican and Coalitionist opened up with everything they had.

The near deafening chatter of the automatic self-defense turret he was standing under rained down empty shell casing after shell casing upon Admiral Clarkson’s helmet and armor as he continued firing his rifle at the closest tank. His standard issue P-200 would do little good, but pulling its well-worn trigger made him feel better and maybe with enough rounds poured out of the barrels of enough rifles, they would get lucky and score a shot somewhere where it might matter. It made him proud to know that if he were going to die today, it would be in amongst such good women and men. He could not have asked for a more loyal, capable and patriotic crew to lead. Then the tank he had been firing upon rotated its turret, pointing its main gun at the defensive auto-turret just above his head. Clarkson pulled the trigger on his rifle one last time and then there was a blinding flash from the tanks main gun. That was the last thing he ever saw.

Colonel Miller screamed a loud and long, “No!” As he saw the admiral’s body blown into bits of bone and chunks of gristle-filled meat as his body nearly disintegrated along with the turret he had been standing under. It seemed as if a coldness filled Miller’s chest. The man had seemed immortal. Shrugging off challenge after challenge and battle after battle, he had been the strength these soldiers had relied upon to spit in the face of the enemy when they just wanted to lay down, die, and have it be done with. Clarkson was the one who had bound this tiny army together and now he was gone. Miller clicked his rifle from three round burst to full auto as he opened up on the closest tank to his position down the line from where the admiral had been moments before.

The tank made the mistake of turning broadside to the Republican’s fire and the auto turret focused on its relatively unarmored treads as Miller emptied his grenade launcher using the auto turret’s rounds as a tracer round. Between his grenade fire and the turret above him, the tank came to a stop as the tread beneath it was shattered with steel and fire. A stationary target allowed the auto turret to concentrate its fire in the place that would do the most damage once it got through. In three seconds, the fusion bottle of the tank was penetrated, releasing a near blinding flash of light as where tank once had been a fiery ball of enveloping plasma ignited. Then there was no more than a burned husk of a vehicle.

From behind him, there was a tremendous explosion that threw him against the parapet in front of him. He turned just in time to see a section of the wall give way under the explosive onslaught of a tanks weapon. The kinetic energy of the blast threw chunks of plasticrete and Infantryman up into the air in all directions. He saw torsos and limbs of good men flung about as if they were rag dolls before a behemoth of a tank rolled through the hole in the spaceport’s defense it had just made. Its still smoking main gun was pointed in Miller’s general direction. He turned and fired upon it, determined that if he was going to die, it was not going to be with a loaded weapon.

A female’s voice could be heard booming from the tank’s external speakers at a near deafening level that could be heard over the sounds of thousands of rifle rounds being fired at one time as they did no more than pit the armor and scratch an already battle scarred paint job from her tanks external speakers. “Surrender now or we turn every last one of you stubborn bastards into a fine red sticky paste!”

Colonel Miller gave the only order he could, though it tasted bitter in his mouth. “Throw down your arms! Do it and do it now!” He exchanged a frustrated glance with Ben as they threw their weapons down in front of them and got down on their knees, putting their hands behind their heads. They had fought as long and as hard as they could, but there would be no more fighting in this war for them.

There Will Always Be War

Drake sat in the helmsman’s chair and stared at the strangely green-lit holographic controls in front of him as the craft he was in soared away from the ground below and towards the sky above as it strained to reach the cold vacuum of space. He was no helmsman. The largest thing he had ever piloted was a Coalition fighter and the controls in front of him were in a very different language. Even with Ben’s instruction, he was unsure if he could perform even the most basic of evasive maneuvers.

Thankfully, he didn’t need to handle getting the ship out into orbit, because Ben had rigged the ship to do that itself, though he did not know how. The man truly was amazing. Drake couldn’t make heads or tails of the fluid filled tubes of goo and pulsing circuits of hazy green power that they had found when they had removed the helm station’s maintenance plate. However, Ben had just started grunting and humming as he prodded this and that with his analyzing tools making sounds like “aha” or “so that’s where you were hiding. Now that’s clever. I wouldn’t have thought to do it that way.”

He had few responsibilities on this ride but they were all very important. Ben had pointed to certain parts of the holographic interface and told him he was pretty sure this was pitch and that was roll and this was yaw and this would accelerate the craft and that would brake the forward momentum of the cargo ship. Drake hoped he understood enough to evade any enemy fire long enough to release his precious cargo.

Drake’s ear itched. He automatically went to scratch it, but his gloved hand connected with his helmet. He hated pressure suits. They always made you sweat and feel claustrophobic but it was better than just hanging around in vacuum once this plan was complete. Ben had to jerry-rig some replacement gloves to this suit and Drake hoped they would work, as he was rather fond of his hands. “With just a little something I whipped together,” had been Ben’s reassuring words. The original gloves wouldn’t have fit his hand as they were missing two fingers, which even under the circumstances really made Drake grin.

As Drake entered into the blackness of space the pull of Earth’s gravity let him go. That was his cue. He launched himself from the helmsman station and down a tube-like corridor towards the cargo bay, pulling himself hand over hand in the zero gravity until he finally reached what he was after. Drake punched three fingers into the cargo door release hatch and rotated it counterclockwise until he felt the vibration of a click through his gloves and space itself in all its glory was laid out above him as the cargo bay doors slid open. He could see earth and the harsh glare of the sun as he floated there, caught in the pure beauty of it.

The contents of the bay were released and the explosive bolts that had released them gave them just enough momentum to clear the bay into open space. That is when they truly came to life with brief pulses of violet light as they disappeared one by one. Over three thousand Leap Frogs, all set to destroy any craft not identified as friendly; the beauty of it was that if their target was destroyed before they got there, they would automatically acquire a new one and keep pounding and pounding until nothing was left of either them or the Coalition armada.

“Now it’s about time to see about getting home,” Drake thought as he detached the two large oxygen tanks from the wall. If he were a few thousand feet lower, he would have had to struggle against their weight, but here they weighed nothing. Here, only mass mattered, not weight, because here in space weight didn’t exist. “For example,” Drake thought as he kicked hard against the floor of the cargo bay and out into the inky nothingness, “as the ship has more mass than me, when I applied force to the ship, it didn’t move I did”

Now what was that Ben had said? “Put your back to the planet and pull the pin. Gravity will take care of the rest.” So using his suit’s small atmospheric thrusters, he turned his back on the little blue word from which the first life from which humanity would eventually descend had been born and fought its way through billions of years of evolution to produce him. Drake was about to pull the craziest stunt in a long line of crazy stunts.

He pulled the pin. The release of the pressurized gas forced him away from the craft at surprising speed. Soon it was getting smaller and smaller. As the cargo craft became about the size of a transit in the distance, Drake could begin to see the chaos that was being wrought in earth’s orbit. To the limits of his vision, stretched the wreckage of broken hulls and debris, but just at the edge of his vision, he could see tiny dots and flashes of light swirling around each other against the background of space.

“Admiral Casa,” he said over his helmet’s com, which Ben had “boosted.” ”This is Drake with a message from Admiral Clarkson. Message as follows. Disengage and get the hell out of the way!” Then Drake felt the pull of gravity reaching out to welcome back its prodigal son and he was free falling from about as high as one could fall. Using the last of his thruster’s fuel, he straightened out into a dive so he could see the Earth and all its vast blue oceans and small patches of land getting larger and larger until he was picking up tremendous speed. Soon he couldn’t see the curvature of the planet anymore. Then the ocean on his left disappeared and a small beeping in his right ear told him it was time to do something very important, so he pressed the release button on his parachute.

Darkest Before the Dawn

Only a few dozen Darian fighters remained of the thousands that had joined in this fight. All the rest of the Darian fleet was just so much junk floating in the void. Yet those fighters fought on. As one would run out of ammunition, it would plunge itself into the nearest capital ship. Admiral Casa could not fault them for lack of courage or determination. As he stood aboard the bridge of the battered Athena, he contemplated it would not be long until he joined them now. It had been a long bloody fight, but the odds were definitely not in their favor now. They were down to a quarter of the ships they had entered this fight with but those ships fought on. The end would be upon them soon but there was no shame in this defeat. They had fought well and hard. It was a good day to die.

Aboard the Harrington, Admiral Watkins was smiling. The pathetically antiquated surface to orbit missiles that had been launch from Earth had not come within a hundred kilometers of any of his vessels before being destroyed. Their ancient fission payload never even had a chance to detonate. If that was the last best defense the planet had to offer, then this battle was almost done. He no longer saw a need for it to have his direct oversight. “Commander Pullman, do you think you can find it in yourself to do what needs to be done to mop up the rest of their pathetic fleet?” Watkins asked of his subordinate derisively. According to the protocols of the Coalition, he might as well have just punched the man across the jaw.

“Sir, I know I do. That and more, sir,” Pullman said, snapping himself to attention. “Then see that you do. I will be in my ready room. Notify me when the last of them have been swept from existence. I believe I would then like to take a transport down to the planet but as for now, it is long since past time for my tea. You have the bridge,” Watkins said with a wave of his hand as he walked towards his ready room. “Sir, I have the bridge, sir,” came Pullman’s automatic response. “They were all so very much like a pack of well-bred dogs,” Watkins thought as he approached the doors of his ready room. “A harsh word from their master and they cowered. With a bit of praise, they wagged their entire bodies. It was all very amusing.”

Ensign Johansen called out, “Admiral Casa, I’m picking up a strange message from a man identifying himself as Drake. He says he has a message for you from Admiral Clarkson, the message is, and I quote, “Get the hell out of the way.”

“Helmsman, you heard the admiral,” he ordered Malinki and turned to his com officers. “Make sure that message gets to every remaining craft, Darian and Human, as soon as possible.”

“Sir, the Republic forces are attempting to withdraw,” came the call from the helmsman of the Harrington. “Then we had best all see that they don’t. Send in the cruisers to wipe the last of them out of our way and set the capital ships on a course towards Earth. I believe the admiral would like to claim his prize as soon as possible,” responded Commander Pullman.

Aboard the Athena, the Com Officer Swerth reported, “All ships acknowledging and making best possible speed to withdraw from combat with the Coalition craft, sir.”

That’s when Casa saw the first blip on his tactical display. At first, he didn’t believe it, but then he saw hundreds, no, thousands more! He stood to his feet and crowed triumphantly, “Clarkson, you old dog you did it!”

“Sir?” The Weapons Officer questioned. “Are those what I think they are?”

“Indeed they are, son! Never let it be said that the Infantry never gave the Fleet a present. If someone has a cigar, some Champaign, or even a good stiff drink of bourbon, now’s the time to break them out. This battle is over and I’m willing to bet our Coalition friends don’t even know it yet.” Admiral Casa cried jubilantly as his bridge crew erupted in cheers as they saw the thousands of Leap Frogs that would wipe the Coalition fleet from existence and save their lives. Casa looked on, as there were many hugs, handshakes, and more than a few tears. They had earned this victory, but without the help of their fellow citizens on the planet below, it would have been a defeat. “Com Officers, alert the fleet that any that has any left to launch, to launch their Leap Frogs just to add to the fireworks,” Casa said smiling. He turned to his Weapons Officer and said, “That goes double for you, Beson.” Then he couldn’t help himself. He just started laughing with pure joy as Beson answered, “Yes, Sir! Leap Frogs away.”

As the first Leap Frog made impact with the Harrington, Admiral Watkins came storming out of his ready room ready to throttle Pullman with his own bare hands. Then on the view screen, he saw what was happening as ship after ship of his fleet simply vanished from the readout. “It could not be. How?” He asked no one in particular. Commander Pullman was desperately ordering the Helm Control to attempt to open a Null Point again. As the last Battle Fortress disappeared from the screen, Admiral Watkins did the only thing a man of his rank and position could do. He drew his side arm, placed it against his right temple and squeezed the trigger. His weapon and body fell to the floor, but not before leaving the contents of his skull dripping down the bulkhead he had been standing next to as the Leap Frogs began slamming into the Harrington.

If it was possible, the cheers became even louder and Admiral Casa had to walk over to the com station to make his next order heard. “Send a planet-wide transmission on all Coalition frequencies of a live feed of this event to the Coalition ground forces. Order them to stand down and surrender now or I shall personally destroy them from orbit.” Johansen grinned ear to ear and answered, “Yes, Sir!”

Swerth stood to say in his ear, “The remaining Darian forces are requesting permission to land on Earth, sir.” “By all means! Tell them that they are welcome to land wherever they need. And that we were honored to fight beside such fierce warriors as they proved themselves to be this day,” Casa called then walked back and sat in his command chair, just watching his bridge crew and smiling like a proud father watches his children unwrap presents on an early Christmas morning

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