The Valhalla Call (Warrior's Wings) (29 page)

“Understood,” Washington said, and he did.

It was just short of a suicide mission, but it would have to be done all the same. A lot depended on just how in control of the Terra the aliens were. Marginally in control meant that an infiltration was possible, since many of the computer codes may still function. However, if they were fully in control, then his team would be served up like a roast on the holidays.

“Prep your team, get your gear in order, and stand by for deployment instructions,” Green told the major. “I’ll let you know more when we know.”

“Sir.” Ton saluted.

Green returned it and nodded. “Dismissed.”

The Detachment One Marine left the bridge, and the immediate job of figuring out what to do, to the captain and the officers of the America. Unfortunately, no one had ever had to do anything like this before, and they were scrambling to make it up as they went along.

“Plot course to intercept the Terra,” Green ordered. “Engage when ready.”

“Aye, sir.”

There was no time quite like the present to learn.

*****

A siren brought Parath’s attention back from his studying of the interrogation reports.

Since the fleet had left, he’d been forced more into his administrative duties and hadn’t the time to see to the interrogations himself, but he still kept his mind in by observing the recordings and making suggestions for topics to pursue based on what had slipped through already.

Interrogations were an exercise in patience and patience. You got nothing reliable quickly, and anything you got quickly had to be considered a waste of your time at the least, a trap if your enemy were intelligent. He’d seen enough to know that he was dealing with some very intelligent people here, so Parath was willing to keep coming at it again and again until he’d worn them down.

Now, however, he suddenly had much more pressing concerns weighing in on him.

“How many?” he demanded as he noted the warning lights on the system tactical display.

“Uncertain, Master. We’re still waiting for light speed sensors, and gravetics are unreliable with unknown starship configurations.”

Parath sighed, but he knew that. “And they already have a count on us and know that our backup has left the system, yes?”

There was a brief moment while his people checked the numbers, but he didn’t need to wait. He’d been doing light-speed calculations in his head all of his career and he knew in his bones that he was right.

“Yes, Master.”

Since the alien ships had arrived through a gravity gate, it would be several hours before light from their ships (along with other light speed particles) began to arrive on the Alliance scanners. However, since the Alliance ships had been sitting in space at a relative stop the entire time, light had been constantly streaming out for the entire time and exposing them to discovery the instant the alien ships had entered the system.

Depending on their acceleration, they may be as little as three intervals out before we even get our first glimpse. Lovely.

“Reform the task group into defensive positions around the captured ship,” he ordered. Parath was loathe to give up their prize so quickly; the information they could pull from it far eclipsed almost anything they currently risked.

“Yes, Master.”

The Parithalian ships he had on command were mostly escorts, not counting his own Glory, but they would do against the most common formations of alien ships he’d seen in the records so far, even the damnably fast new versions.

There are no moons here to hide behind, no tricks of maneuvering to save you. For all your power, you do not have the strength to engage even a minor Alliance task group in open battle,
Parath thought at his foes.
You’ve proven capable and, as loathe as I am to admit it, even managed to out-ship-handle myself, but power for power, you are no match for the Alliance.

*****

In the shuttle bay of the America, Ton found himself facing his slightly depleted squad and laying all the cards on the table.

“Should we determine that the Terra is recoverable, and its crew alive,” he said, “we will be tasked with establishing the beachhead to open up the doors for the Marine Bad Asses riding our coattails.”

The men chuckled, and even Ton smiled slightly.

The Marine Battle Dress Advanced Armored System (BDAAS), more colloquially known as “Bad Ass,” was a heavier though less expensive version of their own OPCOM armor. More designed to take a beating and dish one out in turn than stick and move the way OPCOM units were, the BDAAS setup was certainly functional but had a reputation for being turned to bloody scrap in a fight.

In fairness, this was more because the Marines tended to lead the charge than through any fault of the armor itself.

“The catch is that if we have to do this, we’ll have to do it full stealth.”

Ton watched as the team winced and was pressed not to wince right along with them.

“That means no coms, no transponders, and no EVA maneuvering thrusters,” he clarified. “We’ll have to go in on a pure ballistic trajectory, black as night, and twice as silent. You all know what that means.”

He could tell that they did, but as this was the military, he repeated it for them anyway.

“It means that we’ll be angling to hit a target we can’t even see from our launch point, stick the landing with nothing but our suits to keep us from going splat, and do it all without any intel about ship movements or changes in enemy positioning,” he told them. “And if you miss the target, you can’t light off your emergency transponder until after the attack begins. That’s why the captain, admiral, and myself are making this a volunteer mission.”

Crow, sitting up front, snorted. “Bullshit, Major. You can’t pull this off if we back out and you know it. I’m in.”

The others nodded slowly, agreeing. They were a short squad already, and there just weren’t enough OPCOM operators around at the best of times. They were the ones who were going to have to do the job, it was really just as simple as that.

“All right then. Check your armor, clean your weapons, and get your kit together,” Ton said, grinning. “We have a game of darts to play. The Terra is the bulls-eye, we get to be the darts. Oo-Rah!”

The others echoed the call in various forms, as befitting their respective trades.

Ton broke them up and sent them on their way before heading for the bridge. He still needed to talk to the captain about the one thing missing from his little dartboard analogy.

Namely, who got to throw the darts, and just how good at playing the game were they?

*****

“Admiral, we’re approaching extreme range. They’ll have us on light-speed scanners in…thirteen minutes.”

Fairbairn nodded. “Thank you, Kyle.”

Task Force Seven was spread out in a wide delta formation, closing at high acceleration with the enemy ships in the hopes of getting the first strikes in before the enemy really had the chance to parse the data from the light-speed scanners. Thanks to entering the system from jump space, TF-7 had an invaluable advantage in the opening salvo in that everything the enemy would have on them would be confused early signals and massively blue-shifted data that they would have to filter through to make any sense of.

Fairbairn knew that they’d probably be able to slam the first salvo into the enemy ships while they were still compiling the fresh data, but after that it would be anyone’s game.

Where fools fear to tread, the Angels rush in,
the admiral thought with an ironic tilt to his smile.

“Issue orders to the squadron,” Fairbairn said. “Check fire until they see us coming, then hit them with everything we’ve got.”

“Aye, sir. Time on target launch…twelve minutes, thirteen seconds.”

*****

Green checked the orders and nodded, seeing what the admiral was aiming for.

“Weps, prepare time on target for eleven minutes…forty-two seconds,” he said, patting the shoulder of his weapons control officer.

“Aye, sir. Coded and locked. Squadron acknowledges.”

“Very good,” Green said, turning back to where Major Washington was standing. “Major, your men will launch after we fire. We’ll have to fire you backwards at almost fifty Gees, or you’re going to splatter across that ship like nuts in a vice.”

Ton winced. “Understood, sir.”

“The squadron will blow past the fleet in a glancing engagement and hopefully keep their attention well away from you in the process,” Green told him. “Our zero/zero turnaround should give you time to intercept the Terra. We’ll come back in slow and slugging, with the Marines launching to back you up. Get the shuttle deck under our control. That is an order.”

“Oo-Rah, sir,” the Detachment One Marine said with a slight grin. Ton wiped the smile from his face then, “Do we know if there’s anyone alive, sir?”

“We know they survived the capture of the Terra, Major,” Green said. “We’re waiting on a El-INT response, should have it any minute now. Hopefully the enemy hasn’t gotten full control of the ship-wide systems.”

“Understood.”

“You best get down to your team. You launch in less than fifteen minutes, assuming we get a response,” Green said. “Major?”

“Sir?”

“Happy hunting.”

“Thank you, sir. Semper Fi,” Ton answered, saluting before he left the bridge and headed south to the OPCOM deployment launchers.

*****

On the USV Terra, Captain Richmond was letting out a slow breath.

The moment he’d been hoping for was coming.

The Terra’s computers had received an external intel request from the America. He’d had to scramble to get the intelligence they needed, and there were holes all through what he’d been able to provide, but he’d sent off what he could.

Now it was time for them to prepare so they could do their part.

Unfortunately, among the few electronic systems that the aliens had successfully co-opted were the automatic door controls. Not that they’d been particularly elegant on that side of things, their brute force solution had been to disconnect all the doors used to seal in prisoners from the main system. That meant that they couldn’t just open their cells, but there were a few things that Richmond could do when the assault began.

He opened his eyes, red light glowing in his corneas as he worked the system from his implants.

Time for you lot to learn just how hospitable the Terra can be to uninvited guests.

*****

“They’re alive!”

The shout startled the bridge of the America, but the excited nature of it kept anyone from doing something stupid. Green turned to look over at his communications specialist, one eyebrow raised. The young man blushed slightly as he flinched.

“Sorry, Captain. The crew of the Terra is alive and currently Under Control.”

Green nodded. “PUCs,” or Persons Under Control, was the current term for people captured by enemy forces. Not a great position to be in, traditionally, and especially not in this current war.

“More data coming in, Captain. Estimates of enemy numbers, weapons… We’re looking at Charlie and Deltas, sir, no Alphas or Betas on site.”

Of course, it is the height of foolishness to hold people under control within their own ship if they’re equipped with SOLCOM implants,
Green noted wryly. “That fits with what we can see on our scanners. No Alpha ships currently in the system. How much control do the prisoners have over ship systems?”

“Not sure yet, Captain. They scrubbed the main core, they’re using a patchwork ARPANet design run through the maintenance processors.”

Green made a slightly surprised noise. “That must have been a neat bit of coding. I’m impressed, don’t know that I’d have thought of it.”

The com-tech considered for a moment. “I think I can see how they did it. If they haven’t wiped the processors, and I doubt they have, then they can probably do some nasty tricks to their ‘guests,’ sir.”

“Good. Suggest it to them,” Green said. “Don’t tell them anything about the mission yet, however.”

“Sir?”

“We don’t know if anyone is listening in, or if someone broke,” He said, “OpSec, son. We’ll give them that intel at the last minute.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“In the meantime, good work. Keep it up.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

*****

Washington nodded as he listened to the orders. “Yes, sir. We’re good to go. Thank you, sir.”

His crew were waiting when he turned back to them and nodded. “We launch in five minutes. Buckle up.”

They simply slammed their helmets shut and jumped into the capsules used to launch OPCOM operators for insertion missions. They weren’t generally intended for this sort of work, but the technicians promised it would work.

Ton hoped they were right.

“Major, you understand how this is going to work?”

“I’ve got it, Corporal,” he told the tech who was standing by his capsule. “Relax.”

“Your pardons, sir, but this system wasn’t designed for this. I’ll relax when you’re back on board in one piece.” The corporal laughed mirthlessly. “We use the stuff here to land sensitive electronics on planets, not people on starships.”

“It’ll work, won’t it?” Ton demanded quietly as he strapped in.

“The math says yes.”

“What do you say?”

“I say good luck, Major. You will need it,” the man said with a humorless grin. “But if it doesn’t work, it won’t be because me or mine fucked up. You have my word on that.”

Ton nodded. “Good enough.”

The capsule closed as the corporal spoke up one last time: “Happy hunting, sir!”

Then it went black and Ton was shaken around as his capsule was locked into place.

*****

“All stations standing ready to fire, Captain.”

Green just nodded. He didn’t have to say anything now. The whole initial salvo was on computer control, no decisions needed unless something went drastically wrong. The mission clock counted down as the tension on board ratcheted up, until it finally hit zero hour.

“Weapons firing!”

Every ship in the slightly depleted Task Force Seven opened up, putting Hammers into space in rapid fire. When the first fire magazines went dry, the distant sound of shuddering and whines stopped and Green nodded to the helm.