Valkyrie Rising (Warrior's Wings Book Two) (33 page)

Near the old colony site

Sorilla and Mack crouched, looking out over the deep jungle lowlands that surrounded the now devastated colony plateau. They could see enemy soldiers digging themselves out of the rubble and moving into the jungle under the command and rallying cry of one central figure.

“What do you think, Top? Officer?”

Sorilla eyed the figure at the distance. “Yeah, looks like. Senior noncom, at least.”

Mack grimaced as he steadied his long gun. “I hate shooting grunts.”

“You think you can make that shot? It has to be four klicks,” Sorilla said skeptically.

Normally, he’d have been insulted by the insinuation, but honestly, this time around, Mackenzie wasn’t certain himself. A pure ballistic shot at that range wasn’t impossible, but if he were being honest with himself, it would test his luck more than his skill. The aliens’ natural or technical ability to spoof his more common tracking and targeting methods made it iffy. He’d have to actually adjust the round manually as it crossed the distance between them if he wanted to have a good chance at making the shot, and that wasn’t going to happen while there was a possibility of the control signal being tracked back to his position.

“Don’t know,” he admitted finally, crosshairs on the figure giving orders. “Say, ninety-ten against.”

Sorilla grimaced. Those weren’t the odds she wanted to hear. “What power rating are you at?”

“For this shot? Eighty plus,” he replied, watching the distant figure giving orders and sending troops off the plateau and into the jungle in their direction. “Green light, Top?”

She hesitated then shook her head. “Negative, Mack. Check fire, we’ll get him later. We’d expose our position for sure with that shot.”

The corporal sighed, looking up from his scope. “Right you are, Top.”

Sorilla cocked her head as an icon lit up on her HUD, showing that an IFF challenge had been issued over near field transmitters and passed.

“Commander Conroy,” she said in acknowledgement. “Bravo Team, welcome to the party.”

“Good to be here. Where’s Captain Washington?”

“Casualty,” she responded curtly. “Being treated at the FOB.”

“That’s a bloody bad break,” Conroy responded, appearing from the jungle along with his team. “So, what’s the sitrep then ?”

“Strike proceeded as expected. We’ve taken out a few stray combatants since we kicked it off, but the general has recalled our artillery and we’ll be losing the neutral sky shortly.”

“So, bollocked to hell, as it were?”

“If by that you mean fucked in a bad way, yeah,” Sorilla countered.

“Familiar territory, I suppose.”

“Quite,” she drawled in a not-so-subtle mockery of the commander’s accent.

He laughed, looking around. “Suggestions for deployment then, Master Sergeant?”

“Crow and Korman should be to the west,” she said. “And from the looks of it, we’ve got a small flood of meat shields and Charlie types coming from the north…so, deploy northwest?”

“Hook up with the rest of your team and kick some arse.” He nodded. “Works for me. Joining us?”

“That is the plan, Commander,” she said as she hefted her weapon.

“Good show. Let’s go have some fun then, shall we?”

They broke position and spread out as they headed northwest, keeping individuals within twenty-five meters of each other in order to provide some redundancy in their NFC systems as they swept through the jungle. This far out, the enemy patrols were still few and far between, so they made quick time as they dropped down into the lowlands and made their way in a tightening spiral around the ruins of the colony site.

With the mass of enemy soldiers being pushed down into the lowlands, it was no surprise that they quickly ran into some, nor did it surprise Sorilla in the least that it was the ones she privately and publically termed “meat shields” that were leading the way. She mentally nudged her weapon down to the book-recommended maximum power and told Mack to do the same before opening a link to everyone in their network.

“Watch for the Charlie type aliens, they’re likely using these idiots to draw us out.”

The men of Bravo Team acknowledged the warning as they shifted into position to ambush the approaching enemy. For Sorilla, this was rapidly turning into the sort of fight she’d rather have a division handle, with air support and Cougars at their back. Slugging it out with even dimwitted types was a losing proposition, considering their numbers.

Still, playing the cards they were dealt was often the name of the game, and Sorilla wasn’t about to flinch from a hand she still felt could be turned into a winner. They took their places as they monitored the approach of the alien forces, mentally preparing for the worst outcomes while planning to ensure the best.

Only moments before the two sides were about to clash, however, both sides were frozen in their tracks as a blinding light erupted in the skies over their heads. Bright enough to make itself seen through the jungle canopy and on the opposite side of the sky from the local sun.

Everyone froze for a moment, then scrambled as they tried to figure out what happened.

From a clearing, Sorilla found a patch of sky with the view she needed and was staring in shock at the multiple fireballs erupting against the blue-green sky.

“What happened?” Mack asked, skidding to a stop near her.

“A lot of ships just died up there, Mack. Don’t ask me whose. I don’t have a goddamned clue.”

*****

FOB Hayden

“Get me data I can use!” Kayne snarled as he leaned over the large planning screen. “I know those are explosions, now tell me who the hell exploded!”

The information he had on deep space, hell, even close orbital space, was basically zero. They had one bird they could retask, but it was sitting way out in lunar orbit, because anything closer was sure to be spotted and taken out by the enemy forces. Ground-based systems were a little more useful in many ways, but they couldn’t risk using any active systems, and the aliens didn’t seem to use anything remotely like the EM spectrum for communications, so radio telescopes weren’t the most useful things to have, even if he had the space to install them.

That left optical systems, mostly, and those were far from their best in broad daylight.

All of that meant that even while he’d been tracking the enemy ships, he had no clue what happened, because every system available to him was currently blinded by staring into what appeared to be numerable mini-suns.

It must be TFV,
he thought grimly, but the idea of even the new Cheyenne class ships taking on an enemy fleet that size was ludicrous.

What the hell was she thinking?
he wondered, scowling at the thought of the science track admiral in charge of the taskforce. 
Damned fool waste.

*****

USS Cheyenne

Hayden Orbit

“I can’t believe they haven’t spotted us.”

Patrick frowned slightly at the random comment that floated up from the lower stations but didn’t say anything. Mostly because he was thinking pretty much the same thing.

The ships of Taskforce Five were only a few million kilometers away from the alien squadron now and closing at an insane rate due to the rapid deceleration of the alien ships. As they slammed on the brakes, TFV continued to fall into the planet at the same speed they’d gathered by their use of the slingshot maneuver around the distant super-Earth class planet behind them.

That meant that the closure rate was rapidly approaching danger levels and showed no sign of slowing. They would intercept and pass the enemy starships with only an engagement window of a few seconds before they tore past and were sitting ducks to the enemy weapons.

“Captain.” Admiral Brookes’s voice came clear through to his station, any hint of the earlier doubt she felt completely absent from her voice. “Stand by to engage targets.”

“Aye, ma’am. All stations show ready, all tubes have been rammed and primed.”

“Very good. On my mark, Captain.”

“On your mark, Admiral.”

The words were rote, calmly spoken, but underneath it, Patrick Roberts felt like he was a shaken soda. Fizzing and ready to explode at the slightest provocation. So much of him wanted nothing more than to open fire now, before they were spotted and everything went to hell, but he knew objectively that would give very little advantage, if any.

Better to finish closing to the optimum range than to fire early, but as the ships began to loom in their scopes, he couldn’t help but ask the same question as his subordinates.

Why the hell haven’t they seen us yet? It’s like they’re distracted by something.

*****

As the captain of her flagship was privately panicking while working very,
very
hard not to show it, Admiral Nadine Brookes was finding herself feeling calmer and calmer as it became ever clearer that she was committed and there was no longer a decision to be made. Now it was only a problem to be solved, and that was something so much easier to deal with.

She felt almost casual as she did the math in her head one more time and then reached out to open the squadron com. The laser link that was keeping the ships of TFV in communication was already active, so she literally just had to turn on her side of the mic and begin speaking.

“All ships, this is Admiral Brookes. In a few moments we will be engaging the enemy over the world of Hayden. We have a parity of numbers in this engagement. However, all of you are aware as am I that numbers have never been our weaknesses in our encounters with this enemy. Remember, please, we are fighting for the preservation of one of our worlds…the lives of our civilian and military comrades…and we are blessed with the finest ships, minds, and bodies Earth has ever had to offer.”

She took a deep breath before going on. “We may not win, but we will
never
be defeated.”

After a moment, she switched over to the command com. “All captains, stand ready to engage.”

Lights flickered from amber to green across her board as the ships acknowledged her orders, and Nadine knew that it was time.

“All tubes, all rails…” she said, taking a deep breath. “Fire.”

*****

Heavy MRV torpedoes exploded from the ships of Taskforce Five, a hundred in the first salvo and another hundred following just seconds behind as the tubes cycled on full automatic fire. They began accelerating on their smaller VASIMR drives as soon as they were safely clear of the ship, screaming silently through space at better than one hundred gravities of acceleration.

The heavy hundred-kilo kinetic kill slabs of nickel and iron launched from the rail cannons were already racing ahead of them, however, the force of their launches noticeably shaking and slowing the ships as they fired.

The slugs arrived first, apparently going unnoticed until it was far too late, and slammed into the ships ahead of TFV like the hammer of the gods. The sudden conversion of mass and kinetic energy to heat was visible on every screen in the fleet, and had there been anyone watching through the clear screens of the now sealed upper decks, they would have been able to see the explosions with the naked eye.

Spectacular or not, however, the slugs were not enough to destroy or even cripple the enemy ships, and after what seemed to be a moment’s confusion, the big ships began to react.

The spun with unearthly speed, their point defense systems coming up to start picking some of the incoming fire from their sky, and Admiral Brookes winced in response.

I should have timed the strikes to be simultaneous,
she thought, closing her eyes for a moment. 
God, they reacted with such speed…but I was too worried that they’d detect the torpedoes and stop both. Was I wrong?

It didn’t matter now.

The die was cast, and all she could do for the moment was ride out the storm. The enemy still hadn’t started targeting them, no signs of gravity events on any of the accelerometers that weren’t expected given their position in the system.

The USF ships were still firing, each salvo topping one hundred torpedoes into space, all screaming on ahead with their nuclear warheads primed. Given the nature of the speeds they were engaging at, however, those warheads could almost be considered superfluous. The enemy ships were still decelerating relative to TFV, and that just meant that the incoming fire was going to hit them that much harder.

It wouldn’t have mattered if they tried to run, at least not in terms of being able to outrun the weapons. They couldn’t, simple as that.  However, had they immediately accelerated away from the attack, they could have bought more time for their countermeasures to take effect.

Just as those thoughts crossed Nadine’s mind, she saw four of the ships do just that. The new class ships, ones they had never seen before, reversed their reactive turn and began to accelerate away.

They’re leaving the others behind? What’s going on?

She had an overpowering urge to lean forward, but her straps kept her in place as she pondered the enemy actions.

“Gravity event detected!”

Her eyes widened as Nadine waited for more details to filter through and privately began to brace in case the event was localized on the Cheyenne.

“They’re engaging missiles with gravity valves!”

She almost breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that, for the moment, none of her crews were going to be dying, but at the same time they desperately needed those weapons to get through.

“Torpedo countermeasures active! Warheads separating!”

The multiple warhead cones of the torpedoes exploded away from the doomed bodies of the weapons, accelerated several times more by the separation explosions as they continued on their paths. One hundred torpedoes turned into four hundred warheads, devilishly small and impossibly fast, that slammed into the alien ships at speeds beyond the comprehension of anything that had ever evolved on a planet.

Nuclear blossoms erupted in space ahead of them as the taskforce ships continued their dive, weapons still firing fiercely…desperately, if anyone were being particularly honest.