Homeworld (Odyssey One) (70 page)

THE LIFE OF the scarlet band in this system were more insidious than most. They’d infested even those worlds that could not support them.

It left a taint on the world that the ship minds could smell and taste as they approached the cold desert in pursuit of the ship that had been plaguing them for so long now. A taint that they simply could not tolerate, one that had to be wiped from the face of the universe.

That was their
only
directive.

This particular example of the scarlet infestation was tenacious, like gravity itself, but even gravity could be defeated, with enough power.

N.A.C.S.
ODYSSEY

“THAT’S RIGHT, DANIELS, tuck us in just behind Phobos. Keep station about three hundred clicks from the surface of Mars and…” Eric considered the size of the moon he was using for cover, working the math in his head. “Five klicks, trailing the moon.”

“Aye, sir. Moving onto station,” Daniels answered, using thrusters to shift the big ship into place.

Eric mentally reviewed the math again, one of the fringe benefits of being a fighter jock he supposed. You learned to do math in your head that few people could manage to do with a calculator.

Phobos has a period of a little over seven hours. We should be able to shield behind it until Mars-rise brings the enemy into range.

“Issue a directive to the defense grid,” he turned to Winger. “Stand down until ordered otherwise.”

“Aye, sir. Command issued…and accepted,” Winger announced. “The Barsoom defense grid is in standby mode.”

“Good,” Eric said, nodding. “Very good. Stick and move, stick and move.”

“The credo of a guerilla fighter,” Roberts said sourly. “Been a long time since we’ve had to fight that way.”

“Hasn’t it, though?” Eric asked, smiling sardonically. “All my career I fought against the little bastards who hit us from the shadows and ran like hell, hoping we’d not find them.”

“We all have,” Roberts agreed darkly.

“One man’s terrorist, I suppose.” Eric sighed. “It’s not a great feeling to be under the boot of the bigger force, is it?”

“No, it is not,” Roberts said. “I suppose that we should get used to it, though. If we live through this, that is.”

“It does seem to be a big galaxy, doesn’t it?”

“Too damn big by far.”

The bridge of the
Odyssey
was lit up by dozens of screens, all of them monitoring the telemetry feeds of the situation. They had images of the fleet from the other side of Mars, via the orbital relay satellites, and he almost wished they didn’t.

The enemy fleet was monstrous. There was just no other word for it. The fighters were so closely packed that they appeared as a single solid mass in places, sometimes breaking apart and reforming in another place. The mass moved like a living entity, only occasionally giving him a glimpse of the real horror hiding underneath.

There were more than a thousand ships left, and he was out of tricks.

Oh, they had enough shells left to hammer the aliens some more. Destroy another few dozen, maybe even a couple hundred more ships before they fired their guns dry. The Barsoom defenses would be able to take another handful, assuming they got a clean shot through the fighter screen.

That left Earth.

Eric knew the state of the planetary defenses. Even figuring for some last-minute rushes to bolster what they had,
there was no way Earth could hold off a couple dozen of the alien ships, let alone a thousand.

Mars was the most advanced defense grid in the system. Period.

That was only because the Confederation had won the Mars Race and claimed the entire world before the Block. In order to enforce that claim, they’d armed the moons, Deimos and Phobos, and put a network of satellites in orbit of the world that would have kicked off another war if they’d tried it at home. The Block wisely skipped Mars, moving straight to asteroid mining and investigating the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.

Compared to Earth, Mars was a fortress, and Eric knew well that he had no chance in
hell
of stopping what was coming to the red planet.

God help us.

“Get these birds re-tanked, reloaded, and removed from my sight!”

The Archangel’s flight chief was in rare form as he stood over the work being done in his hangar, perched high up on the wall and held in place by mag boots so he wouldn’t get in the way of his own people.

The job of chief for the Archangel flight wing was pretty cushy most of the time, even during the war, and it always meant that he had opportunity for travel. Assuming the word “opportunity” translated into
mandatory
, that was. Still, he got to see the world, and then the
worlds
, and did a job that was a lot of fun, notorious as hell, and reasonably safe as such things went.

Being on a starship with an alien armada bearing down on them, his ship the only thing between Earth and destruction? That was new.

He didn’t know what his measly five birds would be able to do, but they’d be ready to do it if he had to personally launch them into space with a rubber band tied across the flight deck.

For want of a nail, and all that.

It was what he could do, so it was what he
would
do.

Dr. Rame sighed as the lights in his medical center shifted, going dimmer and tinting red to signal the general quarters and imminent combat alarm. Not that anyone needed reminding. Everyone on the ship knew what was coming.

Another battle. Nothing new here.

Except that it wasn’t another battle, and it was very new.

He carefully checked his stock, again, and laid out everything he would need for major trauma surgery, again, and did everything that he was supposed to do before a fight, again. He was well aware that there wasn’t a chance in hell that he was going to get any injuries from this fight, though, barring some bad luck for some poor sailor on the ship who did something stupid and got himself hurt.

The pilots who were shot down weren’t coming back to his table, and the crew of the
Odyssey
wouldn’t make it to his center if the ship took a direct strike from the enemy weapons. It wasn’t a battle like anything he’d been trained for, and Rame often wondered why he was even on board.

That said, he would do his job.

Hopefully he had lots of work coming his way, because as gruesome as that would be, the alternative was a lot of dead sailors that nothing could save.

The first time in recorded history a doctor wished for more work in a military hospital, I’m sure,
Rame supposed sourly.

Better on his table than on a slab, or floating forever in the void.

Rame went back and checked his stock.

Again.