Old Man's War Boxed Set 1 (19 page)

“Christ, Keyes,” said Ed McGuire. “That’s five to one on the ships, and two to one on ground forces, assuming we can land them all. I think I like our tradition of overwhelming force better.”

“By the time we have enough big ships in line to slug it out, they’ll be ready for us,” Keyes said. “We’re better off sending in a smaller force while they’re unprepared and doing as much damage as possible right now. There will be a larger force in four days: two hundred ships, packing heat. If we do our job right, they’ll have short work of whatever remains of the Rraey forces.”

Ed snorted. “Not that we’ll be around to appreciate it.”

Keyes smiled tightly. “Such lack of faith. Look, people, I know this isn’t a happy hike on the moon. But we’re not going to be stupid about this. We’re not going to slug it out toe to toe. We’re going to come in with targeted goals. We’re going to hit troop transports on the way in to keep them from bringing in additional ground troops. We’re going to land troops to disrupt mining operations before they get going and make it hard for the Rraey to target us without hitting their own troops and equipment. We’ll hit commercial and industrial craft as opportunities present themselves, and we’ll attempt to draw the big guns out of Coral orbit, so when our reinforcements arrive, we’ll be in front and behind them.”

“I’d like to go back to the part about the ground troops,” Alan said. “We’re landing troops and then our ships are going to try to draw Rraey ships
away
? Does that mean for us ground troops what I think it does?”

Keyes nodded. “We’ll be cut off for at least three or four days.”

“Swell,” Jensen said.

“It’s war, you jackasses,” Keyes snapped. “I’m sorry it’s not terribly convenient or comfortable for you.”

“What happens if the plan doesn’t work and our ships are shot out of the sky?” I asked.

“Well, then I suppose we’re fucked, Perry,” Keyes said. “But let’s not go in with that assumption. We’re professionals, we have a job to do. This is what we’re trained for. The plan has risks, but they’re not stupid risks, and if it works, we’ll have the planet back and have done serious damage to the Rraey. Let’s all go on the assumption we’re going to make a difference, what do you say? It’s a nutty idea but it just might work. And if you get behind it, the chances of it working are that much better. All right?”

More shifting in chairs. We weren’t entirely convinced, but there was little to be done. We were going in whether we liked it or not.

“Those six ships that might make it to the party,” Jensen said, “who are they?”

Keyes took a second to access the information. “The
Little Rock,
the
Mobile,
the
Waco,
the
Muncie,
the
Burlington
and the
Sparrowhawk,
” he said.

“The
Sparrowhawk
?” Jensen said. “No shit.”

“What about the
Sparrowhawk
?” I asked. The name was unusual; battalion-strength spaceships were traditionally named after midsize cities.

“Ghost Brigades, Perry,” Jensen said. “CDF Special Forces. Industrial-strength motherfuckers.”

“I’ve never heard of them before,” I said. Actually I thought I had, at some point, but the when and where escaped me.

“The CDF saves them for special occasions,” Jensen said. “They don’t play nice with others. It’d be nice to have them there when we got onto the planet, though. Save us the trouble of dying.”

“It’d be nice, but it’s probably not going to happen,” Keyes said. “This is our show, boys and girls. For better or worse.”

The
Modesto
skipped into Coral orbital space ten hours later and in its first few seconds of arrival was struck by six missiles fired at close range by a Rraey battle cruiser. The
Modesto
’s aft starboard engine array shattered, sending the ship wildly tumbling ass over head. My squad and Alan’s were packed into a transport shuttle when the missiles hit; the force of the blast’s sudden inertial shift slammed several of our soldiers into the sides of the transport. In the shuttle bay, loose equipment and material were flung across the bay, striking one of the other transports but missing ours. The shuttles, locked down by electromagnets, thankfully stayed put.

I activated Asshole to check the ship’s status. The
Modesto
was severely damaged and active scanning by the Rraey ship indicated it was lining up for another series of missiles.

“It’s time to go,” I yelled to Fiona Eaton, our pilot.

“I don’t have clearance from Control,” she said.

“In about ten seconds we’re going to get hit by another volley of missiles,” I said. “There’s your fucking clearance.” Fiona growled.

Alan, who was also plugged into the
Modesto
mainframe, yelled from the back. “Missiles away,” he said. “Twenty-six seconds to impact.”

“Is that enough time to get out?” I asked Fiona.

“We’ll see,” she said, and opened a channel to the other shuttles. “This is Fiona Eaton, piloting Transport Six. Be advised I will perform emergency bay door procedure in three seconds. Good luck.” She turned to me. “Strap in now,” she said, and punched a red button.

The bay doors were outlined with a sharp shock of light; the crack of the doors blasting away was lost in the roar of escaping air as the doors tumbled out. Everything not strapped down launched out the hole; beyond the debris, the star field lurched sickeningly as the
Modesto
spun. Fiona fed thrust to the engines and waited just long enough for the debris to clear the bay door before cutting the electromagnetic tethers and launching the shuttle out the door. Fiona compensated for the
Modesto
’s spin as she exited, but just barely; we scraped the roof going out.

I accessed the launch bay’s video feed. Other shuttles were blasting out of the bay doors by twos and threes. Five made it out before the second volley of missiles crashed into the ship, abruptly changing the trajectory of the
Modesto
’s spin and smashing several shuttles already hovering into the shuttle bay floor. At least one exploded; debris struck the camera and knocked it out.

“Cut your BrainPal feed to the
Modesto,
” Fiona said. “They can use it to track us. Tell your squads. Verbally.” I did.

Alan came forward. “We’ve got a couple of minor wounds back there,” he said, motioning to our soldiers, “but nothing too serious. What’s the plan?”

“I’ve got us headed toward Coral and I’ve cut the engines,” Fiona said. “They’re probably looking for thrust signatures and BrainPal transmissions to lock missiles on, so as long as we look dead, they might leave us alone long enough for us to get into the atmosphere.”

“Might?” Alan said.

“If you’ve got a better plan, I’m all ears,” Fiona said.

“I have no idea what’s going on,” Alan said, “so I’m happy to go with your plan.”

“What the hell happened back there anyway?” Fiona said. “They hit us as we came out of skip drive. There’s no way they could have known where we would be.”

“Maybe we were just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Alan said.

“I don’t think so,” I said, and pointed out the window. “Look.”

I pointed to a Rraey battle cruiser to port that was sparkling as missiles thrust away from the cruiser. At extreme starboard, a CDF cruiser popped into existence. A few seconds later the missiles connected, hitting the CDF cruiser broadside.

“No fucking way,” Fiona said.

“They know exactly where our ships are coming out,” Alan said. “It’s an ambush.”

“How the fuck are they doing that?” Fiona demanded. “What the
fuck
is going on?”

“Alan?” I said. “You’re the physicist.”

Alan stared at the damaged CDF cruiser, now listing and struck again by another volley. “No ideas, John. This is all new to me.”

“This sucks,” Fiona said.

“Keep it together,” I said. “We’re in trouble and losing it is not going to help.”

“If you’ve got a better plan, I’m all ears,” Fiona said again.

“Is it okay to access my BrainPal if I’m not trying to reach the
Modesto
?” I asked.

“Sure,” Fiona said. “As long as no transmissions leave the shuttle, we’re fine.”

I accessed Asshole and pulled up a geographic map of Coral. “Well,” I said, “I think we can pretty much say the attack on the coral-mining facility is canceled for today. Not enough of us made it off the
Modesto
for a realistic assault, and I don’t think all of us are going to make it to the planet surface in one piece. Not every pilot’s going to be as quick on her feet as you are, Fiona.”

Fiona nodded, and I could tell she relaxed a little. Praise is always a good thing, especially in a crisis.

“Okay, here’s the new plan,” I said, and transmitted the map to Fiona and Alan. “Rraey forces are concentrated on the coral reefs and in the Colonial cities, here on this coast. So we go
here
”—I pointed to the big fat middle of Coral’s largest continent—“hide in this mountain range and wait for the second wave.”

“
If
they come,” Alan said. “A skip drone is bound to get back to Phoenix. They’ll know that the Rraey know they’re coming. If they know that, they might not come at all.”

“Oh, they’ll come,” I said. “They might not come when we want them to, is all. We have to be ready to wait for them. The good news here is Coral is human friendly. We can eat off the land for as long as we need to.”

“I’m not in the mood to colonize,” Alan said.

“It’s not permanent,” I said. “And it’s better than the alternative.”

“Good point,” Alan said.

I turned to Fiona. “What do you need to do to get us to where we’re going in one piece?”

“A prayer,” she said. “We’re in good shape now because we look like floating junk, but anything that hits the atmosphere that’s larger than a human body is going to be tracked by Rraey forces. As soon as we start maneuvering, they’re going to notice us.”

“How long can we stay up here?” I asked.

“Not that long,” Fiona said. “No food, no water, and even with our new, improved bodies, there’s a couple dozen of us in here and we’re going to run out of fresh air pretty fast.”

“How long after we hit the atmosphere are you going to have to start driving?” I asked.

“Soon,” she said. “If we start tumbling, I’ll never get control of it again. We’ll just fall down until we die.”

“Do what you can,” I said. She nodded. “All right, Alan,” I said. “Time to alert the troops about the change in plan.”

“Here we go,” Fiona said, and hit the thrusters. The force of the acceleration pinned me back into the copilot’s seat. No longer falling to the surface of Coral, we were aiming ourselves directly at it.

“Chop coming,” Fiona said as we plunged into the atmosphere. The shuttle rattled like a maraca.

The instrumentation board let out a ping. “Active scanning,” I said. “We’re being tracked.”

“Got it,” Fiona said, banking. “We have some high clouds coming up in a few seconds,” she said. “They might help to confuse them.”

“Do they usually?” I asked.

“No,” she said, and flew into them anyway.

We came out several klicks east and were pinged again. “Still tracking,” I said. “Aircraft 350 klicks out and closing.”

“Going to get as close to the ground as I can before they get on top of us,” she said. “We can’t outrace them or outshoot them. The best we can hope is to get near the ground and hope some of their missiles hit the treetops and not us.”

“That’s not very encouraging,” I said.

“I’m not in the encouragement business today,” Fiona said. “Hold on.” We dove sickeningly.

The Rraey aircraft were on us presently. “Missiles,” I said. Fiona lurched left and tumbled us toward the ground. One missile over-flew and trailed away; the other slammed into a hilltop as we crested.

“Nice,” I said, and then nearly bit off my tongue as a third missile detonated directly behind us, knocking the shuttle out of control. A fourth missile concussed and shrapnel tore into the side of the shuttle; in the roaring of the air I could hear some of my men screaming.

“Going down,” Fiona said, and struggled to right the shuttle. She was headed toward a small lake at an incredibly high speed. “We’re going to hit the water and crash,” she said. “Sorry.”

“You did good,” I said, and then the nose of the shuttle hit the surface of the lake.

Wrenching, tearing sounds as the nose of the shuttle ripped downward, shearing off the pilot’s compartment from the rest of the shuttle. A brief register of my squad and Alan’s as their compartment flies spinning away—a still shot with mouths open, screams silent in all the other noise, the roar as it flies over the shuttle nose that is already fraying apart as it whirls over the water. The tight, impossible spins as the nose sheds metal and instrumentation. The sharp pain of something striking my jaw and taking it away with it. Gurgling as I try to scream, gray SmartBlood flung from the wound by centrifugal force. An unintentional glance at Fiona, whose head and right arm are somewhere behind us.

A
tang
of metal as my seat breaks off from the rest of the pilot’s compartment and I am skipping on my back toward an outcropping of rock, my chair lazily spinning me in counterclockwise direction as my chair back bounces, bounces, bounces toward the stone. A quick and dizzying change in momentum as my right leg strikes the outcropping followed by a yellow-white burst of two-hundred-proof pain as the femur snaps like a pretzel stick. My foot swings directly up where my jaw used to be and I become perhaps the first person in the history of man to kick himself in his own uvula. I arc over dry land and come to ground somewhere where branches are still falling because the passenger compartment of the shuttle has just crashed through. One of the branches comes down heavily across my chest and breaks at least three of my ribs. After kicking myself in my own uvula, this is strangely anticlimactic.

I look up (I have no choice) and see Alan above me, hanging upside down, the splintered end of a tree branch supporting his torso by wedging itself into the space where his liver should be. SmartBlood is dripping off his forehead onto my neck. I see his eyes twitch, registering me. Then I get a message on my BrainPal.