Jesse's Starship 3: Joshua's Walls (17 page)

“In three days, Sir.”

“Good luck, Josh.”

• • •

Josh exited the hangar and walked through the port on the waiting Q ship. He looked up and said, “Did you hear all of that, Tuffy?”

“I did.”

“Did you feed it to Prissy?”

Josh suddenly heard, “You know he did, Josh. Why can’t you wait?”

Josh saw her image appear on the wall monitor and he said, “Prissy, if you insist on it, I will put it off…as long as you can tell me truthfully that our attempt to kill the Queen won’t be jeopardized.”

Prissy started crying and said, “The new armor will make a huge difference.”

Josh softened his eyes and said, “But it’s not ready.”

Prissy wiped her eyes and said, “No, it’s not.”

“I’m coming home.”

Prissy nodded, “Please hurry. I need to hold you.”

• • •

Captain Cantwell looked at his communicator and pressed his unit’s frequency. His four Lieutenants looked at him of its small display and Cantwell said, “We drop in three days. Step up the training.” His communicator went dark and he took a deep breath. Redemption was ninety-six hours away. His communicator beeped and he saw Marsha’s face, “Please don’t tell me you’re going to be busy tonight!”

Cantwell smiled, “I was just about to contact you.” Marsha smiled and his display went dark. He shook his head at how incredibly lucky he was that she loved him. He smiled and took a gravity sled to the training grounds.

J
osh watched the two hundred carriers on the ground from his Command Carrier that was hanging a hundred yards above the busy training field. The Gracken Carriers were matched up with a Spartan Carrier. The two would make the drop together and the warriors would rush into ranks as quickly as possible. Josh pulled his armor’s faceplate down and saw the color codes assigned to the carriers. They were landing in a stretch of level land where the seismic recordings said there were no Weg tunnels close by. The twenty thousand warriors were going to form a square with five thousand warriors on each side. The Gracken would form up and the Spartans would step in between them and anchor their heavy sliver rifles on the telescoping stand.

Josh switched to a view of the planet they were going to attack and was surprised that there were no Weg flying above the surface. He thought for a moment and decided that they were probably smart not to do it. The Gracken and Spartan Warships in orbit above the planet could hit any flying Weg from orbit. Josh looked at the new console in his carrier and noticed the new jump drive was active and the coordinates of his landing position were locked in the display.

They would not be moving in on transports this jump. The Special Forces were successful making a sudden appearance with no warning and immediately jumping. The huge square formed by the carriers with fifty carriers on each side would jump directly above the landing zone and immediately deliver the warriors to the surface. He hoped he had time to get his lines formed up before the Weg Fliers arrived. He looked at the tactical feed from the Gracken Flagship and saw the seismic sensors around the landing zone showed no movement under it. “Let’s hope it stays that way,” he thought as he lifted his faceplate and looked back down on the warriors boarding their vessels. He pushed a button on his console and Jackie and Cliff appeared on his display, “Are all your warriors ready?”

Colonel Yokawo nodded, “If it’s possible, I think they’re over trained, Sir.”

Josh tilted his head as he slightly closed his eyes and said, “We needed to keep them busy so they wouldn’t have time to worry, Colonel.”

Jackie smiled, “I think they still made time to do that, Sir.”

Josh looked at his chronometer on his panel and said, “We’ll be lifting into orbit in twenty minutes. Set the proximity detectors and keep your carriers in formation.”

Both of them nodded and the display went dark. Josh looked at the twenty-foot tall tripod in the middle of his carrier and glanced at the large box on top of it. The legs of the tripod extended down the sides of his carrier and would extend an additional six feet once his carrier touched ground. The carrier would then move out from under the tripod and then boost into orbit. The giant transports would arrive seconds after the carriers dropped and the magnets on their hulls would snatch them off the planet seven miles before the like charges on the transport’s hulls would bring them to a stop. There they would wait for Josh to activate the recall circuit.

Josh was having second thoughts about pushing this drop to take place. He knew the Spartan and Gracken Warriors were depending on their leaders to make good decisions. He pushed the doubt out of his mind and remembered what he heard a Gracken Commander say to Mike just before he attacked that Beamship on top of the skyscraper, “It’s a good day to fight.”

He pulled his faceplate down and looked at the feed coming in from the infested planet. The weather above his drop was clear. He smiled and said, “It really is a good day to fight.”

The alarm sounded and the two hundred carriers began lifting from the field. Josh watched his pilot activate the thrusters and his carrier moved into the middle of the giant square as it began picking up speed and moving higher into Sparta’s atmosphere. Destiny awaited and he shook his head at the power being carried into orbit. He looked up and saw the full moon getting brighter over the horizon. Sparta’s smaller moon wasn’t visible yet. There was a possibility that he would die in the coming battle and knowing this might be the last time he saw the moon, it was the most beautiful thing he had seen over the last six months. He stared at it until the square was two thousand miles above Sparta’s atmosphere. His pilot said, “Sir?”

Josh smiled at the moon and said, “Send a twenty second countdown.”

“Yes Sir.” He was still smiling when the two hundred transports disappeared, reappeared, and screamed down to the surface of the Weg infested planet.

• • •

Josh felt a calmness touch his soul and he jumped over the side of his carrier as ten technicians anchored the legs of the tripod. It rose six feet and Josh’s carrier moved out from under it. It disappeared and created a loud thunderclap followed by a loud sonic boom high overhead. The warriors barely heard them. Their armor protected their hearing as they ran into formation. Master Sergeant Dundee ran over and pulled a telescoping pole off his armor. He jammed it into the ground and twisted it. The flat blades shot out of the base as he pulled the pole to chest level. He pulled the large screen off his back and slid it down on the pole. Josh waited until Dundee stepped back and said, “Thank You, Sergeant.” Dundee nodded and sprinted away to join the long line of warriors to the north.

Josh entered a code on the keypad below the screen and it immediately illuminated. The feeds from the orbiting warships began immediately appearing but Josh ignored them as he lifted a cover from a bright yellow switch. He glanced at the huge box on top of the tripod and after a moment, the yellow switch illuminated. Josh threw it and pulled the cover back over it. A bright flash illuminated the warriors standing in ranks and their helmet visors briefly dimmed. The box extended a force field over the four sides of the square formed by the twenty thousand warriors. It extended thirty feet beyond their lines and ended twenty feet above them. Once it reached full power, it started spinning. Josh was amazed at how a square force field could spin and yet the corners did not move. He shook his head and knew the Weg were going to have to come in under the force field to get at them. He looked overhead and saw the sharp blades start appearing on the field’s surface.

He looked at the three foot wide display in front of him and saw an image being sent from Fleet; a dark cloud was rushing toward him from all four directions. He pressed his communicator, “We have a large group of party crashers coming in twenty six miles out.”

The Brigade Commanders yelled over their combat frequency, “You will launch slivers when your sensors have them six miles out. You know your zones. Don’t deviate without direct orders.”

The Gracken Warriors smiled at the dark cloud as it rose over the horizon and the Spartans got behind their heavy sliver rifles and activated the squares in their sights they were going to have to keep clear. The Weg rushed in and the twenty thousand warriors opened fire.

• • •

Rumel watched what appeared to be a dark green cloud rush over the planet’s surface toward the Alliance position. Each side of the huge square facing the Weg was eight miles long. The close up view of the formation looked like a huge blue square with a massive white cloud blowing out of the four sides. He knew the view didn’t really give a good picture of what was actually taking place on the ground.

• • •

Cantwell stood behind the two hundred warriors he was directing and he focused on the tactical display on his Combat Helmet’s visor. The feed from Fleet showed a massive cloud of Weg building on all sides of the formation and rolling in like a tsunami. It didn’t take the Weg long to figure out that coming over the top of them was an exercise in futility. It they came too close to the spinning force field they were shredded into small pieces by the force field’s sharp blades. If they flew along the top and tried to fly in under the edges of the force field they were cut to ribbons by the clouds of slivers being fired under the field. They would also hit other Weg flying in knocking both of them out of the air. The Weg came in a thirty-foot high wave rolling in on the four sides. Cantwell saw that the northern ranks were getting the worst of the rush. He entered instructions into his helmet and sent them to his company. He hoped they wouldn’t be needed but a quick glance to the north showed him trouble was rolling in.

• • •

Lt. Yung fired his heavy sliver rifle and felt the last clip feed into the chamber. He hit the release button on his trigger and the empty clip magazine fell to the ground. He snatched another magazine off his shoulder pack and slammed it home into the receiver. He saw the last clip fly over his shoulder as the new magazine sent a new clip into the chamber to be fired. The Weg were two hundred yards out from his position but they were steadily surging forward. He shook his head at the mound of dead Weg growing in front of him.

The sliver had come a long way in its development. It could be set to go after any species and it was a shoot and forget round. It was the size of a large icepick blade and it carried enough explosive to blow a hole through two-inch armor. When they hit a Weg, there wasn’t much left. The Weg didn’t appear to care. They came in and pushed the ones in front of them toward the invaders they were dying to kill.

Josh watched the four lines firing a massive cloud of slivers into the screaming mass of Weg Flyers. He looked at the tactical screen and saw that a huge bulge of Weg were flying in toward the north line. He shook his head as the giant mass hit and pushed the entire wall of Weg up to the edge of the force field.

• • •

Cantwell yelled over his combat frequency, “YUNG, GO, GO, GO!”

Yung pulled his heavy sliver gun up and threw it over his shoulder as every odd numbered Spartan Warrior in his company rushed out of their formation and ran across the clearing behind them toward the northern line. Their armor got them there just as hundreds of Weg pushed through the line knocking Gracken and Spartan warriors off their feet. The fifty Spartans fired their slivers and the Weg on top of the fallen warriors were exploded. The fallen warriors jumped to their feet and rushed back into their line. More than a hundred remained on the ground.

The Weg saw that victory could be had by overwhelming the invader’s lines with sheer numbers. Many of the Weg flying above the force field flew toward the battle far below. LaFyete saw the numbers shrinking above the formation and pressed his communicator, “It looks like you can’t wait any longer. Launch in ten seconds.”

Bart looked at Kim and shrugged. He pulled down his visor and activated the force field. He put a mouthpiece in and gripped the arms of the chair he was in. A moment later, he shot out of the transport and flew toward the planet at an incredible speed.

Josh looked at his panel and saw the flashing purple light on his panel and looked up. He heard the two large magnets slam down on the ground on each side of the tripod and a moment later a giant vehicle on each of them. Josh hadn’t seen the mobile blaster the Alliance had built for this operation. He saw images but they didn’t do the real thing justice. One of the vehicles started whining and a stack of six huge barrels rose out of the front of the vehicle and aimed over the top of the struggling warriors. The Weg were now under the edge of the force field and would soon break in and be able to attack their lines from the rear.

• • •

Bart hit the reactor button and the coils behind the six barrels started glowing blue. He aimed them at the eastern corner of the north line and pressed the trigger on his grips. The beams that shot out of the six barrels were brilliant and the warrior’s visors dimmed. Bart swept the beams to the west and they burned everything in their path out to a mile from the line. He continued down the west line to the southern point and then reversed and tracked the beams back to the north. He saw on his display that Kim was shooting over the East and southern lines. The mobile blasters were set to fire above the tallest Gracken Warrior, the warriors concentrated all their fire into a nine foot window in front of them.

Josh watched the two Special Forces Warriors work the beams like a surgeon. They would spin their turrets and fire at any large concentration of Weg and sweep around to hit another site. Each of the six blasters had a third of the power of a Q ship’s main beam. The mound of dead and dying Weg in front of the four lines was growing by the second but the two vehicles disintegrated anything higher than nine feet. In a matter of minutes, the Weg couldn’t make it through the mound of dead and they slowly stopped firing as the two huge vehicles wreaked havoc on the Weg.

• • •

No one knew for certain how the Weg communicated. Some believed they were telepathic. However they did it, a message was sent and every Flying Weg attacking the formation took to the sky above the formation. There they waited to take down the invaders when they tried to escape to their ships far overhead.