On Silver Wings (14 page)

“I think it was a nuke.”

Tara and the men turned sharply to where Sorilla had stopped. The soldier was standing apparently easy, her legs spread just enough to balance her weight without much work on her part. A good thing, Tara supposed, because she looked like she was about to fall over.

“Check his ears,” Sorilla said dully, “I’m going to lay down.”

She shuffled past Tara as the young medic did a quick evaluation of the young man, then nodded to the other two. “Take him into the shelter.”

They nodded, picking the exhausted young man up and physically carried him into the makeshift nurses’ station that Tara worked out of. She followed, noticing Sorilla vanish into her own shelter out of the corner of her eye, but only spared a brief thought for the soldier as she followed them in.

Hours later, after determining that Dean’s eardrums were indeed blown but his life was apparently unthreatened, a very tired young nurse found her way over to the Soldier’s shelter and let herself in. The solar lighting was glowing softly, returning some of the energy it had absorbed through the day, and she could see Sorilla lying face down on the bed. Apparently she hadn’t moved from where she had fallen, but her back was rising and falling slowly in time with her breathing.

Tara shook her head, then closed the bug mesh properly to keep out the nocturnal insects of the Hayden jungle. They weren’t likely to bother a human, but the higher oxygen levels in Hayden’s atmosphere led to some rather disturbingly larger insects than any person really wanted to deal with, and those that did bother humans, REALLY bothered them.

Only when the netting was back in place did she turn to look at the Soldier, noting that the woman had flopped down half on the cot and half off, face down in her pillow, just barely turned enough to be able to breathe. The nurse shook her head as she moved forward, then hissed as she spotted the shaft of wood jutting out from the bare shoulder.

It rose up nearly half an inch from the skin, the flesh around it already black and blue with ugly red veins winding through it. There was a lightening of the color around the core of the injury, surrounding the wooden splinter itself, and she grimaced as she recognized the onset of an infection.

“Pull it out.”

Tara shook herself, surprised that Sorilla was still awake. “What?”

“Pull it out.” She said again, “I can’t reach it.”

Oh. Tara shook her head, moving forward, “This isn’t going to be fun... wait a moment while I examine the wound.”

“It’s infected.” The soldier said flatly, “I can read the heightened activity of white blood cells on my HUD. Just get the foreign material out of my shoulder... please.”

Tara nodded, reaching down to wrap her fingers around the slim shaft of Hayden hardwood, grasping it as firmly as she pressed down on the shoulder with her other hand. “This is going to...”

Sorilla screamed as the shaft jerked out, her body convulsing briefly as Tara leaned in and put her weight into holding the soldier down.

“... hurt,” The nurse finished, almost bemused as she held up the slim, three inch shaft of wood.

“No shit.” Sorilla hissed from the bed, her body relaxing suddenly as the sharp pain vanished and the dull throbbing seemed a million miles away by comparison. She let out a breath she’d been holding, and then rolled up onto her good shoulder and looked back at the nurse. “Some bedside manner you got, Doc.”

“I’m not a doctor,” Tara corrected automatically as she tossed the shaft of wood into a trash bin, then fiddled around with the small case of medical materials she’d drawn from Sorilla’s supply. Antiseptic went on next, then a quick wave with the Wand, and finally she sprayed on a synthetic skin to close the wound.

“Close enough for me,” Sorilla said, rolling over to her side. She favored the injured shoulder, but seemed more comfortable with the shard of wood gone. “How’s the kid?”

Tara winced, shaking her head grimly, “I don’t know if we’ll be able to do anything about his hearing.”

Sorilla smiled grimly, “It’ll probably heal.”

“It will?” Tara asked hopefully.

The soldier nodded, “Yeah. Few weeks, maybe months... Probably months, actually... It was a nuke after all... a small one, but it was pretty bad. Just make sure it doesn’t get infected, he should be ok.”

Sorilla considered for a moment, then shrugged with a hiss as a lance of pain from her shoulder reminded her of her injury, “If it’s worse than that, we’ll get him help when the Fleet comes back.”

It was something in the eyes of the woman when she mentioned the fleet that caught Sorilla’s eyes, a look she’d seen before, a long time ago. Hope, mixed with dread, and the dread was winning.

“Hey,” She said, catching the redhead’s attention, “They are coming.”

Tara shivered, but nodded. The nod wasn’t agreement, Sorilla could see that, it was just an acceptance of the words. An acknowledgment that she’d heard them and little else. It was different for Sorilla. She grew up Army, her dad and her mother were both serving military, and she knew the credo, felt it in her blood and bone.

No one left behind.

It was possible that they would come late, it was even possible that they would all die before they could set foot on Hayden, but it was patently impossible that they would not make the attempt. Fleet was coming back, and they would be bringing the hells of war with them.

There was no way to communicate that to the young woman in front of her, however. It wasn’t that Tara was incapable of understanding the oath, nor that she lacked something that was present in Sorilla’s brothers and sisters in arms. Such confidence, however, was not easily given to a group one didn’t know. Sorilla sighed, and opened her mouth to speak, only to be shocked by sudden explosion to rock the small community.

The soldier jerked from the cot, the pain forgotten even as it lanced through her shoulder.

“What is it?” The medic asked, shocked.

“Sonic boom.” Sorilla said, grabbing up her vest as she tore through the bug mesh and stepped out into the jungle night. Her eyes glowed green as she accessed her local equipment and began downloading a series of messages from the queue even as they appeared.

The sonic boom was shortly followed by an explosion Sorilla now recognized as an atomic explosion, then more sounds of supersonic explosions, quickly followed by more sounds of war.

“What’s going on!?”

“Is it them?? Are they coming for us!?”

“Fleet! It’s the fleet!”

Sorilla shook her head, looking up as she read the information passing across her HUD. “No. It’s not the Fleet.”

And it wasn’t the fleet, not at all. It was a gift from the fleet, however, the last gift of a dying squadron if she was reading the message downloads right. It was a gift they sorely needed, in fact, and she hoped that some small fraction of it might reach the ground, even through the hellfire it now endured. It had traveled millions of miles to arrive here, and taken over a month to arrive, but it was here.

“It’s not the fleet,” Sorilla said again, her voice carrying as she tightened her combat vest over her bare chest, “but it’s the next best thing. Call up the pathfinders, Samuel. We’re going out tonight.”

*****

Moscow

Alexi Petronov flinched as his implant hummed lightly behind his ear, but covered it as he rose to his feet. “Pardon me, Father, Mother, I have a call.”

The old woman nodded, watching as he stepped away from the dinner table. She exchanged glances with her husband, worry evident in both their eyes. They weren’t privy to exactly what their son was dealing with lately, but he had been preoccupied since he returned home.

In the next room, Alexi answered the call, his eyes glowing slightly as the implanted film filled his vision with the image of Admiral Shepard.

“Good afternoon, Alexi,” Shepard said formally, his English accent a stark contrast to the Russian Alexi had been hearing for weeks.

“Admiral,” Petronov replied, tipping his head slightly. The implants used their connection to his body to encode the motion and Alexi knew that his avatar would make the same move in real time as the computer generated version of himself spoke to the Admiral. “I... assume that the Soc is ready?”

His English felt halting, but it smoothed out almost instantly as the nickname for his ship came to Alexi’s tongue. He’d told the Admiral that he was an explorer, a researcher, and had no interest in commanding a military ship, but he did love the Socrates. He missed her decks, the zero gravity that existed through most of her, even the queasy feeling he got in the centrifugal sections of the old girl.

He found himself wanting her back, new weapons and all.

“Very nearly, Captain, We need your answer.”

Alexi half turned, looking away though the image of the admiral followed his eyes wherever they went. He wasn’t precisely opposed to the military, certainly not now. Alexi was a realist, despite his own personal preferences, but he’d never desired to serve in a military structure.

He looked back into the kitchen of the old townhouse where his parents had gone on with the dinner, a fair portion of his family had gathered as they did whenever they were in town. In the end, Alexi knew that if they didn’t stop them at Hayden, whoever they were, they may come for Earth.

“Captain?”

“I’ll be on the next sub orbital to New Mexico, Admiral.”

The Admiral stifled a sigh, but it was transmitted loud and clear over the digital line. “Thank you, Captain.”

“If you’ll excuse me, Sir, I have a family dinner to finish.” Alexi said, his voice tight.

“Of course, Captain. Take your time,” Shepard said quickly, “In fact, I’ll have a military transport waiting at the base outside of Moscow. When you’re done, they’ll be ready.”

“Thank you, Admiral.”

“Good bye, Captain.” The Admiral said then closed the connection.

The image dissolved, leaving Alexi standing alone in the old living room. He took a moment to compose himself, then turned and stepped back into the kitchen while forcing a smile as he switched back to Russian. “So, didn’t get cold while I was talking, did it?”

His mother smiled, pushing another serving plate in his direction. “There is more, Alexi. Eat, you lose weight when you’re away.”

“Health regs, Mom,” He smiled, accepting the plate and forking the food over to his plate. “Have to stay fit on a ship.”

His mother grumbled a bit, and Alexi shared a smile with his father and sisters, though he knew that they didn’t understand the severity of health regulations on board ship. Since most areas on a ship were zero gravity, it was easily possible to suffer from muscle, tissue, and bone degeneration on long missions. The near infrared systems in the medical and exercise facilities helped compensate, but in the end it just took a lot of hard work and sweat to keep a man in best form.

“Was that the call you were expecting, Alexi?” His father asked.

He nodded reluctantly, “Yes, Papa...”

“A new mission?”

Alexi didn’t smile as he nodded, something he didn’t realize he was doing but was noted by his parents. Their Alexi always smiled when given a new mission, he loved his job and his ship.

“Do you leave soon?”

He nodded again, still serious, “Yes Mom. Tonight.”

“What star will you see this time, Alexi?” His sister, Olga, asked. She was the youngest, and had often professed her desire to follow in her older brother’s footsteps.

Normally he would gladly have told her everything he knew about his location and the mission. Today, however, Alexi just shook his head. “I’m afraid I cannot say.”

“They haven’t told you?”

He opened his mouth, then shook his head again, “I’m sorry, I cannot speak of it this time, Olga.”

“But...”

“Olga.”

They all snapped around, the sharp command in their father’s voice startling. The former Colonel in the Soviet Alliance glared at his daughter, “Your brother said he cannot talk about it.”

She blinked, then just nodded. “Yes Papa.”

Alexi looked over at his father, uncertain for a moment, but as their eyes met a brief spark of communication flashed between them. Not as precise as an implant, perhaps, but perfectly clear to Alexi just the same. He nodded in gratitude and then turned back to his meal as his mother turned to Olga.

“So, Olga, how was your day?”

*****

The Alamo

West Jovian Trojan Point

Admiral Gates stared out through the heavily reinforced aluminum crystal that made up the observation dome as the first of the new Cheyenne class hulls was pushed into a slip by a tug. The heavy Nickle-Iron construct was a flattened cylinder over four hundred meters long, literally forged from an iron rich asteroid they’d farmed from the East Jovian Trojan point almost eight months earlier. Solar blast furnaces had been used to melt off the slag material as each hull was sent on a two hundred and ten day fast track orbit that eventually led them back to the Alamo in their finished form.

The hulls were one piece monsters of metal armor over a dozen meters thick in places, enough to withstand the stresses of high thrust maneuvers, the dangers of high speed impacts with micro meteorites, and shrug off most any conventional weapon known. There were four of the Cheyenne class hulls out there, and almost forty on the inward track to the solar furnaces waiting inside the orbit of Mercury. Builders were scrambling mad trying to figure out how to fit that many hulls into the furnaces, but those hulls weren’t his problem yet.

He had crews standing ready, ceramic battleplates stacked in his warehouses, and all the electronics, heavy equipment, and other necessities needed to turn those hulks into the most powerful warships ever built by man. The meter thick ceramic armor would add another level of physical defense to the ships, the shaped charges formed inside them stood ready to defeat any conventional munitions with an instant level of reactive protection that went beyond sheer physical toughness.

The previous standard hull was the Los Angeles Class, which had been sold to allied governments and corporations alike for the better part of half a century. Larger and more powerful than the Los Angeles Class, the Cheyenne hulls would likely remain a military asset well into the foreseeable future, even had the specter of war not locked up all their assets for military production.