On Silver Wings (21 page)

“Scouts reported more of them working at these coordinates, but the construction hasn’t begun yet, they’re still clearing trees.”

Sorilla nodded, “Right. The fleet will be making a least time approach, probably sweeping by within forty eight hours. We’ve got to be ready.”

“The fleet’s really back?” Samuel stammered out, blinking away sleep as best he could.

Sorilla nodded, “Yeah. Sooner than I expected, to be honest.”

“It’s been
months
!”

She shrugged, “I half expected a year or more. We’re not ready for an interstellar war, Samuel.”

He stared for a long moment, but really, what could he say to that?

“Right,” he finally nodded with a sigh. “What can I do?”

“Help us get organized. Come morning, we need to know what everyone is going to be doing,” She told him, “It’s going to be a fun week.”

Samuel shuddered at the feral grin she flashed him, but nodded dutifully as he too waded into the maps and reports and got to work. He began by looking over the information requests and noted that the fleet wanted to know a lot about how many people were left, and where they were.

“Are they planning to lift us off Hayden?” He asked, frowning.

Honestly, he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Hayden was his home, he couldn’t imagine the empty pit it would leave in his soul if he were to be run out of his home. However, there were a great many people here who were helpless against this sort of aggression, who should be anywhere but on Hayden.

Sorilla, however, shook her head.

“No way they have that kind of lift, even if they could get through the defensive perimeter.” She said. “Without the tether, I don’t even want to
think
of the fuel cost to lift that many people from the surface.”

“Ah.” He nodded, realizing that she was right.

The Orbital tether was the colony’s lifeline, their connection to the universe. Without it, they were effectively cut off from any large scale exodus. Earth might still have the kind of lifting capacity to pull off an evacuation of several thousand people, but none of the colonies did.

He sighed, both relieved and sorely disappointed, then went back to work.

The first light of the sun was slowly showing through the Hayden canopy when the laser comm set again demanded Sorilla’s attention. She keyed it over to the public screen this time, letting Reed and Samuel get the information at the same time she did.

It was mostly mission directives and what little intelligence they’d been able to put together back home, which wasn’t really a lot, but it also included a lot of best guess information about the enemy superweapon.

The Gravity Valve.

The name seemed nondescript for something that crushed starships as easily as beer cans, but fitting just the same. The numbers theory the scientists on Earth had come up with was fairly simple, for an M-Brane researcher. For Sorilla it mostly left her in puzzled confusion, but luckily someone had taken the time to break it down into chunks she could digest.

“So that’s how they’re doing it,” Samuel whispered, eyes narrowing.

“You following that mess?” Jerry grimaced.

He nodded, “Yes. It makes sense, though I can only imagine the mechanism at work.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” the bio-chemist slash frontiersman muttered.

“I’m more interested in these estimates,” Sorilla said, highlighting the specs a military planner had devised based on the numbers theory. “That’s not a small installation.”

“If they’ve guessed right.”

“Let’s say they have,” Sorilla muttered, glaring at the screen. “Why haven’t we spotted this?”

“Our patrols only cover a small chunk of this area, let alone the continent or planet.” Reed reminded her.

She nodded, not happy to concede the point, but unable to deny it.

Samuel frowned, thinking a moment before speaking up. “This data fits one of the theories some of my researchers brought to my attention a week ago or so.”

“How so?”

“The ‘road’ the aliens have been building,” He said, nodding out in the general direction of the construction.

“Right…”

“You reported a while ago that it’s laid out in concentric circles around the old colony site.” Samuel went on, “That’s been a puzzle for us.”

“Yeah, I know.” Reed acknowledged, “But we don’t know what the damn thing really is, so we can’t work out why they’re building it like that.”

“Right, but the prevailing idea at the moment is that it’s some sort of collector or concentrator of some kind.” Samuel continued, “We just haven’t been able to figure out for what because, honestly, it’s like nothing we’ve ever seen.”

“Just like their gravity tech is like nothing we’ve ever seen.” Sorilla nodded, “Alright, I see where you’re going with this, but I’m not sure it really helps us.”

“Why not?” Reed asked, having figured out what Samuel was saying, “We find it and we blow it to hell, right? We’ve got weapons, explosives, and people willing to go in.”

“First, they’ve got all those too, and they’re better established,” Sorilla countered, ticking off her finger, “second, while I see the logic I’m not convinced it’s the truth. They engaged my team without that collector or whatever it is, and they have ships that were plenty capable of taking out Task Force 2.”

Reed and Samuel frowned.

“According to the message, they are going to try and draw ships away from the planet,” Samuel pointed out, “In that case…”

She nodded, “Agreed. In that case, if we can take out the local defense point, then maybe they can land.”

She leaned over the large map they’d been able to compile of the area, finger tracing around the large concentric circles of the ‘collector’ the enemy had been building. “Alright. Forget the collector. Our target has to be in here.”

They looked at where she had stabbed her finger down and winced as she held it right at the center of the Colony site.

“They forced you out of the colony for more than just the fun of it,” Sorilla said, “They wanted that site for a reason, and they wanted to deny it to you.”

“It is the highest cleared area on the continent,” Reed supplied.

“The planet, actually.” Samuel countered, “We chose it because it was an ideal location to anchor our counterweight, while still providing easy defense against local wildlife and access to raw resources.”

“Then we have to assume that they chose it for similar reasons.” Sorilla replied, thinking about it, “Would the area have any unique gravity traits?”

Samuel shook his head, “No I don’t believe so.”

“So they could have built their valve anywhere?” Sorilla was disappointed.

“That depends,” Sam countered, “Remember we don’t know nearly enough about this device, however building near the equatorial regions like this has several advantages and effects due to the rotational momentum of the planet, and though the difference is minute, the colony site is located on the lowest natural gravity point on Hayden… excepting a few rather inhospitable mountain peaks.”

“So less interference in their gear, maybe?” Reed offered.

“Maybe.” Sorilla said, considering it. After a moment she shrugged it off, “It doesn’t matter. If the valve is at the colony site is all that matters right now. Why it’s there is something your geeks can worry about later, Sam.”

“Indeed.” The older man smiled at her.

The soldier smirked, “Get a squad together. Sam, you get our people in place according to the plan. Reed, take a couple teams and raise all hell along the active construction points they’re working on now. I want to take another look at the colony site.”

The two men nodded as Sorilla got up and walked over to the coffin shaped box leaning up against the side of the truck. She palmed the biometrics and the locks popped, the cover hissing open on pneumatics to reveal the armor within.

“Game on.”

*****

Flag Deck, USS Montana

Hayden, Outer System

“Laser return from the Special Operations Satellite in Hayden Orbit, Admiral.”

“Send it to my panel.”

“Aye Sir.”

Shepard pulled himself down into his bolster, strapping in carefully before he pulled the panel in closer on its swing arm. The Special Operations Unit sent into Hayden had gone in with full kit, and part of that was leaving a small bird in planetary orbit to facilitate communications. Since all conventional, and some unconventional, communications frequencies were somehow being jammed by whoever landed on the planet, light based signals were the only options that remained viable.

He scrolled through some of the report headings, checking summaries mostly, then looked back at the last status report filed from planet side.

Well Sergeant, what have you for me today?
He asked himself as he went over the report.

Shepard’s eyes widened slightly as he read, and he let out a silent whistle through pursed lips.

Very nice. Coordinates, capabilities of ground based troops and close air support, interesting estimates on construction capabilities and technological capacity. A local militia trained and already resisting, excellent, excellent…

“Get this compiled and sorted out for command briefing at Oh Nine Hundred,” He said, half turning to his aide, “and please have Rackham on the Valley Forge contact me as soon as he’s available.”

“Yes Sir, Admiral. May I say as to what you want him for?”

“I think we have a change of plans concerning his deployment.”

“Understood, Admiral.”

As his Aide turned back to his station, Admiral Shepard flipped a switch and opened a channel to his Flag Captain.

“Yes Admiral?” Captain Jackson said from his station.

“Any sign of our uninvited guests yet, Captain?”

“No sir. All still quiet.”

“Understood. We have updated intel from the planet, I’m having it analyzed now, we’ll look it over before the morning meeting.”

“Yes Sir. So there were survivors?” Jackson asked.

“At least one, Sargent Sorilla Aida, US SOF, seconded to Solari Special Operations.” Shepard said, “She’s trained a local militia and they’ve apparently been giving the aliens all kinds of hell.”

“Well now, that’s nice to hear.”

“We’ll be reorienting our landing plans to accommodate her intel,” Shepard said.

“Understood. Does she have any reports on planetary defenses?”

“Nothing I’ve seen so far,” The Admiral admitted, “I’ll send a query to her with the next update, see if there’s anything she left out.”

“Unlikely,” Jackson offered.

“Agreed, but we’ll be thorough.”

“As you say, Sir.”

*****

Alexi Patronov tried to hide his sweating palms as he stared at the repeater signals that showed him the Hayden system. The Socrates was patched into the most advanced mobile sensing array ever devised by man, and it was showing no threats across the entire system. Oddly, it didn’t make him feel any better.

I am such a fool.
He thought to himself,
what am I doing out here?

He didn’t want anything to do with the military, he’d joined the Solari Fleet to explore, not to fight. The entire situation was alien to him, and to his ship.

Most of his ship.

That thought shifted his attention to where Commander Ashley was poring over the data coming in via the sensor net. The military man seemed like a good enough guy, but Alexi didn’t much like the guy being on his ship any more than he liked the damned missile tubes strapped to her hull.

“Anything new, Commander?”

Ashley shook his head, “Nothing out of the ordinary, Captain. Unfortunately the intensity of the system primary makes it very hard to see something as small as a ship hiding down there.”

Alexi nodded, he’d had enough trouble along those lines himself on past missions. Ok, he hadn’t been looking for aliens that wanted to kill him, but he had been trying to find interesting bits of flotsam for the Soc’s labs to analyze. Sometimes even if you knew it was there, it was damned hard to find some things.

“So far everything is running to plan,” Ashley went on, “the decoys are running hot, straight, and normal while the fleet drops toward Hayden. Barring enemy action, we’ll intercept Hayden orbit in… nine hours.”

“Thank you, Commander.”

Alexi checked the plot himself, not that he doubted the commander but just out of habit.

Nine hours.

Alexi found himself calling up a visual of the system primary to his repeater screen,
Are you still out here? Where are you?

Come out, come out, wherever you are…

*****

Survivor’s Camp,

Hayden

“What’s the plan, Reed?”

Jerry looked over at Bethany, who seemed to be speaking for the assembled group, “My group is taking on a fairly standard raid, Beth. We’re going to hit a little faster than normal, and generally try to raise as much hell as we can, but that’s not too out of the ordinary.”

His smirk brought a few laughs from the group.

“True enough,” one man chuckled.

It was a testament to the possessive and naturally defensive nature of humanity, Jerry supposed, that the general reaction to blowing stuff up and probably killing things, if not people, was more one of cynical humor than horror. Just a few months ago there wasn’t one in ten people on Hayden who’d react like that, and pretty much none of those who would have were part of Samuel’s academic group.

“Sam is taking a larger group out…” Reed started, but the murmur of surprise quickly cut him off.

“Sam?”

“Reed, he’s never taken any groups out on raids…”

“That’s nuts.”

“It’s not a raid.” He held up his hand, “His people are…”

“Holy shit.”

A shocked hush fell, causing Reed to half turn and fall silent himself as Sorilla stepped into the tent.

It wasn’t the woman they’d come to know over the past months, not the woman with the somewhat acerbic if witty sense of humor, it wasn’t even the professional soldier who’d trained and led them on raid after raid.

No, it was the armored knight who had first arrived on their doorstep mere days after the worst few nights of the lives.