Out of the Black (Odyssey One, Book 4) (76 page)

“Coordinates follow. Confirm receipt.”

Hiller checked the incoming codes, putting them up against a map, and scowled. “Receipt confirmed . . . are you sure about this, Control? There’s nothing out there.”

“That is affirmative, One Two. Please encode your ordnance for ground penetration and launch at your discretion.”

Hiller and his copilot shared a glance, both mouthing the word “ground penetration” with wide eyes.

Sure, the missiles they were carrying could do that, but only because it was a modular chassis. No one used
nukes
as bunker busters. That was insane. It was also dirty. Ground and underground detonation of nuclear devices tended to irradiate far more material and leave it hot for decades.

“Say again, Control. Did you say
ground penetration?
”

“Affirmative, One Two. Confirm and execute.”

Hiller shook his head slowly, but nodded, “If you say so. Configuring for ground penetration and launching in three . . . two . . . Missile away.”

The BBU modular munitions frame was the go-to workhorse of the Confederacy Air Force, and had been for several decades. It was simple, modular, and damn near foolproof, which made it incredibly popular with pilots and quartermasters alike. In effect it was a smart airframe that could be configured to carry anything from a cluster of ten-pound bomblets to a single fifty-megaton warhead.

Each warhead could be configured to airburst or ground burst, or, in the case of an enemy gone to ground in a fortified position, for a ground-penetrating deep detonation.

The missile launched by Shiva One Zero hit the target ground straight on, going Mach Five. Designed to slam into and through armor-reinforced bunkers, the missile simply blew through the soft dirt like it wasn’t there. It burst out into the mine tunnel below, then kept on going through to the next level.

Fifteen levels down, the bodies and limbs of Drasin drones strewn behind it like some kind of gory wake, the nuclear core detonated.

On the surface, everything was quiet for a moment, then a low rumble shook everything, and finally the dirt just blew straight up. Fifty megatons of power tore the mine to shreds, pulverizing everything inside it that it didn’t incinerate, and finally leaving a single deep crater where once there had been nothing but flat scrubland.

“Shiva One Two, I need a flyover of the target site,” Lyssa calmly asked. “Please ensure that your recon pack is fully activated.”

“Roger, Control. Stand by for recon,” Shiva One Two answered.

Lyssa watched as the imagery stabilized, sweeping back over the target zone. She flicked over to the infrared and began examining the scene.

“How does it look?” Marion asked softly.

“Imagery is still stabilizing,” she answered. “Heat profile of the nuke is messing with things. Give it a minute.”

They stared and waited, watching as the thermal spikes evened out. Finally Lyssa reached forward and opened the comm.

“Shiva One Two, target neutralized. Stand by for next target. Good job.”

She closed the channel and looked over to where Marion was sitting. “Send a ground team with seismic gear into the region as soon as possible, just to confirm.”

The colonel nodded curtly. “I’ll arrange it.”

“You do that,” she sighed, turning back to her console. “I have more targets to service.”

“By the gods, what
is
that?” Sun whispered, looking at the imagery they were capturing of the surface through the
Bellerophon
’s advanced instruments.

“Thousands of them, Captain,” his instrumentation chief said. “Hundreds of thousands.”

“I want all lasers prepared to fire. Nothing down there survives,” Sun ordered, lips tightening. “
Nothing
.”

“Y . . . yes Captain.”

The
Bellerophon
steadied over its target, weapons priming as they continued to record data from below them. After several long moments a low hum reverberated all around and the air began to shimmer under the bulk of the ship.

Over a dozen beams lanced out of the bottom of the carrier, boiling the sand and rock below directly from solid to gas. The beams sublimated the material above the mine, punching through into the first level, where they instantly did the same thing to thousands of Drasin in twenty milliseconds before continuing on to burn through the second level.

Level by level the beams of the
Bellerophon
did their job, burning through rock, dirt, and alien carapace with equal ease. A hundred feet, a thousand,
ten thousand
feet were burned through in just seconds, and then they kept on burning.

“Captain, thermal readings just spiked below us!”

Sun half turned. “We’re turning the earth into gaseous metals. Of course the temperature is spiking.”

“No, Captain, beyond that. I’m reading some very odd thermal profiles . . . something is coming up!”

Sun’s eyes widened. “Cease fire! Pull us out of here, now!”

“Course?”

“Any course!” Sun yelled. “Move!”

The
Bellerophon
tilted in the air, moving away as the lasers ceased. Below her, however, the hole they’d burned into the ground rumbled and began to spit fire right back at them. Molten rock exploded into the air, the force of the blast actually shaking the kilometer-and-a-half starship as it tried hurriedly to pull away.

“All hands, brace for impact!” Sun called out, holding on to his seat as the Earth exploded beneath them.

Alarms screamed and the ship bucked under the shock wave from below, sending two crewmen on the bridge to the floor. For a moment the bridge actually
tilted,
something that should have been impossible with the artificial gravity systems in use, and everyone hung on for dear life.

And then it was over. They were clear and Sun was surging up from his seat again.

“Show me the site!” he ordered. “Show me the site!”

The wraparound screen flickered, and everyone stared in awe as they watched the huge lava plume erupting behind them. Smoke and ash was filling the sky as the molten rock already began to solidify into the base of what was, apparently, China’s newest . . . and
largest
active volcano.

Sun stared for a long moment, then began to utter vile and profane words in both Mandarin and Cantonese.