The Valhalla Call (Warrior's Wings) (6 page)

There were a few unidentified ships that bothered him more. They had designs he’d never seen in any of the war records. That might mean more species to add to the roster of potential enemies they were facing, and that felt more than a little disconcerting.

In all the science fiction he’d read, it was always the humans with multi-species allies facing off against some group of monolithic aliens bent on destruction. They seemed to be facing a genuine federation here, however, and Alder had to wonder just what had been done that attracted their attentions.

Surely this can’t all be over Hayden, can it?

*****

“Master of ships?”

Parath glanced over to where one of the younger officers under his command was standing. “Yes?”

“We detected a brief photon pulse on the edge of our scanners, Master,” she said. “It was difficult, but we managed to track its origin to a metallic anomaly back along the course we followed to arrive here.”

“Send me the scans.”

“Yes, Master.”

The scanner information was sparse, unfortunately, but at the ranges they were dealing with, Parath was hardly surprised by that. Whatever it was it certainly didn’t match any of the known configurations of the enemy vessels. The limited materials scan, however, was a solid match.

A new ship design, perhaps? Or just one we haven’t seen before. It is rather small for an interstellar-capable starship, however. Likely a fast scout, if it is anything.

His eyes tracked the trajectories and he smiled slightly.

No matter.

“We would not catch them if we turned about. Send a pulse to the main fleet,” he ordered. “Then continue on course.”

“Yes, Master.”

I suppose that it is easy to assume that they’ve warned the enemy of our approach,
Parath sighed.

That was going to make things bloodier.

*****

West Point, NY

“Lieutenant?”

Sorilla glanced to one side, nodding to the cadet that had appeared at the door of her classroom. She was in the middle of a xeno-psychology lecture, most of the room filled with colonels and the odd general and admiral auditing.

“What is it?”

“Message from OPCOM, ma’am.”

Sorilla blinked but waved the cadet in. A hand-delivered message only meant one thing, and everyone in the room knew it. She accepted the card but didn’t bother to open it. Instead she just swiped it along her arm, the near field implant there automatically scanning and sending the message to her optics.

ATTN: Lieutenant Sorilla Aida, OPCOM

Frm Admiral Brooke, Task Force Five, Commanding

Subject Deployment/New Assignment

Lieutenant, congratulations on your promotions. I was pleased to see you put the opportunity presented to such effective use. OPCOM has granted TF-V leave to begin assembling. Crews will be recalled from leave and other assignments shortly. You have been reassigned to TF-V pending your acceptance. This is strictly a volunteer position, Lieutenant, and I’ve been instructed to inform you that, should you prefer it, a full time teaching position is available with SOLCOM. If you prefer to remain field active, however, I have a place for you with my operator contingent.

Flt Admiral Nadine Brooke

Sorilla blinked away the message, barely considering the offer for a second before she turned to look over her class.

“Well, gentlemen…ladies,” she said, nodding to the group, “it would seem that this will be my last presentation for a while. Let’s make the best use of our time, then, shall we?”

She smiled as the colonels, generals, and admirals all shook themselves at once and immediately turned their slates back on.

“Now, this is of particular interest to those of you who may be commanding ground forces,” she said. “We’ve seen quite clearly that Charlie has the more military discipline and skill…”

An image of the squat and muscular aliens appeared on the screen behind her, dead in this case, with a halo of greyish blood spattering the ground around it.

“However, the edge in raw power undoubtedly goes to the Alphas,” she finished, an image of the spindly aliens that resembled nothing more than the legendary Roswell greys now appearing beside the other. “Individually, these two types are not insurmountable, though I will caution everyone against underestimating Charlie. He’s a tricky bastard, and I have a gut feeling that he
enjoys
fighting at a disadvantage.”

Several of the Army colonels and generals grimaced, but nodded. The Navy admirals and Air Force officers just nodded thoughtfully.

“But don’t ever count out Alpha either,” Sorilla said, face set. “So far he’s been surprisingly docile, given the sheer technical advantage that species has over us, but if our guesses that we are dealing with a frontier corporation rather than military forces turns out to be true…Alpha may yet be the biggest and baddest bully on this block.”

*****

USV Barry Sadler

Alder sighed as he looked over the last solid scans they had of the enemy fleet, eyes flicking back to the recordings of the passage that were playing on a loop on the next screen. The group of ships was at least three times the size of a standard taskforce, at least 45 ships of war by his count. Possibly more, if the ships he counted as likely support vessels were actually more ships of war.

Doesn’t seem likely, though. No group that size moves without support ships of some kind.

He hoped, at least.

Human fleets had managed to pair back the support requirements some, as there was no need for refueling ships anymore for one. Even his small scout was able to generate its own antimatter over a prolonged run, several times the length of any mission they’d send The Sadler on at least. Human fleets still needed supply ships for munitions, personnel, advanced medical care, and various other sundries.

While he expected that a culture advanced enough to manipulate space-time to the degree that the Alpha aliens did might have pared away the need for support even more, Alder hoped that was the case. If he was wrong, then Task Force Seven would be outnumbered
more
than three to one, and he wasn’t really sure that they could manage things as it stood.

“How many G probes are left in the beta point sentry?” he asked, glancing over to where Bitte was working.

“Two, after that last signal you sent gets there in…” Bitte glanced at the chrono, “eighteen minutes.”

“Right.” Alder nodded. “Okay, let’s prep another update.”

“Those birds cost a fortune, Lieutenant.”

“No one is going to notice once that fleet shows up.”

Bitte shrugged. “Fair point.”

“Let’s send the whole package again, along with whatever we’ve got since the last burst,” Alder decided. “The redundancy won’t hurt.”

“As you say, sir.”

Bitte was putting together the new package when an alarm went off, making Alder twist about.

“What the hell? Proximity alarm?”

“No, sir, that’s the gravity trap, sir.”

“Shit.” Alder went pale, bringing up the exterior feeds from all scanners.

The Sadler was sailing right past the jump point as their alarms went off, and he knew that there were only two things likely to do that.

Neither of them were good for him or his ship.

“Oh my lord,” Alder whispered in shock, eyes widening as The Sadler was caught in the gravetic backwash of ships arriving.

They didn’t feel it on board—in free fall, the sudden shift in gravity just hauled the entire ship and its contents, people included, around at the same rate—but the instruments registered a massive spike in their acceleration and a displacement of thousands of kilometers before local space-time finally stabilized. That was a secondary concern to Alder, however, as he was staring at a fleet of ships four times larger than the one that had just passed them.

“It was just a forward division…” he whispered.

“What?” Bitte asked, looking up.

“The first force, that was just a forward division!” Alder snarled. “Compile what we have and send it! Send it!”

“We’re still getting data!”

“Send it! Send it now!”

Bitte swore, hitting the command as more alarms went off around them. “What the hell?”

Alder didn’t answer. He just closed his eyes to block out the image of the big Alpha ships bearing down on them. He couldn’t block out the sound of the gravity alarms going off, or the sudden groaning sound that seemed to come from everywhere, however.

The USV Barry Sadler vanished in a flash of nuclear fire just moments after it was crushed under its own mass, the gravity-induced fusion reaction briefly lighting up the hulls of the enemy fleet before they moved on toward their ultimate goal.

USV Terra, Task Force Seven

Hayden System

Admiral Jacob Fairbairn stepped onto the bridge of the Terra, quietly observing from the back of the command center as his aide walked over to the captain and quietly announced his presence.

Captain Pierce Richmond was one of the younger Captains in the Solari Organization. He’d been promoted up from the British Blue Navy straight to the command slot of TF7. That would never have happened just two years earlier; there were far too many people clogging up the promotion tracks then. Today, with more ships being built every passing week and so few officers to command them, it was rapidly becoming standard operating procedure.

Pierce glanced back and nodded, pausing to give a couple orders to his people before he made his way back to where Jacob was standing. He waved off the salute, or tried to, but Pierce completed it anyway much to his amusement.

“What’s the latest?” Jacob asked, casually returning the gesture.

“Sir,” Pierce nodded, dropping to a half-relaxed stance. “A G probe dropped through the jump point at 0900 hours, dumping several terabytes of data into our systems. It was a message from one of our fast scouts, four jumps out. The Sadler, sir.”

Jacob nodded. “Enemy ships?”

“Battle squadron, sir. Looks like 40, maybe 50 combat ships plus support.”

“Damn it. They’re coming loaded for bear this time, then,” Jacob sighed.

“Yes, sir.”

The question, he supposed, was should he order TF7 out to meet them or wait and ambush them here in Hayden. It wasn’t as simple a question as one might think, or hope, given that they were outnumbered approximately three to one. Even in a perfectly executed ambush, those weren’t good odds. In space you had limited ways to array your ships and almost no chance for cover, which made an ambush little more than a matter of who yelled surprise first.

That said, meeting a prepared fleet out in open space wasn’t any better.

The Terra Class ships were fast, at least as fast as the enemy ships had shown themselves to be, so they could now keep up with them, and that would even the battleground considerably. In the past, smart maneuvering and better tactics and strategy had conspired to given human fleets victories over considerably stronger opponents while fighting at severe disadvantages, but Jacob knew quite well that few of the enemy ships were actually likely to have been military ships, strictly speaking.

Outmaneuvering and outfighting what the intel division now considered to be civilian contractors was a far sight different from taking on a proper battle group.

“Move the fleet into position around the gamma point,” he ordered finally. “We’ll take them as they jump through.”

“Aye, sir.”

An ambush might not hold the tactical advantage it did planetside, but they couldn’t afford to give up any edge they could get just now.

*****

Solari Operator Command

Los Alamos, New Mexico

The first time she’d been cycled through the Los Alamos special services base, she’d spent most of her time nude with sensors taped all over her body. This time they let her keep her clothes, and Sorilla honestly couldn’t help but feel a little insulted.

As usual, she had to go through the medical checks in order to be deployed, which meant a whole panoply of tests that were normally about as invasive as a visit to her gynecologist. This time, however, she was broadcasting on all her implants and they hardly had to even look in her direction.

Sweat was pouring from her face as she kept up the run she’d been marking for the last twenty minutes, monitoring her heartbeat and willing it to slow as she controlled her breathing with rigid discipline learned a long time past. Slow beats, but strong beats, were what she was aiming for, and it took work but Sorilla got what she wanted.

With the circular feedback from her implants, she had managed to learn how to exercise a lot of control over her body in ways that just weren’t possible under normal circumstances. The ability to actually see a real-time display of her blood pressure, heart beat, oxygenation levels, and more was just an unparalleled tool for her to wield.

“Time.”

Sorilla slowed to a walk, grabbing a towel from the rail beside her, and wiped the sweat from her face. The doctors finally deigned to look in her direction as one walked over.

“Absolutely unreal, Lieutenant.”

“I passed then?”

The doctor snorted. “Lieutenant, I’ve seen Olympic athletes in worse physical shape than you. Certainly you have an unparalleled control over your autonomic functions. How were you lowering your heart rate on command?”

Sorilla shrugged, tossing the towel aside. “I put the biometric data up on my HUD and just watch what works. It’s pretty simple biofeedback control after that, sir.”

“Simple, right,” the doctor scoffed politely. “Our data right now shows that you could probably outlast a champion marathon runner by twenty percent, just from the control you
simply
exercise over your heart rate and breathing. Combined with your general conditioning, Lieutenant, you more than pass the requirements for deployment.”

“Implants check out?”

The doctor nodded, but his face darkened slightly. “They all check out fine, but we’re concerned with how you’ve integrated them.”