Valkyrie Burning (Warrior's Wings Book Three) (28 page)

With the message sent, Sorilla pulled her weapon from behind her, rose from her position, and started to move in the direction the alien had vanished in.

*****

Hayden Colony Site, MILCOMCEN

Lt. Commander Grange looked up from his desk when a communications officer stepped into the office.

“Yes, what is it, Sam?”

“You wanted to be kept in the loop concerning Sergeant Aida’s activities, sir?”

He nodded. “I did. What do you have?”

“We just picked up a pulse transmission from her, sent to Pathfinder Reed,” the young lieutenant said. “It indicates that she took out an enemy scout tracking them and was in pursuit of another.”

“Do we know where she is?”

“Negative.” Lt Samantha Greer shook her head. “The transmission was pulse coded, and OPCOM armor…”

“Yes, I know. Can’t be tracked, not even by us.” He sighed, he already knew that. OPCOM armor was, by design, about as impossible to track as anything built. If he could track the armor, then it was just possible that someone else could as well, and that was a definite no go considering some of the operations an OPCOM Operator might be involved with.

It did make things a real pain when you were tasked with handling one of the bastards.

“Very well,” he sighed. “Let me know if she surfaces again.”

“Yes, sir.”

Grange cleared his desk with a gesture, calling up his troop placement files. He didn’t have permission to take more than token patrols outside the beams without significant cause, but he could make a few creative ‘defensive’ allocations in the meantime.

If her record is anything to go by, things are likely to get hot here soon enough. Her past performance would indicate that my near future is going to be filled with caffeine, bullets, and bombs.

Parithalian Alliance Ship
Noble Venture

“Munitions away, Ships Master.”

Reethan nodded. “Very good. Signal the Lucians with the estimated impact time.”

“Yes, Master.”

The Master of Ships for the Parithalian flotilla looked out on deep space, the planet he’d just sent several dozen kinetic weapons flying towards was not even visible from where he stood.

Thankfully the planet is mostly uninhabited.

Though they had good equations for their targets, with high-speed/high-mass objects like this, over penetration wasn’t a risk…it was a fact.

Once this was confirmed, they’d reengage the enemy fleet before shifting back out of the system and reporting back to Alliance Command. The damage they’d taken so far, combined with what he expected to take against the remaining enemy ships, would prevent him from doing any more.

We’ll need to come back with a full fleet to ensure that this enemy withdraws from the void.

*****

USS Cheyenne

Captain Roberts frowned as he looked over the reports coming to his station. They had ships spread across half the star system at the moment, or so it seemed, and the light speed delay was driving him up the wall when it came to getting reports and intelligence.

At least we have eyes on the enemy ships, even if the visuals are eight minutes out of date.

It wasn’t the reports on the enemy ships that were currently giving him trouble, however, it was from the Hayden system accelerometer network.

They were getting odd pulses in space-time, all across the network. Pulses that didn’t match an enemy drive unit, and sure as hell didn’t match a valve weapon or a jump point. It had been flagged as unusual enough to come across his system, but he couldn’t decide what the hell he was supposed to do with it.

Finally, Roberts sighed and decided to push it up the ladder.

The admiral is science track, she might have an idea.

*****

“Admiral Brookes.”

Nadine set her coffee mug down beside her station, luxuriating in the simple action that was only possible on a ship that was under way at one gravity, then turned toward the sound of the voice. “Yes, Captain?”

“We have some odd gravity waves on the system accelerometers, ma’am. Honestly, I’m not sure what to make of them,” Roberts admitted, looking more than a little shamefaced. “I was going to shoot them back down to sciences but thought you might want to take a look.”

“Send them along, Captain,” she said, intrigued. “Given the enemy, we can’t afford to overlook anything to do with gravity at the moment.”

“Yes, ma’am. They’re on your station.”

“Thank you.”

It only took her a few moments to realize that the captain was right about one thing. Odd was the word. The pulses were small, discrete, and almost certainly not natural. Only pulsars generated anything remotely like them, and there weren’t any of those for better than sixty parsecs. Not that a pulsar would generate waves this small and discrete.

Nadine puzzled over them for a moment, then glanced at the deployment charts. The HMS Hood was the only ship within real-time communications range, but that was just fine. She needed a word with one of the few people in her squadron who had a good handle on jump research and, by extension, the basics of how the alien technology works.

A flick of her finger opened the line to the Hood, directly patched into the command channel.

“Admiral, what can I do for you?”

“Is the captain available, Commander Leary?”

“One moment, ma’am.”

Nadine returned her focus to the data until Jane Mackay’s face appeared on the comm display.

“Admiral, you wanted me?”

“Yes, Captain, I sent you some intel from the accelerometer network that I’m trying to figure out,” she told the captain of the Hood. “I’m all but certain that it’s enemy action, Jane. I need you to tell me what kind.”

“Yes, ma’am, I’ll get back to you as quickly as I can.”

“Thank you,” Nadine said, nodding curtly as the screen blanked and she was left alone with her work again.

I could almost forget we’re fighting a war sometimes,
she mused as she pored over the data, her mind already treating it like a scientific puzzle.
Hopefully I’ll be able to get back to doing this full time again soon. Tactical maneuvers are an occasionally interesting distraction, but I joined Solari to study the universe, not kill those who live in it.

*****

Hayden Jungle

Sorilla’s legs pumped as she ran through the thick jungle. She had a zero on her target now and wasn’t worrying about him hearing her. The alien had moved faster than she expected, getting far enough ahead that she was worried he might be a threat to Jerry.

How did he get that far ahead of me?

“Watch your ass, Reed,” she called as she ran. “Number two got away from me, and he’s coming up on your six. I’m closing in fast.”

The pulse message went out a second after she finished speaking, but she didn’t pay any attention to the confirmation chime. Either he got it or he didn’t, she had something more pressing to worry about.

His reply was a simple tone signal, sent by holding down the transmit button on his comm. She smiled, glad to know that he hadn’t forgotten what she had taught him.

Good boy, Jer. Stay quiet, go to ground. I’m coming.

She shouldered through a thick tangle of branches, planted her foot on a half-buried boulder, and vaulted up to a crook in the trunk of a nearby tree. Halting herself with one hand, Sorilla scanned the area ahead quickly, sweeping her rifle across the jungle without seeing anything out of the ordinary.

Growling, she kicked off the tree and landed on a clearer spot ahead, legs pumping without hesitation.

He’s got to be just ahead.

*****

Kris checked the location of his forward scout again, signaling his men to converge. He had to time this right, and that was going to be the trickiest part of the operation. If he closed too quickly, they’d alert the quarry to their presence and maybe let him get away. Too late, and the Lucian they had playing the bait role would wind up the way more bait does in the end.

Chewed up, spit out.

With every Lucian available closing on the area, Kris was certain that this was the end for the pair of alien soldiers he was currently focused on. He dearly wanted a close look at the alien Sentinel, and a chance to pick their armor and equipment apart, so he wasn’t going to let this chance escape.

They didn’t have time to completely envelop the enemy, however. The best he’d been able to do was get his Sentinels to close in a semi-circle as they moved.

“Stand prepared,” he signaled. “The enemy is in motion. Close only on my signal.”

His Lucians replied with their confirmations, everyone almost literally leaning in the direction of the enemy as they waited for the order.

Just lead him in a little closer, Yir. Just a little closer.

*****

God damn it! Just a little closer…
Sorilla thumbed the power setting on her rifle to full.
Screw stealth. If this prick hasn’t reported in on his location, they’re too damn stupid to be a threat anyway. Seriously, how the hell did he move this fast?

It was like the soldier she was chasing had just completely given up on any sense of stealth, which didn’t make any frigging sense at all. She had run through snapped branches, stones and dirt torn up and sent scattering, no attempt at staying hidden. It would make sense if he were running from her, but it couldn’t be chance that he decided to run straight at Jerry either.

Hostage gambit?

It didn’t seem likely, not after their experience with the Goulies, but anything was possible when dealing with aliens.

She ran faster.

When she exploded out of the jungle foliage, spotting the alien ahead of her, she was momentarily puzzled by the fact that he didn’t seem to be looking for Jerry. He was standing in place, facing her instead of looking to where she knew Jerry was.

She didn’t have time to puzzle that out, however, as she brought her weapon up to level it at the target. The whole motion took a little under a quarter of second from where she had spotted him to where she leveled the weapon, and yet before she could stroke the trigger, a sharp call with the distinct air of command tore through the air.

“Sarge! Hit the dirt!”

Sorilla’s arms flicked up to see Jerry standing beyond the alien, on a rise in the terrain, with his rifle to his shoulder. She was already dropping, her knees buckling on instinct as she entrusted her fate to her comrade.

The M900 roared, bucking against Jerry’s shoulder with enough force to make him grimace and stumble back. The big gun wasn’t meant to be fired from standing position, and on full power, as he seemed to have it set, it could break a collarbone in the uninitiated.

Time slowed, she hit her knees, sliding as she leaned back and risked a glance behind her. The shockwave of the heavy sniper round tearing through the air above her was easily visible in her HUD, and she just followed it back to where another of the grey aliens was seemingly floating in midair, greyish liquid fountaining from his back as he flew back into the jungle.

Then it all snapped back to real time and Sorilla continued to slide toward the alien she had been targeting. Her momentum was going to bring her right past him, so she shifted enough to bring one leg out from under her as she reached him and snapped out with a kick between his legs.

It didn’t matter if he kept his genitals in the same place as humans, not with as hard as she struck him. Any creature of flesh and blood was going to feel that pain, and she felt something crackle under her boot as he was lifted clear off the ground. Before she slid to a stop, however, Sorilla managed to bring her rifle to bear and stroked off a three-round burst that lit the air on fire as the bullets perforated the poor bastard vertically through his body.

She rolled to one side as he hit the ground beside her. Sorilla took a moment to roll back before she started looking for targets, resting her rifle on the alien body as she used the corpse as cover.

Ambush! Fuck!

The jungle
crawled
, and even before she consciously had time to realize it, the world exploded around her.

*****

HMS Hood

Jane MacKay had been a jump drive specialist long before she took officer training and started climbing the ranks. Her first love had been gravity research, answering some of the nearly impossible questions that seemed to inexorably orbit one of the most common forces humans ever experienced. There were so many unanswered questions, even to this day, about gravitational forces that she’d once thought she would go mad just trying to get to them all.

Thankfully, she grew out of that obsessive phase, at least to a degree, otherwise she’d not have had half the chances she enjoyed throughout her career. Still, in the back of her mind, that awkward teenage girl was still giddily poring over reams of numbers that made little sense, even to her.

This time, however, she felt a chill run down her spine as the numbers crystalized in her mind’s eye and for a brief moment in time…it all made sense.

McKay lunged for her command station, swinging into position as she pulled the five-point harness down and plugged her acceleration suit into the ship’s hydraulics.

“All hands, all hands, this is the captain speaking,” she called over the ship-wide. “Stand by for full military acceleration. I say again, standby for
full
military acceleration. Secure all loose items and assume your stations, we are about to engage the main drive.”

The echoes of that announcement were still fading as she turned to her helmsman. “I want a best-time solution to bring us back to Hayden orbit, ASAP.”

“Yes, ma’am!”

“Captain…what’s going—?”

She held up a hand, cutting off her first officer in mid-question, opting to open a channel back to the Cheyenne.

“Captain Roberts, Captain MacKay. I have intel for you. Advise you go to general quarters and plot for Hayden orbit before reading.”

Roberts didn’t answer, but she could see the USS Cheyenne’s telemetry go from green to yellow across the board. When that was done, he came on the channel.