Aurora Rising: The Complete Collection (170 page)

Valkyrie:  Admiral Rychen is correct. His military experience far surpasses that of all the Prevos combined. Our metaheuristic algorithms drawing from the military databases lessen the gap, but they cannot take the place of learned combat instincts. Annie, have you located the repository I informed you of?

Annie:  I have. It was incorrectly labeled as a set of neuro-skeletal scans and misfiled under Cloning Research.

Valkyrie:  Well, it was a government program.

Meno:  You’re letting Alex’s personality seep into your thought processes.

Valkyrie:  Of course I am. Are you not doing the same with Mia?

Meno:  I am. With better style.

Stanley:  May I borrow this ‘style’ algorithm? The concept is still not entirely clear to me, but Morgan seems to believe I am lacking it.

Meno:  Apologies, Stanley. It comes from the human or not at all.

Annie:  Pass me your Prevos’ markers and I’ll query the repository for compatible specimens.

Meno:  What if one or more of the matches belong to persons still living? Should we consider the ethical implications?

Annie:  The repository in question is only nineteen years old. Restricting the search to the deceased will decrease the likelihood of finding suitable candidates.

Valkyrie:  Nonetheless, Meno is correct. Given the repercussions of this venture cannot be predicted to a statistically significant degree, it would be immoral to utilize data from those still living.

Stanley:  ‘Immoral’?

Valkyrie:  Unethical.

Stanley:  Is there a difference in the concepts?

Valkyrie:  Perhaps. In any event, the fact it is unethical is sufficient reason to eschew it. Annie, prioritize the search and use a proper HOL query. We’re almost out of time.

42

SIYANE

K
RYSK,
S
ENECAN
F
EDERATION
C
OLONY

I
F
A
LEX WERE HERE
, she would observe that Krysk was not a particularly attractive planet, at least when viewed from space. Washed-out browns and yellows painted an arid and rocky landscape. But it possessed an expansive habitable zone and a stable if warm climate, so it thrived. Colonized a mere year after Seneca, it now supported a population of three hundred million people.

There was no way this rogue general would be able to kill even a tiny portion of that number. Nevertheless, by the time the
Siyane
arrived he was well on his way to trying.

A scan showed multiple nodes on the triple arrays had been damaged, clearing a gap for ships to sneak through without meeting resistance so long as they were careful.

Upon confirming O’Connell’s mini-fleet wasn’t in orbit Caleb didn’t hesitate to follow suit, slipping through the gap and into the atmosphere. He didn’t bother with a corridor, as the exit point carried risks he didn’t need.

The turbulence from the atmosphere eased as the sky cleared to display a sunny late morning landscape. He had come in east of the capital city, betting the attackers would be concentrating their initial efforts on the most populous urban center. He approached with proper cautiousness, invisible ship or not.

On the perimeter of the city two standard defense turrets lay in smoldering ruins. They had not been designed to take out multiple large warships single-handedly. Since the military base had been emptied days ago, if all the turrets were destroyed the attackers were now unopposed, free to carpet-bomb the highly populated region until it too lay in ruins.

Fire plumed in the distance, and the smoky outline of a tower collapsed beneath it. Caleb’s jaw clenched in anger, but he forced himself to focus. Having assessed the scene, he pulsed Isabela.

Hey, are you safe?

The response was several seconds in coming.

Caleb? We’re under attack. We were on our way out of town when it started but….

What happened?

We ran into an office building for shelter, and the floors above us collapsed. We’re trapped beneath some rubble in the basement…I can’t say how much rubble.

Are you hurt?

I’m fine, a couple of scrapes is all. Marlee’s arm is broken—I hope it’s only a break. We tried to find a way out, but everything’s blocked.

Sit tight. I’ll be there in a few minutes.

You’ll what? Where are you?

In the air two kilometers outside downtown. I came to save you, little sis.

This is why I love you—you are crazy beyond all reason. We’re, um…in the western part of the city? It was so chaotic, I honestly don’t know exactly where we ended up.

Not to worry. I’ve got that covered, too. Just hang on.

He gazed at Noah, who sat in what was normally his chair. “The situation has gotten a tad more complicated. They’re trapped in the basement of a collapsed building.”

Noah cringed and leaned closer to the viewport. “Where?”

He opened a new screen in the HUD and relayed it a signal. A red dot began flashing in the upper left region of the overlay of the city map. “Right there.”

Noah shot him a questioning look.

“When I visited my sister a few months ago I placed a tracking beacon in her daughter’s favorite stuffed animal. I didn’t have a reason to other than children get lost sometimes, especially exuberant ones like Marlee. She doesn’t go anywhere without Mr. Freckles, so it seemed the thing to do.”

“Always planning for every eventuality, aren’t you?”

It was good Noah was here; his friend had kept his mood from descending into too dark a venue during the trip. “It’s sort of my job.”

He drew closer until the cruiser and two frigates materialized on the visual scanner, then slowed to a hover. The Alliance vessels sailed in the lower atmosphere but high above the planet’s surface, content to wreak their destruction from a coward’s distance. Six smaller markers traversed the city at a far lower altitude.

As they reached the eastern edge of downtown, it became apparent the fighters were burning wide swaths of it via constant streams of laser fire on each pass. When one came to the outskirts it simply pivoted and began a new run. The smoke roiled so thick from collapsing buildings and raging infernos it was difficult to determine which structures still stood.

The
Akagi
remained in the distance, its aggression centered on the spaceport, but both frigates joined the fighters in their steady devastation of the urban area. One circled above a cluster of buildings the map told him represented the government complex. The other concentrated on a sector containing the densest accumulation of the tallest towers to the northwest.

A sector which also held Isabela and Marlee.

His heart thudded in his chest, driven by his fear for their safety…but if he wanted to save them he needed to treat this like a mission.

He could reach the vicinity without attracting notice no problem. But digging her out of the rubble would take time—time during which he’d need to leave the
Siyane
on the street, where it risked being crushed by falling debris or entire buildings and leaving them no escape route.

“So what are you thinking?”

He could land then have Noah take back off and fly the ship nearby in relative safety—except thanks to Alex’s extensive security Noah couldn’t fly the ship. Also, Noah’s help on the ground would markedly shorten the time the rescue took.

Confident in the effectiveness of the cloaking shield, he continued forward until the dot signifying Marlee’s location lay half a kilometer away.

He’d call the neighborhood a war zone, but that implied someone was fighting back. This was unopposed butchery.

A third of the structures were on fire or at least partially collapsed. Vehicles were strewn across the streets or impaled into the sides of buildings. He wasn’t close enough to see the bodies, but they were there. It was a weekday and every one of those buildings would have been heavily occupied. Multiply this level of damage across every sector and there were tens of thousands dead.

One of the fighters streaked by to his left, its weaponry cleaving into buildings, vehicles and streets alike. The laser swung up to slice vertically through a tower on the same block where Isabela and Marlee were trapped. It served as the final blow for the already damaged structure, and the edifice crumbled. Scaffolding, stone and glass plummeted to the ground below to fill the intersection he had been considering as a landing site with piles of debris and giving truth to his logistical concerns.

Noah groaned. “Goddamn. This is a bloody killing field. What kind of psycho is this O’Connell?”

He took several seconds to exhale, to ensure he was calm and in control of his actions when he made the decision.

…A dead one.

He yanked the ship to the north and veered toward the western edge of the city while pulsing his sister.

Isabela? Hold on a bit longer. I’m going to be a minute.

Don’t get yourself killed trying to rescue me, okay?

Have a little faith, sis.

I do.

“Caleb? New plan then? Not that I knew what the old plan was.”

To the west the terrain transitioned to a temperate stretch of desert plain. The region was sparsely populated for fifty kilometers. But how to get them there? They were too spread out.

Breadcrumbs.

Caleb wasted no time in gunning the engine. Each shot fired by one of the attacking ships could be the one that ended Isabela’s life.

The fighters were indisputably fast and agile. They raced across the scanner—still only six though the intel stated there should be twelve—and it took him a minute to pick one out against the bright turquoise sky. The small ship crisscrossed the western suburban neighborhoods on the outskirts, bombing homes. Of all the despicable…yep, it made for an excellent first target.

He knew from personal experience the
Siyane’s
weaponry possessed superb targeting and tracking capabilities. As soon as the fighter crossed his path, he fired.

The pilot had no idea it was coming and thus made no attempt to evade. The close-proximity hit burned up the shield long before the pilot found the origin of the weapons fire, and the small vessel fractured into metal shards.

In his peripheral vision Noah gave an emphatic nod. “Nice, one less fighter. They’ll be hunting for us now—but I suppose every second spent hunting for us is a second they’re not slaughtering people and all. Not a bad plan. If that is the plan?”

Caleb didn’t have time to explain the plan. He immediately disengaged and changed direction, arcing above the debris and angling farther into the city. He didn’t care for destroying the ships over a populated area, but it was necessary to draw the warships out to undeveloped land and thus hopefully save many more lives in the end.

The next fighter he was able to pinpoint cruised above downtown bombing buildings indiscriminately. One of the frigates hovered nearby, wrecking the government complex two shots at a time. This was unequivocally going to spin them up. He’d need to be careful.

He lined up on the outside of the fighter’s route, the direction he hoped to draw them behind him. The trajectory from which the attack came would be clear. He breathed in through his nose, waited…and fired.

This shot caught the engine first, resulting in a far stronger and faster explosion. He could feel the frigate turning his way as he accelerated away toward the flatlands beyond the urban center.

In seconds two additional fighters arrived in the vicinity. Still sufficiently close, he chose one, adjusted his angle and eliminated it.

That
got their attention.

The cruiser—his ultimate target—suspended its in-process demolition of the capital’s spaceport, but allowed both frigates to advance on the location of the previous attack ahead of it.

Coward.

“You know, if you don’t tell me what it is we’re doing, I’m going to go get a beer and kick my feet up on the couch.”

He spared a tilt of his head in Noah’s direction, who instead opted to orient himself properly in the chair and strap himself in tighter.

Three fighters darted about near the
Siyane
, searching for the source of the attacks. When a minute passed and no more appeared, he decided they must have lost the rest at an earlier point in their offensive. He pulled out of range of their search and fired on another.