Ep.#9 - "Resistance" (27 page)

“Why?”

“We hoped that if the Jung felt our defensive position might soften, they would delay their invasion a few years in order to allow us to weaken while they moved more ships into position.”

“But the jump drive…”

“Was being developed in secret,” the president said. “Our hope was to complete the STS drive, or ‘jump’ drive as you call it, and get it installed in both the Aurora
and
the Celestia. We figured two such ships would give us an overwhelming advantage over nearly anything the Jung could send our way.”

“Again, why you?”

“Galiardi felt I was the most electable candidate at the time. Since the population was pretty evenly split over the issue, if I ran on a platform supporting peaceful negotiations with the Jung, it would appear more convincing, thus buying us the time we needed to develop the drive.”

“Is that how Nathan ended up on the Aurora at the last minute? Did you have him transferred there?”

“I had my son Eli contact someone at EDF command to request that Nathan be reassigned to a safer posting, but I never asked for him to be transferred to the Aurora.”

“I didn’t even know Nathan had a brother,” Jessica admitted. “I thought he only had sisters.”

“Eli is my oldest child. Nathan is my youngest. They are fifteen years apart in age, and they never really got along.”

“Where is Eli now?” Jessica asked, realizing the president had referred to him in the present tense.

The president hung his head for a moment, staring at the concrete floor. His eyes rose to meet Jessica’s. “The Jung have appointed him ‘Governor of Earth.’”

“You’re kidding?” Jessica said.

“I wish I were.”

“You think he might have been…”

“Working for the Jung all along?” the president finished for her. “As a father, I find it difficult to accept, but I have to admit, it would answer a lot of questions.”

Jessica sighed, leaning back in her chair. “I always suspected that someone sold us out.” She shook her head in disgust. “This is going to mess with Nathan’s head, sir.”

“More so than you might imagine. Eli always wanted to follow in my footsteps, to serve in public office. Trouble was, he didn’t have the personality that gets one elected. Nathan did. I believe this is the main reason they never got along.”

“Does Eli even know about the jump drive project?”

“I never told him about the STS project, but I suppose it is possible. Eli served as my personal assistant for more than a decade. When I was elected president, he became my chief of staff.”

Jessica shook her head. “What about the rest of your family?”

“My wife’s shuttle went down in the forests outside Winnipeg during the invasion. She did not survive. My daughters were all picked up by NAU security and taken to secure locations, but I have not heard from any of them since the invasion.”

“Why not?”

“I’m sure they think I’m dead. An attempt was made on my life on the day of the invasion… by a member of my protective detail. We allowed reports of my death to be leaked to the Jung early on.”

“Do you think the assassin was part of Buckeye?”

“I don’t believe so,” the president said, pulling a small, flat container from his shirt pocket. “I was issued this suicide capsule years ago, as were Galiardi and Yamori.”

“Yeah, but I’m sure the admiral would have a backup plan in case you failed to use it.”

“That occurred to me as well; however, my chief of security, who is spec-ops trained as well, felt that spec-ops would use a team, not a lone gunman, especially on a high-priority target.”

“He’s right about that,” Jessica agreed. “So you think the shooter was a Jung plant?”

“Most likely, yes.”

Jessica looked at the president for a moment. “Pardon me, sir, but why are you telling me all this?”

“I believe it is important that someone besides me understands the situation, the ‘big picture’ so to speak—someone on your side of the situation.”

“Then you want me to share all of this with Nathan?”

“Yes and no. I think it would be best if he did not know about Eli or that I am still alive.”

“Why?”

“Despite our differences, I know Nathan to be a fiercely loyal individual. I do not want him risking himself or what few resources he may have in an attempt to rescue me or any other member of our family.”

“You’re right about Nathan. He is loyal, but he’s not stupid. He knows what’s at stake, and I’ve seen him make the hard call more than once since he assumed command.”

The president smiled. “I am not surprised. Nevertheless, no purpose is served by giving him the extra emotional burden that information creates.”

“So I get to be the one that doesn’t tell him? Thanks… sir.”

“The day may come when someone needs to fill in the missing pieces,” the president explained. “I am trusting you to be that person.” The president sighed. “I’m afraid I have strayed from my original topic, which is that the Celestia is now at greater risk of discovery. We must somehow get word to the Aurora.”

“My first contact window isn’t for another two days,” Jessica said. “Is there any way for us to get a message to the Celestia?”

“No. She was ordered to go cold after touchdown. I was told that the only way to make contact with her was directly.”

“Directly?”

“Someone has to go
to
the Celestia to make contact. More importantly, someone needs to retrieve the data cores and get them to a more secure location.”

“I think I know a safe place to store those cores,” Jessica answered, a mischievous look on her face.

* * *

Two alternating tones sounded in Lieutenant Telles’s helmet comms. His eyes snapped open in response and darted back and forth as he sized up his situation. He reached up to his visor and tapped the corner, activating the display system on the visor’s inner surface. The inside of his visor immediately became opaque, blocking out the external view completely. A moment later, it was replaced with images generated by the combat suit’s low-light imaging systems. He could now see the fifth moon in the distance ahead of them. He checked his approach data along the left side of the visor. His closure rate and approach angle were perfect. He had less than a minute to touchdown. He had no way of knowing the status of the rest of his team, as they were all operating under strict emission control protocols.

The lieutenant fired tiny bursts of his cold-jet maneuvering system, pitching his body back ninety degrees so he would be approaching the surface of Tanna’s fifth moon feet first. He looked at his display again. He had thirty seconds to impact.

The lieutenant began firing small bursts of his deceleration thrusters, gradually decreasing his closure rate on the tiny moon. His instinct was to burn the thruster at full power until his closure rate became almost nothing, but even cold jets could be detected at full power, especially at close range. He only needed to slow his closure rate enough so that his combat suit’s exoskeleton could withstand the force of impact without becoming incapacitated in the process.

He continued firing tiny bursts, bringing his blinking red closure rate lower and lower until, finally, the readout began to blink yellow. He now had fifteen seconds to touchdown. He fired three more short bursts, finally bringing his closure rate readout down enough that it turned an unblinking green.

Five seconds were left until touchdown. The lieutenant bent his knees slightly and fired one last burst as the countdown passed two seconds. His feet touched the surface, and his remaining forward momentum caused him to take several steps forward before he managed to come to a complete stop. Now on the surface, his suit began to automatically fire even more minuscule bursts of cold propellant in order to hold him against the surface of the tiny moon that had almost no gravity of its own. Without the jets, a single jump would propel him to the moon’s escape velocity, sending him floating off into space.

He tapped his visor once more, deactivating the suit’s optical low-light imaging systems. There was enough light on the surface for him to see clearly. He turned three hundred and sixty degrees, counting his men around him. All ten of them had arrived safely.

A wave of pride and relief swept over him as he raised his arm over his head and placed his palm on top of his helmet. Again, he rotated around, checking that each man returned his ‘okay’ signal in the same fashion. Satisfied that his team was ready for action, he motioned for them to proceed forward and began a careful approach along the surface of the tiny moon toward the launch tube openings from the fighter base within the moon.

* * *

“Jump complete,” Mister Riley reported from the Aurora’s navigation console.

“Position confirmed,” Mister Navashee added. “We are in orbit over Tanna. Daylight terminator in seventeen minutes, twenty-eight seconds.”

“Deploy jumpers,” Nathan ordered.

Ten Ghatazhak warriors, dressed in combat pressure suits and specialized space-jump gear, jumped in pairs out of the Aurora’s starboard cargo airlock and began drifting toward the planet below. They drifted for nearly a minute before using their maneuvering jets to adjust their attitude in relation to the planet below. Finally, they fired the deceleration thrusters mounted on their lower backs. After a minute-long burn, they once again rotated and pitched over so they were diving headfirst toward the dark planet. Only moments later, the tops of their heads began to heat up as they entered the steadily thickening atmosphere of Tanna.

“Jumpers have breached the upper atmosphere,” Mister Navashee reported from the sensor station on the bridge. “They’re starting to heat up.”

“How long until the jump shuttles arrive?”

“Ten seconds,” Mister Randeen reported from the tactical station directly behind Nathan’s command chair.

“Green deck,” Nathan announced. “Stand by to launch all fighters.”

* * *

The Jung guard sat in his watch tower overlooking the airfield outside. Two hundred Jung fighters were arranged in perfect rows along all four sides of the open tarmac, leaving a large open area in the center of the airfield for launches and touchdowns. From his position in the small, glass-enclosed booth, he could see along the back sides of the support buildings around the outside edge of the tarmac, as well as the other three guard towers on the other corners of the base.

His gaze alternated between the view outside, the many camera views displayed on his console, and the book he was reading on his data pad. It was only an hour before dawn, and soon, his relief would arrive and another long watch would end. It was a boring job for a soldier but a safe one at least.

A bright flash of blue-white light lit up the entire base for an instant, followed by a shock wave of suddenly displaced air that blew out the windows of the guard tower. The soldier was knocked backward onto the floor of the small room that was now open to the cold, morning air. He shook his head, sending drops of his own blood flinging about as he tried to regain his senses. He climbed to his feet again, feeling blood streaming down his face from multiple facial lacerations. He could hear the sounds of jet turbines coming from the middle of the airfield and warning sirens as they began to alert the base of danger.

The guard managed to stand, wiping the blood from his eyes. He looked out onto the airfield and saw a shuttle of some sort hovering seven meters above the tarmac. There were large, robotic-looking bodies jumping out of the rear cargo hatch of the shuttle as it hovered. One by one, they each landed with a thud, apparently not bothered by their hard landings. As they hit the ground, small mechanized cannons deployed from their backs, peered over their shoulders, and began firing bolts of red plasma energy into the nearby fighters, tearing them to pieces. As the robotic-looking bodies advanced, they pulled bulky, handheld weapons from attachment points on their thighs and started firing with them as well, sending orange streaks of energy toward any target they could find.

The guard struggled to reboot his weapons control console, which had been knocked offline by the shock wave, to fire the tower’s main guns. As he worked, he glanced back toward the tarmac and saw bolts of energy spewing out of the back of the shuttle as the ship rotated slowly. The bolts of energy struck one of the guard towers on the opposite side of the field first, then began tearing through the buildings along the edge of the base. The shuttle continued to rotate, its weapons fire finding the next guard tower as it turned.

Jung soldiers began pouring out of the back sides of buildings, pulling on body armor as they ran around to move into position to attack the intruders.

The guard watched in frustration as his console failed to restart and automatically started the process over again. He looked out at the shuttle as it continued to rotate, now rising slowly while it continued tearing apart buildings and guard towers.

The guard screamed something in Jung at his malfunctioning weapons console as soldiers on the ground opened fire on the rising shuttle. The guard glanced to his left and saw the path of destruction being dealt by the weapon in the rear of the shuttle move toward him. He looked to his right and saw that his access ladder—his only means of escape—had also been damaged by the shock wave and hung precariously off the side of the tower. He grabbed his rifle from the floor next to him and took aim, sending his own bolts of energy at the attacking ship.

It was too late. The energy bolts from the shuttle’s weapon struck his guard tower, blowing it apart. The guard felt himself being picked up and thrown backward into the air, tumbling as he flew. First the sky, then the ground, then his burning tower, then the sky again. Then he felt intense pain as he hit something and blacked out.

* * *

The inside of the Aurora’s newest jump shuttle—the one they referred to as the ‘super-jump shuttle’—momentarily filled with the blue-white light of their jump flash. The shuttle shook violently, and the thunderous clap of sudden air displacement sounded. The shuttle bounced for a moment as the pilot struggled to regain control after suddenly finding himself in atmospheric flight instead of coasting through the vacuum of space.

“
Fuck!
” the copilot screamed over the comm-set.

“
Scares the shit out of you, doesn’t it?
” the pilot said.

“
I think I bit my lip,
” the crew chief announced.

“
Are we there? Did we hit the mark?
” the pilot asked.

“
We’re there! We’re there! Slide her forward!
” the copilot instructed.

The leader of the ten-man Ghatazhak squad in the shuttle’s cargo bay smiled at the comm-chatter.

“
Jump! Jump! Jump!
” the crew chief called with a slight lisp as he nursed his injured lip.

The Ghatazhak ran out the back of the shuttle, jumping off its cargo ramp in pairs as the shuttle slid forward slightly to keep them from landing on top of one another.

The leader was the first off the cargo ramp of the shuttle. He leapt off the end of the ramp, his arms outward for balance as he fell the eight meters to the ground. His exoskeleton whined as it took the force of the impact for him when his boots hit the tarmac below. He immediately began barking instructions in Takaran to his combat suit’s weapons systems, causing his small mechanized cannons to deploy from either side of the top of his backpack. The cannons tipped over to face forward, pivoting in accordance with the suit’s targeting computer’s commands. As the shoulder cannons began firing, he reached down with both hands, grabbing the handheld energy weapons from each of his thighs and raising them to open fire.