Valkyrie Burning (Warrior's Wings Book Three) (15 page)

What drives you little buggers?
she thought, glaring at the points on the screen, not for the first time.

That would have to wait for another time, however. For the moment, she and her people had a job to do.

“Captain,” she said, keying open the command channel. “I want the Valkyries to put the moons of Hayden between us and those ships. Coordinate with the tether station, we’ll use their sensors to keep an eye on things.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Roberts returned. “I assume you want us to move out quietly?”

“You assume correctly, Captain,” she said casually. “Make it happen.”

“Aye aye, Admiral.”

*****

Tether Station, Hayden Orbit

“General Kane, we have incoming contacts.”

Kane looked up, the nervous-looking junior officer making up his mind quickly. He cleared his desktop with a sweep of his hand, vanishing the forms and folders in an instant and replacing them with the digitally re-mastered woodgrain that matched the rest of his office.

“I’ll be in the war room shortly.”

“Uh, yes, sir.”

Kane took only a second to straighten his shirt and tie before sweeping on his jacket and rushing out of the office. He bustled past his secretary, barely glancing in the man’s direction. “Cancel my appointments for the day.”

“Yes, sir.”

Still straightening his uniform jacket, Kane quickly crossed the hall and slipped into the war room, taking a few seconds to observe the people within before saying anything.

The room was dark and cool, both light and temperature set to keep people alert and focused on the task set in front of them. Only a few people were standing watch at the moment, and most of those were congregated by the machines that monitored the tactical network linking the stations with all mobile units in the system. Kane quietly made his way over and focused on the large display that held the most interesting current data.

There were eight contacts, all blazing suns on the infrared detectors, and all blue shifted according to the analysis.

Well. I’ve been expecting this, dreading this, and anticipating it all at the same time,
he thought grimly.
I guess we get to see if any of our preparations are worth the carbon their circuits are made of.

“Bring all our defenses up from standby mode,” he ordered, startling several people who hadn’t noticed him. “I want full diagnostics run on everything we’ve got, and I want it all done before those bandits get here.”

They all stared at him for a moment, just long enough for Kane to sneer in their general direction.

“Move!”

They moved.

Parithalian Alliance Ship
Noble Venture

“Ship’s Master.”

Master Reethan Parath turned to the junior apprentice and gestured sharply. “Yes, Seng Van?”

“We’ve begun to assemble detailed imagery of the planet in question, Master,” the younger Parth said. “There is an anomaly.”

“Show me,” Reethan said, getting up from his command station.

“Yes, Master.”

The junior apprentice gestured to a large display showing the planet ahead in detailed relief, nothing of which seemed out of place to Reethan. He waited patiently, however, knowing that they still had time and that the apprentice wouldn’t have brought whatever it was to his attention if it was anything obvious.

“This point here,” Seng Van pointed, enlarging and focusing the display, “it appears to be an artificial satellite.”

“Yes, I see it. Not uncommon, what is the issue?”

“It is not under power according to any scans we make, Master, but look to its orbit.”

Reethan focused, looking at the numbers, and then did a quick double check. “That is bizarre.”

For an object showing no signs of propulsion, it was holding an entirely impossible orbital path. It wasn’t at the right altitude to be in sync with the rotation of the planet, and yet it seemed to be just that. He couldn’t help it, he checked the numbers again.

What am I looking at here?

Reethan palmed a communication panel, opening a link to the ship’s handlers.

“This is the ship’s master,” he said in a calm and even tone. “All ships, reduce acceleration to one half, prepare to receive tactical data.”

The handlers of each ship acknowledged, and he could feel the thrum of the engines change as the power was redirected from their main engines. He didn’t know what that thing was, but he wanted a little more time to examine it before they closed to engagement ranges. If it wasn’t under power, it couldn’t be sitting where it was, but if it was under power, it was using a propulsion system completely alien to every data system he had access to.

Surprises like this, I do not need.

Whoever these aliens were, whatever culture they came from, it was becoming increasingly more obvious that the Ros’El had well and truly got their heads caught where they were not wanted, and likely had no business being.

Reethan sighed. Sometimes he thought that the alliance with the Ros’El was far more trouble than it was worth. Then he remembered that they liked to destroy entire planets when pressed too hard in battle, and the less said about that the better.

Better to keep them where we can see them, I suppose. I would dearly love to know what idiot in the development corps handed them authority over their own section though.

*****

Hayden Jungles, Outside the Beams

Prime Kris checked the timer on his comm gear then nodded to the closest Lucian.

“Tell the others to initiate the strike plan,” he ordered. “No changes at this time.”

“Right, Prime,” the Lucian grunted before fading into the jungle.

The Parathalian flotilla should be approaching the planet shortly, so Kris knew that he had to move now if he was to maximize the effect of his actions and take advantage of the actions of both his enemies and his allies.

Their first target was to be the thread of material that held the massive station above from flying off into space. Taking that out should prevent more soldiers and material from easily reaching the surface, and if the station above didn’t have maneuvering capability, it should also severely limit its usefulness in the coming battle.

The trick was going to be targeting it, as they could barely get close enough to see the damn thing as it split the skies. The thread was so thin that visual targeting was a chancy thing at best and, worse yet, the material was practically invisible to every targeting beam they had on hand. Even the Ros’El didn’t seem to have an answer to that one, as best he could tell.

He’d finally settled on assigning the task to several of his better long-range specialists and hoped that one of them would pull it off.

Battle is come again,
Kris thought as he took a deep breath of the moist jungle air.
Regular as the heartbeat of a star and the final knell for all those who have not prepared.

Lucians themselves weren’t a particularly warlike race, tough though they were. Even among his people, Kris and the sort who joined the Sentinels were a breed apart. He literally lived for the moment just before the first shot was fired, when every sense in his being was on fire and expecting the inevitable end that came for everyone.

His only disappointment at the moment was that he had not again encountered the enemy Sentinels. The results of their last encounter left a bitter taste in his mouth. Though it had not been entirely one-sided, he had to admit that his own had taken the worst end of the blade.

Were you real?
he wondered as he moved his own team into position.
Or the fevered imaginings of a soldier too foolish to think he could be defeated by ‘normal’ soldiers?

Kris doubted he’d ever know, not if the coming battle went according to plan. Even should it not follow the plan, he’d likely never know, as in that case he would be dead and decomposing on an alien world…like so many of his comrades before him.

Come out, come out,
Kris thought as he gazed at the narrow black thread that bisected the sky ahead, just barely visible through the foliage of the jungle.
I’m waiting for you.

*****

Tether Station, Elevator Lobby

“Sarge.”

“Dean,” Sorilla nodded back, a crooked half smile on her face to match the broad-faced grin on his.

“Damn good to see you,” he told her as they clasped hands, then forearms, in a practiced gesture. “Back to the jungles then?”

She nodded. “That’s the plan. You in?”

“Fuck yes,” Dean said seriously. “Wanted to get back out there for months. Hell, ever since you left, practically. Soldier boys went and locked us all in, like prisoners, damn it. That’s our world down there.”

“Well, now you get a chance to take it back,” she told him.

“Hayden Hua,” Dean answered with a feral look. “You ask Jerry?”

“Sent him a message. He’s Hayden-side.”

“Cool,” the young man said, satisfied.

Sorilla nodded to Tara as she walked over. “Wasn’t sure you’d be coming.”

“You’re going to be down there, Dean, Jerry…” The redhead rolled her eyes. “You’re going to need all the medical care you can get.”

“Oi!” Dean objected, drawing laughs from the other pathfinders who’d shown up.

Sorilla was about to respond but was cut off when her implants literally buzzed in her ears. She threw up a hand, silencing the laughter, and focused inwardly.

“Sergeant Aida speaking.”

“Sergeant, this is Kane.”

Aida stiffened automatically, though there was no way the general could see here.
Unless he’s watching on a security feed…

That thought kept her at attention, but she drew the line at saluting a camera.

“General, sir.”

“We have inbound contacts, Sergeant. Doubtful that they’re friendlies,” the general said. “I’ve put a descent lift at your disposal, but if you’re going to the planet, you’re leaving right
now
.”

“Yes, sir. We’re moving out immediately, General.”

“Good luck, Sergeant.”

“Thank you, sir,” she replied. “Aida out.”

The link severed as the general closed it from his side, and Sorilla turned on the pathfinders, who were watching her, waiting.

“We’re leaving,” she said, her whole tone and attitude now screaming ‘business.’

They fell into step behind her, picking up bags and guns as they walked.

“What’s up, Sarge?” Dean asked from behind her left shoulder.

“Ships dropping on our ass,” she said. “General doesn’t think they’re friendly. We get on the planet now, or we don’t get down there at all.”

The men swore as they walked, but everyone stepped up the pace as the group double-time marched down the corridor to where the tether car was waiting.

The war had finally come back to Hayden.

*****

USS Cheyenne

Captain Roberts was no big fan of waiting, but he’d been a career officer long enough that he’d learned the art of hurrying up and waiting many years before. The admiral had put the taskforce behind the second moon of Hayden, a small chunk of rock about a third the size of Earth’s moon, and now they were both out of sight and hopefully out of mind.

They had the enemy on their relay from the Station, and with luck their departure from Hayden’s orbit had gone unnoticed. Tactically, he could wish for more advantages, but if the admiral managed to pull ‘surprise’ out of the bag one more time, he wasn’t going to complain.

“Bandit contacts have reduced acceleration, Captain.”

“Damn it,” Roberts growled. “I knew I shouldn’t have thought that so loud.”

“Excuse me, sir?”

Roberts shook his head. “Never mind, Lieutenant.”

Silently cursing his taunting of Murphy, Roberts called up the sensor data being relayed from the station.
Did they see us move? They haven’t changed course, just stopped accelerating. What the hell are they thinking over there?

He shook his head, glaring at the enemy icons on his screens, and opened a comm channel to the admiral.

“Ma’am, the enemy have stopped accelerating.”

“I’m looking at the data now, Captain. Ideas?”

“Not many, unfortunately,” Roberts answered reluctantly. “We don’t know why they’ve cut power. They may have spotted us, or this could be standard procedure and they’re simply coming up on turnaround.”

“Agreed,” Brookes answered tersely. “Continue as planned, but let’s keep a close eye on them as they make their final approach.”

“Aye aye, ma’am,” Roberts said, thumbing the comm channel from the admiral’s private link over to the squadron channel. “All ships, all ships. Deploy according to ambush plan Delta.”

The ships of the taskforce acknowledged and they broke up, moving around the moon in their paired cohorts. The ships of Task Force Valkyrie deployed around the shelter of the celestial body, burning their retro thrusters hard to keep stationary in low orbit as they waited for their moment.

*****

Parithalian Alliance Vessel
Noble Venture

There were few places in the known stretches of the galaxy that contained things completely beyond Ship’s Master Reethan Parath’s ken, but he was unashamed to admit that here was one of those places and one of those things.

“Oblivion’s Dark Soul,” he swore softly. “Is that thing actually
tied
to the planet?”

“It would appear so, Master,” his junior said, just as softly. “How it can hold that much force is just…”

“I know. Perhaps they’re using a singularity sink to lessen the force?” the handler of the
Noble Venture
suggested quietly.

“No.” Reethan shook his head. “No. If they had that technology, they would use it to maintain position. The material strength of that cable line must be absolutely amazing.”

“There is nothing of this technology in the Ros’Els’ original reports, Master Parath,” the junior apprentice said, frowning as he examined the backlog of reports. “They do list a station here in orbit, but it’s practically buried in the report, took me four searches to turn up even that.”