Virtues of War (43 page)

Then, from the quiet grounds of the Astral College, a single trail of smoke rocketed upward and exploded among the outer, smaller machines. The swarm scattered, but several machines dropped like charred stones toward the water far below.

The Voice came through her Baryon link, still in Finnish.

“You say we’re fully loaded?”

“All the way down to emergency spares,” she confirmed. “Stop those bastards.”

“Roger that.”

A hail of fire burst forth from one section of the College grounds, and explosions ripped through the cloud of invaders. Some tumbled downward, but others broke off and closed the source of the fire even as the massed AARs launched missiles at the revealed Army position. Katja watched in grim despair as the College grounds were chewed up by enemy fire.

The thunder of the Centauri barrage ceased. The AARs hovered, holding position over the lake and watching as the swarm moved around them. Thick smoke hung over the cratered remains of the College playing fields. Katja could just make out the dim walls marking the school boundary, and she saw glimpses of the tortured shapes of the nearest buildings beyond.

Half the city was obscured by the smoke and ash billowing up from the lakeside destruction, the only significant wind caused by the movement of the invading swarm, and the AARs as they began to sail toward Astral Headquarters.

Katja tried to send a signal to Korolev. The interference in the Cloud was too great even for her to focus a thought, forcing her to retreat. She watched as one of the burning towers to her right crumbled on its foundations, collapsing in a new wave of destruction across the waterfront. She could hear distant sirens from the streets, but she sensed no coordinated effort. In every direction below her, civilians ran past abandoned cars and burning buildings.

Longreach was ablaze. Suddenly a new thought occurred.

How many other Terran cities are under attack?

From the College, the smoke was pierced by dozens of projectiles lancing upward. Each lance was splintered as the swarm machines countered with energy weapons that picked off the Army attack. The AARs turned almost lazily and dropped another deadly salvo of rockets into the burning maelstrom.

Katja pursed her lips in frustration. The Army were fighting back, but randomly. They couldn’t see their foes well enough, and they couldn’t communicate with one another. She looked beyond the billowing wall of smoke toward the space elevators. Her father and his apes were all that stood between Astral Headquarters and destruction. This was no time for inter-service rivalry.

She slipped into the Bulk, body turned toward the College. She pushed her suit to full speed in the twilight grayness of the fourth dimension, sighing with relief as her 3-D mapping program activated and gave her visual cues for the area. In her virtual view the College wall and buildings still stood proud, and no fire or smoke obscured her vision. She watched the flat image of the lake as it raced by beneath her, and sized up the best place to re-enter the brane once across.

The voice in her head was slow, almost robotic.

After a pause,

The simulated image of the lakeshore swept past beneath her feet, and she began to descend. She knew enough about graviton communication to know that it was slow. Her suit had to receive the stream of graviton waves in sequence, and then decode them. Extra words weren’t appreciated.

she said.

At least the orbital part of her plan was working. If they could close the jump gate it would cut off reinforcement. Now she could focus on stopping the Centauris already here.

Thomas slammed his fist down on the console in the empty lab. All the magnificent sensors in the galaxy didn’t help him if he couldn’t speak to Astral Command.

Armstrong
’s finely tuned gravimetric instruments had quickly pinpointed the dark-energy concentration in the middle of Longreach, but a complete failure of the communications network left him deaf and mute, other than the Special Forces link directly to Jack’s Hawk.

“Fucking comms are down, Sergeant,” he spat. “What am I going to do—run next door to tell
Bowen
where to fire?”

His only response was silence. He looked over his shoulder to where Chang had stood, not seconds before, then scanned quickly around the room. He was alone.

The air in front of him shimmered slightly, and a crackling whisper broke the silence. Amidst the shimmer he saw a tiny, distant image of Chang. He tried to focus on it but it grew larger—or closer—even as he blinked and tried to clear his vision. When he could finally see clearly, Chang stood before him.

“Show me the jump gate location, sir,” the man said through a transparent sheen over his face. Thomas pointed it out on his screen, highlighting the exact three-dimensional position.

“I’ve lost all comms, except with our Hawk.”

“You’ll lose that link soon, too.” Chang didn’t take his eyes off the screen. “Get the Hawk started on its run.”

There was no time for questions. He keyed the Special Forces link.

“Eagle-One, Apollo: stand-by for final attack coordinates.” He transmitted the last update from
Armstrong
’s passive sensors. “Confirm, go for strike?”

“
This is Eagle-One
,” Jack’s garbled voice responded. “
I am go for strike
.”

“Eagle-One, execute.”

“
Wilco
.”

With no active sensors to track the Hawk, Thomas could only trust that his young pilot knew what he was doing from here. He turned back to Chang.

“How do I talk to
Bowen
?”

Chang was still studying the screen. “I will, sir. There’s a Centauri invasion force near the Astral College—can you pinpoint them?”

Thomas stared at his display, which was set up for dark-energy detection over a standard map of Longreach. He thought quickly—what would the Centauri robots be emitting that was easy to track? He stabbed at his controls and overlaid infra-red on the screen. Red-hot plumes burst into view on three sides of the lake, massive regions of intense heat in stark contrast to the cool, dark water. He zoomed in on the south shore, noting the tiny dots of boats on the lake and a few swift cars fleeing along the streets.

There!
A formation of white-hot pinpricks moving southward past the College. He zoomed in further, and the formation was surrounded by a haze of heat tracers. Swarm defense around the heavies. Their initial target appeared to be Headquarters. He motioned to Chang.

“Here, the main attack units are probably AARs, judging from their altitude, and they’re guarded by swarm-bots.”

Chang nodded. “Roger, sir. Stand by.”

The sergeant stepped back. The same, weird, crackling whisper broke the air and he shrunk out of sight in a shimmer so subtle Thomas wouldn’t have seen it, had he not been looking right at it. He stared at the empty air for a long moment, then forced his eyes back to the screen.

The resolution of the Research sensor info was extraordinary. He wished
Rapier
had been kitted out like this.

Seconds later, the crackling whisper indicated Chang’s return—from wherever he’d gone.

“Sir, the Centauri are moving over a residential area. We’re going to try and get them over the College before opening fire.”

Thomas glanced back at the screen. The heat sources were already south of the College grounds. He turned back to Chang.

“And what if you can’t?”

“Then a lot of people are going to die.”

* * *

Katja paused in the silent grayness of the Bulk.

Korolev had said her life as an Operative wouldn’t be glamorous, but she hadn’t expected it to be so short. There was no time for thought, however. She had to act on instinct.

She exited the Bulk.

Her stomach churned as she fell to the ground, knees buckling on impact. She tumbled to the soft dirt and rolled, forcing her hands out to stop the movement. She slid several meters and came to rest on her back.

The sky was gray and close above her, and she realized she was in a freshly blown crater. She reached into the Cloud, straining against the chaos to find the Baryon network again. It took only seconds to see that it was useless—the jamming that had started in the military circuits had now spread to every network on Earth. She was going to have to find her father the old-fashioned way.

Scrambling to the lip of the crater, she looked out through the acrid clouds and just made out the dark-green shape of an Army troop carrier. She leapt to her feet and sprinted over the broken ground. Two soldiers watched from hunkered positions at the rear of the carrier, rifles trained on her. She ignored the weapons and crouched down to face them.

“Special Forces,” she said. “Where’s SBL Emmes?”

They stared at her in shock. Knowing that every second was crucial, she pushed the nearest rifle gently away from her and bypassed the young soldiers. The back of the carrier was open, more soldiers watching the skies and fields. Inside, a pair of medics worked efficiently on the wounded.

A woman stepped forward. “Who are you?”

Katja noticed her rank as storm leader—sort of like sergeant. “Special Forces. Where’s SBL Emmes?”

The storm leader pointed to the west. “Next carrier. What the fuck’s going on?”

“Centauri invasion. The ammo’s my treat.”

If the storm leader had anything else to say, Katja missed it as she sprinted once more over the broken ground, scanning through the clouds for the next troop carrier. She retracted her faceplate, and nearly gagged on the acrid stench of burning metal and plastic. Coughing heavily even as she ran, she made out the obvious shape of a carrier and clambered through another crater to reach it.

“Storm Banner Leader!”

There was a clatter of equipment as soldiers brought rifles to bear, but a moment later she saw the stocky, powerful form she knew too well emerge from behind the vehicle, tactical pad in hand. He looked out from under his helmet with stern, focused eyes, and if there was any surprise in his gaze it was hidden well.

She stopped, panting from her run, looking up at him.

He stared back at her, almost appraisingly. His eyes flicked up and down her extra-dimensional suit with some recognition.

“Operative,” he said. “What’s the situation?”

She closed into him and took the pad from his hand. To her slight surprise, he relinquished it. As expected, it had a digital map of the area, with friendly positions scattered along a line amidst the rubble and the estimated position of the enemy moving south. It tied in with what Korolev had relayed to her from Chang.

“The Centauri force is targeting Headquarters, then the elevators,” she said. “We have bombardment assets in orbit, but they can’t fire while the enemy is here.” She indicated the general region of the city over which the Centauris were just now moving, between the College and Astral HQ. “Air assets are mobilizing to take down the AARs, but they’ll never be able to penetrate the swarm defense in time. Our job is to draw the swarm back over our position, so that they can be taken out by orbital bombardment. Air assets will then take the AARs.”

“So the Astral Force will bombard our position.” Her father looked up from the map, locking on her eyes.

As she stared back, feeling the raw power of his will bearing down on her, she realized that this time, it didn’t matter what he thought. There was a mission to accomplish for the survival of the State, and they were all expendable.

“Yes,” she replied. “You have your orders, Storm Banner Leader. Inform your troops.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He nodded without hesitation. “Our comms are jammed. You and I will have to run down the line on foot and inform each position.” He pointed at one of his soldiers. “Give the operative your pad.” As Katja took the device and looked at the identical map on it, he ran his finger along the north-western half of the line. “You get to these positions, tell them to open fire with everything they have at—” He glanced at his watch. “—minute two-zero. Tell them to keep firing until they run out of ammunition.”

He’d assigned himself the part of the line closer to the Centauris, she noticed.

“Yes,” she replied, and she started to move, but he grabbed her elbow and leaned in.

“Katja Andreia,” he said quietly in Finnish, “when you get to the end of the line, turn around and start back to this position. These kids are going to come under deadly fire and they’re going to need your encouragement to keep going. Stop at every position on your way back, and make them proud to die for Terra.” He tapped the front of his helmet gently against hers. “Go.”

She broke free and started running for the next position on the line, barely hearing the Voice as it barked orders to the troops.

* * *

Kete held Breeze’s hand as they ran across the main road. Four cars had smashed into each other when their auto-drivers had malfunctioned in the Cloud-burst. Mangled wreckage and body parts littered the asphalt from the terrible collisions. The distant roar of fires was accompanied by the faint wail of dozens of sirens, and the occasional shout or cry of injured and dying victims.

Those still on their feet did little but stand or stagger in shock. He steered clear to not draw attention, and Breeze—bless her—seemed equally uninterested in aiding the wounded. They leaned up against a giant oak tree on the edge of a beautiful city park. Kete glanced back at the devastation unleashed on the city, and for a moment felt a heaviness in his heart. But this carnage was nothing, he reminded himself firmly, compared to the unprovoked and useless slaughter brought down upon his home by these people.

This wasn’t invasion. This was revenge.

“Where should we go?” Breeze asked between gasping breaths. He made a show of looking all around.

“The attack seems to be focused west of us,” he said. “This area hasn’t been hit—I think we’re good for now.”

She nodded, crouching down to sit on the thick roots at their feet. Her uniform was disheveled, hat and shoes long since abandoned, but she still carried herself with confidence. Breeze might enjoy the games, but at her core she was rock-solid and determined to survive. He may have been mistaken before. In other circumstances, he might actually have liked her.