10k meters per second, bearing unchanged.”
“That ship isn’t going to slow down to let off passengers,” I say.
“Nope,” Halley confirms. “He’s going for broke.”
“To do what?”
“He’s either going to hammer down through our picket to check out what’s where, or he’s aimed right at the planet. Millions of tons at Mach 30, and adios, muchachos.”
Out in the black, the warheads of half a dozen Orion batteries train themselves onto an intercept trajectory with the uninvited guest, guided by the best ballistics computers humanity has designed. We only had a few months to cobble the system together, and it’s in a constant state of improvement, but the damn things have accounted for two seed ships already, both blown to vapor long before they could get close enough to Earth to do anything dangerous.
Someone in Berlin ’s CIC brings up the optical feed trained on the approaching bogey. Lanky seed ships are very hard to spot even with excellent optical gear unless you know exactly where to look. Since last year, the world’s remaining fleets have seeded the Mars approach with enough recon satellites to track anything bigger than a mess hall tray from the outer picket line one quarter of the way to Mars all the way back to Earth. The Lanky seed ship is hauling ass downrange, a matte-black oblong cigar shape three kilometers long and millions of tons in weight. They recovered huge chunks of the Lanky hull that broke up in Earth’s atmosphere last year, and they found out that the reason for the ineffectiveness of our weaponry is that the hull of a Lanky ship is twenty meters thick, and made of some material that makes our own laminate armor look like partially frozen whipped cream.
“Orion launch window in t-minus five. All units, prepare for barrage fire. Pursuit units, ready for launch and stand by.”
“That’s us,” Halley says. “ Berlin TacOps, Bravo One-Two. I am initiating prelaunch.”
“Bravo One-Two, TacOps. Copy prelaunch. Godspeed.”
A few moments later, the Wasp shudders slightly as the automated docking clamp attaches to the top of the ship. Then the launch system lifts the drop ship off the deck and slowly moves it over to the drop hatch, which is only a very short way from the parking spot on the deck. There’s another series of familiar small jolts, the docking clamp stopping the ship over the hatch, then lowering it through the open doors into the launch recess at the bottom of the hull. The upper hatch closes around the clamp to seal off the hangar bay again, and then the outer door opens, leaving nothing but inky black space beneath the hull of the Wasp.
I look around in the cargo hold, where our little three-quarter squad fills pitifully few seats, and most of the green privates are looking like they’d rather be anywhere else right now. One of them is fidgeting, touching the rifle in its holding bracket next to his seat, and looking over to his sergeant nervously. He sees me noticing and gives me a fleeting, embarrassed little grin.
“Not going to tell you it’s just like a training drop,” I say. “It sure as shit ain’t. But this waiting part is the worst. It ain’t so bad once you’re on the ground and running. Too much to do to think about it.”
“Yes, Sarge,” he says.
With all the pieces in place on our three-dimensional chessboard, all that’s left is the wait. At least I have the privilege of information, tapping into the data link that Halley provided, even if I can’t do anything to move those chess pieces around. But there’s a different quality now to the pre-battle dread I feel. Before, seeing a Lanky seed ship on the plot meant almost certain death. But we have beaten them now a few times, destroyed four seed ships in the span of a few months. It’s still a lopsided battle, but at least now it’s not an automatic death sentence. The Lankies are no longer invincible in everyone’s heads, and that’s making all the
“That ship isn’t going to slow down to let off passengers,” I say.
“Nope,” Halley confirms. “He’s going for broke.”
“To do what?”
“He’s either going to hammer down through our picket to check out what’s where, or he’s aimed right at the planet. Millions of tons at Mach 30, and adios, muchachos.”
Out in the black, the warheads of half a dozen Orion batteries train themselves onto an intercept trajectory with the uninvited guest, guided by the best ballistics computers humanity has designed. We only had a few months to cobble the system together, and it’s in a constant state of improvement, but the damn things have accounted for two seed ships already, both blown to vapor long before they could get close enough to Earth to do anything dangerous.
Someone in Berlin ’s CIC brings up the optical feed trained on the approaching bogey. Lanky seed ships are very hard to spot even with excellent optical gear unless you know exactly where to look. Since last year, the world’s remaining fleets have seeded the Mars approach with enough recon satellites to track anything bigger than a mess hall tray from the outer picket line one quarter of the way to Mars all the way back to Earth. The Lanky seed ship is hauling ass downrange, a matte-black oblong cigar shape three kilometers long and millions of tons in weight. They recovered huge chunks of the Lanky hull that broke up in Earth’s atmosphere last year, and they found out that the reason for the ineffectiveness of our weaponry is that the hull of a Lanky ship is twenty meters thick, and made of some material that makes our own laminate armor look like partially frozen whipped cream.
“Orion launch window in t-minus five. All units, prepare for barrage fire. Pursuit units, ready for launch and stand by.”
“That’s us,” Halley says. “ Berlin TacOps, Bravo One-Two. I am initiating prelaunch.”
“Bravo One-Two, TacOps. Copy prelaunch. Godspeed.”
A few moments later, the Wasp shudders slightly as the automated docking clamp attaches to the top of the ship. Then the launch system lifts the drop ship off the deck and slowly moves it over to the drop hatch, which is only a very short way from the parking spot on the deck. There’s another series of familiar small jolts, the docking clamp stopping the ship over the hatch, then lowering it through the open doors into the launch recess at the bottom of the hull. The upper hatch closes around the clamp to seal off the hangar bay again, and then the outer door opens, leaving nothing but inky black space beneath the hull of the Wasp.
I look around in the cargo hold, where our little three-quarter squad fills pitifully few seats, and most of the green privates are looking like they’d rather be anywhere else right now. One of them is fidgeting, touching the rifle in its holding bracket next to his seat, and looking over to his sergeant nervously. He sees me noticing and gives me a fleeting, embarrassed little grin.
“Not going to tell you it’s just like a training drop,” I say. “It sure as shit ain’t. But this waiting part is the worst. It ain’t so bad once you’re on the ground and running. Too much to do to think about it.”
“Yes, Sarge,” he says.
With all the pieces in place on our three-dimensional chessboard, all that’s left is the wait. At least I have the privilege of information, tapping into the data link that Halley provided, even if I can’t do anything to move those chess pieces around. But there’s a different quality now to the pre-battle dread I feel. Before, seeing a Lanky seed ship on the plot meant almost certain death. But we have beaten them now a few times, destroyed four seed ships in the span of a few months. It’s still a lopsided battle, but at least now it’s not an automatic death sentence. The Lankies are no longer invincible in everyone’s heads, and that’s making all the
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