Out of the Black (Odyssey One, Book 4) (48 page)

It was clear now that the enemy had been holding back significantly, something they’d feared for a while, which left him with the decision of exactly how to respond to the current situation. He wasn’t certain if the Drasin were aware that the human militaries on Earth had been holding back just as much, or if they’d care if they knew, but the truth was that they had been.

No military leader wanted the responsibility of unleashing strategic weapons, none who were remotely sane at least, so none had yet done so. Oh, he had authorized kinetic strikes on Mexico City and Detroit, but those were practically conventional weapons compared to some of what was sitting in his nation’s armories, and that said little of what the Block was sitting on.

The Drasin action was going to put them all to the test, however, because they were going to have to make a hard decision on that very subject . . . a decision compounded by the fact that each of them was going to have to choose whether to strike their
own
territory.

Conner glanced up at the agent standing at his door. “Simon, call outside for the football, if you please.”

The agent swallowed hard but nodded before stepping briefly out of the office to follow his commander’s orders. Conner couldn’t say that he’d made the decision yet, but he knew that when the time came he wouldn’t be able to wait for everyone to get ready. It was time now to break the news, because when he gave the final order he wanted no confusion or hesitation.

The literal fate of the planet may well be staked on it.

The universe had a warped sense of irony at times.

General Kong of the People’s Army had managed to avoid the use of true strategic weapons even in the losing days of the war, successfully arguing that there was nothing to be gained by deploying such things while the fledgling Confederation controlled the skies. Now, after the war was over, he found himself once more staring into the fiery face of mass death and destruction and contemplating unleashing it.

That wasn’t the irony, of course. No, the irony was that after years of arguing against unleashing such force on his nation’s enemies, he was now forced to contemplate its deployment on his
own
home soil.

That
level of irony was such that it should not exist in a sane universe, but then he had never once believed the universe to be sane.

“Shift air defense to cover the major cities and strategic areas,” he ordered. “Keep them from our homes as best you can.”

“What are you doing, General?” the Chairman hissed. “You’ll uncover huge sweeping portions of our nations!”

“I am well aware of that,” he growled in return, turning to an aide. “Bring me the strategic deployment computer.”

The man paled, shock echoing across his face, but he saluted and ran off.

The Chairman didn’t get it nearly as quickly as the young aide, but he did work it out eventually and paled almost as much under his sagging features.

“You can’t!”

“I must,” Kong countered wearily.

“No, it is too much!” the Chairman hissed. “I will have you removed.”

“You are welcome to try,” Kong said simply, “and if you can find someone with a better plan, I will voluntarily step aside for them. Until then, however, I will do exactly what I must to ensure that we do not end here.”

Tracking and intercepting a ballistic target coming in from orbital velocity is an exercise in frustration for the most part. The issue isn’t with determining the speed or direction of the object; rather it lies in trying to devise a system that can do all that, then code an intercept vector, launch a weapon, and take out the target in the precious few seconds you have to react.

It helps, however, if you’re watching for the target before it appears and already have weapons more or less locked and ready to deploy. Thousands of tracks sliced the sky to ribbons of smoke and flame, but from the ground thousands more reached up and began to swat them mercilessly from the skies in all corners of the planet.

In some areas, particularly places like the Middle East, where missile attacks were reasonably common, the counter
assault was remarkably effective. In others, the worst being over entirely uninhabited areas like the Australian outback and the continent of Antarctica, the response was . . . lacking.

The Drasin pods slammed into the Earth from point to point, and then quickly cracked open to disgorge their occupants into the world while valiant and desperate defenders scrambled to respond. The long, slow boil that had typified the war for Earth so far now exploded into action that, if any survived to remember it, would go down in history as the single largest battle ever fought on a planet.

It seemed clear to everyone by this point, on both sides, that this was the last hand and all the chips were now in the middle.

In the skies over New Mexico, the light show was spectacular, violent, and far,
far
too close for the comfort of those who could see out of the heavy lifter transport headed for the spaceport facility.

“Holy shit!” the pilot snarled as he jumped as much as he could, being strapped into the seat, at the near miss of a SAM heading skyward for a meeting with the descending Drasin. “Watch where you’re shooting, you crazy bastards!”

The big CM-powered transport was fast as greased lightning, even in atmosphere, but it had nothing on the high-velocity rockets and ballistic pods that were so deeply intent on wreaking havoc around them.

The colonel swore again, but there was little he could do, and turned to his copilot. “You better let them know that we’re minutes to the port and I’m not waiting for clearance.
This heap is touching down in a
hurry,
so they better strap the hell in.”

“Yes sir.”

Flying through a hostile sky was never any fun, even when the hostility wasn’t directed specifically at you. The colonel nudged the throttle up and the nose down, looking to get as low as he could in an effort to use some of the terrain as a blocker from the explosions he knew were coming.

The transport wasn’t a fighter craft by any stretch, but it did have a CM power plant and fuel to spare, so the speed was there to be tapped. He kept it under one thousand feet, running just on the edge of hypersonic as the spaceport came into sight.

“Flight Niner Five Niner, Spaceport Earth, we have you on an inbound track. Please confirm.”

“Roger that, Control. This is Niner Five Niner with cargo for DARPA Hangar. Request immediate emergency clearance.”

“We’ve had one runway cleared and waiting for you for the last hour, Niner Five Niner. Adjust course three degrees south by southwest and come in on runway ninety-one.”

“Roger that,” the colonel said calmly as another explosion lit the sky above him. “Nine One. Please note, we are coming in hot and heavy. Request fire crews on standby.”

“They’re already on the tarmac. Are you damaged?”

“Not yet. Niner Five Niner out.”

CM-enhanced transports were known for their versatility and speed compared to the conventional vehicles they replaced, but few had ever seen one put to quite the test as the one was, landing on runway ninety-one amid the terror and confusion
of the second major invasion. The transport was a lifting body class airframe with enough CM to keep its immense mass in the air, but given just how much it had been intended to lift, not enough to give the vehicle VTOL capability.