Out of the Black (Odyssey One, Book 4) (59 page)

The squadron crossed the intervening space in minutes, decelerating on full power the whole way, and was caught by Earth’s gravity field rapidly and surely. Steph dove into the field, blowing through debris and wreckage floating in orbit with the
Odysseus
’ shields shouldering it all aside like it was nothing. He tried not to think of what, and who, he might be slamming through, and focused on the job at hand.

“Entering NEO!”

NEO, or Near Earth Orbit, was where the trickiest part of the maneuver had to play out.

“Launch ground assault!” Gracen ordered quickly.

The big ship didn’t even shiver as the Priminae-designed landers were blown away, but she began to shudder almost violently as they skimmed the atmosphere.

“Watch out, Commander. You’ll
bounce!
” Gracen, a former shuttle pilot herself, warned.

Steph didn’t respond, instead only snorting softly enough not to be noticed by his commanding officer. “I have it, Admiral. Initiating air-braking!”

The shuddering intensified at the same time as they smoothed out, becoming a deep and powerful vibration that could be felt at all corners of the big ship. They whipped past North America, for the third time Gracen thought, heading west over the Pacific, and quickly Asia came into sight.

“Status on ground deployment?”

“Thirty percent away, Admiral!”

“Continue launching,” she ordered. “I want every priority zone covered.”

“Aye aye. Launch in progress!”

“Susan, stay on top of this. You’re the coordinator. It’s going to be hell but we’re all counting on you,” Gracen said, turning to look at her communications specialist.

Susan Lamont swallowed hard, but nodded. “Aye aye, ma’am. I won’t let you down.”

Gracen nodded, trusting that the younger woman would hold true to her word. It was going to be a hard job since they didn’t have enough equipment to properly link all of their troops into the Earth forces’ battle networks. That would make things a bit touchy, and probably was going to cost some lives just in tactical errors and blue-on-blue scenarios. It couldn’t be helped. The tactical map the President had transmitted to them was ugly, with Drasin taking over large chunks of the planet, and the Terran governments already considering the very last resorts.

“Sweet Jesus,” Michelle Winger hissed from her station.

Gracen twisted. “What is it?”

“It’s Bangladesh, ma’am . . . The Block nuked it. They nuked their own country.”

Gracen closed her eyes, knowing that wouldn’t be the last time. Nor did she expect that the Block would be the only ones resorting to such tactics.

“Susan, drop the priority of that area. Schedule it for recon once we have time.”

“Aye aye, ma’am,” Susan answered, her voice ashen and dry.

Gracen didn’t blame her for the reaction, but now wasn’t the time.

“Stay on top of it, all of you,” she growled. “This isn’t a movie and it’s not a game. People are dying and a lot more are going to die before this is done. If you don’t stay on top of it, that number goes up. We’ll have time to choke up when this is over. Am I quite clear?”

They all nodded, a few managing to answer vocally with an affirmative. She sighed. It would have to do.

Colonel Reed grinned as he felt free fall overtake him.

It wasn’t a nice grin. It was, in fact, an ugly one. He didn’t bother to hide it as he normally would have. His direct subordinates knew him well enough not to be put off too badly by it and those who didn’t couldn’t see his face anyway.

“Colonel,” the pilot said, looking back, “we are approaching the drop zone.”

“Very good. Just as we practiced, everyone, yes?”

“Yes Colonel!”

The men were green, but talented. The Priminae had let their ground forces volunteer freely, he suspected because they didn’t actually view them as valuable, unlike their naval forces. That was their mistake, Reed knew, and it was a big one. Almost every first-generation soldier he and his team had trained was
packed into the Heroics, along with many second- and third-generations that had been trained by the first group.

Had he been in command of the Ranquil ground forces, he’d have been furious. In fact, he personally
knew
that Commander Nero had nearly blown a gasket when the council had given that permission. That hadn’t been enough for them to rescind it, however, though Reed half thought that Nero and Admiral Tanner had grudgingly let it go as a gesture of gratitude.

He hoped that he wasn’t about to get them all killed, but if that was what it took to save his world and his family . . . assuming they were still alive . . . he was prepared to make just that sacrifice.

He just refused to make it in vain.

They were here to win. They
had
to win. They
would win
.

There were no other options.

“Three seconds, Colonel!”

“Drop!” Green called, sending the first of the Priminae soldiers out of the shuttle at Mach Three and fifty thousand feet.

His grin wasn’t entirely ugly as he stepped up to the door and then threw himself out. Reed also loved his work, probably a little too much.

“
De oppresso liber!
” he called as the wind tore him away from the shuttle and the Priminae ship vanished from sight in a blurred instant.

The six Heroics corkscrewed around the blue-white marble that was the Earth, dropping ships as fast as they could in an explosive effort to cover every possible point. It was an impossible task, of course, and one that sent almost as much fright through those on the ground as the initial invasion itself had.

The roaring fireballs that engulfed the braking carriers seemed to tear from horizon to horizon with terrifying speed, and the silver shuttlecraft that dropped from them were so alien that to many people’s eyes they just
had
to be more of the enemy. Surface-to-air missiles leapt out, tracking the ships from ground station, only to be swatted from the sky by the Priminae point defense systems.

The Priminae may not have been and were not currently masters of the art of war, but they learned fast and had good teachers.

“Susan!”

“On it, ma’am.” Susan Lamont cringed, eyes not coming up from her station.

Several groups had opened fire on the drop ships. Thankfully, they’d been too impatient and launched far too soon. That wouldn’t save people if someone down there was a slight bit smarter, however, so she was frantically jumping across every frequency she could.

“I say again,” she spoke as her fingers flew over the console, “do not fire on the silver ships. They are allies.”

She cycled through every language she knew, trying to head off a tragedy before it happened, but there were so many more that she despaired of what she was sure she would see in a few short minutes. Another voice, however, broke into the frequency and began repeating her message in other languages. Some she knew, many she did not.

“Mr. Palin?” Susan blinked, remembering the language specialist from the first mission of the
Odyssey
. She had been one of the few who rather got a kick out of the sometimes
infuriating man, and the sense of relief she felt at hearing his oft-hated voice was palpable.

“Relax, my dear.” The old man’s voice paused in its repetitions for a moment. “You’re not alone. Get back to your real job. I’ll make sure those fools know who they’re shooting at.”

Susan swallowed, nodding. “Thank you.”

She wiped that part of her board with a gesture, bringing up the tactical display again. “Colonel, you’re coming down in a highly populated and contested region. Stand by. I’m putting you in touch with the local resistance commander.”