The Valhalla Call (Warrior's Wings) (11 page)

“This way, sir.”

They all headed across the bay together, walking a fair distance before arriving at a series of elevator doors. The lieutenant nodded to the sergeant. “Take the major’s team to the berths. I’ll show him the way when the admiral is done with him.”

“Sir.”

Ton followed the lieutenant into a separate lift and found himself looking at a set of numbers that really would have fit in at any of a thousand office buildings he’d ever been in. The digital display didn’t indicate just how high the numbers went, but as they flashed by from single digits to double and kept running, he whistled slightly.

“First time in a Terra Class, sir?”

“Yes it is, Lieutenant. I cut my teeth on the Los Angeles Class, but spent most of my space career on the Cheyennes,” Ton replied.

That was as good as admitting that he was basically a greenhorn when it came to space-based operations, Ton knew, but it was the cold hard truth. He’d barely been certified when the war came to Hayden, and hadn’t even been fully jump qualified when he led the second operator jump into Hayden’s World.

“The America is a big ship. You’ll get used to it quickly, though,” the lieutenant said before adding, “I’ve never been on anything else myself.”

Ton closed his eyes, thinking about his former sergeant and what she’d have to say about this.

Lord, here I am thinking that I’m the wet-behind-the-ears bastard in this tin can and he says something like that? Aida would be laughing silently behind me right now, probably sending sarcastic comments over my implants too.

The elevator lift chimed softly and the doors opened on a nondescript corridor with few people in site.

“This way to the admiral’s space, sir.”

Ton followed dutifully, feeling a little off balance as he realized that the corridor was curving downwards, although the ship’s gravity didn’t fell as if it were. The disconnect in his head gave him a mild feeling of vertigo that he ruthlessly suppressed as they walked.

“We’re on one of the observation spars,” he said, voice thick with the realization.

“Yes, sir. Noticed the curve, did you? The admiral uses this one for his personal staff and such unless we’re at general quarters, in which case they move in to the main ship.”

“I see.”

He did, actually. The observation spars were curving outriggers that jutted out from the rear of the Terra Class ships, angling toward the front. They looked like the classic guidance fins on old rockets from science fiction movies in the mid-twentieth century, but were actually large structures capable of housing labs, offices, recreation areas, and, of course, observation decks.

They came to a large and heavily reinforced door, with biometric scanners active. Ton felt his implants respond automatically to the computer’s handshake request, and the door began to open without comment from either him or the lieutenant.

If the curving corridor wasn’t enough to throw him off, the room beyond would be. He stepped out onto what seemed to be a catwalk, though as he looked a bit closer, it was clear that it was more of a suggestion than a required walkway. The floor around was transparent, probably transluminum or something stronger, he supposed.

Below his feet were two more decks built just the same, with people and equipment, but it was what was beyond that that gave him chills.

Open space, right under his feet as far as he could tell, and so very far below he could make out the running rights of the America herself.

Amazing.

“Admiral, this is Major Washington. He’ll be your primary field op.”

“Ah, excellent, thank you, Meadows. Stay close, if you don’t mind, we won’t be long.”

“Planned to, sir,” Lieutenant Meadows answered before turning to Ton. “I’ll be right over in the lounge there when you need me.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Washington managed to get out without sounding too stunned, he hoped.

The admiral turned to him after Meadows had left and gestured deeper into the room. “Walk with me a moment, Major.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m sure that you’re wondering about the absence of the Terra and the Canada,” Fairbairn said as they walked.

“It’d crossed my mind, sir.”

“Yes, well, I’ll supply you with a full report to your local inbox, but the short of it is that they went through the jump point to the next system to shut the front door,” the admiral said. “Something we’d hoped to avoid, but circumstances made necessary. Those same circumstances will, unfortunately, almost certainly put your team into the thick of things faster than we had hoped.”

“We’re good to go, sir.”

“I have no doubt. For the immediate future, Hayden is…or should be, reasonably secure. Unfortunately, the way we acted to ensure that security has our defensive plans somewhat more… complicated.” The admiral sighed. “Before, we knew where they were going to come from. There was only one direct route, and all other routes were…impractical, at best. The actions of Captain Richmond, the Terra, and the Canada will have forced the enemy to consider those as possible alternatives.”

“Then why did they shut the door as you said, sir?” Ton asked, curious.

“Because even with the advantage of knowing where they’d come from, there are limits to what we could stop, limits that the enemy
wildly
surpassed,” Admiral Fairbarin said, lips curling up. “Better to draw them into a war of attrition than to lose everything in one glorious battle, I’m afraid.”

“Understood, sir.”

“What that means is that as soon as I can scrounge up a few more ships to cover Hayden, we’ll be taking most of TF-7 out through one of the other jump points and begin running strike against known enemy installations between here and where we suspect they’ll be coming from,” Fairbairn replied. “If all goes well for the Terra and the Canada, they’ll be working their way back towards us doing much the same thing. The idea will be to bleed off their resources as they’re forced to respond to requests for help, as well as to deny them resupply from any of those locations.”

Ton nodded, he understood the strategy well enough.

“Do we have intel on the assets we’ll be striking at?”

“Some,” the admiral said, before admitting, “Not enough. Most are probably listening posts, but we know there are a couple resupply depots that Task Force Five never got a chance to service, and we have extremely high EF and GF readings from a system we’ve barely mapped, so that could be something important.”

“All right, I’ll have my team ready to go when you need us.”

“I have no doubts, Major. I’m not sure when we’ll be moving out, but be certain that your team is prepared for the possibility of extended missions without the support of the fleet. We may have to drop you on a target world while we service another target elsewhere,” Fairbairn told him. “It’s not the way I prefer to conduct a campaign, but the ship numbers we’ve received from forward scouts make it clear that we won’t be able to afford to do things entirely by the book on this one.”

Ton nodded, but had to imagine that the numbers the admiral was talking about had to be pretty bad. From his earlier briefings, he’d known in vague terms that this sort of strategic move was considered an option, but it was very far down the list. He hoped that the admiral’s full brief included that bit of intelligence, because he wanted to have an idea of what exactly he and his team were dealing themselves in against.

Not that it makes a huge difference. We’re none of us planning on folding the hand.

*****

Alamo Shipyard

Sol

“That’s a big ass suit.”

Sorilla’s reaction was perhaps understandable as she found herself looking up at a hulking man-shaped suit of armor that dwarfed her by more than she cared to think about.

“How tall is this damn thing anyway?” she asked, looking over at the civilian contractor who was tasked with showing her how the monstrous beast functioned.

“35 feet, from head to heel, Lieutenant.”

Sorilla swore, fluently, in several languages.

“What in hell’s name possessed you to build something like this? Tanks not good enough?”

“Funny you should ask that, Lieutenant.”

Sorilla spun on her heel, eyes widening as she recognized the woman walking toward her. She brought her heels together with an audible click and threw as perfect a salute as she’d ever managed.

“As you were,” Admiral Brooke said, a vaguely amused smile flickering around her lips. She walked past Sorilla and looked up at the beast before her. “You asked a question, I believe, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Brooke smiled coolly, but didn’t look back at the lieutenant. “The answer to your question, is Golems.”

Sorilla blinked, frowning. “Golems? Ma’am, the Golems we’ve encountered are glorified bulldozers. They’re dangerous enough to civilians, but a military unit can handle them without problem.”

“The ones we’ve encountered on the battlefield, yes.”

Sorilla felt the hairs on her neck stand up. “Ma’am, I have a feeling that you have a certain advantage over me on this.”

“The perk of being an admiral, Lieutenant. We get to see all the intel before anyone else,” Brooke said in a tone of forced casualness. “In this case, one of the Ghoulie ships Task Force Five splashed over Hayden in the last go ‘round had a few surprises on board.”

Sorilla grimaced. “I’m not sure I want to know.”

“In your position, I believe I would desperately want to know.”

“No, in my position I likely desperately
need
to know. There is a difference, ma’am.”

Brooke smiled and nodded. “Agreed. Now that that is out of the way, why don’t we break down exactly what it is that you need to know, Lieutenant?” she went on, losing the smile. “I promise you, you do not want to know any of it, but you most certainly do need it.”

“I was afraid it was going to be one of those briefings, ma’am,” Sorilla said warily. “Lay it on me, ma’am.”

“During exploration of the wreck of the one we took that was somewhat intact,” Brooke said, being more than a little charitable about the state of the wreck—nothing was remotely intact after being hammered with kinetic kill weapons and nuclear penetrators—“we found a few things of interest. Including half a dozen militarized Golems.”

“Militarized how?” Sorilla asked, now genuinely and deeply interested.

“About ten feet bigger than the ones you saw on planet, armed with what we have tentatively identified as projective Gravity Valve weapons, and beyond anything we’ve been able to reverse engineer,” she said flatly. “Their technology doesn’t look like anything we’ve ever seen, Lieutenant. Some of it, like the Gravity Valve, fit into our own theories and we were able to adapt it. However, we think that the Valve is the least of their technology.”

“The
least…
” Sorilla blurted before she got control over her mouth, somewhat shocked by her lack of propriety when speaking to an admiral, but the very idea that something like the Gravity Valve could possibly be the least of the enemy technology was…

Honestly, she didn’t know the word for it. Disconcerting? Yes. Shocking? Damn right. Fucking terrifying? Getting closer.

“We’ve detected micro warps in the space-time around all of their technology, Lieutenant,” Brooke went on, ignoring her outburst. “The Valve is impressive, but it’s crude. It’s power, pure and unrefined. We’ve been able to duplicate it, with effort, but we can’t even figure out
if
the Golems are even technology. We can’t find circuits, we can’t find muscles, there isn’t any sign of anything in them that really makes them stand out from a chunk of silicon with a few other elements mixed in. What we do know, from your reports, is that they can move. They can think. And even the civilian models can fight.”

Sorilla shook her head, considering all that. “Even so, Admiral, why would you need something like this beastie?”

She glanced up at the massive suit. No, it wasn’t a suit. You couldn’t
wear
something that size, you had to pilot it. It was a robot, or a walking tank.
What is the word from those cartoons my grandfather used to watch with me? A Mecha.

“Tanks, drones, jets, even handheld artillery could take one out. There’s no reason to build something like this,” she said. “Not to engage these things on any planet I can imag…”

Sorilla trailed off and she looked down at her feet for a long moment. “We’re not going to engage them on a planet, are we?”

“No, you are not,” Brooke confirmed.

Sorilla thought about it. It didn’t make sense to go after them in space. There was nothing to take or defend in space. Realistically that only left one thing, but it was
insane
.

“You want a ship. You want one of their ships,” she said with wonder. “And you want it
intact
.”

“Yes, that is exactly what we want, Lieutenant,” Brooke said, “and it’s going to be your job to get us one.”

Sorilla blew the air out of her lungs, whispering three words so low that she hoped and prayed the admiral couldn’t hear her.

“Well, fuck me.”

USS Terra

Unnamed Inner System of the Orion-Cygnus Arm, Milky Way Galaxy

“Watch it! They’re coming around!” Lt. Commander Brian Douglas growled as he held on to his seat, debating whether or not to strap down.

He brushed off the thought again, since, unlike the now-obsolete Cheyenne platforms, the USV Terra had internal gravity and decent cushioning against rapid acceleration.

That wasn’t to say it was perfect, but generally speaking, if things got out of computer control, they were all dead anyway.

“I see them.”

The helmsman was hunched over his computer, fingers pounding at the mechanical keys that let him input new course programs with rapid-fire precision. Again, unlike the Cheyenne platforms, the new Terra Class ships had such significantly faster acceleration that tactical maneuvers could and, indeed, had to be changed constantly in the midst of battle.

Combined with the longer reach of their new weapons systems and the dampening effect the gravitational systems had on relative inertia, the Terra outclassed the Cheyenne by degrees that made the older class look like little more than a Roman Trireme compared to a twentieth-century battleship.