Valkyrie Rising (Warrior's Wings Book Two) (7 page)

“Negative,” James answered when he came back. “Apache can make it back to Earth Space, Cheyenne. We’ll have to patch the VASIMR and run the system by hand, but we can make Earth Space. Apache’s superstructure is compromised, however.”

Ouch,
Patrick winced. The Cheyenne class hulls were cast-nickel-iron. If the superstructure was compromised, her captain was right. The Apache was heading for the breakers, though maybe she might be repurposed if the Fleet admiralty decided to patch her up and sell her for civilian use.

Patrick sighed. “Roger that, Apache. Effect repairs and wait for orders.”

“Roger, Cheyenne. Wilco. Out.”

Well, one ship lost but not destroyed in an engagement with a gravity valve.
Patrick frowned. It wasn’t as bad as the others who’d mixed it up with the aliens, but it wasn’t a great start just the same.

He looked over to the rest of the bridge crew. “Anyone have anything that indicates we still have a bandit out there?”

“Negative. No gravity events since our Kilo Kilo hammered home.”

“All right, Commander.”

“Yes, sir,” Commander Gere said, looking over.

“You have the bridge, XO. I’m going up to check on the admiral,” Patrick said, unstrapping.

“Aye, sir, I have the bridge.”

*****

When he got to the admiral’s flag deck, Patrick found a medic patching her up with a gauze wrap that was stained already with the pink telltale of blood.

“How is she?”

The corpsman glanced up. “Banged up, mild concussion. She’ll be fine, Captain.”

Patrick nodded, relieved, as he floated over. “Admiral.”

“Captain. Anything to report?”

“Looks like you were right. We were being targeted from the planet, ma’am,” he conceded. “The Apache is damaged, probably unrecoverable, but her captain says he can get her home on his own.”

“Damn,” Nadine mumbled, fingers coming up to her temple.

“Could have been worse, Admiral.”

“Could have been a hell of a lot better, too, Captain,” she growled then forced herself to relax. “All right, order James to take the Apache home, most direct route possible. If he needs supplies or fuel, make sure he’s topped off before he leaves.”

“Aye, ma’am.” Patrick nodded. “And the rest of the squadron?”

“Reform and proceed on schedule to the next stop on our patrol route,” she said, blinking her eyes slowly. “Check with the planet, see if they need anything before we leave.”

“Wilco, ma’am. You get some rest. I’ll let you know when we’re ready to jump from Hayden.”

She nodded slowly. “Thank you, Captain.”

“Just doing my job. Go with the corpsman now. Get checked out proper down in medical,” he said, nodding to the corpsman, who took the hint and started to bundle her up for moving. Patrick slipped in the hatch ahead of them but headed up to the main bridge instead of down toward medical.

“Captain on the bridge!”

“As you were,” Patrick ordered as he looped about and floated into the bridge, heading for his station.

“How’s the admiral, sir?” Gere asked.

“Bump on the noggin, XO. She’ll be fine,” he said, nodding once. “I have the bridge.”

“You have the bridge, Captain.”

Patrick slid into his station and pulled the straps down again before he reached for the com controls to break the news to Apache.

*****

Fort Bragg

Carolina

Sweat beaded and ran down her face in rivulets as Sorilla pushed through the pain and exhaustion, racing along a narrow beam that bridged a four-meter gap over a five-meter-deep ravine. She could have probably jumped it, certainly if she’d been permitted to go all out and tap her new implants, but this was a basic physical retest to see that she was ready for field operations again. No implants, no armor, no joke.

She hit the wall running, planting four steps up the vertical surface before gravity decided it had had enough, then jumped with hands outstretched to hook the edge of the twelve-meter stack of wood. She grunted as she pulled herself up, rocking her legs back and forth enough to build momentum before scissoring over the top and dropping into free fall on the other side.

Sorilla rolled along the packed dirt, coming up running as the nets came into view ahead of her. She dove under them, skidding through mud and muck with her face in the worst of it, but never stopped moving as she crawled the length with her head half under water and mud, popping up on the other side with every muscle in her body screaming against the flagrant abuse.

She’d been bedridden for the better part of two months since the surgery to update her bionetics, or close enough as to make little difference, shooting her physical conditioning to hell, and her body was now making sure she was well aware of the fact.

She collapsed across the finish line as her leg gave out, going numb and toppling her to the left as she rolled to a stop and flopped onto her back, panting.

Steps approached, combat boots coming into view and stopping just a few feet from her position as the owner of the boots leaned over and her face came into view.

“You know, Sor,” the annoyingly chipper blonde smiled widely at her. “If you’d signed up for a sane occupation, like say the medical corps, you wouldn’t be lying on the ground in pain right now.”

“Oh shut it, Jen,” she muttered from her back. “You know I can’t stand the sight of blood.”

“Not unless you’re the one exposing it to sight,” the medic countered with a roll of her eyes. “Oh, just for the record, doc sent me down here to tell you to cut this shit out, you’re overdoing it.”

“Tell that interfering prick that a lady needs her privacy some times and he should keep his nose out of my implants.”

Jennifer Ransom chuckled. “Really, Sor? I thought those were all natural.”

“Oh stuff it.” Sorilla forced herself to sit up, her abdomen protesting the strain she was putting it under. “How was my time?”

Jen snorted but checked the clock just the same. “Well, the course record isn’t in any risk of being broken, but respectable for an invalid.”

Sorilla grabbed the watch from the medic and checked it herself then flopped back down. “Damn it.”

“You’re doing fine,” Jen offered as she crouched down, hands hanging loosely between her thighs as she rested her elbows on her legs. “Despite trying to tear yourself open again, you’ve healed well, and all the new implants check out. Doc says you’re cleared for active duty, so you can stop trying to pretend you’re a tough bitch and go back to being one for real.”

“About time,” Sorilla grunted as she snapped herself up again, getting her legs under her and rising to her feet. “Implants?”

“Unlocked. You’re cleared for active, like I said.” Jen shrugged. “Don’t take that as an excuse to be stupid with your pacing, Sor.”

“I know my way around a recon schedule, Jen. I’m a big girl now,” Sorilla smirked tiredly as she walked over to a bench and grabbed a water bottle.

She took a long drag on the liquid, until the rawness of her throat was soothed, then she swished the rest around her mouth and spat it out. “Any word on assignments?”

“Not through us, but you know that’s not our department.” Jen shook her head. “I expect you’ll get a call.”

Sorilla nodded. “All right, thanks. I’m going to shower and grab a bite. Tell the doc I better not catch him accessing my implant videos again.”

“You need to learn to shut the video feed off if you’re taking some ‘me time’.”

“Damn things used to be off by default,” Sorilla grumbled.

“That’s before they figured out how to record the data holographically,” Jen smirked. “It’d take you twenty years to fill your banks now.”

“Great,” Sorilla grumbled, unenthused.

“Now, now, don’t blame the doc for checking your vitals. I’m sure he was just doing his job.”

Sorilla shot her friend a dark look then rolled her eyes and snorted. “How long before he came out of the closet?”

Jennifer laughed openly. “After you scared the piss out of him? Almost two hours.”

“Good.”

Chapter Two

USF Offices

New Mexico tether counterweight, Earth orbit

“We’ve had sightings of the alien squadron near the Atlantis Colony,” Admiral Jason Sawyer said grimly as he dropped the bomb on the assembled group.

Their reactions didn’t disappoint, ranging from cries of shock to moans of what had to be despair from the representatives of the aquatic colony world.

The Atlantis Colony was a free-floating city on the surface of a world with effectively no landmasses to speak of. A few island chains were occasionally revealed by shifting tides, but they invariable vanished again as the cycle of the planet’s moons went on. The world’s distance from the system’s primary kept it cool, but above freezing temperatures, which meant that on the whole it was a relatively placid world by most measures, and while not comfortable for humans, it was livable. It also produced a great deal of valuable algae and algae byproducts, used for fuel, food, and oxygen production across Earth and the colony worlds. Valuable, but not as vital as the mining facilities at Hayden, Atlantis was similar to every other colony in that it really didn’t have any way to defend itself against the current threat.

“How close are they to the system?”

Sawyer glanced over at the representative of the Atlantis System and shook his head. “One jump out, picket spotted them at Draconis Minor. They were headed for the Beta Point.”

The men and women at the table winced, looking anywhere but at the representative for Atlantis. The Beta Point was the straight line to the Atlantis system.

“We sent word ahead. They may have time to evacuate the counterweight at least,” Sawyer offered bleakly.

“They struck the mining facilities on Ares after they took out the counterweight, didn’t they?” the representative asked with her eyes closed.

“Yes, ma’am” he confirmed. “Most of the survivors were in the underground facilities on Ares.”

“There are no underground facilities available on Atlantis. The entire population lives on the floating city.”

A long silence filled the room before the chairman tiredly spoke up, aiming his question to Sawyer.

“Admiral, how far out is Taskforce Valkyrie?”

Sawyer grimaced at the unofficial name that had been pinned to the Fleet squadron but checked the numbers without comment.

“Schedule puts them in Hayden, but they should be jumping back towards Earth Space shortly. If you want to get a message to them, best bet would be a courier ship to…” He frowned, checking the schedule briefly. “S9X Dash 53P. I’d advise sending them within the hour, however, in case TF5 is ahead of schedule.”

“Send them. Issue orders to Admiral Brookes to take Taskforce Five directly to Atlantis by the fastest route possible and provide all defense…or succor, she can.”

“Aye, sir.” Sawyer nodded as he stood, saluted briefly, and left the room.

*****

Fort Bragg

Carolina

Sorilla stood at attention in the small, well-lit office, eyes focused on the wall just above the head of the man sitting across the desk from her. He didn’t look up at her for a time, reading something with deliberate slowness. Finally, he set the pad aside and focused on her features.

“Read your report about what happened on Hayden,” he said, face impassive. “Bad bit of business.”

“Started that way, sir.”

He grunted, but nodded after a moment. “Got better, did it?”

“Less bad, sir.”

“Yes, I suppose that was about the best you could hope for after that start, Sergeant,” the brigadier said finally. “For god’s sake, relax before you pop your stitches.”

Sorilla marginally relaxed, clasping her hands behind her back. “They don’t use stitches anymore, sir, and the glue broke down weeks ago.”

“You always were a smartass, Sergeant,” Brigadier Maxwell Graves said, nodding to the chair. “Sit down, Sergeant. You’re not here to be debriefed. I know everything I need to know about the mission on Hayden. Should never have happened, you were supposed to be on a training run. You should have been invisible, you should have been a lot of things that didn’t happen.”

Sorilla didn’t know what to say to any of that, so she stayed silent and took a seat.

“You were about due to pick up a rocker before you left for Hayden,” he told her, sliding a case across the desk to her. “Brass decided you earned a bit more.”

She frowned, taking the case and opening it. Her eyes flew open in shock as she recognized the three rockers on the master sergeant’s patch.

“Sir, I…” Honestly, she knew she was due a promotion and had half expected to skip to first class, but a double bump seemed excessive.

“Relax,” he told her again. “If you didn’t earn it already, you’re about to.”

That caught her attention. Her focus flew to him as he went on.

“USF wants a new unit, a SOCOM team to call their very own. Your name was requested,” he told her. “If you accept, you’ll be seconded to Fleet SOCOM for the duration. No more tango hunts in third world countries, but from the sounds of it, you won’t be lacking for action.”

The idea of not traipsing about the world looking for terrorist enclaves was something of an attractive one, despite everything Sorilla defined herself by, but the last she checked, Fleet could barely afford to run their ships and keep their crews paid, let alone an effective strike force. Training costs on good Special Forces teams were enough to break budgets, to say nothing of equipment and combat pay.

She eyed the assignment page on the pad the general was holding with a skeptical eye. “Can they afford to run a team, sir?”

He chuckled. “Things changed while you were slogging about on Hayden, Sergeant. Fleet’s star is in ascendancy at the moment. They’ve got a better budget than I do.”

Sorilla held back a whistle but nodded appreciatively all the same. That really only left one other question. “If I take this, am I out of the Army, sir?”

He took a breath, scowling at the pad. “Officially, no. You’ll be seconded to Fleet SOCOM to fill out your thirty however, so when you’re done, you’re out as a civilian. Something happens, you could be transferred back, but I wouldn’t count on that.”