Vertigo: Aurora Rising Book Two (41 page)

“Thank you, Corporal. I suspect I’d be lost for weeks on my own.”

She shrugged as he matched her rapid clip. “It’s a big ship, but once you understand the layout you can walk it in your sleep.”

The lift ascended for an eternity—long enough to reach the penthouse of a high-rise groundside. When it finally came to rest the Corporal waved him forward as the door slid open. “You’ll find the Admiral on the lookout, sir.”

Malcolm gestured a thanks, stepped onto the deck of the bridge and paused in awe. The bridge was as large as the entire
EAS Juno
. The ceiling rose ten meters overhead and triple viewports at the far bow provided an unobscured view of half the assembled fleet above the glow of Scythia’s profile.

Dozens of stations lined both walls, sporting some of the most advanced tech he had ever seen. The low din was more controlled and restrained than in the shuttle bay but no less urgent. He quickly snapped a visual with his ocular implant and sent it to Veronica; he thought perhaps she’d be proud of him when she saw it. Next he squared his shoulders and wound through the personnel toward the raised platform two-thirds of the way down the bridge.

Admiral Christopher Rychen stood alongside three officers reviewing a large screen listing the various formation groups, including states of readiness, outstanding issues and weapons strength. Malcolm waited at the edge of the platform at parade rest.

Once the officers were dismissed he stepped up with a crisp salute. “Colonel Malcolm Jenner, reporting for duty, sir.”

Rychen returned the salute then extended his hand. “At ease, Colonel. I’m glad you made it.”

Malcolm shook his hand and promptly decided he liked the Admiral. He had been predisposed to like him, but the man’s world-weathered brow, vibrant eyes and easy demeanor conveyed warmth.

Rychen indicated for Malcolm to join him at the railing. From here the platform overlooked the navigation pit and the viewports beyond; in that respect it was not much different than the design of the
Juno’s
bridge.

“I trust you’ve had an opportunity to study the briefings?”

“Yes, sir, several times.”

“Thoughts?”

So he was being put on the spot straightaway. He supposed there was hardly time for building a rapport. “The reports back from your scouts confirm the adjustments to communications work, which is welcome news. If I understand correctly, the scouts recorded the presence of thirteen of the alien superdreadnoughts. That’s a good number of ships but it isn’t anywhere close to the majority of their forces, so we should assume the aliens are currently traveling to or hitting other worlds as well. It means they recognize Messium is not Gaiae, but it also means they aren’t expecting a fight. If we move fast we can gain a temporary advantage by taking them by surprise.”

“Then we find out if we can do any damage to their ships.”

Malcolm grimaced. “It would be nice to know the answer to that question ahead of time, sir, but I recognize we don’t have the luxury of engineering a test case.”

“Wouldn’t it be though?”

“Yes, sir. So we’re faced with a dilemma. We have to hit them hard and fast but doing so exposes the bulk of our forces to significant risk. My recommendation would be for all vessels to keep their sLume drives charged and ready for the initial minute following contact. It draws a lot of power, but if one of those superdreadnoughts vaporizes a cruiser in a single shot? Well, with respect, sir, we probably need to bug out and devise a new plan.”

Rychen nodded. “Excellent suggestion. I’ll set a rendezvous point near Pyxis as the fallback location. Their government has cleared us for any stellar traversals we require.”

“Do we have any intel regarding what’s happening on the ground?”

“Very little. Further attempts at communication have proved unsuccessful. The brief scans the scout ships were able to take show activity is concentrated around the two major cities. If I had to guess I’d say the aliens aren’t interested in destroying the planet, merely its inhabitants and infrastructure. Once the battle begins I’m sending three stealth craft to Headquarters. I want to send them ahead, but I can’t risk tipping our hand. And let’s be honest, they are likely to find nothing but rubble.”

Malcolm’s gaze drifted to the screen on their left, where the fleet status updated every five seconds. “Sir, if I may ask…what is our short-term goal? Obviously liberating Messium is our ultimate goal, but realism dictates we accept it might be unattainable.”

“A force of this size and strength should not be the one to discover our enemy’s strengths and weaknesses, Colonel, but it is what it is. We try to destroy as many of their superdreadnoughts as possible. If we can’t destroy them, we try to damage them. If we can’t damage them, we try to draw them away from the planet long enough to give civilians on the ground a chance to escape. In this scenario at some point our losses will become so severe the sole rational choice will be to retreat and save the remainder of the fleet for future operations. We just need to try our damnedest to force that point out as long as humanly possible and to be ready to change the entire plan at any minute.”

“Understood, sir.”

“To that end, in the last hour we’ve received some interesting ideas from the governor of Romane.”

“Sir?”

“It seems their best and brightest citizens have spent the last several days studying the same data we have on the aliens and brainstorming about ways to both defend against and attack them. I don’t know how they got their hands on the data in the first place and I don’t care. I will take all the help I can get. My XO is incorporating the new information into our battle plan and will forward it to you as soon as it’s ready.”

Rychen reached over and input a series of commands on his control panel. “I’m giving you command of the
EAS Orion
. She’s the newest cruiser in NE Command and comes with a full complement of bells and whistles. You’ll supervise four frigates in this sector.” The map zoomed in to an area southeast of the capital city.

A cruiser? With four frigates at his command as well? “Sir, I’m honored you would trust me with so much responsibility, but you do realize I’ve only commanded a single frigate, and for all of twenty-nine days?”

“I do. During those twenty-nine days you showed better strategic and tactical decision-making than any other frigate captain in the entire Northwestern campaign. I’m of the opinion it doesn’t matter whether you’re on the ground or in space—you understand the battlefield in a way few soldiers do. You can think on your feet and aren’t afraid to roll a gutsy call when the circumstances require it. I need commanders out there who can make decisions and act on their own if I am to have any hope of succeeding here today.”

“I’ll do everything in my power to help ensure that happens, sir.”

Rychen smiled; it carried an air of authenticity rarely seen among four-star officers. “The times make the man, Colonel. I’m confident you will.” His expression bore a tinge of wryness as he turned back to the fleet status screen. “Now go see about a shuttle to the
Orion
, because we leave in two hours.”

44

MESSIUM

E
ARTH
A
LLIANCE
C
OLONY

I
N THE MID-21
^ST
CENTURY THE ENTERTAINMENT
industry had produced a number of self-styled ‘post-apocalyptic’ films. Dressed up as fictional dramas and horror flicks, they were thinly veiled propaganda designed to warn of the dire fate which awaited humanity if they didn’t either get pollution, energy demands and industrialization under control, or else vacate the planet.

More than two hundred years later the films were shown in school to tout mankind’s success in taming Earth and its ecosystems, as well as its success in making vacating the planet an option. The films differed in the details but they unfailingly portrayed cities reduced to smoldering ruins, skylines of broken, sheared skyscrapers, bridges wrent in two and highways shredded to rubble.

The first thought to pop into Kennedy’s head when she crawled through a shattered window of the Palaimo headquarters and stepped onto the street was,
the filmmakers had no imagination
.

The utter wreckage of Messium’s capital city spread before her like the closing shot in one of those films. Though it was evening, enough light remained to reflect infinite prisms off the numerous metallic shards jutting out of the remains of buildings.

To the left an entire block had been vaporized. Eradicated, plainly, for not a single beam of a single structure protruded above ground level. Yet in front of them scaffolding of buildings still stood, though stripped of their covering except for scattered pieces clinging to the frame.

“This is not going to be good for the Messium tourism industry.”

She glanced back to roll her eyes at Noah and was shocked to find an amused expression on his face as he hefted her bag—now even heavier with the addition of gear scavenged from the lab—over his shoulder. “Is there anything you take seriously?”

“Not so far.”

“And how’s that working out for you?”

He licked his lips. “Well, I’m alive when it appears a hell of a lot of other people are dead, so I’d say fairly well all things considered.”

She elbowed him in the ribs…but he was right.

They had discovered the fate of a good portion of the Palaimo employees during their trek out of the bowels of the building. At the opposite end of the basement from where they had camped, the ceiling had collapsed. They used the rubble as a path up and out, only to learn a large section of the first and most of the second floor had also collapsed.

She remembered a large conference room being located in that corner on the first floor. The pools of coagulated blood which had leaked out beneath the slabs of shattered walls and ceilings painted a fairly stark picture. If it hadn’t, the odd hand or foot sticking out, skin mottled and partially desiccated, would have done so well enough.

Now bodies littered the street and sidewalks. While a few were killed by falling debris, most had been…roasted. Scorched to a crisp, presumably by some weapon. Bile rose in her throat at the thought they may have been burnt alive.

She covered her mouth and spun away as she tried to block out the images swimming in her head of people running for their lives while knowing they were sure to die, then doing so in such a horrific manner.

“Hey…you okay?” His hand rested gently on her arm, his voice uncharacteristically tender.

She swallowed hard and raised her chin. “Not in the slightest. Let’s get out of here.”

“You got it, Blondie.” He started off down the sidewalk, and she scrambled to catch up. She hadn’t decided whether she liked or loathed the nickname but all attempts to get him to stop had resulted in renewed usage.

Noah claimed a military station and dock was located on the edge of downtown, six kilometers to the west. Apparently the brass took shuttles from the sprawling base outside of town for business in the city and used the facility for meetings with local suppliers and contractors. According to him the shuttle bay was at ground level and protected by the mid-rise building, so there was a small possibility it hadn’t been destroyed.

None of the ships at the station—assuming there were any—would have sLume drives. With only an impulse engine to propel them they were certain to die of starvation long before reaching another colony. But they stood a better chance in space than here on the ground.

An ominous red glow bloomed at the edge of the next intersection, and Noah shoved her into an alcove created by a service door. Seconds later what could only be a ship emerged around the corner.

She recognized it as one of the many insectile-shaped ships shown in Alex’s images, one of the hundreds of thousands of strange vessels which had docked into the superdreadnoughts. It hovered several meters above the ground, its odd metallic tentacles writhing like feelers ahead of it as it moved.

Out of nowhere a man bolted from a storefront and took off running down the street. The ship accelerated toward him. When it was fifteen meters behind the man a crimson laser shot out of the core of its tentacles and….

Noah’s hand covered her mouth as if anticipating the gasp of horror which bubbled forth as the man burst into flames. He must have been dead on impact, so hot and intense was the beam, but it took four seconds for the flaming corpse to collapse in the street.

Her earlier suspicion had proved gruesomely accurate. All these bodies had, in fact, been burnt alive.

The man likely saved their lives. The ship continued on and disappeared around the next corner.

What possible goal could be accomplished by murdering people one at a time, by coldly hunting down individuals and exterminating them? It didn’t make sense.

A plume of flames, bright copper against the darkening sky, flared in the distance. It seemed the destruction of Messium was not yet complete.

Noah’s lips were at her ear. In any other circumstances it would have given her a thrill. “We need to go. Stay close to the buildings and don’t talk. Anything moves and we hide.”

She squeezed his hand in assent and followed him out of the alcove.