Gravity Wars: Nova Strike, page 28
Is this what pressure did, or rather was it the sense of hopelessness that no one could beat the aliens? They did not dare take the Orion ships into battle because everyone believed four Orion ships could not beat three Enforcers in a toe-to-toe slugfest.
Was that true?
Steele wasn’t sure, but he knew if he were in charge, he would attack and use whatever he could to make the aliens fight for every centimeter they won.
Steele mentally set that aside as he listened to what Huber was telling Petty.
“And so,” concluded Huber, “I have been thinking about the right plan.”
The small man pulled up a data pad. “It was these shots from the Watchdog-23 that showed me we are having an effect. May I put them on the large screen, sir?”
Everyone looked to a large wall-screen, which seemed to be a new addition to the office.
“Go ahead,” Petty said roughly. It felt as if he wanted to finish off the whiskey in the glass, but held himself from doing it in front of them.
Huber showed them shots taken by the Watchdog-23 satellite millions of kilometers away from the Moon. Then, Huber explained how the Enkidu had changed position with the Lagash. Afterward, he showed them a power-outage taking place on the Enkidu.
“I’ve never seen that before,” Petty said.
“I only just saw it myself,” Huber said. “This happened during the Guardian III missile assault. It shows that one of the particle beam cannons must have blown up, overheated or melted down. Soon after that, the Enkidu changed places with the Lagash. Could it have done that in case we launched another heavy missile assault against the mass driver?”
Petty frowned. “Are you suggesting the heavy firing burned out some of Enforcer’s parts?”
“That strikes me as logical,” Huber said. “Remember, this is exactly the situation I spoke about in my strategical review. We need to wear down the enemy. Thus, instead of letting them pick off the rest of our Guardian IIIs, we hurl all of them—one hundred and fifty—against the mass driver. This time, though, we take out the mass driver. If we’re lucky, some of the missiles might detonate because we force the Lagash to back away from the battle.”
“Why would the Enforcer do that?” Petty asked.
“Because we threaten the Lagash with the four Orion ships,” Huber said. “The Orion ships start heading there during the missile assault.”
Petty sat up, his palms on the desktop. “Are you mad? That’s what we’re trying to avoid.”
“I didn’t say we would go all the way into an engagement,” Huber said. “I said we would threaten it by sending the four Orion ships. The hope is the Lagash’s officers see our attacking ships and run away before the Orion ships can get within range.”
“What happens if the other Enforcers come out or if the Lagash holds its ground?” Petty asked.
“Then the Orion ships veer off sharply,” Huber said. “This is a demonstration. We’re trying to destroy the mass driver by threatening its defender so it will fall back and our missiles will hit.”
“We do this even at the cost of all the Guardian IIIs?” Petty asked.
“Oh, yes,” Huber said.
“The Valiants brought five other mass drivers along,” Petty said. “One won’t make that much of a difference.”
Huber nodded. “I have pondered that, and you said something the other day that made me really think. I finally looked up the Long Range Desert Group and the SAS of World War II.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Petty said.
“I understand, sir. This happened in 1941 when the British were in North Africa, first fighting the Italians and later the Germans under Erwin Rommel. Brave young men went out in flimsy trucks and jeeps, going far behind enemy lines, blowing up munitions and equipment and killing soldiers where possible. The point is these men went into extremely inhospitable terrain. It wasn’t outer space, but it was some of the most inhospitable spaces on Earth. They formed an effective military unit. They didn’t win the North African campaign for the British, but they went a long ways to helping them achieve the victory.
“Sir, I suggest we incorporate our own Long Range Desert Group and SAS rolled into one. This time it’s a Long Range Lunar Group. We use your best unit, Colonel Garvey’s fifty space marines. If that doesn’t stir you, maybe this will.” Huber pointed at the First Lieutenant. “You have Colonel Mike Steele’s son, John Steele. You know his élan and fighting spirit. He gets the job done, even if that means sacrificing himself to win. That is what his father did at Neptune and Saturn. John Steele will do the same if needed on the Moon.”
Petty looked keenly at the First Lieutenant.
Steele felt a thrill and sadness. He had two children and a beautiful wife. Did he want to throw his life away? He would for the sake of his wife and kids. It was what a father and husband did. He protected his family—even if it was from marauding aliens.
“Sir, if I’m half the man my father was—”
“Damn it,” Petty said, interrupting, slamming a hard palm against the desk. “Huber, are you suggesting we sneak these men onto the Moon, onto the dark side, and they try to blow up mass drivers?”
“Partly,” Huber said. “Remember, the mass drivers are still in the ship that brought them. Our marines will have nuclear explosives. They will attempt to work near, place, and detonate them.”
“How do we get them home?” Petty asked.
“We have ways,” Huber said. “The important point is that to achieve this, they will have to go in during our final missile assault and the Orion ships’ demonstration. I can’t see any other way of sneaking them onto the Moon.”
Petty grabbed the whiskey glass and gulped down the contents. His eyes shined as he stood and began to pace with his beefy hands behind his back.
“A demonstration makes sense,” Petty said at last. “People are grumbling, saying we’re not using our Orion ships. I like it. Your plan is aggressive and bold, yet it does not risk everything we have.” Petty stopped and stared at Garvey. “Colonel, are you willing to risk your lives on such an improbable strike?”
Garvey remained silent and thoughtful.
Steele spoke into the silence. “My dad did it for me. I’ll do it for my kids. But, I want you to look after them, sir.”
Petty clutched his heart and took a step back. He looked at Steele with haunted eyes.
“Did I say something wrong?” Steele asked.
“No…” Petty whispered. “It’s just that your dad asked me that when he went and won us everything at Saturn. I don’t know if I can face the idea of sending his son into the maw of death in order to fix everything for the rest of us.”
“I do,” Steele said. “It is why I was born. This is my moment.”
“Garvey, you’ve been very quiet,” Petty said. “What do you think about all this?”
“I don’t like it,” Garvey said. “I have kids, wives; I love my life, but I am a space marine, I saw the example of Colonel Mike Steele. Yeah, I am willing to do it and this young First Lieutenant, I count on him more than I count on anything. But I want a way to come home again because I don’t want to take my men into certain death.”
“I will work on that,” Huber said quietly. “I want you men to come home again too, but I’ve been racking my brain thinking of a way to defeat the Valiants. I’ve heard reports that the lunar dust is gumming up some of their machines and suits. They’re taking losses. It’s not just a cakewalk for them on the Moon. But they are having their way with us. They have conquered all our bases and set up a workable mass driver. Soon, they’ll have another. If they construct six, we’re going to lose the battle of the Moon and then the orbital battle. At that point, to keep the Orion ships intact, we would have to take them behind the Earth. That would be unconscionable because once we lost orbital space—
“This is the moment,” Huber said. “To make sure those on the Enforcer believe our demonstration, you should reinstate Admiral Tojo. That way, if it becomes a real fight, we might win.”
Petty stared at Huber before looking at the others. “Gentlemen, if you’re willing to take this risk, then I’m willing to lay my four Orion ships on the table trying to buy humanity freedom from the aliens.”
Huber smiled in a haunted way.
“Rumpelstiltskin,” Petty said, “you have done it again. I salute you, sir. I’m glad your brains are on our side. We’re gonna beat these aliens yet.”
“I hope you’re right, sir,” Huber said. “I dearly do.”
“Let us toast, then,” Petty said.
Steele nodded. “Yes, sir, a toast would be good, and then I’d like to see my family before I go back for this last mission.”
Petty reached for a whiskey bottle and poured for everyone.
They raised their glasses.
“To victory,” Petty said.
“To victory,” they echoed.
Steele felt the gravity of the task. This was his chance to turn the tide, to make a stand that would echo through the annals of history. For his family, for Earth, for humanity’s future—he would give his all.
-19-
It was crazy, John thought. Most of his time aboard the Daniel Boone had been ‘hurry up, hurry up’, and endless, deathly dull waiting.
Now it was hurry his ass off as they fitted him out in a non-ferrous suit and taught him how to connect the experimental craft. He wouldn’t even be in a space marine battle suit to go out guns blazing. It would be more like wandering around the Moon in a space bubble with nitrogen thrusters.
How did high command expect any of them to survive in the module for weeks, never mind roving around undetected?
One thing didn’t surprise him: Garvey was flushed from the mission. The reason was simple: Colonel Garvey was too old.
Steele loved and respected Garvey, but this was a young man’s mission. Besides, he was glad Garvey would survive.
***
Several days later, after everything was ready in the launch bay of the Daniel Boone, black-ice-coated pods were loaded one by one into the catapult system. Each pod was designed for a specific purpose—some carried space marines ready to engage in ground operations on the lunar surface, while others contained modules for the stealth craft they would assemble upon arrival. The black-ice coating—a special material designed to absorb and diffuse radar signals—ensured the pods would remain undetected as they hurtled toward their target. At least, that was the plan.
“All systems go,” a technician said over the intercom. “We’re ready for launch sequence.”
John Steele heard this through his headphones. He was already strapped into one of the pods, wearing his spacesuit. The interior was worse than cramped, like an unborn chick in its egg.
The electromagnetic catapult system was still powering up.
Steele’s gut churned as he waited. This was it. He could hardly believe he was having an attack-Narva moment. This was easily as crazy as Charles XII’s attack against the Russians of Peter the Great during a driving snowstorm, his forces outnumbered by the besieging enemy.
The countdown commenced. There was a clack, a thud, a moment of waiting, and then the pod zoomed along the tracks, hurled with incredible force. The acceleration pressed Steele back as the pod shot into space literally like a speeding bullet.
Outside, his pod followed others electromagnetically catapulted before him, arcing through space and heading for the Moon.
The journey took time, more than the hour the Guardian IIIs took to reach the mass driver on the Moon.
John didn’t know how the new Guardian III-Enforcer battle went. Did the Orion ships make their demonstration by rushing as if to join the assault? Had the Lagash run away? Had any of the Guardian IIIs destroyed the mass driver?
He thought about his wife Dawnstar and the beautiful time they had had together before he had left the orbital station, how he had played with his children, with that having possibly been the last time. It had been and was an awful feeling.
Steele wondered once again how his dad had felt at the end, at Saturn. His dad had been on his own, but there were others in the different black-ice capsules. Would the team survive the Moon crash in order to jury-rig the stealth module? What if despite all the effort, alien sensors detected the black-ice coated pods? That was easy. Then they were doomed to die.
Steele knew he had ancestors who had done crazy things like this. This is my turn, is all, he thought.
He tried to settle in for what would probably be another half-hour. Then it would literally hit the fan, as the black ice capsules would crash onto the lunar surface. Would any of them survive that? He hoped so.
The controlled crash had been the chief reason Garvey had washed out. The old man’s bones were too brittle for such a strike.
Steele tried to get some shut-eye while he could, because soon he was going to be on a long-range lunar patrol and see if he could make history by blowing up an alien cargo ship that held the rest of the mass drivers, and thereby Earth hostage.
The sleep attempt wasn’t any good, as there was a jolt. That shook him alert. Then he remembered the viewing port. In all the training and hurry, he had forgotten about it.
Steele switched on the port and fiddled with the directional camera.
In the distance were streaks of what was probably the last of the Guardian III missiles, their contrails glowing faintly. The missiles were part of the coordinated strike to neutralize the mass driver and give the insertion cover.
Midway through the final descent, a series of retro-rockets ignited in a timed sequence, slowing the pod’s descent. Steele watched through the small viewport as the lunar surface grew larger, the details of craters and ridges becoming more defined.
The sharper the picture, the tighter his stomach curled.
As the pod neared the surface, balloons inflated around the exterior, creating a buffer of air and synthetic material designed to absorb the kinetic energy of crash-landing.
The lunar surface rushed up faster to meet the pod, but instead of a killing crash, John felt a jarring hit that snapped his teeth together. The techs had said this would be easy. Instead, it felt as if a car had smashed into his ribs. The pod bounced several times, thrusters forcing it down again, before rolling to a stop. The interplay of crumple zones, foam layers, and the balloon cushioning system meant he was painfully alive.
Steele lay there for a bit. It felt like he’d been in several football games, taking a beating each time. He ached all over, and it hurt his lung muscles if he breathed too deeply. Finally, he checked his suit, activating a secondary breathing apparatus. Then he kicked a foot lever, and a hatch hissed open. Steele unstrapped and re-positioned, slithering out and then standing in a gray expanse. Lunar dust clung to his boots. It was a fine, pervasive grit that could cause a lot of trouble.
Steele rotated his body. Other pods were near. A special system had maintained that, not like parachutists in WWII. Sergeant Ramirez and the others emerged from their pods, clicking on short-range links.
All five of the marines made it.
They moved slowly, painfully and set up a perimeter. Then they prepared to unload the modules for the stealth craft.
Steele joined in, helping to maneuver one of the larger components out of its pod. In time, with lots of sweat and the suit conditioners cranked up, all the parts lay there, ready.
“Let’s get this assembled,” Steele said.
The space marines worked as fast as they could, but it still took hours. That meant each of them needed to take breaks. Steele had decided against using any stimulants for now. He didn’t want any mistakes stims could cause.
In the end, the modules fit after a fashion. It had been much easier in practice. The stealth craft would be their key to moving undetected. The black-ice coating matched that of the pods, hopefully rendering the craft nearly invisible to enemy sensors.
Steele was surprised no bright explosions had lit up the darkness. Hadn’t any of the Guardian IIIs delivered their payloads? Or would such an explosion be over the horizon and thus out of sight?
Steele decided that it was a needless worry.
Finally, having taken twice as long as it had in practice, they finished.
“The stealth craft is ready,” Ramirez pronounced.
Steele nodded, climbing through a hatch into a claustrophobically small airlock and then into the craft. The outer moon vehicle looked more like a rectangular black box than anything else. The interior was brutally cramped, with sling cots attached to the bulkheads. One at a time, they removed their suits—which was a bitch—and strapped in or slid into the pilot seat.
Now was the hard part, guiding the craft through cold compressed nitrogen gas. This was going to be rough and nasty.
-20-
The cold compressed nitrogen gas allowed them silent maneuvers, although it took a hell of a time to build up any velocity. The ungainly craft glided over lunar terrain, avoiding the more rugged areas and sticking to shadows cast by the Moon’s craters and ridges.
The journey proved tiring and tense due to the claustrophobic quarters and the constant fear of enemy sensors or alien eyes spotting them. Steele soon grew tired of his companions. He wondered if they should have dropped three or maybe just two of them.
What if one had died during the landing, though? Five had probably been the best number, everything considered.
As the black box drifted under cold compressed gas ejecting from the thrusters, propelling from the near side to the dark side, they encountered endless craters, some shallow and others plunging into darkness. Jagged rocks and steep inclines forced them to make far too many detours. The passive sensors provided data, aiding in the navigation of the treacherous terrain. They used the stars and plotted their course across a detailed map.
