CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Amber-colored lights flashed along the walls, casting their orange glare along the ceilings. Klaxons clanged and bellowed. The hall outside the bridge was a quagmire, with sailors darting in different directions. I watched the crazed scene as I waited for a lift down to the docking bay, where Thomer and my men waited for me in their transports.
When the lift doors opened several decks down, I found the corridors leading to the docking bay all but deserted. The docking bay itself, however, was another matter.
We had two thousand Marines on the Kamehameha, including support troops who would remain on the ship until we had secured the planet. All two thousand men had crammed into the docking bays. Eight hundred of those men waited in the transports. The others waited on deck for the next flight.
As I made my way to the lead transport, I calculated how many Marines we could land on our first wave. With the exception of the Expansion-class Kamehameha, there would be twenty transports ferrying two thousand Marines from each of our thirty-five fighter carriers—seventy thousand troops. We had ninety battleships with sixteen transports each. That gave us another 144,000 Marines. And we had the men already stationed at Fort Sebastian. That would give us a massive first wave—more than 200,000 men. With a force like that, we could win the battle quickly.
“You do realize that generals don’t lead the troops from the front line?” Thomer asked me, as I jogged up the ramp and into the kettle.
“It’s a field rank,” I said. “Field generals fight along with their troops.”
Unfortunately, I was still wearing my Charlie service uniform and not dressed to lead troops into battle. Without the commandLink equipment in my helmet, I would be all but cut off from my men. I wanted to send someone to grab my armor, but we needed to launch immediately.
Remembering the isolation I felt when I went with Warshaw to the explore the Galactic Fleet, I watched the rear doors of the transport clap shut. The kettle was dark. Had I been wearing my armor, I would have had night-for-day vision available to me.
One hundred Marines had crammed into the kettle. They wore armor—one hundred identical men in one hundred identical suits. Without my armor, I could not tell them apart, which added to my frustration.
I pushed through the men and rushed up the ladder and into the cockpit. Thomer followed.
The pilot met me at the door of the cockpit. We traded salutes. He noted my Charlie service uniform, and said, “I guess I better keep the cabin pressurized.”
“I’d appreciate that,” I said. “Get us down there fast.”
Sitting in the copilot’s chair, counting every second, I looked out through the windshield as the sled dragged us through the atmospheric locks. The last door closed, and we went wheels up.
As we left the cover of the tube, the pilot asked, “What happened?” He sounded nervous.
Ahead of us, the remains of our self-broadcasting fleet looked like the burned-out remnants of an extinguished fire—three jagged, twisted hulls with sections that still glowed orange from fires within.
Standing beside me, Thomer looked hypnotized by the sight. His jaw hung slightly open, and his eyes remained fixed on the destruction. I took this as a good sign. Thomer was clean. With fresh Fallzoud running through his veins, he might not have noticed the destruction.
“What the speck hit them?” Thomer asked. He did not mean for me to answer the question, but I did.
“That, General Thomer, is what happens in a broadcast collision.”
“A collision, sir?” the pilot asked.
“Those ships stayed in one place too long,” I said. “The Mogats came up with the idea. You program an enemy ship’s location into a broadcast computer, then broadcast a ship into it. The U.A. used unmanned explorers. The Mogats used manned ships. That was how they destroyed the Doctrinaire.
“You broadcast in past shields and defenses, and the electricity from the anomaly destroys the target.”
“They broadcasted into the Doctrinaire?” asked the pilot.
“Shit,” said Thomer, “that’s brilliant.” Looking at the wreckage of the three big ships, you could not help but be in awe, they were so thoroughly destroyed.
The attack began moments after we left the Kamehameha. A laser cannon hit us as we veered toward open space. The beam was a yard-wide stream of lustrous, silvery red fire that splashed across our shields but did not break through.
The pilot steered away from the beam. Moments later, a squadron of five Tomcats streaked past us. I did not see them until they shot over the windshield. The fighters turned in a tight formation and disappeared.
“Ours or theirs?” I asked, wondering if we would reach the planet.
“Those are ours,” the pilot said.
“Those aren’t,” Thomer said, pointing to the line of battleships forming between us and the planet.
“How the speck do you like that? We’re right back where we started, eh General?” the pilot asked. Only when he said this did I realize that he was the pilot I’d kidnapped for my joyride around the G.C. Fleet.
“What are those?” Thomer asked, pointing at three of the new U.A. battleships as they approached. The ships looked huge compared to the fighters around them.
“Battle group at three o’clock,” I shouted.
“Hold on!” the pilot answered, moments before three torpedoes struck our transport. They hit in quick succession, one right after another. The transport never faltered, but I smelled the acrid tang of ozone coming from our engines.
“Kamehameha, we’re hit. We’re hit. We need protection,” the pilot yelled into his microphone.
“How bad?” I asked.
“One more like that, and we’re dead,” he said.
A torpedo whizzed past us. I caught a glimpse of the flame from its tail, then it was gone.
A swarm of fighters flashed past us, closing the lane between us and the ships that had fired at us. They darted by us and closed in around one of the new battleships. In the brief moment that I watched the attack, several fighters burst into flames.
Then we broke through the atmosphere and the black of space gave way to light and color. Entering the atmosphere so hard and fast, the transport’s walls rattled as if they would come apart. The sturdy bird did not come apart, however, and we found that we had entered the atmosphere only a few thousand miles from the Outer Bliss relocation camp.
“Signal all transports to head to Norristown,” I told the pilot. I thought for a moment, and added, “And tell them to lay off the radio as much as possible, in case the Unifieds are listening in.” They’d have no trouble eavesdropping on our transmission; the equipment in our transports was of U.A. design.
“Should we leave some men to help guard Outer Bliss?” Thomer asked.
“Tell the guards at Outer Bliss to surrender at the first sign of trouble,” I said.
“Surrender?” Thomer asked.
“We may be guests there ourselves by this time tomorrow,” I said.
“Do you think they know about Outer Bliss?” asked Thomer.
“Know about it? They’ve been in contact with Fahey all along. He’s a U.A. spy,” I said.
“That son of a bitch,” Thomer muttered as he raised the guards at Outer Bliss and gave them my orders. They accepted the order without argument.
When he got off the radio, Thomer asked, “What about the people in Norristown? Will they help us?”
“I wouldn’t count on them,” I said, thinking about Sarah Doctorow and her warning that she and her friends would choose the Unified Authority if it came down to a fight. I did not doubt the bitch. “The best we can hope for is that they will stay out of it.”
“Should I land at the airfield?” the pilot asked.
“No, head for the center of town.” We had launched with nothing but our rifles, but I knew where we could upgrade our equipment.