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Worridge frowned slightly when Sakamoto gri
“Nothing.” He waved the comment away, then clasped his hands behind his back and addressed the bridge crew. “The coordinator assured me that I should not act until the time is right. Well, I say there is no time like the present. Captain?” He looked toward the ship’s command chair. “If you will be so good as to go to battle stations.”
Then, as the ship’s comm came alive, Sakamoto nodded at Worridge. “Now.”
Sharpendale Airspace, Uranday, Chichibu
Prefecture II, Republic of the Sphere
26 April 3135
At 0300, Major Todd Hammond made love to his wife. At 0430, he stood over his infant daughter’s crib. When he bent to kiss her round little cheek, he inhaled an aroma of sweet talc and warm milk, and he lingered for another moment, fixing the smell in his mind. At 0515, there was a preflight briefing, and he sat in a metal chair so cold the chill leeched into his bones. And at 0720, Major Todd Hammond got ready to die.
Another blast of swirling turbulence crashed into the aerospace fighter head-on, punching the nose of his craft with a ferocity that shuddered into Hammond’s teeth. The Lucifer’s engines let out a high sputtering whine, like the coughing turbine of a motor about to stall. Cursing, Hammond grappled with his stick as the fighter bucked, lost angels, and then heaved heavenward again. Thank Christ, he wasn’t flying the lighter Sparrowhawk ; battling goo like this would be what a pea felt like being shaken in an empty tin can, and Hammond supposed that, all things considered, he ought to be grateful for this at least. The Sparrowhawk flew recon ahead of Hammond’s flight, TACAN sweeping the upper atmosphere for bearing and slant range. Find the suckers, and then the Sparrowhawk was to fall back and get the hell out of Dodge without getting vaporized—if it could.
The storm had been a surprise, though not as surprising as what had happened four days ago when the Dracs flickered into existence. Caught everyone with their britches down and picking their noses. Two JumpShips, with near enough DropShips to wipe out the whole planet, if that’s what the Dracs had in mind. Given that a lance of Republic aerospace fighters had been reduced to subatomic dust a day ago… well, you could say that was a pretty clear message of Drac intent. Loud and clear.
Of course, none of this was supposed to happen. With all the commotion the Dracs were raising over the border with Prefecture I, and the rumors about them going after Tormark in III, no one was prepared, least of all The Republic’s Central Command, what with all their fighters pulled back to deal with chasing after the Steel Wolves and Swordsworn. Whoever’d made that really bright move essentially quashed any hope of Chichibu being able to mount anything you might call resistance. Chichibu’s planetary militia had always been a joke, skeletal at best. So Command had decided to defend the planet, rather than trying to take the Dracs out near the jump point: specifically, Hammond’s lance, and another flying mop-up a thousand klicks back led by a guy named Kirk Jameson. Hammond didn’t know Jameson well. Had figured he had plenty of time to get to know him. Probably, given how things were going, he’d figured wrong.
Everyone was going in hot, Hammond in the lead, their Lucifers nearly line abreast in a finger-four. They knifed through thick roiling masses of ionized clouds that worked both ways—a blessing and a curse, one of those good for goose and gander kind of things. Sure, he couldn’t see worth shit, and his sensors had been reduced to green-and-red jittering hash, with only the Sparrowhawk and his lance clearly visible because he’d ordered they stay two hundred klicks apart, a distance roughly equivalent to a Lucifer’s turn radius. Elbow room for maneuvering and attack; no sense in their making tac turns only to fly up each other’s tailpipes.
His comm wasn’t much better: a mishmash of gabbled voices sifted through static that he only half registered because none of the Command-babble was worth a good goddamn. The only thing that brightened his day was the sure knowledge that if things were bad for him, they had to be just as bad for the Dracs. Maybe.
A crackle in his headset: “Ray 36… ine… acts… ight… spect!”
The Sparrowhawk, or the pilot, was reporting contact. “Say again, Ray 36,” barked Hammond. “Say again.”
Fizzle, pop, then a splutter: “Ray 36… nine… forty right… sixty klicks, high… hot…!” Spritz, crackle, and then Hammond glanced at his sensors and saw that the little red speck that had been the Sparrowhawk was gone. But Hammond understood: nine contacts, forty degrees right, sixty klicks, high aspect.
For a brief instant, as he prepared his flight to turn hard right to intercept, a stream of memory burned a trail across his consciousness, like the bright streak of a meteor. He felt the good, warm body of his wife in his arms, the feel of his daughter’s hair, the softness of his wife’s lips and the way they tasted. He remembered fingers of wind on his cheeks and the wonder of a leaf in his hand. He remembered living. He remembered his life. It had been a good one.
Major Todd Hammond said, “Ray 31 flight, check forty right, throttle up, now!”
No one acknowledged, but they didn’t have to. They turned, and Hammond fired his aft thrusters. A lion’s roar of power competed with the violence of the storm, and a giant fist punched Hammond against his seat as his Lucifer leapt into battle. The sudden g s left him light-headed for a giddy instant, and he grunted automatically, raising his vascular pressure with an instinctive Valsalva maneuver that forced blood back into his brain until his g–suit compensated. His Lucifer gobbled up air, and he was climbing, climbing…
And then it was as if the Dracs materialized out of a thick mist: first the churning clouds, and then a queer red glow lighting the atmosphere with fire, and then Hammond’s contact alarms screamed. A rain of ruby red laser fire sliced the air, dancing around Hammond’s canopy. The lasers were so close their glare burned through Hammond’s protective visor and left purple afterimages sizzling on his retinas. The Dracs thundered out of the clouds, nine strong, their lasers darting ahead like fiery tongues, followed by the massive hulk of the DropShip close behind.
“Mother of God,” said Hammond, and even as his computer shrilled that the Dracs were acquiring; even as his lance broke formation for evasive maneuvers; even as the air over his canopy burned—he knew.
It would be the last prayer he’d ever say.
Tranquil Seas Resort, Tranquil Bay
Shangai, Shinonoi
Prefecture II, Republic of the Sphere
6 May 3135
Oh, and to hell with Phillip. Sherry Platt squeezed a puddle of sunscreen into the palm of her right hand. She worked the sunscreen into her left shoulder, wincing as beach grit sanded her skin. When had anyone ever accused Phillip of listening to a word she said? If she’d told him once, she’d said it a hundred times: For God’s sake, put on some sunscreen so you don’t end up like a boiled lobster.
But noooo. Sherry massaged more goo onto her legs and the flabby, fish-belly white rolls of her stomach. Capping the sunscreen with a sharp snick, Sherry flopped back onto her towel and squinted. The sun was very bright today, bright enough to bring tears. She shaded her eyes with her right hand. Perfect beach weather, not a cloud in the sky, blue as far as the eye could see. Blue sky, blue water, white sand… Finally, Phillip gets some time off, and they go to the beach, and then what does Phillip do? Phillip doesn’t listen. Phillip doesn’t use sunscreen. Phillip spent four hours in the sun yesterday, and now Phillip was flopped like a beached whale on their beautiful king-size bed—and a Jacuzzi included, too, she could have killed for a Jacuzzi bath; you could sail a yacht in that Jacuzzi, and the sex! But no sex now, not with Phillip’s skin flash-cooked to the color of a boiled lobster. No, redder than that, as red as a fire truck, that was how red.