Genellan: Planetfall

Any similarity of the characters to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

SECTION ONE — A NEW WORLD

Chapter 1. Battle

We're dead, Buccari admitted. A bead of sweat broke loose from the saturated rim of the copilot's skull cap and floated into her field of vision. She moved to keep the mercurial droplet from colliding with her lashless eyes. Humidity controls in her battle suit activated, and she swallowed to adjust for the pressure change.

"Reloading forward kinetics," she reported, breaking the oppressive silence. She glanced up. The command pilot of Harrier One stared dumbly at the holographic tactical display.

"Skipper, you copy?" Buccari demanded, switching to flight deck intercom and cutting out the rest of the crew.

The pilot's head slowly lifted, his gold visor catching and scattering the brilliant rays of Rex-Kaliph, the system star. "Yeah, Lieutenant, I copy," he mumbled.

Buccari's anxiety clicked up another notch. She pivoted in her acceleration tethers to look at Hudson hunkering at his station. "Nash, status on the fleet?" she demanded.

"Nothing new, Sharl," the second officer replied nervously. "But main engine power's fading, and engineering doesn't answer."

Buccari's scan jerked to her own power screen, confirming the bad news. "Crap!" she uttered, frantically trying to override.

"'Already tried emergency override," gulped Hudson.

"Commander, main engines are shutting down," she shouted. "Computer's rejecting command overrides. We got nothing but thrusters."

Buccari pushed back from the instruments. Her scan moved to the tactical display—the blip representing the remaining alien interceptor moved outbound, a belligerent icon deliberately maneuvering for its next attack. She exhaled and looked up to see the corvette pilot still frozen in position.

"Commander Qui

"Mister Hudson," Qui

Buccari looked out into space, at star-shot blackness. There had been visual contact—brilliant, lancing streaks of argent. Aliens! They had found aliens. Had they ever! They had jumped into a frigging bug nest! A whole goddamn star system filled with aliens. Kicking Legion butt.

Harrier One had destroyed two of the alien ships; she had even seen one explode through the digital optics of the corvette's laser ca

"Radiation damage, Sharl?" Qui

"Background radiation," Buccari said. "Not weapons detonation—too constant. Probably solar flares from Rex-Kaliph. Sun spots. She's a hot one." Starshine poured through the view screens casting deep shadows and illuminating the crew-worn flight deck in stark shades of gray.

"Looks bad for Greenland," Qui

"I'd be worrying about this ship, Commander," Buccari snapped.

"Yeah," Qui

Buccari closed her eyes as the pilot flipped on the command circuit.

"Attention, all hands," Qui

Buccari gasped as if punched in the stomach. It made no sense; the EPL and lifeboats were defenseless—helpless.

"Kinetics show full reload," Buccari persisted. "Arming complete."

"Move, Lieutenant. You're EPL pilot," Qui

Buccari disco

"Got the laser ca

Qui

"Goldberg cleared and spooled the fusion ionizers-" Rhodes began.

"But the reactor temps!" Buccari interrupted on suit radio.

"Mains are hot," Rhodes said. "I re-routed power across the aux bus. That killed our comm circuits and kicked over the power manager. Primary bus is friggin' creamed, but we got a shot at syncing in five minutes. Auto-controls are disabled. Fire control will have to be manual."

Qui

The response from weapons control, two decks below, was immediate: "Affirmative, Skipper," responded the gravelly voice of Chief Wilson. "I sent Schmidt and Tookmanian to the lifeboats. What's go—"

"Stay put, Gu

"Huh…roger that, sir," Wilson growled. "No kidding? Bogey's squealing garbage all over the place, but I'm still tracking him solid. Down-Doppler. Estimate no more than seven or eight minutes before we reengage. I don't know what Virgil's telling you, Skipper, but my panel says we're two weeks away from a hot ca