“Very well,” Ted said. “We will act to recover the prisoners.”
It took nearly thirty minutes to draw up a plan of attack. On the face of it, destroying the alien transhipment hub and the handful of satellites would be easy, but if the aliens had intended to make it hard for the humans to recover the POWs it would be very tricky. His imagination provided a dozen possibilities, all based on human history. There could be a nuke buried under the POW camp, the prisoners could all have been forcibly addicted to something only the aliens could produce… or they could simply have been brainwashed into servitude. Even if Ted and his crew did manage to get them all home, they might never be trusted again.
“Hostage rescue is always a pain,” Parnell had said. The Marine had sounded as enthusiastic as ever, but there had been an undertone of worry in his voice that bothered Ted. “The hostages have to be treated with great suspicion, because they might have bonded with their captors.”
It seemed absurd, Ted considered, for anyone to bond with the aliens. But after their images had been released, there had been humans extolling the virtues in their noble bodies… or something like that. Ted hadn't been paying close attention to the lunatic fringe. But, if someone felt completely cut off from Earth and the rest of the human community, could they be seduced by the aliens? It was a definite possibility.
“Take us into attack position,” he ordered. The closer they sneaked to Alien-One, the greater the chance of detection. He’d been tempted to snipe at the alien transhipment hub from a distance, just like they’d done at New Russia, but there was too great a chance of a projectile missing its target and striking the planet instead. “Is the fleet ready?”
“Yes, sir,” Farley said. He nodded towards one of the monitors, tracking the location and status of every ship in the flotilla. “The fleet is standing by.”
“Good,” Ted said. He smiled, inwardly. As tiny as the alien settlement was — although he couldn't escape the feeling they were missing something — it was still the first alien world to be attacked by human forces. Ark Royal and her crew would go down in the history books… absently, he wondered just who would be writing the histories of the war. Humans… or the aliens? “Launch the first spread of unpowered missiles.”
He settled back in his chair as the flight of blue icons darted out from the icons representing Ark Royal and headed towards their target. Unpowered as they were, not even Ark Royal could track them, but as long as they kept their drives deactivated they would follow a strictly predicable ballistic course. Long minutes ticked away until the missiles finally entered attack range and went active, bringing up their drives and lancing towards the alien station. There was a brief flurry of activity as the aliens realised the danger, too late. The missiles slammed home, blasting the space station into flaming debris. Ted watched, emotionlessly, as the debris started to de-orbit and fall towards the planet below.
Too much firepower, he thought, ruefully. If they’d realised the alien point defence would have been so pitiful, he could have saved a handful of missiles. But at least we killed it.
“Target destroyed,” Farley reported, with heavy satisfaction. “I say again, target destroyed.”
“There's nothing large enough to pose a threat to the ecosystem,” one of the analysts added. “The pieces of junk should all burn up in the planetary atmosphere.”
Ted kept his thoughts to himself. It was quite possible that there had been human POWs on the station, humans who had been killed without ever knowing what had hit them. There had been no choice, he told himself; the station had to be destroyed as quickly as possible. But he would never know for sure if humans had died because of him. The thought would torment him for the rest of his life.
“Launch starfighters,” he ordered. “I want orbital space swept clean.”
Kurt put thoughts of Rose out of his mind as the starfighter lurched forward and crashed out into interplanetary space at a colossal speed. Ahead of him, Alien-One glowed in the inky darkness of space, surrounded by unblinking stars that seemed to gaze pitilessly at the tiny humans infesting their domain. He shivered, helplessly, as he looked back at them. Most humans, even starship crewmen, didn't really comprehend the true vastness of space. He and his fellow pilots, however, knew it all too well. They were utterly insignificant on such a scale.
Bracing himself, he took the shuttle down towards planetary orbit, wishing — again — that the designers had solved the problem of crafting a starfighter that functioned equally well in space as on the ground. There were humans down there, according to the announcement, humans who had been taken prisoner by the aliens. He wanted to get down to the surface and tear into the alien defenders, pulling the prisoners out before they died in alien hands. But his craft couldn't hope to survive a trip through the atmosphere…
An alien satellite loomed up ahead of him. The computers engaged it automatically, blowing it apart before it could do anything threatening. Tiny pieces of debris fell towards the planet’s atmosphere as Kurt led the rest of the squadron forward, searching for other alien satellites. None of the satellites seemed anything other than civilian designs — not too different from anything human — but Kurt knew just how easy it was to hide a weapon in space. They didn't even dare risk trying to take one of the satellites intact.
“Space is clear, sir,” he reported, finally.
Despite himself, Kurt was almost disappointed. If he’d taken prisoners from an alien race, he would have made damn sure they were held somewhere that was heavily defended. But the aliens, for whatever reasons of their own, clearly disagreed with his logic. Maybe they’d assumed that humanity wouldn't bother to try to recover POWs. Or maybe they just hadn't had the shipping to move them further into their territory.
“Very clear,” Rose agreed. As always, hearing her voice while they were on duty provoked a multitude of contradictory responses in his mind. It had been much easier before they'd become lovers… now, he was in danger of obsessing over her. But, at the same time, he found it more than a little irritating. “Even the debris is falling rapidly.”
Kurt nodded. Earth had always had nightmares about a settled asteroid or a massive space station falling out of orbit, even if it shattered into countless pieces first. Adding that much junk to the planet's ecosystem couldn't possibly be healthy. But the alien world wouldn't be badly affected by the relatively small amount of debris… and besides, it was an alien world, not a human colony. The aliens could take care of themselves.
“Return to CSP positions,” he ordered. Ark Royal was holding position some distance from the planet, making it easier to run for the tramline if necessary. A handful of frigates, however, were moving into orbit, ready to provide fire support if the Marines needed it. “And keep your eyes peeled. These bastards have very good stealth, remember?”
“Space is clear, sir,” Farley reported. “No sign of any ground-based defences.”
Ted wasn’t too surprised. Ground-based defences were expensive and unreliable… although, with their technology, the aliens could probably create something more capable than humanity had been able to produce. But Alien-One was clearly nothing more than a tiny settlement and a POW camp, perhaps a clearinghouse for the aliens to use to sort through their prisoners and work out who they wanted to interrogate more carefully. Or perhaps they just wanted to put the POWs out of the way and forget about them.