“General?” Drakon instinctively looked up as he once more heard the voice of his shuttle commander, Major Barnes, through a hiss of static and wavering jamming tones. “Sir, we’re loading up now. We’ve lost two birds, several others have hits but are still flyable. What do we do after we drop the last load?”
The plan had been for the shuttles to return to the freighters and await further developments in orbit. But that plan hadn’t anticipated having an enemy battleship bearing down on them. “How long do we have left before the battleship gets here?”
“Twelve hours. The freighter crews are acting like it’s already coming within weapons range, though. They’ll run as soon as we leave with this last wave of the assault, General. I guarantee it. There won’t be any freighters in orbit for us to link up with after the last drop.”
Drakon exhaled heavily, glaring at his helmet display. “I hate to give this order, Pancho, but after your last drops, have the shuttles scatter. Stay real low to avoid any warbirds that Haris still has operational. Tell your people to find spots to land and hide until they get word to lift and rejoin us inside the base.”
“Yes, sir. General, it’s pretty hard to hide something the size of a shuttle.”
“It’ll be easier to hide on the ground than if you’re in the air or in orbit. We’ve taken out Haris’s orbital sensors. We’ll have to hope that Haris’s warships stay focused on our warships and the freighters and don’t do orbital searches for you. Odds are the attention of Haris’s ground forces is going to stay focused on us right here.”
“All that’s true, General. Good luck.”
“Same to you. Tell all of your pilots that they did a fine job, and I’ll stand them all for drinks when this is over.”
“We’ll hold you to that, General. All of my birds are loose and starting the last drop. And… the freighters are scattering. Looks like they’re going to hug the curvature of the planet to hide themselves from the battleship for a little while, then head off in different directions.”
“Understood.” Drakon clenched one fist, wondering if his next sight of one of those freighters would be a ball of fire blossoming high overhead as the Syndicate warships closed in on them. He had no idea where Haris’s two cruisers were right now or what Kommodor Marphissa was doing with her cruisers.
“The pressure on our perimeter is increasing,” Gaiene reported. “I’ve got at least two companies of ground forces pressing on my people holding the far side of the street.”
“Pull another company out of the perimeter to reinforce your people in those buildings,” Drakon ordered. “Colonel Kai, you do the same.”
“General,” Kai began, “we’re not yet under the same strain as—” He paused, then spoke again. “They just began hitting us harder. These are not just probes of our own defenses, General.”
“No. Assume we’re facing significant forces outside our perimeter. Once the third wave lands and the shuttles clear the landing areas, I want you to pull everyone back inside this ring of buildings. We need to do it fast and clean, so no one is caught trying to cross the street.”
“Yes, sir.”
“General?” Malin called. “I’ve been monitoring our testing of the base’s defenses. I have no doubt that the base is strongly held.”
“What are we facing here, Bran? Any ideas?”
“They were waiting for us in space, and they were waiting on the ground. If they have additional ground forces on the same scale to us as that battleship is to the Midway warships, then we could be facing at least a division.”
“How could Morgan have missed that?” Drakon demanded.
“I don’t know, General. My best bet is that the additional forces arrived too late in the game for Morgan to get word to us.”
Drakon glared at his display, where enemy symbols continued to proliferate as the pressure on his outer perimeter intensified. “They must have had some pretty precise information about our plans.”
“Yes, sir. Very precise. Someone close to you, or to the president, must have provided them with good enough information for them to plan this.”
“I already discussed that with the Kommodor. We’ll deal with that issue when we get back.” He refused to say if we get back. “Another half hour, and we’ll have everyone down here. We need to hit that base with everything we can as soon as we can. Help get that set up.”
“Incoming!” someone shouted across the comm circuit.
More alerts pulsed on Drakon’s helmet display, warning of a barrage of long-range missiles on its way. “They’re timed to hit when the shuttles are dropping the last load. Pancho, delay the drop.”
“Got it,” Major Barnes said, her breathing coming fast. “Braking hard. We can’t delay too much at the rate we’re coming down. We’ll reach the landing zones on the heels of the missiles and hopefully miss any shrapnel.”
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” Colonel Gaiene called over his brigade’s comm circuit. “Get your butts under cover or kiss them good-bye.” He switched to speak only to Drakon. “This could be a little ugly if some of those missiles hit the buildings we’re in.”
“I know.”
“The enemy forces engaging me are pulling back,” Kai reported.
“Smart of them,” Gaiene said.
“Yeah,” Drakon agreed. “They don’t want to get hit by their own missile bombardment.” He frowned as one of the missile tracks vanished from his display. “What—?” Another disappeared. “The warships. They’re nailing the missiles with their hell lances.”
“Too bad there are only four up there at the moment,” Gaiene said. “They got another. This might not be too bad.”
“Their hell lances can’t fire continuously for long,” Malin cautioned. “They’ll overheat.”
A detection hovered at the edge of Drakon’s sensor picture. He stared in disbelief. “One of those HuKs is coming really low. He’s getting into real atmosphere.”
A half dozen more missiles vanished, but more warnings sprang to life as other missiles and surviving warbirds bolted upward after the Hunter-Killer that had come perilously low to support the ground forces.
“Get clear!” Drakon shouted at the Hunter-Killer, wondering if they would pick up his message through the jamming.
Whether the crew of the Hunter-Killer heard or not, the warship pivoted on end and shot back toward space, tracing a fiery path through atmosphere as its tortured hull overheated. The pursuing missiles and warbirds dropped back, unable to match the velocity of a spacecraft’s main propulsion.
“She took some damage doing that,” Kai remarked in an admiring voice. “And she attracted a lot of the defenders’ attention by coming down that low.”
“We owe her and her crew,” Drakon agreed.
The blare of the incoming barrage imminent alarms in their battle armor caused them all to hit the floor wherever they were and wait for the few remaining seconds before the surviving missiles released multiple warheads that began slamming into the street outside. Drakon felt the floor of the building he was in flexing wildly, but, fortunately, earthquake proofing also helped structures survive the effects of nearby large explosions. Any windows still intact shattered as designed into clear gravel that fell like hail through the buildings. The street outside was obscured from view as the missile warheads filled the air with smoke and debris. As the thunder of detonations eased, he heard shattered walls of other buildings collapsing. Somewhere nearby, a fire alarm stuttered forlornly amid the wreckage.