Geary studied the plan, nodding. “Does that leave enough time for the last shuttles to get clear if the Syndics realize what’s happening and pop their nukes right then?”
“I don’t know, sir. Probably not, but it’s my best option.”
“Wait a moment, Colonel.” He spun toward Desjani and explained the situation. “What do you think? Is there anything we can do with enemy troops armed with nukes that close to our people’s emergency evac?”
Desjani bent her head in thought for a long moment, then looked over at him. “There may be something we could try. I was only a junior officer, but as best I recall it worked at Calais Star System. A situation a lot like this, with the enemy coming right on the heels of the last shuttles out.”
“What did you do?”
She twitched a humorless smile. “We dropped a saturation bombardment timed to cross paths with the evac shuttles and hit the surface just as the shuttles got enough altitude to clear the danger zone.”
“You’re kidding. Dropping that many rocks through the same planetary airspace that your shuttles are traversing? What did the shuttle pilots think of that plan?”
“They screamed bloody murder. The evacuees weren’t thrilled, either. But we can do what we did then, download the bombardment pattern and planned trajectories of each projectile into the autopilots of the shuttles. In theory, the autopilots can weave a path between the rocks and make it up high enough before the rocks start hitting and blowing the surface sky-high.”
He thought about it. He didn’t like it. But… “You said it worked at Calais?”
“Yes, sir. Mostly it worked, anyway. Not every rock going through atmosphere sticks exactly to its preplanned trajectory. But at Calais we had a lot more shuttles lifting through the barrage than we’ll be worried about here.”
Mostly it worked. Geary called Carabali again. “Colonel, we’ve got an option to support your final lift.”
He outlined the concept Desjani had described. “It’s up to you whether we try it.”
It seemed that he’d finally managed to surprise Carabali. If that was surprise and not horror he was seeing. But the colonel exhaled and nodded. “If we don’t try that, sir, odds are we’ll lose all three birds and the Marines on them. At least this idea offers them all a much better chance. I’ll notify the pilots of the last three shuttles of what’s going to happen.”
“Let me know if none of them want to volunteer so I can canvass the fleet for other pilots.”
Carabali frowned slightly. “They already volunteered, sir. All three of those pilots are Marines. Please inform me when you have details of the bombardment, sir.”
“Will do.” Geary broke the connection with Carabali, leaned back, and took a deep breath. “All right, everybody. We’re going with Captain Desjani’s plan. We need the bombardment as finely timed as possible if those shuttles are going to have a chance.”
“It’s not exactly my plan,” Desjani muttered, then swung into action. “Lieutenant Julesa, Lieutenant Yuon, Ensign Kaqui, pull up the Marine evac plan as most recently amended by Colonel Carabali and run a bombardment plan through the combat systems. We need something that will saturate the area the shuttles have left, and coordinated with the Marine time line so that the bombardment hits within five seconds of the shuttles clearing the danger zone.”
“Captain,” Lieutenant Yuon asked, “what if one or more of the shuttles develops a problem, or gets delayed otherwise?”
“Assume no delays. All three of the last birds have to lift exactly on time, or they’ll die at the hands of the Syndics. I need that bombardment pattern five minutes ago.”
The watch-standers leaped into action while Geary watched his display. On the portion given over to the ground battle, he could see the sudden appearances and disappearances of enemy symbols as traces of the Syndic commandos were picked up by Marine sensors. The Marines were firing on every detection, but apparently not getting hits against the extremely difficult targets moving through an environment full of things to hide behind. As the Syndic commandos snuck ever closer to the landing field, the Marines were slowly falling back themselves, trying to maintain a screen between the Syndics and the center of the camp.
On the field itself, the last liberated POWs were being bundled into shuttles, and Carabali was calling in her other Marines. The two Persian Donkeys were visible on the display, busily churning out indications of large groups of people still near the landing field.
A lot of things were going to have to work right. He hated depending on that.
“Strange, isn’t it?” Desjani asked. “It’s just like at Corvus, dealing with Syndic Special Forces commandos on a suicide mission.”
“I guess it is sort of like that,” Geary admitted.
“You didn’t kill the ones at Corvus.” She turned a questioning gaze on him. “But we’re going to nail these.”
“Right. At Corvus I wanted to underline the futility of the commandos’ effort and deny them martyrdom. Here”—Geary waved at his display—“they’re going to get their martyrdom, but they still won’t accomplish their mission. We will accomplish our mission despite their best efforts, though, making their deaths meaningless. In any event, there’s no other way to stop these commandos except by ensuring they get blown away.”
“Captain!” Lieutenant Julesa called. “The bombardment plan is ready.”
“Shoot it to me and Captain Geary.”
Geary studied the result, fighting down qualms as he saw the trajectories of over a hundred kinetic bombardment rounds intersecting with those of the three shuttles, then saw the pattern hit just as the shuttles cleared the danger zone from the bombardment. “Well, Captain Desjani, let’s hope this plan of yours works.”
“You can call it my plan if it works,” Desjani objected.
Geary hit the commands sending the plan to Colonel Carabali to pass on to her shuttles and transmitting it as an execute order to the ships tasked with being in the right positions at exactly the right time to launch the bombardments. Within moments, the battleship Relentless called back. “Sir, is this plan right?”
“It’s right. We need it executed perfectly.”
“That’s putting it mildly, sir. The Marines are okay with this?”
“They’re okay with it.”
“Very well, sir. We’ll put the rocks where they’re supposed to go and make sure they hit at the right time.”
“Thanks. Reprisal, any problems on your end?”
Reprisal’s commanding officer answered about ten seconds later. “No, sir. We’re loading the maneuvers and firing commands into Reprisal’s systems right now. We’ll do our part.”
Geary gazed bleakly at his display. Colonel Carabali was piling into one of the last shuttles on the POW camp’s landing field along with the last Marines on the field. The three platoons holding off the Syndic commandos were still falling back as they tried to slow the commandos’ infiltration toward the landing field. The momentary detections of the commandos showed them getting far too close to the landing field for comfort.
“Here come the last three shuttles,” Desjani noted.
The operations watch called out right afterward. “Final evac shuttles landing in five, four, three, two, one, they’re down.”
All of the Marines in the last three platoons seemed to bolt as one for the shuttles. Geary wondered how long it would take the Syndic commandos to realize what was happening.
“Relentless and Reprisal are launching the covering bombardment,” the combat-systems watch reported.