I need to get back out there, he thought, sourly. Being CAG as well as a Wing Commander was stressful, but it wasn’t as shameful as being a desk jockey. Whatever it takes, I need to get back out there.
“All right,” he said, keying his console. “The following pilots are assigned to Bomber Squadron Two…”
He sighed at the explosion of protests from the remainder of Squadron Four. It was hard to blame them. The Royal Navy worked hard to create a sense of unity in squadrons, a sense of belonging… a sense that would make it hard to fit pilots from one squadron into another. No doubt a few of the rooks had assumed they would have their chance to take command of the squadron, at least for a few glorious hours. It would have looked very good on their service records when the Admiralty started handing out medals…
“Do as I fucking tell you,” he ordered, feeling his temper snap. “I know you didn’t goddamn train together, but you’ll goddamn fight together because if you don’t you’ll wind up fucking dead, all right?”
There was silence. He forced himself to calm down. Swearing like one of Percy’s friends who’d come home once — Molly had banished him almost at once and forbade Percy from speaking to him again — wouldn’t help calm nervous young men and women.
“This is too important for you to be distracted,” he said, quietly. There was really no time for a long debate. “Slot into the combined squadrons and do your best. And remember, your new comrades are not the enemy. It’s the aliens who are the enemy.”
He closed the channel, then rested his head in his hands. The rooks had taken far too much of a beating, he knew, and they simply didn’t have the experience to come to grips with it. At least the other powers had sent veteran pilots, thankfully. The Americans, Japanese and French had done very well. And the Americans… he made a mental note to make sure that accommodations were prepared for the surviving pilots from Roosevelt. The other American carriers were already crammed with pilots and starfighters.
“I’ll get back out there somehow,” he muttered. “Somehow…”
The final alien battlestation exploded violently, adding yet more debris to the clouds drifting in orbit around the planet. Ted watched, grimly, as pieces of space junk plummeted into the planet’s atmosphere, hopefully distracting the alien defenders on the ground from monitoring the human ships. If there was one advantage to the whole sorry affair, he decided, it was that it was forcing the aliens to reveal the location of their ground-based planetary defence systems. The plasma cannons would have done some real damage if the humans had tried to land without a clear idea of their location.
“Add them to the lists for targeting,” he ordered, calmly. “I want them all hammered as soon as we commence the assault.”
“Yes, sir,” Lopez said.
Ted remembered the old arguments about ships versus forts and realised the aliens had written a new chapter. The ground-based systems were far more powerful than anything they’d seen before, save perhaps for the plasma guns a handful of alien frigates mounted. A single shot could do real damage to Ark Royal and probably blow a modern carrier into little pieces. He didn’t dare enter orbit until the ground-based weapons were suppressed.
He glanced down at the update from the analysts. With the battlestations gone, their discussions had devolved into an argument about if the aliens really understood English or if it was just a wild coincidence. After all, as one analyst was arguing, the aliens were perfectly capable of seeing a vast fleet bearing down on them. Evacuating the stations might have seemed a sensible idea, all the more so as alien installations across the system were going dark, one by one. The aliens might not understand English at all!
We’ll see, soon enough, he promised himself. But how much time do we have?
On the display, the retreating enemy carriers had reached the tramline and vanished. It was hard to be sure they’d jumped out of the system — in their place, Ted would have left behind a number of watching eyes — but they were definitely well out of engagement range. They’d be in position, ready and waiting, until alien reinforcements arrived. At that point, Ted knew, they’d link up with the newcomers and proceed towards the planet. The humans might not have very long at all.
“Lieutenant,” he said. “What is the Marine ETA?”
“Twenty-one minutes,” Lopez said. “General Ross has confirmed that his forces are ready to enter the atmosphere; Major Parnell and his men will be part of the charge.”
“Good,” Ted said. “Tell him he will have tactical ground and near-space command as soon as he enters deployment range. The frigates will provide fire support, if necessary.”
“Aye, sir,” Lopez said.
Ted shivered. They were about to see something new, something unique, unless one counted the alien invasion of New Russia. But then, the aliens had largely stayed away from human settlements, preferring to establish their own bases on the surface. Now… Ted’s forces didn’t have that luxury. They had to investigate the alien cities, just to try to pull what intelligence they could from them. There were just too many opportunities for disaster for Ted to be entirely comfortable with it. But there was no choice.
He settled back in his chair and watched, resting his hands on his lap, as the Marine transports slipped into high orbit and started to launch their shuttles. No matter what happened next, Ted knew, they were committed.
But then, he reminded himself, that had always been true.
Chapter Twenty-Three
When he’d been a child, Major Charles Parnell had read Starship Troopers and fallen in love with the idea of wearing a suit of powered combat armour on the battlefield. It had been a disappointment, when he’d finally joined the Royal Marines, to discover that battlesuits were so expensive and finicky that they were rarely allowed to use them in combat. Even the Americans, who had done more research into the concept than anyone else, had their doubts about the value of the suits. But they did serve well for plunging from orbit and landing on a hostile planet.
He sucked in his breath sharply as the Royal Marines — and American Force Recon Marines — plummeted towards Target One. Space seemed to be sparkling with light, either from chunks of debris falling into the planet’s atmosphere or enemy fire from the planet below. Bright warnings flared up in his HUD, only for him to banish them in irritation. There was no point in tormenting himself with the prospect of being targeted by the enemy. The suits were tough, tough enough to survive a nuke if there was some distance between them and Ground Zero, but if the aliens zapped him with a plasma cannon designed to take out an orbiting spacecraft he was dead. None of the Marines had any illusions on that score.
Missiles plummeted past him, wrapped in showers of decoys that would — that should — make it harder for the aliens to pick out the Marines with their sensors. They’d have to go after the missiles anyway, Charles knew, although no alien cities were being targeted directly. The planetary defence complexes could be hammered from orbit, if they didn’t shoot down the missiles before they reached their targets. And, once the fleet entered orbit, kinetic strikes would be added to the human arsenal.