“Understood,” Lopez said.
Ted sighed, inwardly. It was another complication, one he didn’t want. But there was no choice.
“Establish a direct link with the Rhino,” he added. “I want to talk to him as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sir,” Lopez said. “The starfighters and bombers are returning to the carriers now.”
Ted wondered, with a sudden moment of insight, if she’d been monitoring ‘Charles Augustus’ through her console. It would be quite easy, but it would also get her into very real trouble, just for allowing herself to become distracted. But it wasn’t something he could ask… sighing again, he made a mental note to check on it, then pushed the thought to the back of his mind. There were far too many other things to worry about right now.
“Good work,” the CAG said, as the pilots filed back into the ready room. “Not a single pilot lost.”
Henry nodded, relieved. The aliens had put up one hell of a wall of point defence, but the humans had kept their distance — and, as always, the aliens had switched to targeting the torpedoes as soon as they were launched. It had probably come very close to saving his life, more than once. He sighed as he took his seat and stared down at the deck, bitterly. Now he was no longer focused on keeping himself alive, he felt himself starting to think about Janelle again. What the hell was he going to tell her?
“Excuse me,” a voice said. Henry jerked upright to see the CAG just in front of him, his eyes dark with irritation. “Is there something, perchance, more interesting than me in the room?”
“No, sir,” Henry said. His thoughts might have wandered, but he knew the right answer. “I was just thinking…”
“Thinking isn’t doing,” the CAG snapped. “Which is fortunate, as otherwise we wouldn’t get any work done at all.”
He gave Henry another glare, then moved his attention to the rest of the pilots. Henry couldn’t help wondering if the CAG knew who he was and what he’d done with the Admiral’s Flag Lieutenant. But there was no way to know, not now, He knew he’d been very lucky that no one had noticed him being escorted to the Admiral’s office or there would be countless rumours sweeping through the ship. Hell, if the rumourmongers realised that he’d been sleeping with the Admiral’s Flag Lieutenant, they’d have some truly awful rumours to spread. And if that happened…
Gritting his teeth, he forced himself to concentrate on the CAG.
“You will remain in the ready room at all times,” the CAG said. “We expect the aliens to reinforce this system as quickly as possible. You will be responsible for covering our evacuation if the aliens arrived before we make our daring escape.”
Henry nodded in unison with the other pilots. It might have been aimed at him — non-pilots were not welcome in the ready room — or it might be nothing more than a wise precaution, but he couldn’t deny that it was a wise precaution. The aliens could hop through the tramline from Target Two anytime they liked.
“No sleep in the machines, this time,” the CAG added. “Take a nap here, if you feel you need it, but don’t leave this compartment. Or there will be murder done.”
He strode over to the corner and sat down, picking up a terminal and starting to flick through it listlessly. Henry eyed him for a long moment, then reached for a terminal of his own. He hadn’t bothered to write any letters to his family — there was too great a chance of them being intercepted — or a log of his own. How could he when he had no expectations of privacy? But he would have liked to write a note to Janelle… absently, he wondered if the Admiral had said anything to her. Did he care about her enough to try to protect her from harm?
It’s the duty of a senior officer — or an aristocrat, he remembered Duke Winchester saying, once. You must protect your subordinates, because loyalty is a two-edged sword. If you are not loyal to them, they will not be loyal to you.
He put the terminal down, cursing his life. If he wrote a message, it might be intercepted by the media; nothing, no matter how sensitive, was ever completely wiped from military datanets. The safest place to put a message, he’d been taught, was paper. Paper, at least, could be destroyed. But he didn’t dare write anything when his fellow pilots might see it.
I’m sorry, he thought, tiredly. I’m so sorry.
“It’s good to see you, Admiral,” the Rhino said. “We’re having a bit of a problem here.”
“So I see,” Ted said. He knew very little about fighting on the ground, but it looked alarmingly as though the aliens were winning. But then, they seemed to have infinite reinforcements within easy range. “I’ll enter orbit in five minutes. I suggest you start identifying targets for us.”
“Understood,” the Rhino said. “And thank you.”
Ted nodded, then looked over at Lopez as the connection broke. “Order the frigates to provide fire support to the forces on the ground,” he commanded. “Then call the transports and tell them to enter orbit and start recovering the troops…”
There was a bleep from the sensor console. “Sir, we just picked up a message from the recon platforms,” Lopez said. “A large force just entered the system from Target Two. Force composition matches Force Two, with a handful of additions.”
Ted gritted his teeth. The aliens had clearly managed to get off a message before they’d been wiped out. Their old trick of hiding a courier boat near the tramlines seemed to have paid off for them once again. And they’d ensured that he didn’t have time to evacuate the equipment along with the men on the ground.
“Understood,” he said. “Update the Rhino… and tell him they’d better hurry. We may have to leave very quickly.”
“Aye, sir,” Lopez said.
Ted took a long breath. An idea was starting to work its way through his mind…
…But would they have time to make it work?
Chapter Thirty-Seven
“Get down!”
Charles threw himself to the ground as the alerts screamed in his ear. Moments later, the ground shook violently as the first KEW crashed down, only a kilometre from his position. He used his suit to burrow deeper into the ground as shockwaves passed over his head, then relaxed as stillness returned. When he pulled himself back to his feet, he found himself looking on a scene from hell.
“I think they got them,” Sergeant Jackson said.
“Yes,” Charles agreed. He’d been near KEW strikes before, but only one or two isolated weapons used to clear the way for his soldiers. This, on the other hand, was over a hundred projectiles, each one aimed at an alien vehicle or troop formation. The alien forces had been completely wrecked, while the vegetation had been flattened or set on fire. “I think they did.”
“All right,” the Rhino said. “The aliens have a large fleet inbound, so let’s try not to waste time. Case Omega is now in effect. Return to the base and prepare for immediate departure.”
Charles wasn’t surprised. Under Case Omega, the human troops would abandon most of their equipment on the ground, leaving certain weapons primed to fire at alien starships as they entered orbit. It wouldn’t take the aliens long to deal with them, but it might just buy the escaping humans some time. But if there was an alien fleet inbound, it was alarmingly likely that they would have real problems pulling everyone off the ground in time.
“Charles, you and your men are to return to the FOB,” the Rhino said. “You’ve been assigned a departure slot already.”
“Let’s hope the computer works,” Charles said, as he turned to lead the way across the shattered countryside. The logistics computer was an American attempt to avoid having to bring a logistics section along with them, but early results had not been encouraging. Human logistics officers could be convinced that serving units really needed extra supplies; the computer, it seemed, was less capable of understanding mission requirements. “And that the aliens don’t try to impede our departure.”