Jasper Shatrevar pointed out the route heavy produce trucks followed each harvest season to reach the packing plants, which had been built in a feeder canyon, out of sight from the picturesque beauty of the main canyon. Simon was leaning forward to peer into the side canyon when the commlink attached to his belt began to scream. His gut tightened savagely. That was the emergency alarm. A proximity warning that the enemy was within his Bolo’s sensor range. Simon swore aloud, hating the fear that radiated with sudden intensity from the civilians in President Lendan’s car. Even Jasper Shatrevar had gone white. Simon slapped the commo circuit wide open.
“What’s the VSR, Sonny?”
“We have Enemy breakthrough out of the Void. Deng warships. Receiving comp from System-perimeter warning buoys. Advise immediate scramble of all defense forces.”
“Roger that, Sonny. Continue to monitor Enemy movements. General Shatrevar, head back to Nineveh Base. President Lendan, I need to commandeer your air transport, stat, to reach Sonny. There may not be time to get you back to Madison, even by air. We’re fifty kilometers out and Deng warships can cross planetary distances fast.”
“Understood, Major.” President Lendan pressed a control on the arm of his seat, fingers shaking slightly, and spoke to the driver. “Turn us around, Hank. Get us back to the landing field. Put your foot down and keep it there.”
The car swung around in a wrenching turn and headed back the way they’d just come. The look in Kafari Camar’s dark and beautiful eyes tore at him, but there was literally nothing Simon could do to reassure the girl. She’d come home to defend her world. In all too short a time, she’d be doing exactly that. The best he could hope for was an intense, heartstick prayer that she was still alive when the smoke cleared.
Chapter Four
I
I track Enemy deployment as every perimeter alarm between Jefferson’s primary and the edge of the Void screams out dire warnings. I have gone to Battle Reflex Alert, snapping my gun systems to live status as I await my Commander’s return from his abortive tour of Klameth Canyon.
“Sonny, I’ve borrowed President Lendan’s aircar. Send me visual VSR on the breakthrough.” I flash schematics of Jefferson’s star system to Simon’s airborne transport, marking the point of breakthrough. “System-perimeter warning buoys are reporting three Deng heavy cruisers, four troop transports—”
I halt as more buoys begin to scream news of a second breakthrough point, seventeen degrees above the system’s ecliptic plane. “Four additional heavy cruisers breaking through at system zenith. Six more troop transports detected. Fighter squadrons are breaking loose from the heavy cruisers. I anticipate attacks against moon bases and asteroid mining operations within twelve point two minutes. I am sending a warning to in-system naval cutters to expect imminent attack.”
Simon swears, creatively. He knows, as I do, that the people on those asteroids and moon bases — and those in Jefferson’s Home-Star Navy — are about to die. The cutters are no match for seven battle cruisers and ten troop transports, which also possess the advantage of high-velocity entry from their interstellar crossing. The Home-Star Navy’s cutters are virtually stationary, with no time to build up speed for evasive maneuvers, let alone an attack run against the incoming ships. Without the heavy guns and high-g acceleration potential of a Concordiat naval cruiser in this star system, they are helpless and there is literally nothing we can do to help anyone in a space-based habitat.
I blame myself for not insisting that the off-world installations be evacuated, but Simon’s next words are of some comfort. “There wouldn’t have been time to get those people to safety on Jefferson even if they’d been ordered home the minute our transport made orbit. Dammit! That incursion’s almost half-fleet strength. What the hell are the Deng doing here in such concentration? Notify General Hightower and track those incoming ships. I want to know their deployment pattern, second by second.”
No human can actually take in that much data that fast, but I have served with Simon long enough to understand his meaning. I send the warning to Jefferson’s Chief of Defense. “General Hightower, we have a confirmed Deng breakthrough in two sectors. Transmitting coordinates and tracking deployment. Advise immediate civilian evacuation to shelters.”
In this, at least, Jefferson is more adequately prepared than many colony worlds. After the last Deng attempt to take this world, the government embarked on a massive building project to construct subterranean bomb shelters deep beneath the cities. General Hightower responds with the kind of calm that comes only from prior combat experience — decades of it.
“Understood, Sonny. Thank God we’re actually deployed in the field on those joint-ops maneuvers you recommended. They didn’t quite catch us with our jockey shorts down.” The eerie sound of sirens comes through the audio pickup as the evacuation warning is given, ordering Madison’s people to seek their assigned shelters. Within seconds, the scenario is repeated in every major urban center on Jefferson. If such shelters had existed on Etaine… There is no point in such speculation. I turn my attention to the deployment of the incoming Deng warships.
Both groups are moving at sub-light speed, but they have come in fast, as warships intending blitzkrieg invariably do. They are bleeding off some of their high-vee energy in braking maneuvers, but are still moving at sufficient speed, a Concordiat naval ship — even had one been available for in-system defense — would have had enormous difficulty hitting them, while providing a virtually motionless target for alien guns. Ducks on a pond. Or fish in a barrel. I do not like the analogy, as applied to myself, and never have. One good-sized rock, sent crashing into Jefferson from a ship moving that fast, and the battle for Jefferson would be over, along with every human life on this world. It is a grim business, to hope that the enemy intends colonization rather than outright destruction.
When Simon’s transport appears in my sensors, I experience a moment of relief. I am capable of some independent action in battle, thanks to the rewriting of two key software blocks during my retrofitting, but most of the blocks have remained in place, leaving me unable to function on my own for anything but direct fire at an enemy that is actively shooting at me or at something I have been charged to guard. In situations requiring complex judgment, a human commander is essential to my battlefield effectiveness. Simon’s return dispels the uneasiness I have felt since the moment of Enemy breakthrough out of the Void.
The military aircar sets down three point seven meters from my port-side tread. Simon emerges from the pilot’s compartment and breaks into a run, climbing the access ladder rapidly as I open the hatch to my Command Compartment. I do not see the president’s pilot. Airfleet One sits abandoned as I turn my attention to Simon’s arrival in my Command Compartment.