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Description

I heard the message come, just two words.

“Commence Drop”.

I wondered for a moment how many other people had their lives change as they acted on seemingly benign words? No dramatic speech, no inspiring sermon, two words and they were committed to actions that could change, or end, their lives. Words that could change the course of history.

I started drop protocols, changed the angle of attack fully, the ship responded. We entered Earth’s atmosphere. The ship was already registering changes in the external temperature. Soon, we would be like a glowing fireball to any observer on the ground.

Our reentry vector had been carefully planned; our glide path calculated. It would be the quickest route, the most minimal exposure to visual observation. If a chance observer on the surface were to see us, we would be several dozen flaming lights, glowing briefly, then our external shields would stabilize to a high ambient temperature, our images would merge into the shadows of the coming dawn.

We had no warnings about active detection systems being alerted. It looked like we might catch the Ministry by surprise after all. The entry into atmosphere had the usual tremors and vibrations normal to atmospheric insertion, they soon passed. I was able to activate the lower hull cameras, quick examination of the ship’s tiles, all good there, then I turned the camera towards the Earth.

I couldn’t see the island near the end of our descent vector. What I saw was a mountain of flames, no doubt from the thermobaric bombs used by the assault ships proceeding us. You would think four massive kiloton range explosions would have alerted the enemy, but our passive detections systems remained silent.

Of course, our forces had been launching active probes, reconnaissance, of the Ministry, for months now. We even lobbed a few bombs at some of their military elements. Maybe the Ministry was very aware of our intrusion but thought this was just another petty harassment by the ‘heretics’? No way of knowing, other than our alert systems were silent.

All our ships would eventually slow their descent, quickly changing our formation for the final approach to the target. Thirty-six dropships formed up six by six, a tidy little square of steel and humanity. Four assault ships would fly just over us, extending a bubble of ECM cover over us, to better conceal our advance or, at least, make targeting us more difficult.

For a moment, I let my ship’s systems adjust my ultimate position in the flight formation. I would be at the very front of the formation; we would be the first to see the target. We would also be the first exposed to whatever reaction they might have. I smiled, thinking about our mission briefing, how Kimber was visibly excited about being on the ‘Knife’s Edge’ of this operation.

It would take us 30 minutes to reach the target from our insertion point. We would charge over the top of the ocean at almost a thousand kilometers per hour, ten meters over the waves. We would have to gain altitude at the final approach to land and disembark our Marines. It all seemed so simple, so straightforward. What could go wrong?

I remembered a story I had been told when I was a teenager, about one of my ancestors, she was Laurie. She was also a woman who was in a war but not as a soldier, a combatant. She was a civilian recruited to provide her technical knowledge, her unique perspective. She helped in the creation and use of the vehicles that would carry many young men and women into battle. It was a whole family of vehicles. They called them MRAP’s, ‘Mine Resistant Armored Personnel’. These vehicles were very similar in ways to our dropships. We derived them from civilian vehicles, purpose modified to the task of protecting men and women as they went into battle. Laurie would be largely forgotten to the history books but her contributions, her suffering, were real. Lives were lost, even more lives were saved, but Laurie had an effect.

This day, today, as we charged in to meet our fates, would not be forgotten.

Then the battle klaxon, a sound ancient with history, sounded. The formation began its approach. The stims in my blood paled against the sudden adrenaline rush, the awareness, the fear that rushed through me. We accelerated our advance; the water blurred below us, our formation locked. We were still too far out to visually see the target, but my holo-HUD now showed the island. There were large thermals coming off the island. Probably the results of our first wave assault; Hellstorm missiles doing their malevolent work on the enemy defenses.

The minutes seemed like hours; my eyes kept ranging over all the telemetry readings. Fifteen minutes out, I triggered the battle light in the assault bay. I saw Kimber wave a thumbs up.

Then three of our dropships suddenly vanished on telemetry.

There had been thirty-six dropships, green indicators on my HUD. Three had vanished, instantly, gone!

Then one of the assault ships over us answered the mystery.

“RAILGUN! REPEAT. RAILGUN! ENEMY HAS A RAILGUN! ALL ESCORTS ENGAGE!”

We really didn’t know much about the Ministry, about their technical competence, their weaponry, but they had a railgun. They had a fucking railgun!

At least thirty of my sisters were gone.

I didn’t need telling. I activated my onboard weapons systems. This bird was no gunship, but I had some bite. Two chain guns.

I could see the escorts screaming ahead of us on my HUD, discharging missiles, releasing their own bounty of Hell. Our range was closing rapidly. Then I could see, visually see, the flares of the Rail Gun firing, the sabots blazing as they hit air.

The escorts were blazing heat on my HUD, making firing passes on something I could not yet see.

One of the escorts exploded. I could see the flames. Vivid crimson against the blue sky, smoke then spreading, debris falling.

My landing alert came on; I was in the approach range to the landing zone. Our formation was more ragged now. I hadn’t seen it but at least two more dropships, more of my sisters, were missing.

One of my hull indicators flashed on! Something had penetrated one of my starboard lower hull plates!

I could see what looked like flares in the air. I think these were what they called tracers. I started a rapid descent, signaled the assault bay.

I had wanted to do a low hover for the landing, but my ship hit the ground, hard. More alarm indicators came blaring into my HUD.

I took one look at the assault bay. The landing ramp was already down. The Marines were scrambling out, one fell. My mind suddenly registered that her head was missing, decapitated, a fountain of blood.

Kimber’s voice came over my comm.

“MALLEY!. GET YOUR BIRD UP! WE NEED YOUR HELP!”

My HUD showed her Marines behind the ship, prone, in a loose circle, firing. Two not firing.

I applied vertical thrust, lift, the ship would not rise.

My HUD showed heat signatures, people, people with weapons, maybe hundreds. They were in some kind of bunker. About a hundred meters starboard.

One of Kimber’s Marines fell like a puppet cut loose from its strings.

I manually signaled for more thrust, and as the lift began, I could hear something hitting the hull. Then one of my external cameras went dead.

I started the ship in a slow starboard turn. I saw Kimber signaling her Marines to stay prone, flat in the dirt. I now saw more Marines with them, not from my ship. They all went to the ground.

There were flares of light coming into my cockpit, bright red flashes, the sound of gunfire, explosions.

I swung the ship starboard, the angle was off, slightly tilted. I must have damage.

The tactical indicator suddenly came to life. The thermal signatures now registered as targets, two hundred of them. My guns were clear, two thirty-millimeter chain guns.

I opened fire.

I had never fired a weapon in anger before, never wanted to fire a weapon in anger before. Never wanted to hurt anybody before.

This time I wanted it.

I’d never actually heard these guns fire before. Vacuum saves you from that. Even through the walls of the dropship, it was like the ripping of steel. The guns traversed across the heat signatures, the people, the enemy. The walls of the bunker exploded in dirty bursts of disintegrating concrete. There was the sound of screaming, terror, bodies being torn apart, carnage.

The guns stopped, the tactical indicator flashed two words, ‘Target Eliminated’. I could still hear weapons' fire outside, but it seemed more distant. I turned up my remaining external cameras. There was Kimber, standing, very much alive. Her Marines, those that remained, were getting up off the ground. So were others. I did not know where they came from. They were there, they were alive. Right then, that was all that mattered.

My comm went active, it was Kimber.

“Malley, they’re done. You killed them, all of them, every last fucking one of them.”

I had never fired a shot in anger before.

My life would not be the same again.

TO BE CONTINUED

Description

I heard the message come, just two words.

“Commence Drop”.

I wondered for a moment how many other people had their lives change as they acted on seemingly benign words? No dramatic speech, no inspiring sermon, two words and they were committed to actions that could change, or end, their lives. Words that could change the course of history.

I started drop protocols, changed the angle of attack fully, the ship responded. We entered Earth’s atmosphere. The ship was already registering changes in the external temperature. Soon, we would be like a glowing fireball to any observer on the ground.

Our reentry vector had been carefully planned; our glide path calculated. It would be the quickest route, the most minimal exposure to visual observation. If a chance observer on the surface were to see us, we would be several dozen flaming lights, glowing briefly, then our external shields would stabilize to a high ambient temperature, our images would merge into the shadows of the coming dawn.

We had no warnings about active detection systems being alerted. It looked like we might catch the Ministry by surprise after all. The entry into atmosphere had the usual tremors and vibrations normal to atmospheric insertion, they soon passed. I was able to activate the lower hull cameras, quick examination of the ship’s tiles, all good there, then I turned the camera towards the Earth.

I couldn’t see the island near the end of our descent vector. What I saw was a mountain of flames, no doubt from the thermobaric bombs used by the assault ships proceeding us. You would think four massive kiloton range explosions would have alerted the enemy, but our passive detections systems remained silent.

Of course, our forces had been launching active probes, reconnaissance, of the Ministry, for months now. We even lobbed a few bombs at some of their military elements. Maybe the Ministry was very aware of our intrusion but thought this was just another petty harassment by the ‘heretics’? No way of knowing, other than our alert systems were silent.

All our ships would eventually slow their descent, quickly changing our formation for the final approach to the target. Thirty-six dropships formed up six by six, a tidy little square of steel and humanity. Four assault ships would fly just over us, extending a bubble of ECM cover over us, to better conceal our advance or, at least, make targeting us more difficult.

For a moment, I let my ship’s systems adjust my ultimate position in the flight formation. I would be at the very front of the formation; we would be the first to see the target. We would also be the first exposed to whatever reaction they might have. I smiled, thinking about our mission briefing, how Kimber was visibly excited about being on the ‘Knife’s Edge’ of this operation.

It would take us 30 minutes to reach the target from our insertion point. We would charge over the top of the ocean at almost a thousand kilometers per hour, ten meters over the waves. We would have to gain altitude at the final approach to land and disembark our Marines. It all seemed so simple, so straightforward. What could go wrong?

I remembered a story I had been told when I was a teenager, about one of my ancestors, she was Laurie. She was also a woman who was in a war but not as a soldier, a combatant. She was a civilian recruited to provide her technical knowledge, her unique perspective. She helped in the creation and use of the vehicles that would carry many young men and women into battle. It was a whole family of vehicles. They called them MRAP’s, ‘Mine Resistant Armored Personnel’. These vehicles were very similar in ways to our dropships. We derived them from civilian vehicles, purpose modified to the task of protecting men and women as they went into battle. Laurie would be largely forgotten to the history books but her contributions, her suffering, were real. Lives were lost, even more lives were saved, but Laurie had an effect.

This day, today, as we charged in to meet our fates, would not be forgotten.

Then the battle klaxon, a sound ancient with history, sounded. The formation began its approach. The stims in my blood paled against the sudden adrenaline rush, the awareness, the fear that rushed through me. We accelerated our advance; the water blurred below us, our formation locked. We were still too far out to visually see the target, but my holo-HUD now showed the island. There were large thermals coming off the island. Probably the results of our first wave assault; Hellstorm missiles doing their malevolent work on the enemy defenses.

The minutes seemed like hours; my eyes kept ranging over all the telemetry readings. Fifteen minutes out, I triggered the battle light in the assault bay. I saw Kimber wave a thumbs up.

Then three of our dropships suddenly vanished on telemetry.

There had been thirty-six dropships, green indicators on my HUD. Three had vanished, instantly, gone!

Then one of the assault ships over us answered the mystery.

“RAILGUN! REPEAT. RAILGUN! ENEMY HAS A RAILGUN! ALL ESCORTS ENGAGE!”

We really didn’t know much about the Ministry, about their technical competence, their weaponry, but they had a railgun. They had a fucking railgun!

At least thirty of my sisters were gone.

I didn’t need telling. I activated my onboard weapons systems. This bird was no gunship, but I had some bite. Two chain guns.

I could see the escorts screaming ahead of us on my HUD, discharging missiles, releasing their own bounty of Hell. Our range was closing rapidly. Then I could see, visually see, the flares of the Rail Gun firing, the sabots blazing as they hit air.

The escorts were blazing heat on my HUD, making firing passes on something I could not yet see.

One of the escorts exploded. I could see the flames. Vivid crimson against the blue sky, smoke then spreading, debris falling.

My landing alert came on; I was in the approach range to the landing zone. Our formation was more ragged now. I hadn’t seen it but at least two more dropships, more of my sisters, were missing.

One of my hull indicators flashed on! Something had penetrated one of my starboard lower hull plates!

I could see what looked like flares in the air. I think these were what they called tracers. I started a rapid descent, signaled the assault bay.

I had wanted to do a low hover for the landing, but my ship hit the ground, hard. More alarm indicators came blaring into my HUD.

I took one look at the assault bay. The landing ramp was already down. The Marines were scrambling out, one fell. My mind suddenly registered that her head was missing, decapitated, a fountain of blood.

Kimber’s voice came over my comm.

“MALLEY!. GET YOUR BIRD UP! WE NEED YOUR HELP!”

My HUD showed her Marines behind the ship, prone, in a loose circle, firing. Two not firing.

I applied vertical thrust, lift, the ship would not rise.

My HUD showed heat signatures, people, people with weapons, maybe hundreds. They were in some kind of bunker. About a hundred meters starboard.

One of Kimber’s Marines fell like a puppet cut loose from its strings.

I manually signaled for more thrust, and as the lift began, I could hear something hitting the hull. Then one of my external cameras went dead.

I started the ship in a slow starboard turn. I saw Kimber signaling her Marines to stay prone, flat in the dirt. I now saw more Marines with them, not from my ship. They all went to the ground.

There were flares of light coming into my cockpit, bright red flashes, the sound of gunfire, explosions.

I swung the ship starboard, the angle was off, slightly tilted. I must have damage.

The tactical indicator suddenly came to life. The thermal signatures now registered as targets, two hundred of them. My guns were clear, two thirty-millimeter chain guns.

I opened fire.

I had never fired a weapon in anger before, never wanted to fire a weapon in anger before. Never wanted to hurt anybody before.

This time I wanted it.

I’d never actually heard these guns fire before. Vacuum saves you from that. Even through the walls of the dropship, it was like the ripping of steel. The guns traversed across the heat signatures, the people, the enemy. The walls of the bunker exploded in dirty bursts of disintegrating concrete. There was the sound of screaming, terror, bodies being torn apart, carnage.

The guns stopped, the tactical indicator flashed two words, ‘Target Eliminated’. I could still hear weapons' fire outside, but it seemed more distant. I turned up my remaining external cameras. There was Kimber, standing, very much alive. Her Marines, those that remained, were getting up off the ground. So were others. I did not know where they came from. They were there, they were alive. Right then, that was all that mattered.

My comm went active, it was Kimber.

“Malley, they’re done. You killed them, all of them, every last fucking one of them.”

I had never fired a shot in anger before.

My life would not be the same again.

TO BE CONTINUED