Hard Nova

  HARD NOVA

  BY

  CASEY CALOUETTE

  For my father.

  Copyright 2015 - Casey Calouette

  All Rights Reserved

  http://caseycalouette.com

  Other Novels by Casey Calouette

  A Star Too Far Series

  Trial by Ice (Now Free!)

  Edge of Solace

  Edge of Redemption

  Steel Legion Series

  Steel Breach

  Steel Storm

  Steel Strike (2016)

  Stand-alone Novels

  DogForge

  Coming Soon

  Hard Nova (Fall 2015)

  Silent Star (March 2016)

  Steel Strike (July 2016)

  Fallen Eagle (January 2017)

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  CHAPTER ONE

  Captain Onna Brey steadied herself against the rail on the covert cutter Brilliance. The clouds parted on the planet beneath and revealed an enormous scar in the mountains. It could only be one thing: an orbital defense platform. It was almost too easy.

  “Vince, verify visuals. Do you concur?”

  Lieutenant Vince Hastings, second mate of the Brilliance, released his console and kicked off across the bridge. He studied the visual display, keyed it from one angle to the next, compared it to a previous shot, and finally went back to the live feed. “You’re not going to dig a hole like that for nothing. I concur.”

  “Could be natural.”

  “Look, see the debris piles?”

  Onna slid the view to the right. There was a streaming pile of white stone that cascaded down the mountain. The light’s reflection off the white rock was different from the weathered and snow-beaten slopes. Now, in the sunlight of the evening, they reflected an odd shade of blue from the tint of the star in the center of the Summer system. Just below that, Onna caught a glimpse of a road that wandered down the slope. That had to be it.

  “Fire up the comms. We’re going hot.”

  “What’s that?”

  Onna zoomed in the feed. The display shifted as they passed overhead. A massive cylinder, crushed and torn, rested against one side of the mountain range. The wrecked metal glittered and reflected back into orbit. Onna could just barely make out the faded stripes of the Terran Union flag. There it was, the last fallen defender of the planet New America, the Mackinac.

  “Get into the capsules and get LaCroix. We’re dropping drones.”

  Vince kicked off and rolled himself into a ball before pushing through the floor hatch. Onna heard the hissing sound and the gurgle of liquid that announced LaCroix was awake. A moment later came the sound of dry heaves, retching, and deep coughs. Naval Intelligence had assigned LaCroix to be the drone guide. Onna wasn’t particularly pleased; the Brilliance was a small cutter, and one more would make it unbearably cramped. Luckily, LaCroix remained in the stasis gel. Not only was he Intelligence, but he also outranked Onna. I’ll be glad when he goes back to sleep, Onna thought.

  Onna took one more glance at the fading screen. The mountain range stretched into darkness, and more sites winked in the dark. Why bother to hide them if they didn’t know anyone was coming? At least, that’s what she hoped. Her little ship wouldn’t last long once the interceptors came, or the pulse cannons, or the shuttle rockets…

  Onna’s mission was to study the planet and relay what information she could back to the fleet. They had blasted away from the needle transport Hesperus two weeks before and left the massive armada in the shadow of the nearest planet. In that time, they had employed every passive monitor they had—visual observations, EM spectrography, star occlusion—anything that would give them intelligence.

  Once they were close to the planet, they’d gone comms silent and simply coasted around the planet like one of the many meteorites that flared in the dark. But not for long. The main worry wasn’t the planet but the array of orbital defense platforms that swung around it. They were going to be the tricky ones.

  Onna was glad to have Vince. They’d served together on the little cutter for a long time. She dreaded the day when Vince would get promoted, not just because she would lose a competent second officer, but she’d lose a friend as well. Vince had struggled in the bigger ships; he fit well with a small crew. Small as in two.

  So far they’d picked up the orbital platforms, some questionable asteroids, and finally the ground defenses. Ordered cities rested in the darkness below, spread out like spoked wheels. Perfect, planned, boring. Just like the alien Qin they’d fought for so long. Now they finally had a chance to strike back.

  Onna’s heart beat faster. For twenty years, the Qin had pushed the Terran Union. The Qin had better starships and more advanced technology, and seemed to punch where the humans least expected it. But they lacked the ability to brawl on the ground; the species just wasn’t as well suited as the humans were. Now that the starship gap was shrinking, it was time to take the space back.

  Behind her was an armada the likes of which had never been seen. Fifty million soldiers. A thousand starships. A supply train that stretched back to Terra herself. Countless armies, divisions, brigades, generals, and sergeants. And at the very tip of it was the nimble Brilliance.

  The immensity of it all came to her. First, get a foothold. Second, capture the orbital defenses. Third, take the planet and hold it. That last bit was the tough one. They hadn’t successfully engaged the Qin in an engagement this size. Never.

  They’d tried during Operation Cold Ridge eight years before. It hadn’t gone well.

  LaCroix came onto the bridge with a grunt. His black hair was plastered to his skull. His zero-g uniform was loose, the mark of someone more used to gravity holding things down.

  “Let me know when you’re ready, Commander. Then Vince will help you into the couch.”

  LaCroix gave a gruff nod. He slid over to a half-reclined chair. The whole thing was open like a nutshell; the inside console screens and controls were dead. “I’m ready, Captain.”

  Vince secured LaCroix and tightened down the chest straps. He placed the helmet onto LaCroix and spoke in a low, level voice. “The liquid is going to fill your lungs, your throat, your stomach. Just relax. If you squirm, we’ll get bubbles, and then we have to do it again.”

  LaCroix nodded and took a quick breath. “Do it.”

  Vince punched a button and watched the console.

  The liquid rushed through the tubes and flooded into the helmet. LaCroix quivered as he sat, his arms tense, corded like ropes. His head snapped back and then he struggled to sit tight.

  “Relax,” Vince said.

  Then, finally, LaCroix’s hands spread out. An acknowledgment appeared on the main console. A moment later, the couch sealed up and vacuum latches clicked tight. The outside was carbon-black and coated in warnings.

  Onna was already in her capsule. She clamped the helmet on and closed her eyes. The liquid flowed in, and she felt it grow inside of her. It tasted like cinnamon. Then the weight of it grew around her, and she was completely enveloped in a gel-like substance.

  She keyed up the display, the controls, and the arc plot, and sent it all off to Vince. He acknowledged it immediately; they’d already planned for it.

  An internal sensor registered vocal triggering and synthesized her voice. “LaCroix, launch in fifteen seconds. Then we burn.”

  “Confirmed.”

  Onna slid back and watched the local scan. A cluster of ancient meteorites, her only cover, hung nearby.

  “Deployed.”

  A cloud of orbital drones tumbled out from the rear and blasted away in every direction. The reentry capsules dropped fast and were lost against the light of the p
lanet.

  Onna watched as the last drone broke free and then engaged the engines.

  A jet of fire flared from the rear of Brilliance. The little cutter got her name because she looked like a star—all reaction mass, very little of anything else. The ship gained velocity with the roar of the rockets trembling through the hull.

  Strange echoes sang through the hull as micrometeorites collided and tumbled down the length. A sound like frying bacon, the sound of the meager atmosphere burning against the nose cone, grew louder,.

  Onna adjusted the plot. Did they know yet? The tension was in her back, rolling up and down her spine like electricity. Of course they did. The Qin were experts at this.

  The burn grew in intensity; the jet became angry, a massive pillar of fire. Their only hope was to burn away from the planet faster than the Qin could launch interceptors. Once they had enough velocity it’d be easy to engage the more efficient but lower thrust stardrive and dodge projectiles.

  A line of interceptors suddenly rose up through a cloud bank. The computer blasted out warnings and showed a line of convergence directly onto Brilliance. It was a perfect intercept plot.

  “Shit.” Onna changed the plot and saw just as quickly that she was locked in. The cloud of interceptors, a dozen of them, would pass all around her. How did they get so close?

  “ECM,” Vince said. “Point defense deployed.”

  A cloud of signal interference exploded from Brilliance, followed by a mass of tungsten-carbide ball bearings.

  The interceptors adjusted course; they’d locked on. Missiles flared, followed by a chemical puff of projectile launchers.

  Onna disengaged the plot. It was too late to run. She relaxed, squeezed the stick, and went manual.

  Brilliance pivoted on the center, and the maneuvering jets struggled to adjust. Turbulence slammed them from side to side. A missile exploded a hundred meters away, the ball bearings doing their job.

  Twenty kilometers. Fifteen kilometers. More explosions. A projectile clanged against Brilliance. Alarms flared.

  “Atmosphere,” Onna said.

  She kicked the emergency release, and all of the safety measures dropped. A split second later, the bulk of Brilliance turned sideways and pointed directly at the planet. The jet still flared bright.

  A pack of the interceptors burned right at them while the rest maneuvered in high orbit to cover their escape.

  “Data packets inbound!” LaCroix called. “Transmitting in three, two—”

  Onna quit listening. She focused on the structural warnings, the alarms telling her that Brilliance was being torn apart, and the missile alarms.

  The closest interceptors opened fire; they had a clear visual as the entire nose of Brilliance glowed like a star.

  “Prepare to—”

  The main fuel tank exploded. In a split second, the ejection system propelled each of the capsules out of Brilliance. Behind them, the ship detonated in a cloud of gas, debris, and shrapnel.

  Onna lost consciousness almost immediately and slowly came to. The command screen was gone, dark, with only a video feed from outside. She was in low orbit, slowly reentering, and barely able to control her descent.

  “Vince,” she said, not sure if he was alive or not. “I’m aiming for the orbital we first sighted.”

  The capsule broke through the clouds over a green plateau.

  “Oh God,” she said. There, stretching as far as she could see, were columns of troops and armor moving across the landscape. Even as high as she was, the massed troop movement was evident. The Qin knew they were here.

  A few minutes passed. The plateau disappeared and the mountains grew. Audible alarms sounded, and PARACHUTE OPENING came onto the screen.

  Onna held the manual delay. If she opened too soon, the interceptors could paint her. Ice spread beneath her, a crumbled landscape of glaciers. Altitude alarms exploded in her ears. She closed her eyes and released the chutes. The capsule vibrated and shook. One chute caught, the second tore loose.

  The capsule tumbled, and Onna plummeted toward a wrecked starship and a field of snow.

  “Incoming traffic!” an Intelligence officer called out.

  Coordinates, encryption codes, and a data stream flowed in spurts and blasts. Then, just as abruptly as it started, it stopped.

  “Brilliance is down,” another man said. “But LaCroix got the drones out.”

  A woman mumbled, “Someone needs to tell his wife. She’s Admiral Billings’s aide.”

  “He did his job. Volunteered for it.”

  The Intelligence officer keyed up the data stream and flicked through image sets. Group after group streamed in from all over the target area. He tagged one after the next and zoomed into the city clusters. Satisfied with what he saw, he sprinted out from the room and onto the bridge.

  “Sky Marshall McCloud!” the officer called out, interrupting a man with salt-and-pepper hair and a crooked nose. “Ground is clear, no form ups. The Qin don’t know we’re here.”

  Sky Marshall McCloud looked around him at a dozen command officers. Naval. Marine. Army. Spec ops. Orbital. Logistics. They all looked back with a sparkle in their eyes, anticipation heavy in the air.

  “We’re a go.”

  ####

  Inside of his capsule, LaCroix waited for the altitude to drop. When he was low enough to breathe the atmosphere, he vented the liquid from his helmet.

  LaCroix left the capsule on automatic and allowed it to choose the best landing spot. He slid his hand to the console and changed the broadcast encryption codes.

  “I’m in. Coordinates to follow.”

  A voice crackled: “Confirmed, we’ll send a team for pickup. Are there other survivors?”

  “No.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Senior Engineer Jack Cook felt as if the drop capsule was going to tear itself apart around him. He stared straight ahead and felt his eyeballs dance in his skull. The dropship stank of gun oil, sweat, and fear. He tried to move, but the restraints cut against him and cinched down even tighter. You’re not in Kansas anymore.

  He heard new sounds: a thudding and a hiss.

  “ECM clear!”

  Jack didn’t know if that was good or bad. It meant that someone was shooting somewhere, and they’d deployed electronic countermeasures. He decided it was good; it meant they hadn’t died yet.

  A trickle of sunlight danced through the hold. A hundred faces bounced and shook. Jack tried to focus on one, but they all looked the same. Rangers. They were so so loaded with weapons and armor that he wasn’t sure how they could ever move. For now, they were all strapped in just as tight as Jack.

  A voice came into his head. He recognized it as Doctor Shan, the project lead. The one who’d laid all of the groundwork for the xeno engineering project. Theory be damned, he always said, I want to watch it work!

  Doctor Shan spoke to all of the Locksmiths. “The Qin have launched interceptors. Our own, the Furys, are keeping them off of you. Good God, it’s so hard to watch. Just get inside, get into the control rooms. Remember how we trained. All of you can do this.”

  The comms clicked in his ear. Doctor Shan was back a moment later. “Jack, if your process works, we must know.”

  Jack tried to picture the dogfights around him and decided not to. The dropship suddenly lurched to the side. The bulk of the translation console squished against his chest. It was all that mattered, the translation.

  They’d finally found a way to interface with the Qin systems. Without it, they’d struggled to leverage all of their digital knowledge. It was a massive force multiplier. With that one console, he could break into the Qin command consoles and take control of the orbital defense.

  “Oh shit!” Calvin Clay yelled. Calvin was Jack’s backup. Somehow his buckle had managed to break loose. His hands struggled to reseat it before the next round of maneuvers came. Otherwise, he’d bounce about like a rubber ball.

  Jack leaned over, but couldn’t reach. Did he have time? He quick
ly unlatched, dropped to a knee, and clicked the heavy latch in place. A dozen voices all shouted at him angrily.

  He ignored them. He wasn’t about to leave Calvin to the whims of gravity and some cocky dropship pilot.

  The dropship banked to one side and then the other. Explosions rippled through the air around them. Jack bounced off one wall and grasped on to the straps on his seat.

  In a quick second, he plopped down onto his seat and clasped his latch tight.

  “Thanks, Jack! Holy shit!” Calvin said excitedly.

  He felt almost giddy. First a little ride, then a little hike, then time to hack. They’d practiced on a dozen different models of captured starships, and each time Jack came out as the quickest, the fastest, the most gifted at hacking. He saw patterns where others saw noise.

  Through all the noise of the dropship, he picked out a pattern. Someone was hunting them.

  ####

  The Qin interceptor punched through the clouds and drove back up into the bank. Its wings were short. The nose was stubby, like an odd dog that had nuzzled a pile of metal chips.

  It dipped lower again before it paused. Then, in a gentle roll, it let the wind catch and whip it sideways.

  It spun quicker than its stubby wings and powerful engine should have allowed. In a moment it was sailing lower, with its kinetic cannon priming.

  “Four thousand meters. Engaging kinetic.”

  “Negative. Explo—”

  “I’m dry.”

  “Confirm kill. Disengage, we’ve met our quota.”

  The interceptor bored through the rows of wispy clouds before it finally locked the dropship into its sights.