Hard Nova Read online

  The Qin fleet crept into view. The mass of ships was spread out in a semicircle with three distinct clumps. Leading the front edge were the smaller, lighter ships. Farther back, the heavier ships lumbered on; they didn’t seem to be in a particular hurry.

  B221 was one small piece of a massive wing of drones: 249 others raced with it. Its body was a nuclear reactor with a tank of reaction mass strapped to the back. The center was a series of reaction wheels, each keyed to spin, twist, turn, and flip the drone. The explosive, a tiny charge in the center, seemed downright miniscule.

  Missiles flared from the front line of the Qin frigates. Then came winks of light. Lasers and fusion weapons opened up.

  B221 darted in a random direction and started its run.

  The first thing it did was shed the used fuel tanks. They only moved a slight distance away. B221 matched speed with them; now it looked like it was one of four drones.

  Next, it deployed a mass of steel ball bearings. Mixed in with the hardened steel was glass, ceramic, and even plastic. B221 knew the ball bearings wouldn’t do much to help it, but would save the drones behind it. Each ball might clear a single rocket or absorb the energy in a fusion blast.

  Closer.

  B221 zipped to one side. The reaction wheels flared, and it tumbled like it was out of control. A laser had come close. It decided to play dead for a few thousand kilometers. It thought looking like burnt debris would bring it closer.

  And it did.

  It passed the line of frigates and then went into overdrive. The last of its propellant blasted out the back in a blue-yellow jet. At the same moment, every reaction wheel fired. B221 tumbled like a madman, arcing and spraying and blasting and surging. It looked out of control.

  It wasn’t.

  Qin cruisers flared past, impossibly fast, just a blur of armor and weapons. Flak exploded in all directions. Clouds of shrapnel pinged off B221, but none connected.

  If B221 could get excited, it would’ve been excited right about now.

  The Qin heavy raider, known to the Terran Union only as Ship 34, Type D1, lay directly ahead. It sent up a withering wall of fire. Lasers blasted through space. A battery of fusion pods, enough firepower to shred a frigate, lanced past. Even the torpedo batteries opened fire.

  It all missed.

  B221 shed its skin and was reborn.

  Tungsten nose. Cadmium wings. A heart of plutonium.

  B221 plowed into the Qin heavy raider. In the last moment before it detonated, it sent acknowledgment out a tail antenna.

  Then the Qin heavy raider Morning Sun became its namesake and, for the briefest of instants, was brighter than the star at the center of the Summer system.

  ####

  Jack took another sip of the blistering-hot broth. He cupped up tight and felt the warmth flow back into his fingers. A great and deep drowsiness came over him. Every part of him was simply content to sit and wait.

  Around him was a small commons area. It was the old style: the logos were all twenty years old, the design and colors off. But the whole area was perfectly preserved. It didn’t look anything like a wrecked starship.

  Cross lay on his side with a medic’s patch on his neck. The broken ribs were too much, and they hit him with painkillers almost immediately.

  Gavin and Rob sat together. Gavin helped Rob sip his broth. Jack noticed the resemblance now. Both had the same eyes. The same jawline. Even the same tired tilt.

  Onna crouched over an electric element and stirred an emergency ration with a plastic spoon.

  “Thank you,” Gavin said to Onna.

  Onna wore a hand-stitched hat half-cocked on her head. It looked like it came from one of the old wool blankets piled nearby. Stubble covered her head. Zero-G crews rarely had hair. “Well, I got sick of playing poker with Vince.”

  From the other room, Vince called back. “I heard that.”

  “Why didn’t you radio for help?” Jack said.

  “Tried. They had us jammed when we bailed out. I tried to punch through and burned up the transmitter.”

  Jack furrowed his brow. He was slow to think, but that seemed dumb to him. “Why burn it up? They had to know you went down.”

  Onna looked up from stirring. “There was one more in our crew. We launched with a naval intelligence officer named LaCroix. We launched surveillance drones, and then we got caught. And I mean caught.”

  “Like in a net,” Vince said from the other room. “Then—“

  “Hey, asshole, I’m telling the story.”

  “Fine, fine.”

  “Anyways,” Onna said, obviously enjoying telling the story, “we got swamped by a few wings of Qin interceptors. So we bailed.” She smacked the spoon against the pot to accentuate the tale. “Our capsules are programmed to try and drop as close together as possible. Vince and I are going down nice and smooth. LaCroix now, his capsule is zipping off. I’m about to yell and then I hear—“

  Vince piped in. “You’re not gonna believe this.”

  “Shut up, asshole. So LaCroix is talking on his comms to the Qin! My capsule, being the captain’s, gets live feeds. You know, in case someone loses consciousness or I need to see what they’re seeing. So there that asshole is, telling them we didn’t survive and to come pick him up. Can you believe it?”

  Gavin said, “And that’s why you burned up your transmitter? To try and warn the fleet?”

  Onna nodded and clicked off the burner. “That’s right. Now we can listen just fine, so we decided to stay put until the planet was secured. Plenty of supplies on this big bastard.”

  “Why didn’t you use one of the transmitters on this ship?” Jack said.

  Onna cracked a bit of a smile. “We’re pilots. No clue how to fix a twenty-year-old comms system.”

  “Can you?” Gavin said.

  Jack looked at Gavin. Could he? He wasn’t entirely sure. In theory there wasn’t any difficulty, a radio was a radio, but he knew enough to know that old electronics don’t play nice. “Maybe,” he said cautiously.

  “Do you know where the comms station is?” Gavin said to Onna.

  “Well, I just got comfortable here,” Jack said.

  “Yah, Vince can bring him. It’s not far.”

  “Excellent.” Gavin looked square at Jack. “Jack, get us comms. The fleet needs to know we’re alive and that they’ve got a traitor on the ground and maybe in the sky.”

  “Right now?” Jack said angrily.

  “Yes!” Gavin snapped back. “Who knows what that man passed to the Qin?”

  Vince entered the room and tossed an old uniform to Jack. “Try that one, and bring plenty of blankets. It’s cold out there.”

  Jack frowned and stomped out of the room to go change.

  Vince waited impatiently then led Jack through a few hallways. Emergency lights flickered to life as they walked past. Jack thought it odd that a crashed ship still had power.

  “Oh, it didn’t crash,” Vince said. “Some poor fucker landed it here.”

  “Then why’s it all, well, broke up?” Jack said.

  Vince patted Jack on the head. “Gravity, my dear boy! They build these big pigs in orbit. Ain’t supposed to take the load.”

  “But why land it?”

  “Fuck if I know. Here it is.”

  Vince pointed to a hatch. A few jury-rigged lights gave off a harsh, white light. The space was in reasonably good shape, though every single console was dead.

  Jack stood and looked inside, his breath turning to frost before him. “Do I have power?”

  Vince turned and started walking away. “Yah, man, but it’s cold, I’ll seeya back in the dorm.”

  The room was like something out of an old war video. Jack felt an odd wave of nostalgia wash over him. He was just a kid when the video industry tried to tell the tale of the Mackinac. No one knew what happened to her or to Erik McCloud. From what Jack saw, he figured a lot more happened than anyone knew. For one, it wasn’t a total wreck. That alone was significant. She had survive
d to fight.

  He sat down at a console and hissed. The seat was beyond cold. He bunched up a blanket and plopped down onto that. The keys looked simple enough, the same as he’d expected. Finally he saw a master power button.

  “Why not?”

  Jack pushed it and was rewarded with a single line of code.

  ERROR

  And that was the same thing he saw for the next seven hours. Luckily, he was too stubborn to accept defeat at the hands of a mere computer, and a twenty-year-old one at that. In the eighth hour, he managed to get a second console online and realized that the main console was empty. Wiped.

  Jack would have to rewrite the code, from scratch, for a twenty-year-old communications system.

  “How hard can it be?” he mumbled. Hell, he’d cracked the Qin code. This couldn’t be that bad.

  ####

  Gavin wrapped himself tighter in the wool blanket and picked the mug back up. He glanced over at Rob and studied his brother. His brother. So many questions. A part of him wanted to know it all; another part didn’t want to know anything at all.

  Rob exhaled loudly. “I believe I owe you for pulling me free.”

  Gavin took a sip to hide his frown. He remembered the drone. Someone was telling Rob to kill him. If, he thought, if they were going to be captured. He’d have to compete with Cross on that one.

  “Well, you are my brother, after all.”

  Rob struggled to sit up a little bit straighter. “Ouch, wow, talk about sore.”

  “Just relax. We’re gonna get out of this.”

  “And where? Right into a TU prison camp?”

  Gavin didn’t say anything. He thought on it. Yes, they would throw Rob into a POW camp.

  “I used to think of you when I was little,” Rob said. He looked away at nothing. “At first we didn’t know what was going to happen. Then when we came here, they put us into new homes and eventually into school.”

  Gavin listened. Rob’s eyes fluttered as he spoke. He was right on the edge of sleep.

  “The older I grew, the less I thought of it. By time I was a teenager, the Terran Union was a dirty word. The people who’d abandoned us. The Qin, they were the reality. They provided for us, helped us, taught us.”

  “At what price?” Gavin said. He’d learned the opposite from a young age. The Qin came to take and enslave.

  “We fought for them. I led squads on a dozen different planets, against aliens you can’t imagine. This universe is vast, vast and amazing, but most of all, deadly. I served them as a foot soldier. Then, as an officer. Man is the ultimate ground soldier, and with the Qin in the skies we are unbeatable.”

  “Were. Were unbeatable.”

  Rob shook his head and yawned at the same time. “This is all a trap. I’m telling you. All a trap.”

  Gavin listened and knew his brother believed what he said, but a belief wasn’t necessarily reality. “What about Claire?”

  Rob’s eyes closed and a small smile came to his lips. “She’s alive somewhere, I’m sure. We had a falling out.”

  “What happened?” Gavin said.

  Rob didn’t respond. He was asleep.

  Onna walked into the makeshift dorm and threw a blanket onto Rob’s lap. “He really your brother?”

  Gavin nodded.

  “Man, talk about a small universe. What are the odds, eh? So the Qin, they kidnap all those kids—what, fifteen years ago? And now we fight them today. Wild shit. Wild, wild shit.”

  Gavin opened his mouth to speak and then stopped. It was beyond wild. It was calculated. Nothing could be that random and pointless. But why would the Qin do it? Once, everyone assumed ransom, but none ever came. A sentence stuck in his mind. Man is the ultimate ground soldier. “Maybe they wanted our best to use as officers?”

  Onna shrugged. She poured hot water into a mug and dropped in a packet of coffee mix. “You up for a walk?”

  Gavin glanced at Rob and Cross. He didn’t trust either of them to wake up peacefully if the other was sleeping.

  “Vince will keep an eye on them.”

  “Yah, I’m up for a walk. To where?”

  Onna grinned and sipped on the coffee. “Admiral Erik McCloud’s quarters.”

  They dropped down one deck and made their way through passages before climbing up into another section. Onna narrated the entire journey. That way to the drive. That way to fire contour bravo. Go over there for sick bay.

  “You explored it all?” Gavin said.

  “Nope, buck-a-roo. All cadets serve on a naval training ship. Mine was the Victorious, a ship just like this.”

  Finally they came to a small hatch with gold lettering on the front. It said quite simply: McCloud.

  “What’s inside?” Gavin said. He barely remembered Erik McCloud. All his life, those few memories were tainted with legend and myth. He was a renegade hero. A man who sacrificed everything to not abandon his charge.

  “Dunno. I didn’t bother going in.”

  Gavin pushed. It was tight. Onna gave it a swift kick at the base of the door. It broke free and clanged open.

  The room was small, simple. A desk sat in the front, with a narrow bed in the rear. There were no pictures or awards. The room was almost totally empty.

  “Huh,” Onna said in a disappointed tone. “I’m gonna hit the med bay and then check on your boys.”

  Gavin nodded and studied the room. He stepped inside and clicked on the room light. As usual, only the emergency panel blinked on. The bed still had a crumpled blanket on it. One drawer was skewed on the dresser. He nudged it with his foot. Socks.

  When he turned around, he looked and stopped. The console was on.

  Gavin looked out into the empty hall. It felt like a ghost had just walked by. There, on the console, was the journal of the last captain of the TUS Mackinac, Admiral Erik McCloud. The date was twenty years before: January 11, 2702. He sat, tore the blanket off the bed and started reading.

  January 11, 2702

  I have disobeyed a direct order and, quite frankly, don’t give a damn. Someday I hope that someone will find this and understand my reasoning. It wasn’t bravado, or insubordination, or madness. I am of sound mind. My crew was not coerced. We did this for the right reasons, I do believe we can beat the Qin on the ground and hold out until relieved. Or so help me God.

  Kane, should you read this, understand I did not abandon you as a son. My family has meant the world to me, it always has, but you’re old enough now to know the desire to protect your own. Abandoning the Summer system to the Qin is wrong. Next they would abandon Troy, or Brittany, or, God help me, New Shetland.

  We narrowly escaped when the rest of the fleet fled for the needle. It was tough to watch them leave on the only way out of the system. It set in with the crew that this is for real. We relieved the third watch officer; the stress was too much.

  The bulk of the Qin fleet chased the TU fleet out of the system. We used a supply ship as a decoy, and I do hope the Qin aren’t aware of our position in low orbit. We’re burning a massive load of fuel to hold our position on the far side of the planet. Our goal is to hit the Qin orbital bombardment platforms when they come in to bombard New America.

  January 17, 2702

  The barges came in, and we got lucky. We had enough fuel to hold our position for a few more days, and then our goose would have been cooked! As it was, the Qin were cocky. They came in without even bothering to screen the formation with frigates. Planetary Command relayed the enemy position.

  We had to wait until the barges start firing, and then we came in.

  The battle was brief. The orbital platforms were fairly lightly armored. Only one was able to pivot and fire on us, but it didn’t last long. I should feel better about this victory, but all it does is delay the inevitable. We can’t win in space. We’re doomed where we are.

  Unfortunately, the bombardment struck the key command facilities first. There’s no way to coordinate the planetary defense with the civilian networks. I’ve talked it over w
ith our techs, and the Mackinac can do it.

  In two days we’re going to land the Mac far away from any civilian centers and convert it into our central control. With any luck, they’ll believe we’ve crashed. Not that they’ll have any ordinance on those cruisers that could do it much harm through the atmosphere.

  We’re already preparing to evacuate the ship. Once it’s down, we’ll move everyone out and coordinate the defense. Taking charge where planetary left off is going to be tough. The governor has asked me to surrender to the Qin.

  I will not.

  January 19, 2702

  Mackinac broke her spine when we set her down. The last of the reaction mass is gone. We’ve got enough power in the reactor for a decade or so. More than long enough for the TU to return with a proper force.

  I write this now in a temporary camp in the foothills. All of our essential defensive tasks will happen through the Mackinac. I feel a bit better knowing that the proud girl can still serve to beat the Qin.

  They’re making for the planet now. They are screening when they come in this time, frigates and such. It’s a good formation. The bastards are tough to beat in the sky.

  General Wall and Colonel Pushkin both insist that we have the forces on the ground to hold out. There’s no way the Qin can fit enough ground troops in that fleet to take the planet. It’s a physical impossibility. From the few ground engagements I’ve read about with the Qin, we shouldn’t have much to worry about.

  Tomorrow I will replace the governor. I am placing the planet under military control. New America will not fall!

  Gavin rubbed his eyes. The events of the day were heavy on him. For now he would get some rest and resume the story in the morning.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Jack breathed out and watched the frosty breath float through the air. He gave a quick glance at the console. His program was still compiling.

  He alternated between the area they called the dorm and the comms station. It was slow going. Bit by bit, he had to reverse engineer the system and try to figure out the code. What made sense twenty years before was so outdated now that everything was new again.