“Giving me credit already?” the man said. He drew the words out with a faint southern drawl. “Appreciated, but this ain’t my style.” A young woman approached from the back, offering a bottle of beer. The man took it with a grin, handing the pretty girl a folded credit note. She tucked the bill into her bra, winked, and went to serve more drinks. “Hell of a Reformation Day.” The man turned to share his little joke, but no one paid him any attention.
Around the room, groups of men busied themselves with various tasks, mindful to keep their noise down while their leader watched the TV. Some cleaned rifles, others played cards. Mostly, they sat and thought about the week to come. The mission had taken almost four years of planning, months of preparation, and now could crumble with the smallest slip. Not that they worried. They were never to concern themselves with failure, or the possibility thereof. Only the mission.
The soldier smiled. If a younger version of himself walked in the room, he wouldn’t even recognize what he’d become. There wasn’t a proper word for him. Rebel? Terrorist? Monster? Hell, he was fine with “disillusioned soldier,” but the media loved to portray him as some kind of anti-establishment nutjob. No matter. The hour of judgment was approaching so rapidly that he rarely slept anymore, lest he miss it.
From inside one of his many hideaways, the soldier known as Jonah Blightman waited for his moment of triumph. Soldiers of the Red Hammer had waited too long for vengeance, but now that time was at hand. He looked down at the sprawled notebooks on the coffee table and began to go over his plan, beat by beat. It was complex, but not overly so. Contingencies were in place should anything go awry. And, in Jonah’s experience, plans like this had a tendency to stray off the intended path.
If they succeeded, they would undo the damage of the past ten years in a single hour. An entire galaxy of people would know the extent of the lies told by the Federate. Jonah knew that the odds might fall against him, and that this would be his last trip out, but the time for doubt had long passed. So instead, in that Toronto speakeasy, he prepared for his hour of glory. Looking over the plans for the attack, he felt a familiar numbness growing.
While Jonah looked at the reports from his various cells, one of his veterans approached. The old man smiled with a scarred face and placed a small tablet in front of his leader.
“Everything is set, and the delivery boys are in place.”
“Good,” Jonah said. “Now let’s talk about Buenos Aires. The casualty estimates still feel too low.”
The Front
Lunar Space
Craft from each side filled the wide gap between Earth and Luna. The Terran Fleet continued to pour out of hangars on the moon and in nearby stations, staging off-center from the two unknown groups. On either side, thousands of strange ships flew into formation. The silver saucers and cigars of one group shimmered on the black canvas. The others were harder to see but appeared more menacing, with thorny black and red hulls.
No signal sent to the alien armadas had elicited a response. The two strike groups drifted toward each other, each well within range of long guns and missiles, yet no one dared to take the first shot. In the Terran Fleet, fingers twitched over controls and triggers, anxious for anything to happen.
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Cameron and George raced toward the front. Their engines kicked in automatically as soon as the craft were far enough from the hangar. With the twin slush-hydrogen jets spewing out a steady stream of white and blue fire, the Phoenixes cruised out of Luna’s gravity on their way to meet up with the rest of the air wing.
The skies were clear, which was oddly terrifying. A normal day between Earth and Luna would see hundreds of thousands of ships coming and going to the various stations, outposts, and colonies. Having an empty canvas of black night in every direction felt wrong. Cameron’s view was only blocked by the massive Terra Node. The monolithic diamond-shaped station hovered between the homeworld and her satellite. Most of the time, Terra served as a travel hub into and out of Sol space. Today it was a fortress, bristling with armaments.
“Sector Patrol Luna, this is Wolf One. Sight me inbound on approach vector four-two.”
“Wolf One, this is Valley Forge. Approach on flight path Whiskey Seven, on your HUD.”
Cameron looked out over his port wing at George. “Shit, wrong channel.” They shared a look of uncertainty before Cameron went back to the radio. “Valley Forge, Wolfpack is Sierra Papa. Please advice which net to switch to.”
“Wolf, this is Valley Forge actual.”
Cameron straightened up. Commander DeHart’s smoke-charred voice was unmistakable. Head officer of the supercruiser Valley Forge, he was second-in-command to Terra Node, which essentially made him second-in-command of the Sol System. That the station had committed its own security detachment meant the threat level had jumped dramatically. “You will rendezvous with elements of Earth’s SP and form on CBG Terra’s flank. Fleet has operational control of this task force. Valley Forge out.”
George laughed nervously. “Well, now I’m sure this isn’t just a drill.”
“Wolf, this is One.” Cameron let out a breath he’d been holding. “We’re escort for Savanna. Tight cluster, nexus formation.”
“Roger,” came the expected response.
“Cam,” George said. “You almost sound like a leader.”
“Not my first wing.”
“Did I ever apologize for that? Though, to be fair, you’re the one who let me bring the Maneton inside the armory.”
Cameron was about to respond when a shadow blotted out the light around him. He looked up, his mouth dropping open. Engulfing all space above his puny fighter, the enormous girth of the TFC Midway emerged overhead. The ship was a half mile long, with hangar bays that spanned its length. An escort wing of Phoenix III fighters flew in graceful figure eights around the hull, quad-rockets leaving parallel streaks behind them. As the carrier passed, driven by sixteen fusion-cell engines, Cameron made out crews inside the hangars prepping the bomber squadrons for launch. The almond-shaped Seed craft sat on rapid-deployment rails along with dozens more strikers. Soon they disappeared from view as the flagship joined its group outside the standoff between the two mysterious formations. Medium-sized frigates and much larger destroyers took position around the supercarrier while a heavily armed battleship arrived from the rear.
“Fuck,” George blurted.
A curt female voice came on: “Please keep the line clear unless issuing an official report.”
“Open net, man,” Cameron hissed.
George quickly switched to a secure channel between him and his wing. “Sorry, guys.” The young pilot gawked at the front line. “But seriously. Fuck.”
The two armadas were a study in contrast. The one on the left was a hellish swarm. A gigantic black hive-carrier spewed forth squadrons of tiny ships whose glossy hulls glistened with red markings like bloody runes. The fighters flew in swirling clouds of three dozen, perfectly matching speed and direction changes. Four acorn-shaped cruisers flanked the flagship, cannons peeking out the front of their pointed hulls. Ten destroyers—long, scooped craft with turrets covering their skin like spines—edged slowly toward the other side of the battlefield. Finally, mixed in with the other vessels, spherical missile frigates drifted like space debris.
Opposite the hellish swarm, the silver flotilla was all elegance. Their supercarrier, a crescent of platinum and gold, glided on glowing engines toward the fray, surrounded by a gleaming array of cylindrical cruisers and destroyers. The fighters and bombers were all-too familiar in their shape.
“What do those look like to you?” George asked.
“Oh, I dunno. Disks, maybe? Or dinner plates?”
“They’re