More blast waves followed, a succession of them as the other Dragonfires hammered at the opening with nuke-tipped missiles, and then as incoming warheads from the fleet found the suddenly revealed weakness.
But Allyn had lost consciousness with the first savage impact.
Chapter Eight
26 September 2404
Tactician Emphatic Blossom at Dawn
Enforcer Radiant Severing
0032 hours, TFT
Tactician Blossom felt the rumble of successive nuclear strikes pulsing against the rock shell of the Radiant Severing. Turusch physiology was extremely sensitive to both air- and ground-borne vibrations and the shudders were painful—the equivalent of blasting a shrill noise into a human’s ear.
The gravitic shields were failing, the enemy’s nuclear munitions getting through.
In point of fact, the Radiant Severing’s command centers were buried deep within the mass of nickel-iron that formed the huge vessel’s body. The enemy fleet could pound them for g’nyuu’m on end and not reach the ship’s deepest recesses.
But the shields would begin to fall one after another now, as each failure uncovered another line of shield wave guides exposed on the planetoid’s surface. Eventually, all surface structures would be reduced to radioactive debris; the Severing would be blind and deaf with its sensor arrays vaporized, helpless with its weapons destroyed, trapped immobile with its drive projectors inoperative.
“Kill!” its higher self screamed, but the middle self overrode the instinct-laden surge of raw emotion.
“Swing to new heading,” it ordered the Severing’s helm control, adding a string of coordinates. “Accelerate to deepest reach. Pass orders for the rest of the fleet to fall back and cover.”
“The enemy may pursue,” Blossom’s tactical coordinator, its second-in-command, told it. “Our power reserves are low, the damage to our shields severe.”
“They will not pursue,” Blossom replied, the statement arising jointly from both its low and middle minds. “The enemy is focused on protecting, perhaps recovering its colony on the planet surface. When we return with reinforcements, we will find the enemy long gone.”
The system would soon be within Turusch tentacle-grasp, of that Emphatic Blossom was certain. The tragedy was that they’d not been able to cripple the enemy fleet as planned … most particularly that their fighters had not been able to win through to the enemy fighter carrier and destroy it. Such a blow might well have wrecked the enemy’s offensive capabilities in this sector for g’nyi’nyeh to come.
But if the enemy force was still more or less intact, so too was the Turusch battlefleet. The Radiant Severing was not in contact with the other ships. One of the shields had collapsed. The nuclear fury unleashed within the next few seconds against the planetoid’s surface had vaporized lasercom projectors and radio antennae. But as the command vessel withdrew, the other Turusch ships would fall back to protect it.
“Accelerating,” the tactical coordinator announced.
Blossom’s higher self writhed in an agony of angry frustration.
Marine Sick Bay
Eta Boötis IV
0056 hours, TFT
Gray came fully awake with a rush of panic. Get them off me!…
But the “they” were gone. He was floating in air, face up, staring up at the glow panels overhead, heart pounding as fragments of memory clawed at his mind. The scream rising in his throat choked off short. He tried to sit up, and failed.
His eyes opened and he looked up into a metallic nightmare. A robot had emerged from a cabinet in the wall and was hovering above him, all metal and plastic and huge, cold lenses for eyes. The remaining panic induced by the local fauna transferred itself to something more immediate—the looming presence of the medical robot. He screamed, tried to lash out against the thing, but his hands were trapped.
“Whoa. Take it easy there, zorchie,” a voice said.
Blinking, he tried to focus on his surroundings. He was in a small, metal-walled compartment, floating above some sort of grav bed. An older man in Marine combat utilities stood nearby, watching, his arms folded. A younger man, also in utilities, sat at a nearby workstation.
Abruptly, the robot folded itself back into its cabinet.
“What … happened? …”
“You got picked up in the desert by a SAR,” the standing man told him. “You remember anything, son?”
There were memories, yes, but they were broken and chaotic. He remembered running through a barren, night-cloaked landscape, remembered the flickering movements at the corners of his eyes, the gathering shadows following his trail.
He remembered sensations of drowning as the shadows covered him, gnawing at his environmental suit, the terror, the rising panic. He remembered peeling them away by the handful, as more attached themselves to him … and more … and more…
“Those … things …”
“Shadow swarmers. The SAR crew said if they’d been ten minutes later, they’d have breached your suit.”
Gray allowed himself a long, shuddering breath. Safe …
“Thank you,” he said.
“Hey, don’t mention it, zorchie.” The man grinned. “You people have been up there saving our sorry asses. It’s the least we could do in return!”
The fact that the man had called him zorchie—Marine slang for a gravfighter pilot—suggested that he was an officer. An enlisted Marine, Gray thought, would never have called a naval officer zorchie to his face.
He heard a subdued click, and his hands and arms were free. Gently, he drifted down until his back was against a firm, foam-padded surface.
“Doing our job … sir,” he said. “I’m Lieutenant Trevor Gray, VFA-44, the Dragonfires.”
“We know,” the man said, as Gray tried to sit up again and, this time, succeeded. “We downloaded your ID when you came in. I’m General Gorman. Welcome aboard.”
And the man was gone. He didn’t leave; his image flickered and winked out, and Gray realized that the base CO had just paid him a visit via holo projection.
“Does your general always holo-down to chitchat with Navy pilots in sick bay?” Gray asked, looking around.
The man at the console turned and grinned at him. “Not usually, sir. But we’ve all been praying so damned hard to the God of Battles to send us some help, maybe the old man just wanted to come down in person—or in holo, anyway—to see if you were for real.”
“Any word on what’s happening up there?”
“You think they tell us anything? Last I heard, the bombardment of the perimeter had stopped, and that’s about all I care about right now.” He extended a hand. “I’m Bob Richards, by the way. HM1.”
Gray touched palms with Richards, and the circuitry imbedded in the other man’s hand lit up Gray’s in-head display. According to the data cascade, HM1 Richards was a Navy hospital corpsman assigned to the FMF, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, as part of the attached medical unit. Interesting. He’d been born and raised in the Orlando Arcology, which meant he was from the Periphery back home.