William Fortchen - Action Stations

Prince Ratha felt as if he was going to black out and closed his eyes, grunting for breath. His fighter shuddered and groaned with the strain as all engines fired in order to brake his high speed for the run down to the target. He opened his eyes again to scan his instruments and then up. His back was to the target area as the braking maneuver continued and he saw a flare of light as a fighter disintegrated from overstress, debris spraying out in a widening plume.

The first wave started to penetrate the planet's atmosphere and met no resistance. The next few seconds would decide…

Sergeant Major Manuel Ulandi stepped out of the headquarters building and, lighting another cigar, he looked up to the hills north of the city. Thirty years of discipline would not allow him to feel disgusted with an admiral who was his boss, but the feeling was pretty damn close to the surface. Command had totally broken down, with orders being shouted only to be countermanded a minute later, and then changed yet again. He heard the thunder of a flight of Hurricanes taking off and, looking over his shoulder, he saw them lifting up, banking and then streaking off westward, afterburners glowing. Sirens echoed from the town while, out on the flightline, a hysterical mob of personnel, cut off from their ships, swarmed around the transports. Thousands of others streamed towards the base of the skyhook tower and he shook his head.

"Poor bastards." He sighed. "They'll get caught when the Cats blow it."

A file of marines barged out of the headquarters, surrounding a Hurricane that had been pulled up to the door of the building. Ulandi watched as Admiral Long emerged, squeezing himself into the back seat of the Hurricane trainer. The pilot, already in his seat, pulled the canopy down and locked it. The Hurricane fired up and headed for the taxiway, weaving its way around the wreckage of several ships which had slammed into each other in the confusion. Without even waiting to gain the runway, the Hurricane went to afterburners, rumbling across a concrete apron then onto what passed for grass on this world and finally lifted off, going into a vertical climb.

A rolling peal of sonic booms rumbled across the sky and, shading his eyes, Ulandi saw a score of contrails tracing in from the west. The Hurricanes were now just glowing dots of light which disappeared from view as they punched through the shimmering waver of the shields. He could feel a crackling in the air as the shielding went up to maximum, the view on the other side distorting so that what lay beyond the base looked like a shimmering mirage. Any ship that hit the shield at high speed would be ripped to shreds. If it slowed subsonic speeds to make the transit, the defensive batteries would tear the target apart… at least, that's what the book said.

Through the shimmer he could see the mushroomlike spread of heavy shields activating over the reactors, which were buried deep in the mountains, one of them under Highcroft.

I bet the officers still stuck out there are crapping themselves, Ulandi thought with a grin.

Flashes of light ignited off to the west, one of them detonating with a brilliant white-hot intensity that caused Ulandi to turn away.

Nuke airburst he realized. Reaching up to his helmet, he snapped down his protective goggles and then turned back. Everything was dark for a moment except for the glowing point of light, which spread out and dissipated. The goggles gradually shifted so that, after several seconds, background light started to come back in, and then snapped back down as half a dozen more nukes lit up the sky.

Ulandi stepped back under the protective shelter of the doorway. Ground defense was kicking up and he could feel the rumbling in the soles of his feet as the batteries on the other side of the shield fired off a barrage.

"Sergeant?"

A corporal, one of the headquarters MPs, was beside him, crouched down low.

"Just watching the show."

"Everyone's heading down into the shelters, sergeant."

Ulandi smiled and took another puff on his cigar.

"Better get down there yourself-" he looked at her name tag," — Corporal Danner. I'll be along in a minute."

Another flare of light spread across the sky.

"Damn, what the hell was that?"

"Guess the Cats are using nukes to make sure they knock down our fighters and ground defenses."

"Sergeant, we'll get cooked out here!"

"Shields will block most of the pulse, but you better go on inside, corporal."

The young woman looked at him nervously and then shrugged.

"Guess we're dead then anyhow," she whispered and didn't move.

The girl unclipped a handheld comm unit, clicked it on, and punched in a channel. Static hissed and crackled on the unit…

"Got ten, got ten bombers bearing two nine six, angels seventy-three, eight clicks outside shield… he's on my tail, get him off me…"

Ulandi half listened as the girl, trying to control the shaking of her hands, held the radio up. Another nuke popped off. Standing inside the shadow of the doorway, Ulandi saw the harsh white glare illuminate the city, which was outside the base shielding. A shockwave from one of the blasts swept across the town, shattering windows, collapsing some of the flimsier buildings. He wondered sadly if Four Dollar Suzie's was still up. Most likely old Suzie was pouring free drinks at the moment.

"The bombers are slowing down… get them, get them!"

One of the Javelin batteries on the far side of town kicked in, lancelike bolts tearing straight up into the sky, the rockets trailing fiery plumes of smoke as they sprinted towards the heavens. Other lines of fire erupted from nearly straight overhead, streaking down. Ulandi turned his back and pushed the girl up against the wall. There was another flash of light, this one far brighter.

"Javelin's down, nuke pulse…" the radio crackled, the words drowned out, then came clear again.

"What the hell… bombers have dropped ordnance, moving Mach 10…" There was a momentary pause. "The damn missiles, they're penetrating the shielding to the reactors! What the hell is going on, missiles have penetra…"

Ulandi felt the ground beneath his feet buckle and roll as half a dozen torpedoes, tipped with ground-penetrating nuclear warheads slammed into the reactors north of the base. The crackle in the air snapped off. Crouching down, he covered the girl's head and pulled her in tight. She started to sob and he felt as if, at that moment, he was holding his own little girl again, comforting her when the summer thunder rumbled in the night sky.

The ground shock died away, the glare dimmed, and he finally looked back up. Six pillars of fire and smoke filled the northern sky.

"More bombers coming down… count thirty plus, bearings three one nine, angels one five eight…" An explosion ignited on the west side of the base and the radio snapped off.

"They'll go for the skyhook now," Ulandi said and, stepping away from the building, with the young corporal clinging to his side, he watched as a Kilrathi bomber came thundering in, so close to the ground that swirls of dust eddied up behind it. The bomber shrieked down the length of the runway and pressed on eastwards, banking slightly to the south. Twin flashes of light ignited under its belly and two missiles streaked away.

"These might be small nukes," Ulandi said.

"Why not on top of us?" the corporal asked, struggling to control her voice.

"They want the base, but they'll knock out the tower and maybe drag down the ships still hooked to it."

The bomber banked up sharply, followed suddenly by half a dozen Javelins. Flares streaked out behind the ship, one of the Javelins swerving and detonating, but the other missiles closed in and Ulandi felt a grim satisfaction as the bomber disintegrated, the girl beside him letting out an emotion-releasing scream of triumph. But the attacker had already accomplished his mission. One of the missiles was dropped by the point defense around the base of the tower, but the second round slammed into the durasteel frame of the skyhook and detonated with a force of sixty kilotons. The heat of the fission bomb tore out half of the tower's armor. If that alone had been the effect of the weapon, it might have survived, but the shock wave now set up a fatal oscillation, the way a wave of movement travels down a taut string which has been plucked. The tower began to waver, the shock wave from the blast rushing down to the ground, hitting, then reverberating back up. Thrusters mounted along the length of the tower, which were designed to dampen any motion created by earthquakes, were now firing at full power to try to counter the blow. The reflected shockwave now hit and the thrusters were firing in the wrong direction, adding their power to the blow. The tower sheared off several kilometers above where the warhead had detonated.