John Scalzi: Old Man's War

"Both attacks are contingent on one thing: knocking out their ability to know we're coming in. That means taking their tracking station and knocking it offline—but not destroying it. The technology in that tracking station is technology the CDF can use. Maybe the Rraey can't figure it out, but we're farther along the technological curve. We blow the station only if there's absolutely no other choice. We're going to take the station and hold it until we can get reinforcements down to the surface."

"How long is that going to take?" asked Jung.

"The simultaneous assaults will be coordinated to begin four hours after we enter Coral space," Crick said. "Depending on the intensity of the ship-to-ship battles, we can expect additional troops to reinforce us sometime after the first couple of hours."

"Four hours after we enter Coral space?" Jung asked. "Not after we've taken the tracking station?"

"That's right," Crick said. "So we damn well better take the station, people."

"Excuse me," I said. "I'm troubled by a small detail."

"Yes, Lieutenant Perry," Crick said.

"The success of the offensive attack is predicated on our taking out the tracking station that keeps tabs on our ships coming in," I said.

"Right," said Crick.

"This would be the same tracking station that's going to be tracking us when we skip to Coral space," I said.

"Right," said Crick.

"I was on a ship that was tracked as it entered Coral space, if you'll recall," I said. "It was ripped apart and every single person who was on it but me died. Aren't you a little concerned that something very similar will happen to this ship?"

"We slid into Coral space undetected before," Tagore said.

"I'm aware of that, since the Sparrowhawk was the ship that rescued me," I said. "And believe me, I am grateful. However, that strikes me as the sort of trick you get away with once. And even if we skip into the Coral system far enough away from the planet to avoid detection, it would take us several hours to reach Coral. The timing is way off for that. If this is going to work, the Sparrowhawk has to skip in close to the planet. So I want to know how we're going to do that and still expect the ship to stay in one piece."

"The answer to that is really quite simple," Major Crick said. "We don't expect the ship to stay in one piece. We expect it to be blasted right out of the sky. In fact, we're counting on it."

"Pardon me?" I said. I looked around the table, expecting to see looks of confusion similar to the one I was wearing. Instead, everyone was looking somewhat thoughtful. I found this entirely too disturbing.

"High-orbit insertion, then, is it?" asked Lieutenant Dalton.

"Yes," Crick said. "Modified, obviously."

I gaped. "You've done this before? " I said.

"Not this exactly, Lieutenant Perry," Jane said, drawing my attention to her. "But yes, on occasion we've inserted Special Forces directly from spacecraft—usually when the use of shuttles is not an option, as it would be here. We have special dropsuits to insulate ourselves from the heat of entering the atmosphere; beyond that it's like any normal airdrop."

"Except that in this case, your ship is being shot out from under you," I said.

"That is the new wrinkle here," Jane admitted.

"You people are absolutely insane," I said.

"It makes for an excellent tactic," Major Crick said. "If the ship is torn apart, bodies are an expected part of the debris. The CDF just dropped a skip drone to us with fresh information on the tracking station's location, so we can skip above the planet in a good position to drop our people. The Rraey will think they've destroyed our assault before it happened. They won't even know we're there until we hit them. And then it will be too late."

"Assuming any of you survive the initial strike," I said.

Crick looked over to Jane and nodded. "The CDF has bought us a little wiggle room," Jane said to the group. "They've begun placing skip drives onto shielded missile clusters and tossing them into Coral space. When their shields are struck they launch the missiles, which are very hard for the Rraey to hit. We've gotten several Rraey ships over the last two days this way—now they're waiting a few seconds before they fire in order to accurately track anything that's been thrown at them. We should have anywhere from ten to thirty seconds before the Sparrowhawk is hit. That's not enough time for a ship that's not expecting the hits to do anything, but for us it's enough time to get our people off the ship. It's also maybe enough time for the bridge crew to launch a distracting offensive attack as well."

"The bridge crew is going to stay on the ship for this?" I asked.

"We'll be suited up with the others and operating the ship via BrainPal," Major Crick said. "But we'll be on the ship at least until our first missile volley is away. We don't want to operate Brain-Pals once we leave the ship until we're deep in Coral's atmosphere; it would give away the fact we're alive to any Rraey that might be monitoring. There's some risk involved, but there are risks for everyone who is on this ship. Which brings us, incidentally, to you, Lieutenant Perry."

"Me," I said.

"Quite obviously, you're not going to want to be on the ship when it gets hit," Crick said. "At the same time, you haven't trained for this sort of mission, and we also promised you would be here in an advisory capacity. We can't in good conscience ask for you to participate. After this briefing you'll be provided with a shuttle, and a skip drone will be dispatched back to Phoenix with your shuttle's coordinates and a request for retrieval. Phoenix keeps retrieval ships permanently stationed at skip distance; you should be picked up within a day. We'll leave you a month's worth of supplies, however. And the shuttle is equipped with its own emergency skip drones if it comes to that."

"So you're ditching me," I said.

"It's nothing personal," Crick said. "General Keegan will want to have a briefing on the situation and the negotiations with the Consu, and as our liaison with conventional CDF, you're the best person to do both."

"Sir, with your permission, I'd like to remain," I said.

"We really have no place for you, Lieutenant," Crick said. "You'd serve this mission better back on Phoenix."

"Sir, with all due respect, you have at least one hole in your ranks," I said. "Sergeant Hawking died during our negotiations with the Consu; Private Aquinas is missing half her arm. You won't be able to reinforce your ranks prior to your mission. Now, I'm not Special Forces, but I am a veteran soldier. I am, at the very least, better than nothing."

"I seem to recall you calling us all absolutely insane," Captain Jung said to me.

"You are all absolutely insane," I said. "So if you're going to pull this off you're going to need all the help you can get. Also, sir," I said, turning to Crick, "remember that I lost my people on Coral. I don't feel right about sitting out this fight."

Crick looked over to Dalton. "Where are we with Aquinas?" he asked.

Dalton shrugged. "We have her on an accelerated healing regimen," he said. "It hurts like a bitch to regrow an arm this fast, but she'll be ready when we make the skip. I don't need him."

Crick turned to Jane, who was staring at me. "It's your call, Sagan," Crick said. "Hawking was your noncom. If you want him, you can have him."

"I don't want him," Jane said, looking directly at me as she said it. "But he's right. I'm down a man."

"Fine," Crick said. "Get him up to speed, then." He turned to me. "If Lieutenant Sagan thinks you're not going to cut it, you're getting stuffed in a shuttle. Do you get me?"

"I get you, Major," I said, staring back at Jane.