John Ringo - Islands of Rage and Hope

“Do not, say again, do not , contaminate my truck,” Sophia said, standing at the base of the pier with her hand out. “We’re bringing in Zods to clear you off.”

“Do we have something set up to clean us off?” Faith asked, holding her arms out for a hug. “I sort of got covered in blood again.”

“This was not the night to be scrumming, Sis, you know that,” Sophia said, shaking her head. “Stay away from me.”

“Feel the love,” Faith said as the Zodiacs came into the beach. “You getting while the getting’s good?”

“All your people here?” Sophia asked. “ Tan , we’ll need wash-down for the Marines. They’ve been scrumming.”

“We found the lost ones courtesy of sub intercept systems,” Faith said. “Who knew they were so accurate?”

“Omaha, radar locked on predicted track…”

Commander Isaac Luallin, skipper of the SSBN USS Tennessee , wasn’t having the best week. Or month. Or for that matter year.

Ballistic nuclear submarines are all about risk aversion. Not for them the chasing other boats, doing hull shots, sneaking into the back yard of other powers. No, SSBNs were all about finding a big, empty, deep patch of water and disappearing. For months. Drive slow, stay deep and pray that you never have to actually do your job.

They had in fact been doing pretty much that since the Plague was announced. Even after the SSNs started “assisting” Wolf Squadron, the SSBNs had pretty much stayed in their patches except for the occasional, necessary, fishing expeditions. At one point they got an alert to stop even that when the Soviet general in charge had gotten frisky and ordered some of his remaining SSNs to hunt U.S. subs. According to the Hole that had come to nothing when the subs mutinied and the general had “retired.” Apparently he’d committed suicide by shooting himself in the back.

They were finally going to get to help out and…now all they could do was radar support. So they’d surfaced and put up the radar mast.

“Roger Tennessee ,” the “controller” in Omaha replied. “Incoming ballistic track predicted for five minutes. Stand by…”

Luallin locked the periscope on the predicted track and connected it to the crew monitors. No reason not to. Unless it failed, which would be icing on the damned cake.

“When do we bring it up openly, sir?” Faith asked. She was freshly showered and back in MarPat. By the end of the sweep they were finding zero customers so the plan was for them to land in standard “light fighter” gear, not bunker gear.

“When we have to,” Hamilton said. “Stand by…Roger. So the answer is: Now. Listen up, people!” he bellowed. “Look to the west and up at sixty degrees.” He pointed and raised a pair of binoculars. “Anybody see anything different?”

“I’ve got an inbound ballistic track on projected heading,” the Tennessee ’s radar tech said. “Forty-five thousand feet. Seven point five six kilometers per second. Decelerating…”

“There it is,” Commander Luallin breathed, watching the monitors. “Son of a bitch. It’s past the plasma zone.”

“Go baby go,” the chief of boat said.

“I’ve got radar lock by six boats,” the digital compliance technician said. “Track is as predicted to ninety-eight percent.”

“Let’s hope ninety-eight is good enough,” Brice said, grimacing. “At that range, ninety eight is miles . Miles as in in the drink.”

“Is that it?” Faith said, pointing up. “By that red star?”

“That’s Mars,” Sophia said, scanning the sky. “And…yeah. That’s it. Look for the two red stars people. One of them is an inbound space ship!”

“It’s lit up,” Faith said. “Fire?”

“They’re well past the plasma stage,” Colonel Hamilton said. “It’s reflected sunlight. Red because the sun’s about to come up. It will disappear in a minute. That’s when it gets tricky.”

“Okay, now it’s making sense,” Sergeant Smith said.

“They’re trying to land on the island,” Sergeant Hoag said. “Son of a bitch. So why couldn’t they tell us?”

“’Cause if it didn’t work, it’d be another morale blow,” Faith said from behind them. “But that’s why we had to land at night and thoroughly clear the island. And now we’re going to be providing security for an extraction team. Assuming it lands on the island.”

“When will we know, ma’am?” Sergeant Smith asked.

“The subs are surfaced,” Faith said, pointing out into the channel. “They’re following it on radar. Since they could find you to the meter, I figure they can probably find where it landed.”

“Ma’am,” Sergeant Smith said thoughtfully. “If they are coming down by parachute, they’ll need winds aloft.”

“I understand that Mr. Walker figured that out, Sergeant,” Faith said drily. “Believe it or not, some of your superiors do have a clue, Sergeant.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Smitty said. “Understood.”

“Shit, it missed !” Lance Corporal Ferguson snarled as the capsule passed overhead. It was clearly headed for the channel on the far side of the island. A moment later it winked from view as it dropped out of the sunlight.

“Winds,” Sergeant Smith said, scanning to the southeast. “It’s going to drift with these winds…”

“There,” Faith said, spotting it again. “You can see the chutes…”

“Drift is in predicted track,” the compliance tech said. “I think. Sorry, General, not precisely my area of expertise.”

“At this point we just have to wait and hope,” Brice said. “The reentry worked and the parachutes worked. That’s better than we had any reason to expect.”

Commander Luallin had slaved the camera to the radar track and now widened the field of view, trying to get some perspective. He looked at the radar track and frowned.

“I think it’s going to miss,” he said. “Certainly the primary LZ.”

“It’s going to be close, sir,” the COB said.

“In this case, a miss is truly as good as a mile,” Luallin said.

“Oh, shit,” Faith muttered. “Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit…”

The main chutes had deployed at four thousand feet with the capsule well over the island. But the strong tropical wind had it moving northwest at a high rate of speed.

Straight at the flotilla.

“That thing’s got rockets on it,” Faith said. “If they fire over us …”

“Won’t, ma’am,” Smitty said as the capsule continued to descend rapidly. “Where was the LZ?”

“By that pond in The Valley,” Faith said.

“Not going there, ma’am,” Smitty said. “I think it’s going to hit by the airport…”

The dimly perceived capsule dropped from view and there was a massive fire signature as yellow-orange flames and smoke poured into the predawn darkness.

“Rockets fired,” Smitty said. “That’s a good sign.”

“I think the Dragon has landed,” Colonel Hamilton said.

“All personnel,” the tannoy boomed. “ Stand by…” There was a crackle of static.

“Hello?” an unfamiliar voice said. “ Anyone listening? We’re down in one piece…”

“Dragon, this is Omaha. Good to hear your voices again. We’re sending in a rescue party as soon as we’re sure the fires are under control.”

“Roger, Omaha. We’ll just lie here, then. Gravity is taking a little getting used to.”

“Subs, go to closed frequency. Omaha, out.”

“And that is that,” Hamilton said, looking into the darkness. “I don’t even see any fires, yet.” He touched his radio key. “Omaha, this is Kodiak Force Commander. Request direct contact, Dragon crew. We need to touch base…”