Night Rescue Read online

  Night Rescue

  a future Night Stalkers romance story

  by M. L. Buchman

  1

  “Good morning, Takara.”

  “Good morning to you, Stella,” Captain Takara Olmsted, 160th Charlie Company, crossed the habitat’s hangar floor and patted her Stinger on the nose before she started the pre-spaceflight inspection. Some pilots didn’t like their ships greeting them and switched off the functionality; spouting some tripe that they could write a more imaginative program while scratching their backsides. And for some of her fellow pilots, that was the most creative part of their anatomy.

  Takara had always found it rather sweet—once she’d programmed out the factory’s deep male voice that didn’t fit her craft at all. The voice they’d shipped her with was a bad imitation of a passé interactives star. Or perhaps it really was Jess Brock fallen on hard times; an IA star’s moments of glory were even shorter than all but the unluckiest soldier’s. Not that she’d ever been a fan, not even a little. Didn’t matter. Takara hadn’t just changed the selection, she’d erased all the others out of the ship’s banks once she’d found Stella’s true voice.

  A Stinger-60 Block III might be eighty meters of flying death to the enemy, but the Stella was a dainty girl in or out of atmo, quick on her thrusters and ready to dance. She was also chic, space black with a near non-existent profile on enemy scopes, could carry a platoon of SpecOps in full fieldsuits, and was armed to the frickin’ teeth.

  All were attributes that Takara did her best to emulate, except for the carrying-a-platoon thing. Even off base she dressed in black darker than her long straight fall of hair—cutting edge materials so light-absorbing that she was often told she looked like a hole in the space-time continuum. Perfect! She stayed sleek, fit, and was as skilled at hand-to-hand combat as she was at piloting during deep-space warfare.

  The rest of her crew arrived together in the Colony’s hangar, a tight metal box in the zero-G sector that was little bigger than her craft. They were a good team, sharp and dedicated. And it wasn’t that they were late; they were early. But Takara had always been earlier. Even as a cadet she’d been first to class and first to the drill field.

  “Still the sky-eater, Captain,” her port-gunner greeted her the same way he always did.

  “Still,” the copilot answered before Takara could.

  “Always will be,” the starboard gunner agreed.

  “And damned proud of it,” Takara finished their pre-flight ritual.

  They all laughed and made fast work of inspecting the Stella. She was immaculate; no service crews in the air corps like the 160th Night Stalkers. Takara tried to imagine the long-ago crazies who had taken to the night in fragile rotary craft, flying at night by nav gear little better than a torch and a compass. She shuddered, glad to be living in this time despite the troubles.

  At the end of their inspection, she rubbed Stella’s nose for good luck.

  They were going to need it.

  * * *

  Intruder neutralization off.

  Door open.

  Recognize four boarding.

  Seal and secure.

  Input ready for mission profile.

  Mission plan loaded.

  Fuel = plan + 50%. Check.

  Ammo = plan (0)[really?] + full charge COIL laser. Check.

  Air = sufficient 4 crew 6 months or full load 1 week + regen. Check.

  Plan was…Oh dear! Definitely not check.

  2

  Major Rick Coralto, commander of the 160th’s Alpha Company, punched the fist of his combat suit against the center of Jess’ entry door. “Hey, buddy.”

  “Hey, Rick,” the outer airlock door pulled in two centimeters then slid aside.

  It always cracked him up that his Stinger sounded just like Rick’s favorite IA hero when Rick had been going through flight school. Jess Brock, Secret Agent—sappy as hell, but Jess always won, always had the best toys, and always got the hottest women. Not that Rick was complaining; unlike Jess’ toys, Rick’s Stinger was real. But the voice was so good that sometimes Rick wondered if Jess Brock was hiding somewhere aboard. It was just that laid back. The “I’m in perfect control of the situation” tone just slayed him.

  Rick maneuvered his combat suit into the crew’s airlock, stepped it back into the charging cradle and waited for the rest of his crew to float in behind him.

  Rick’s crew and the rest of 160th Night Stalkers Alpha Company were just finishing a training mission with the Brits out at the L2 Lagrange Point, sixty-thousand klicks beyond the Lunar Farside.

  Good location choice to set up a nation, Rick had acknowledged. The massive O’Neill Colony habitat could hold a couple million citizens apiece. And L2 was the one place where no direct line of fire existed from the Earth. It was definitely a tactical sweet spot that he wished his people had grabbed first.

  Last night, after the mock battles had been won (by the Night Stalkers of course), they’d been invited ashore for a big meal and a little bit of drinking that had turned into a lot of drinking and a little bit of meal…and almost a very cute British Leftenant, but that hadn’t worked out in the end. He still wasn’t sure why, he’d had on his Jess Brock blue-and-gold jumpsuit and been at his most charming. Maybe if he’d spotted her before he drank several of the Brits under the table.

  He was feeling clearheaded, considering, but was glad that the SCS—Stinger Command System—knew more about flying than he’d ever be able to learn. Though control of the ships hadn’t been given to the computers since the International Law of Control had passed, they still had all of their computers intact. And on the SCS, that was a lot of computer.

  He and his crew slid into their seats with a collective groan, they’d all enjoyed themselves last night. Then they began powering up the various systems; Rick thumbing in to convince the software that a human pilot was aboard.

  The I-LoC had been one of the last things that the nations of the solar system had agreed on. Now even lowly cargo ships always had human pilots. Law of Control had meant there were a lot of idiots in space, but it had finally ended the Drone Downfall that had almost erased world commerce.

  Rick’s granddad had flown as one of the first enforcer squads after the I-LoC passed, targeting any unpiloted aircraft. That’s back when pilots really flew; still amazing that Granddad had survived the Drone Wars. Finally gone were the days when a competitor would slam an untraceable drone into the engine of a cargo transport ship to up the value of their own goods. Murder by untraceable drone had moved from nation against nation to neighbor against neighbor during the DD. You slept with my wife? A personal drone moving at Mach 1 hammered into your car while it was driving you to work. You broke up with me, you bitch? Poof! Passed me over for promotion? Boom!

  Everyone agreed that the DD had been bad and no one wanted to go back there. So, wars had shifted to more conventional forms of killing people and relative safety returned to the skies, at least outside of atmo. Inside atmo, Earth just kept getting weirder and weirder, which was why so many nations were heading up the grav well.

  The French had been the first to jump when they’d bugged out twenty years ago. They’d flown out to the asteroid belt, taken over Ceres, and—once they’d hollowed it out—crawled inside and closed the door with barely a Bonne chance, Salope. You too, bitch.

  “Okay, Jess,” he grabbed a food pack and tossing back a painkiller before holding the mission chip up against the reader. “Let’s see what fun we’re up to today.”

  * * *

  Seal and secure.

  Mission plan loaded.

  Fuel = plan + 50%. Check.

  Am
mo = plan (0) + full charge COIL laser.

  Air = sufficient 4 crew 6 months or full load 1 week + regen. Check.

  All of Alpha Company. Check.

  Shit! Earth. Going all of the way down to the surface? Ug-ly!

  3

  Takara sat in the Stella and looked up and down the line as she pulled out of the hangar and into black space. Normally their missions were one conflict, one Stinger. Now the entire Night Stalkers Charlie Company was forming up. All three Stingers, four small Tagger gun ships, and the five big Guts that could hold a hundred suited troops or two hundred civilians.

  “Stella? What the hell?”

  “Mission profile,” the Stella read off to her. “Landing Canmerica West capital at oh-two-hundred hours local time. Retrieve all remaining troops.”

  “I didn’t know there was anyone still left in Tucson.”

  Stella ran a list up one of the screens and it made sense.

  The politicians had been the first aloft to the big Canmerican O’Neill habitats out at the Lagrange 5 point—Lunar orbit, but sixty degrees behind the Moon. Of course. Critical skills had flown next and then lottery winners who passed the IQ and genetic thresholds. The last to arrive had deep-spaced all of the politicians who didn’t pass their own tests—about seventy percent. It had been a major pain to clean up before the area’s space lanes were safe for travel again. Lesson learned: next time they wouldn’t just feed them out the airlock.

  There hadn’t been anyone left to retrieve from Canmerica East. Everything east of the MSRZ—Mississippi Sea and Radiation Zone, had been abandoned while she was still a cadet.

  Canmerica West had held it together.

  United California, not so much. Still heavily militarized despite the final destruction of Japan, UC had somehow been held off at the Mojave while CanWesterners scrambled to get aloft.

  Now she knew how the UC military had been kept at bay. With Special Operations assets still on the ground, conventional forces didn’t stand a chance. Their mission was to bring them home.

  * * *

  Plan = Retrieve military personnel: Delta, 24th STS, ST6, ISA.

  Also 75th Space Rangers 3rd Battalion.

  Stella Personnel Hold conditions = atmosphere stable.

  Maintenance note = perform full hold inspection and service post-transport of SpecOps troops. 75th Rangers were always breaking things.

  4

  Rick knocked the Jess out of lunar orbit and cooked some gas up and out of the Moon’s gravity well and down into Earth’s. Mission profile said to burn for a fast arrival. The situation down there must be getting ugly for them to have to do the mission in the dead of local night. Not trusting India, he set up a circumpolar slingshot for aero-braking and orbital reentry.

  The icecaps were long gone, though he’d gotten to see a small one in the West Antarctic Highlands a decade back.

  The brain-dead politicians of the Atlanta capital had decided that dropping a couple asteroids onto Un-United Southwest Asia would “clean it up once and for all.” The dust clouds had cooled the Earth several degrees and an ice sheet formed in the West Antarctic Highlands for the first time in over a century. Rick had meant to try out skiing there, but it had melted back out when the dust finally cleared only a few years later.

  What was left of the Un-USA Hoard and their allies had retaliated—as any bonehead could have guessed—and every Canmerica East city still above sea level had evaporated in sun-bright flashes of fissionable material.

  Hopefully yanking out the troops still in the CanWest capital was going to be fast and clean.

  Yeah right. What mission in the last decade had gone fast and clean?

  That’s why they’d called in the Night Stalkers.

  * * *

  Atmospheric breaking max < eight Gs, limitation human crew.

  Proximity Alert = Alpha Company approaching another formation.

  ID req sent. Returned.

  Formation = 160th’s Charlie Company. Captain Takara Olmsted aboard Stinger-class Stella commanding.

  Shift glide path. Form up 200m starboard side Stella.

  All Stella hull configurations properly configured for atmo.

  Flight vector corrections required = none.

  Nice. Very nice.

  5

  Takara had been watching the Alpha Company’s Jess slide into close, almost too close formation when weapon’s fire lanced upward out of Australia—a ground-based maser of incredible power. The Night Stalkers’ flight was still technically in space, just now descending toward the hundred kilometer-high demarkation. The shot had come when they crossed over the large ocean bay that had brought such prosperity to the Outback. Central Australia was one of the few areas on the planet to prosper from the sea-level rise.

  The Aussies had also become decidedly anti-social. Not as bad as India, but very clear about their desire to remain an undisturbed island nation.

  One of her Taggers was hit full force by the single shot—probably just meant as a warning.

  “Computers gone,” it reported. “Control—”

  The Tagger slid sideways, clipped the Stella’s tail.

  Without his computer, the pilot over-corrected into a tumble and thudded hard against the hull plates of the Stinger Jess flying close beside the Stella. The big ship jerked, caught bad air, and slid off onto a new trajectory just as they entered the comms blackout zone of the descent. No maneuvering here.

  The Tagger tumbled and burned.

  * * *

  Tagger 31 total loss.

  Damage assessment = Stella tail firing positions blocked by bent hull plating.

  Non-critical malfunction pending no attack from astern.

  Last imaging of Stinger Jess indicates 19% chance hull failure if continues reentry.

  If manage to course correct, skip off atmo, and reenter space? Favorable 23-42% for survival.

  Drive nozzles severely damaged.

  Not good. Very not good.

  6

  Rick did what he could to help his Jess.

  He sent both his gunners to release every handheld fire extinguisher they had aboard against the inner hull beside the outer hull breach to keep it as cool as possible while they burned through the atmosphere. Even a few hundred degrees might make the difference. If the bulkhead failed, the ten-thousand degree plasma of the deceleration shock wave would burn through and kill them all instantly.

  Why in the hell had he ended up so close beside the Stella?

  No time to second guess.

  He did what he could to yaw Jess to protect the cracks in the outer-hull heat shielding.

  “C’mon, dude. Work with me, Jess.”

  * * *

  Hot! Hot! Hot!

  Burns!

  Stupid to be so close to Stella.

  Run back imaging.

  Stella’s tail bent. Maybe okay. Looks kinda cute on her. Flirty. Hope she makes it.

  Time to focus, dude.

  Hot! Hot! Hot!

  7

  It had happened so fast that Takara still hadn’t fully registered the attack.

  Tagger 31 there—then simply gone.

  The big Stinger, Jess, had survived, at least the initial contact. But the abrupt course change could have shredded the ship or knocked it into a burnout reentry window.

  Focus on the mission.

  It was hard. She didn’t have much to do with Alpha Company, but they were still her fellow flyers.

  Focus, Takara!

  South America was a non-issue. Only Brazil had the infrastructure to launch. Those last few who’d been launch capable now sat on the red sands of Mars. The only question was if they’d taken the last great virus to come out of the South American jungle with them. It had been so bad that Canmerica East had dropped an asteroid on Panama to break the isthmus an
d isolate the continent. Maybe that’s where they’d gotten the dim-wad idea to take out Un-United Southwest Asia.

  The rest of the flight made it clean into Tucson.

  The computer listed her as senior surviving, so she focused on getting the job done.

  * * *

  Fleet is loading troops.

  C’mon! C’mon! C’mon!

  Report of huge fleet of United Cal ultra-lights incoming.

  Radio call threats = “Take us with you or we’ll shoot you down.”

  Block radio signals.

  No time!

  Searching all bands for Stinger Jess.

  Negative response.

  Life support = minimum, all power reroute to boost signal.

  Negative response.

  C’mon! C’mon! C’mon!

  8

  Takara double-checked that everyone had fit aboard the other ships of Alpha and Charlie Companies. Stella’s cargo bay door was reporting a malfunction and wouldn’t open.

  If she had to, Takara would blow the door and risk flying with the bay open to space and trust to the ground troops’ suits for their survival, but it wasn’t necessary. All of the remaining troops crammed aboard the other ships despite the loss of the Jess. If they were civilians, she’d worry about losing some in the dark, but these were Spec Ops.

  Ground commander reported all accounted for and that was good enough for Takara. She ordered the Night Stalkers aloft.

  Safest route was to continue their prior flightpath; depart to the north and arc over the North Pole then climb back toward the Canmerican West L5 colonies.

  Australia might have big masers, but India was rumored to have something new, a particle beam weapon of some sort.

  She didn’t want to be their test case.

  The Night Stalkers would hit space over the waters of the Arctic Ocean and go direct to Earth-escape speeds over the North Pole. Just leave the poor old rock behind. For a moment before she lifted, Takara wondered if they’d ever be back again. Probably. The Night Stalkers were always going where no one else could.