A Fighting Chance Read online

  The top of Signal Hill, which was off to his left, looked like a blackened stump. Now, in contrast to the spotty damage suffered earlier, the entire waterfront had been reduced to a swath of smoking rubble. Bodies lay in the road. Many had been executed, judging from the way they were clustered together, and in one case Santana saw a child crouched by her mother, sobbing hopelessly. All because of his decision to leave the town with only a minimal defense.

  The knowledge was like a black hand that took hold of his spirit and crushed it. Here, lying in the streets, was the evidence of something he had feared but never confronted. Just because he’d been able to lead a platoon, then a company, didn’t mean he could handle a battalion. Somebody else, Kobbi perhaps, or Antov, would have done things differently. And most of the people who lay scattered about would still be alive.

  The certainty of that rode the pit of his stomach as he ordered Rona-Sa to send all of the battalion’s medics forward on T-2s in order to get them on-site more quickly. Then he dispatched Ponco to north bay along with a request for assistance and allowed the Daggers to leave.

  Finally, once everything Santana could do had been accomplished, he took a radio and set off for the crescent-shaped beach that lay half a mile beyond what had been Antov’s home. There was quite a bit of driftwood, thanks to all the dead trees, branches, and other detritus that was carried down rivers and into the sea during the rainy season. So Santana sat on a log and stared at the slowly sinking sun. It was bloodred. And, as the stars began to appear, he could feel the darkness closing in around him.

  The crunch of footsteps came, followed by a noticeable tilt of the log as a heavy weight was added. “Permission to join you, sir?”

  Santana looked to the right and saw Rona-Sa. He didn’t want any company but couldn’t say “no” to his Executive Officer. “Permission granted.”

  The Hudathan nodded. “Permission to speak freely, sir?”

  Santana scowled. “How many more permissions are you going to request, Captain? Okay, go ahead and get whatever it is off your chest.”

  If Rona-Sa was offended, there was no sign of it on his craggy face. “We have a problem, sir,” Rona-Sa said bluntly. “And the problem is you.”

  Santana started to object but stopped as Rona-Sa raised a huge paw. “I have permission to speak freely. Remember? And I intend to do so. What took place here was terrible. And I understand why you feel bad about it. But it couldn’t be helped. You were sent here to carry out an important mission and to do so using troops from what my people would consider to be three different clans. There was no way to protect Baynor’s Bay and take the battalion into the field. And there was no reason to expect a major attack. Which, based on eyewitness accounts, was led by Major Temo. An act of treason no one could anticipate.

  “But, even if you had known in advance what the bugs were going to do, it would have been your duty to prepare the battalion for the upcoming mission rather than protect the town. Because the deaths suffered there today are nothing compared to the importance of the O-Chi jump point. So I respectfully suggest that you suck it up and do what battalion commanders are supposed to do, which is lead. Sir.”

  It was the longest statement Santana had ever heard Rona-Sa make. And the fact that the Hudathan felt strongly enough to try to intervene meant a lot. But Santana was unconvinced. “Thank you, Eor. I appreciate what you’re trying to do. But the truth is that I may lack some of the qualities required for the job at hand. You might be a better choice.”

  “I would be an excellent choice,” Rona-Sa rumbled, “if Headstone were a mile away and all we had to do was storm it. But the job is a good deal more complicated than that. You have already made considerable progress at bringing three disparate units together, and that would be difficult for me. But ultimately, it comes down to this. Look around, think about the individuals who are available, and ask yourself the following question: ‘If not me, then who?’”

  Santana thought about it. There was a certain logic to what Rona-Sa had to say. He wasn’t perfect. Far from it. But there weren’t any other choices. Not really. He forced a smile. “You know something, Eor?”

  “Sir?”

  “You have a tendency to run your mouth. Especially for a Hudathan. But thank you. I will do my best to heed your advice.”

  Both officers were silent as the sun dipped below the horizon, waves lapped against the beach, and a thousand stars dusted the sky.

  6

  He who fights and runs away will live to fight another day.

  —Demosthenes

  Standard year 338 B.C.

  PLANET EARTH, THE RAMANTHIAN EMPIRE THE SAN PEDRO CHANNEL, OFF THE COAST OF CALIFORNIA

  Except for the stars and the blinking red lights mounted on top of the sensor towers the Ramanthians had put up, that section of the California coastline was entirely dark. It hadn’t been that way just a few months earlier. Back then, before the Ramanthians landed, anyone looking east from a boat would have seen the sparkling lights of Long Beach stretched out in front of them.

  But the city was mostly rubble now. Just part of an urban wasteland that stretched all the way down into what had once been Mexico. But not forever, Commander Leo Foley thought to himself, as an ocean swell lifted the seventy-five-foot hydrofoil up out of a trough. Not forever.

  Foley’s thoughts were interrupted as a barely seen figure materialized out of the gloom. The man was an employee of Chien-Chu Enterprises, which was owned by the legendary Sergi Chien-Chu and run by his niece, Maylo. “The drone entered the atmosphere,” the crewman said. “We should have splashdown in roughly five minutes.”

  “Good,” Foley replied. “Your crew is ready?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Foley wasn’t surprised. Chien-Chu’s people had proven themselves to be very adept at programming drones to enter hyperspace thousands of light-years away, exit inside the moon’s orbit, and splash down before the Ramanthians could intercept them. Nearly 100 percent of the unmanned spaceships made it through at first. But as the bugs became aware of the strategy and sharpened their defenses, the success rate had been reduced to about 60 percent. That was still pretty good, however, and likely to remain constant because two-thirds of Earth’s surface was covered with water. And that made the incoming drones very hard to find. Not to mention the fact that the objects blew themselves up when the Ramanthians tried to recover them. A nasty surprise indeed.

  So thanks to the hypercom technology used to coordinate the drops, the program had been very successful. Pickups were normally handled by Foley’s subordinates. But this load was different. Because if it came down safely and the crew managed to retrieve it, a whole lot of bugs were going to die. And Foley wanted to make sure of it. As the seconds ticked away, the crewman reappeared. “Sorry, sir, but we have a problem. Two high-speed surface targets are closing from the north.”

  “Bugs? Or pirates?”

  “It’s impossible to be absolutely sure,” the man responded, “but I’d put my money on pirates. The Ramanthians don’t use boats very often.”

  Foley knew that to be true. The chits had a need for drinking water but didn’t like to travel on it. Perhaps that was because they weren’t very good swimmers. And ever since the government-backed Earth Liberation Brigade had begun to receive supplies from off-planet, it had become a target for various militias, gangs, and competing resistance groups, most of whom were more interested in acquiring power and making a profit than in defeating the bugs. So identifying and eliminating spies had become a full-time job for members of Foley’s staff. And it appeared that, despite their efforts, there was a leak somewhere, a leak he would plug with a bullet once the traitor was identified.

  In the meantime, there were a couple of choices: They could fight or instruct the drone to submerge and resurface later, a perfectly acceptable plan under normal circumstances. But not at the moment because the incoming cargo was critical to Operation Cockroach. A plan that might be compromised if Foley failed to trigger it soon
. All of that flashed through his mind in an instant. “Let’s turn and fight. We’ll pick up the drone once the battle is over.” Assuming we’re still alive, Foley thought to himself.

  If the crewman was concerned, he gave no sign of it. “Yes, sir. You might want to join the skipper on the bridge. It’s going to get rough out here.”

  Foley didn’t know if the man was referring to the ride or the impending battle—not that it made any difference. The crew wanted him out of the way. “Roger that. I’ll join the captain.”

  The boat was already up on its winglike hydrofoils and entering a sweeping turn as Foley passed a gun tub on the port side. A short ladder led up to the blacked-out superstructure and bridge. As he slid a door out of the way and stepped inside, Foley felt the boat’s speed increase. He knew that the twin engines could send the foil skimming over the surface at a speed of fifty knots. The Interceptor had been a yacht until Chien-Chu’s people “borrowed” the boat from a shot-up marina and turned her into the equivalent of a small warship by adding a missile launcher in the bow, half a dozen guns, and a second launcher in the stern. Some extra armor had been welded to the front and sides of the bridge. But that was the limit of what they could do without compromising performance. Because when all was said and done, the Interceptor’s main virtue was speed.

  The captain was a woman named Kate Prosser. She’d been a tour-boat operator before the war, taking tourists out to the Channel Islands, Catalina, and as far south as San Diego. Prosser gave Foley a sideways glance as he entered. Her face was bottom lit by the screens arrayed in front of her. That gave her normally pleasant features a ghoulish appearance. “I suggest that you sit down and strap in,” she said. “Evasive maneuvers will begin shortly.”

  Then Prosser was all business as she turned back toward the screens and gave the orders necessary to fire a salvo of missiles. Flames appeared and winked out as the weapons raced away. “Tracking,” the crew member said. “Uh-oh, the bastards fired flares.”

  What looked like balls of fire could be seen up ahead and lit the wave tops with red light. Foley knew the purpose of the flares was to distract the heat-seeking missiles by providing them with false targets. And the strategy was successful. “There goes one and two,” the crewman intoned disapprovingly, as a pair of explosions strobed the night. “No hits.”

  “Okay,” Prosser said matter-of-factly, as she opened the intercom. “This is the captain . . . The missiles missed. We’re going right up the middle. Prepare to engage both targets.”

  Foley knew that luck would play an important role in what was about to take place. Because with all the boats rushing toward each other at combined speeds of seventy-five to one hundred knots, it would be very difficult for the gunners to aim. The best they could do was fire a lot of shells and hope that the enemy collided with some of them.

  Then the time for thinking was over as the blips on the nav screen came together and the guns began to fire. The incoming tracers were red. And because the guns that fired them were in motion, they curved into the darkness like beads on a string. Except that these beads were lethal. Shells hammered the starboard side of the boat’s superstructure. Some of them hit the gun tub located there, blew a window out, and sent splinters flying. A piece of trim speared the helmsman. He stumbled away, hands to his throat, as Prosser stepped in to replace him.

  Then the moment of violence was over as the Interceptor passed between her adversaries and began a wide turn. Foley felt the deck tilt as he freed himself from his harness and went to help the wounded helmsman. But it was too late. The crew member had bled out by then, and there was nothing Foley could do but struggle to remain upright on the blood-slicked deck as the Interceptor completed the turn and began to accelerate. The engine noise increased, and Prosser had to shout in order to be heard. “They’re after the drone! Should we sink it?”

  “I need it,” Foley replied tightly. “I need it tonight.”

  “Roger that,” Prosser replied. “Check the starboard fifty . . . We’re going to need it.”

  Foley grabbed a handrail, followed it over to the starboard door, and pushed it out of the way. The wind tore at his clothes, and safety glass crunched under his feet as he removed a small flashlight from a vest pocket and directed the beam into the tub. The gunner was slumped to one side, and the fifty was pointed at the sky.

  A headset and mike clattered to the deck as Foley climbed into the tub and pulled the body free. Once the corpse was clear, he pulled the earphones on and spoke into the mike. “This is Foley. The gunner was killed. I took her place.”

  “Roger that,” came the reply. “I don’t know if you have any experience—but the trick is to lead the target. We’re going up the middle again. All guns will fire as they bear.”

  Flares soared up into the sky, went off, and began to drift down. Then, as the hydrofoil caught up with her adversaries, Foley got his first look at the pirates. He couldn’t see what was taking place to port, but the rigid inflatable boat on his side of the Interceptor was about thirty feet long and armed with heavy machine guns fore and aft. Both of which appeared to be aimed at him. As the muzzles flashed, he fired in return. The handles were sticky with the dead gunner’s blood, but he ignored that to concentrate on the advice Prosser had given him. Because, like most officers in the space navy, he knew very little about littoral combat.

  His shells kicked up geysers of white water out in front of the RIB boat as it skipped from wave to wave. But then the assault craft ran into the tracers, and Foley was pleased to see the forward gunner blown away. The windscreen, cockpit, and overarching light bar went next. With no one at the wheel, the pirate boat slewed away.

  All of it took place within seconds. Someone uttered a whoop of joy over the intercom. Foley had no way to know if it was in response to his achievement or someone else’s. The answer became clear as a burning boat appeared and was quickly left behind. “All hands prepare for the pickup,” Prosser ordered. “The bugs are scrambling aircraft by now. I’d like to be somewhere else when they arrive.”

  The Interceptor slowed less than a minute later, came down off its foils, and began to wallow gracelessly as a boom swung out over the side, and two wet-suit-clad crew people dropped into the water. Connections were made, a winch whined, and it was only a matter of minutes before the thick, fifty-foot-long cylinder was hoisted up out of the oily-looking water. The divers rode it up and jumped to the deck as the glistening tube settled into its cradle.

  Some of the crew strapped the drone down as others brought the boom back in. Once it was secured, Prosser advanced the throttles, and the Interceptor’s hull came up out of the water. Moments later, the hydrofoil was flying toward the southwest. “The Ramanthians will expect us to head for the mainland,” Prosser said over the intercom. “So we’ll go to sea instead. We can shelter behind San Nicolas Island for a while. With any luck at all, the bugs will spend most of their time shooting at the pirate boats. Especially the one that’s on fire. Then we’ll sneak in, off-load our cargo, and return to sea. We lost some good people tonight. Don’t forget them.”

  I won’t, Foley thought to himself. They will be avenged.

  DEATH VALLEY, CALIFORNIA

  For hundreds of years, the entrances to the Lucky Fool mine had been sealed off to prevent hikers from falling down a vertical shaft, losing themselves in a maze of passageways, or being crushed by a sudden cave-in. But after months of war, the old digs were the top secret location from which Operation Cockroach would be launched. Margaret Vanderveen knew that much but nothing more. Partly because those in charge of the Earth Liberation Brigade were doing everything in their power to keep “the roach,” as they referred to it, a secret—and partly because she was too busy working on her own project to pay much attention.

  To call the gallery that Margaret and her team of doctors, microbiologists, and entomologists had taken over a “lab” was generous to say the least. Especially since the long, rectangular room had once been used to store timbers an
d other mining equipment. Harsh lights had been attached to the uncomfortably low ceiling, ancient pick marks were still visible on rock walls, and a pair of narrow-gauge tracks led from one end of the space to the other.

  A workbench made out of raw lumber ran along one wall. It was divided into workstations, each having its own equipment according to the requirements of the person assigned to it. Power cables snaked this way and that, cots lined the other wall, and a crudely made conference table/lunch table/autopsy table occupied the center of the room. At the moment, it was occupied by a Ramanthian trooper. He lay belly-up on a blue tarp, eyes staring sightlessly at the lights above, while a couple of scientists argued over him.

  One of them was a microbiologist named Dr. Howard Lothar. The other was a fiery entomologist named Dr. Catherine Woo. The subject of the heated discussion was whether the dead soldier was a victim of an Earth parasite called Ophiocordyceps unilateris or a microorganism that the invaders had brought along with them.

  Though not a scientist herself, Margaret had been the first person to recognize the fact that some of the Ramanthians had the human equivalent of a skin disease. It was a malady she noticed while examining the body of a dead pilot. His chitin and, therefore, his exoskeleton had been very thin. And that was potentially important because, unlike humans, the insectoid Ramanthians had no internal skeletons. So if their outer shells were sufficiently weakened, they would literally fall apart. Which was exactly what the ex–society matron had in mind.

  “Look,” Margaret said, as the two antagonists took deep breaths and prepared to attack each other all over again. “Fascinating though the question of causation is, let’s focus on the task at hand. Regardless of whether the Ramanthians unintentionally brought a parasite with them or were infected by an indigenous bug, our job is to use whatever it is against them. So please return to work. We have a war to win.”