Ghost Wing (The Ragnarok Saga Book 4) Read online

  All of them were watching the process. It wasn’t like they needed to strap into their fighters to launch if another attack hit. They were already housed in the Wasp computers. That gave her pilots more time to themselves than she really liked. Bored soldiers tended to cause problems. But for the moment at least everyone had something to distract them - the possibility of seeing the remains of an alien being for the first time.

  The Hermes lacked any sort of forensic or scientific equipment. What little had existed on the warship was stripped away along with the rest of the unnecessary gear when it was refitted for their mission. No one thought they might obtain an actual alien for study! The best tool they had for the job was one of the repair bots. Gurgle had proved a steady hand controlling them. It was he who guided the robot through the task of slicing open the capsule now. The robot had cutters and torches capable of burning through just about anything, but whatever the ship was made from it was strong stuff. The opening of this package was proving to be a slow process.

  Finally, a chunk of plate fell away. They had their first glimpse inside the thing. The robot extruded a camera into the space, casting a light so all of them could see what was inside.

  The alien was dead. They’d assumed so based on the damage to the capsule’s hull, but there was no doubt. When debris from the exploding fighters punched into the capsule, a large shard had sliced upward, cutting the alien nearly in half as it passed through the hull. It must have died almost instantly. That was a plus, in Sam’s mind. The alternative fate, slowly asphyxiating as the air seeped out through holes? She shivered at the thought. One plus to being digital; breathing wasn’t a problem.

  “It looks like an ant,” someone said. Sam wasn’t sure who said it first, but she had to admit she’d made the same mental comparison. A few people chuckled over their communication network.

  “Sixty million dollars in the best hardware military can buy, and I’d give it all for one lousy can of Raid,” Harald said.

  “What?” Sam asked.

  “Old movie. Before your time,” he replied with a warmth she hadn’t heard from him in a while.

  It was good to see Harald becoming more like himself again. Being alone in his misery hadn’t agreed with him. Sam worried that she’d done the wrong thing, bringing him into this. But the outcome so far had been a net positive. She had to hope that would continue to be the case.

  Most of these people were her friends, including the five who’d died fighting the alien starship a few hours ago. Sam winced inwardly at the thought. Those five would never respawn. They weren’t coming back for another round of fighting tomorrow. For them, the battles were at long last done for good.

  “It does seem very insect-like,” Max said, bringing Sam’s mind back to the present. “I wonder if that’s why they were so willing to give up their pilots to death like this?”

  “I don’t follow,” Sam said.

  “Ants don’t worry too much about the loss of a few workers. They’re concerned about the survival of the entire colony, not individuals,” Xiang said.

  That made sense. If these aliens were colony creatures then losing a few pilots in a bid to damage the Hermes was only a loss of resources, not lives of people. Sam wondered what it would be like to lose pilots on a mission and not mourn their loss. Part of her was a little jealous, but she didn’t think she’d trade places with the alien leader. She’d rather have the pain and the good memories of lost friends.

  “Energy reading in the capsule,” Gurgle warned.

  “What? We picked up no power source at all,” Max replied. He sounded alarmed.

  “Is now. Building.” Gurgle reached the robot arms deeper into the cockpit, taking video as he went. “Is not good, right? Looking at all I can.”

  “It’s going to explode,” Xiang said.

  “I’m already moving the Hermes away. I think we’re far enough now, but it’s better to be safe than sorry,” Max said.

  “Excellent precaution keeping the thing outside, by the way,” Xiang said. There was a bright flash from the camera as the capsule detonated, destroying itself and the repair bot Gurgle was piloting remotely.

  Sam felt a flash of worry for her friend. She knew his consciousness wasn’t housed in the repair bot, but… “Gurgle?”

  “Am fine,” Gurgle said. “Send a video to Earth?”

  “Yes, and to me please,” Max replied. “I want to examine it in detail.”

  They had a little new info from the capsule, but nothing Sam saw gave her any good ideas for beating the powerful energy weapons the ship used against them. Dodging was the only defense they had against that weapon. Any attack was going to be costly. It was partly her job to come up with a strategy for attacking the ring that might have a chance of success, but Sam couldn’t think what might work.

  She retreated from the primary communication channels so that she could think for a bit. It was nice to be around the others, but too many voices in the network made it hard for her to think sometimes. Once she was completely ensconced in her fighter again, she was able to consider the problem in more detail.

  The solution wasn’t all that difficult, after all. They didn’t need to shoot the torpedoes at point-blank range, after all. The alien missile defense was every bit as good as they’d been afraid. But with twenty-five fighters remaining, they still had enough ordinance to overcome the anti-missile systems through sheer numbers of bombs, even at a decent distance - if the torpedoes were moving fast enough.

  “OK, let’s see if this will work,” Sam said. She pulled up the astrogation systems and started plugging in courses. With enough time on full burn the Wasp was already a fast ship. If her fighters came in over Neptune’s pole, they could build up even more speed. By the time the aliens had line-of-sight with them they’d be close enough, moving fast enough, that the torpedoes should be able to do the trick.

  Sam ran the idea through a combat simulation. It came back with ten out of twenty-five torpedoes making an impact. They only had to hit with about six to take down the ring. She dialed up the accuracy of the alien defenses and still came out with six impacts. It would be enough. Even if something went badly wrong, they would still have enough firepower to blow the ring away.

  “Max, I’ve got an idea,” she said over their private channel.

  14

  In retrospect, this was a terrible idea. Sam wasn’t about to say that aloud though, not when they were already almost there. Neptune loomed dead ahead. On the other side of the planet floated the ring, in geosynchronous orbit around the planet. There were only seven days left before the aliens completed the thing. Or that was the best guess they had, anyway. It might be wrong by a day or even days. All they knew for sure was that time was running out to stop the ring before it was finished. They still didn’t know what it would do once it was completed, but it was safe to say that whatever it was it would be bad news for Earth.

  Max - Commander Knauf, Sam reminded herself. She was back in the military now. She ought to use rank for her CO, but she’d gotten out of the habit over the years in Valhalla and it was a tough mindset to break back into. Especially when dealing with someone she’d first met out of uniform and knew by a first-name basis. He’d approved the mission she suggested, giving only a few tweaks to her plan where Sam’s math was lacking. By the time he was done it had looked great on paper.

  That didn’t mean much when you were zipping past Neptune’s atmosphere at a low enough altitude that you could see the storms swirling clouds of ice and gas directly below you. The planet had supersonic storms, Max said. Fly in there, and you probably weren’t coming back out. Sam wasn’t so sure. She thought the Wasps might be able to handle it, but she wasn’t so confident that she wanted to put it to the test like she’d done with the geyser in the simulator. It was one thing to blow up in practice and another when there was no respawn!

  “All right, everyone. Max thrust in three…two…now!” Sam called out. All twenty-five Wasps hit primary burn at the same
time. The fighters shot across the planet just above the upper atmosphere, building up even more speed than the gravity assist had given them. They were going to exit at a crazy speed relative to the ring. It would flash past in a hundred-thousandth of a second. Everything was set to allow the computer to handle the firing sequence because even their digital minds couldn’t work quickly enough to drop their torpedoes at the right moment. If everything went according to plan, they would be in and out before the aliens even knew they were there.

  Coming up over the northern pole was a gorgeous view. Sam could see Triton, the largest moon, and knew the ring was somewhere close by it. Not long now.

  “Something odd out there,” one of her pilots called out. “Like a sensor echo ahead of us.”

  Sam was about to reply when she saw a flash off to her left - an explosion! The pilot who’d called a warning was gone, vaporized instantly.

  Sam checked her scans, looking for what had taken him out. “Who’s shooting at us? Where did the attack come from?”

  “There was no attack. No missiles, no beams, nothing,” Harald called out. His wing was the rear element of the formation. If they were under attack he ought to be able to see where it was coming from.

  Then a second ship exploded, and a third. All of them were from first and sixth wings, the vanguard of the group. Something was taking them out one at a time. What the hell could it be? Some kind of invisible attack?

  Sam noticed a little speck of light ahead of her and off to her left. It was there and gone too rapidly for her to react before she’d zipped past it, but the ship right behind her exploded into flames. Her blood ran cold as she realized what must be happening. It wasn’t an attack killing her people at all.

  “They’ve mined the area!” Sam called. That tiny spot of light she’d seen must have been a miniature mine. Too small to detect, they had to be packing a powerful punch to blow her fighters up so quickly.

  “I’m not detecting anything,” Xiang replied. “No mines on scans.”

  Another ship exploded. They were losing people more rapidly than they had against the main ship! Five fighters down in under a minute. How many more would they lose if they continued the approach toward the ring? Too many. Already their numbers were down enough that she wasn’t sure they could get enough torpedoes through to kill the thing. By the time they were in firing range they would lose even more.

  “Abort the run! Change trajectory to directly away from the ecliptic plane,” Sam said.

  They hadn’t started hitting mines until they were just past the pole. It had to be the area around the ring that was seeded with the mines. If she could get what was left of her squadron away from the danger zone they might be in the clear. All the fighters turned as quickly as they could, but given their speed a tight turn was impossible. Three more ships ended up hitting mines before the rest escaped.

  “We’ve got incoming,” Harald called.

  Sam checked her scopes. Insult to injury - twenty alien fighters were zipping toward them from the ring. They didn’t seem to have any trouble at all flying through the minefield. Part of her wanted to turn around and tear into them the same way her people had on the first encounter. But her squadron was in tatters. They’d lost eight people. They needed time to regroup and come up with another way to strike. With so many of their ships destroyed, she didn’t think her original plan was even viable anymore. They’d never be able to land enough torpedoes.

  “Return to base,” Sam said. “Don’t engage. They got us this round. We’ll return the favor next time.”

  Retaining as much of the speed they’d built up as they could, her remaining fighters had plenty of lead over the alien ships, which were still accelerating. They left the hunters quickly behind, and the enemy ships gave up pursuit once they’d passed a hundred thousand kilometers of gap between them. Which was for the best, because if they’d maintained pursuit Sam was going to have to turn and fight them whether she wanted to or not. She couldn’t allow the enemy fighters to get to the Hermes.

  Docking didn’t feel like anything close to victory, this time. They’d had their asses handed to them and there was no way of ducking that. Worse, it was her idea that had cost so many lives. The aliens predicted their move and countered it. She was going to have to come up with something smarter than that if she wanted to beat them at this game. But how could she count on knowing when she had a winning idea?

  She dropped her mind back into the shared simulation area. More pilots were arriving as their fighters docked with the Hermes. What little conversation Sam could hear was muted. There was no cheering this time. So many dead, for nothing. What a waste…

  “Gather round, all you warriors! Gather round!” Harald called out. He’d stepped up onto a table, and roared to the assembled pilots with a red face and hands on hips. “You look like beaten curs! Is this what you all learned in Valhalla? That honor is easy, and courage worthless? Odin’s blood, you all look like people who would never have made it past the gates of Valhalla. Is that who you are?”

  “That was a disaster,” one man called out.

  “Absolutely, which is why I have this,” Harald called out. He produced a large cask from somewhere. Sam had no idea where it had come from - it seemed like it just appeared on the table beside him. Then again, this was a virtual space!

  “What’s that, you old fart? Your piss?” Grimalf hollered with hands cupped to his mouth.

  “Your vinegar!” Harald laughed long and loud. “No, warriors. It’s mead, the best drink for such an occasion. Come all, gather round. Take a mug each and sit with me. We have friends who died with swords in their hands today, friends who fell in battle. Each of them has gone on to the real Valhalla now, don’t you think?”

  Sam blinked. He wasn’t wrong. Had she learned nothing at all from her time in Valhalla Online? Death in battle wasn’t something to be dreaded. If it were your fate to die that day, then it would happen, or so they said. Best to go about each day like it was your last, then, and sell yourself dearly when it was finally time to go. Sam didn’t know that she entirely believed in the Norse mythology behind it all, but she’d come to accept the ideals behind them. She shoved her way to Harald’s table and climbed up next to him, picking up a mug of the amber mead as she stood.

  “Jorvik died in the first explosion today. He was a bastard asshole who always looked at my chest instead of my face. Had to slap him more than once for that,” Sam said. There were a scattering of laughs from around the room. “But he was my brother in arms out there, and he sails on to Valhalla today. Let us do as well when our time comes!”

  Most of the room had mugs by that time, and they raised the drinks in a toast. As Sam stepped down from the table, another pilot took her place and eulogized a fallen friend. They cheered for each of the dead, including the ones who’d passed in their first battle. Each mug was filled more than once for all the toasts to be completed. But even though each eulogy was a reminder of how much they’d lost, it was also a reminder of why they were all out there. They were warriors, fighting to preserve their home. They named the fallen so that their names would not be forgotten. They cried tears for friends lost and sang songs for the dead so that wherever they were now, whatever spirit remained of them, it would know they had not died for nothing.

  “That’s one hell of a ceremony,” Max said quietly. Sam had stepped off to the side of the room to lean against a wall, and he’d come over to stand beside her. “You used to do this for every battle?”

  “No, I think Harald is ad-libbing a bit up there for dramatic effect,” Sam said. “Remember, back where we came from everyone came back each day, even if they’d died. Some realms it didn’t even take a day. You’d come back much more quickly. But out here? It seems like maybe some of the old ways our ancestors used to treat Valhalla had a real purpose. Can you feel it?”

  Max nodded. “Definitely. It’s electric, the way his words and then all the speakers after have charged this place up. When you came back, y
ou all looked…”

  “Defeated?”

  “I was going to say exhausted and sad,” Max replied, holding up both palms to her. “And I get it. That had to be a crappy and terrifying experience.”

  That was more than accurate. Sam recalled with perfect clarity the emotions she’d felt as ship after ship exploded without any cause she could detect. It was like some invisible hand was reaching out to swat them one after another. There was nothing to evade, no way any of them could stave off destruction. Blind luck was the only difference between those who lived and the ones who died.

  “I led them there,” Sam started to say. It was her responsibility. But not her fault - she reminded herself of that, because down that road lay some dark shit.

  “You came up with the best plan you could, and I agreed to it. They out-thought us this time, that’s all. We need to come up with a better plan for next time,” he replied.

  “Agreed. But not tonight,” Sam said. Another cheer went up in the room, and she raised her mug with all the others. Max surprised her by having a flagon of mead and joining them all in the cheer. She wouldn’t have thought this sort of ceremony would make sense to anyone not from Valhalla. He flashed her a sad smile. Yes, he understood. She could see it in his eyes that he’d known loss himself.

  “Tonight we toast those who have gone on to Valhalla,” he agreed.

  15

  Sam left the party early. Most of the other pilots were still in the common area, regaling each other with tales of those who’d died in battle. Enough big fish tall-tales were floating around in there to make her wonder if the mead was somehow actually making them drunk. It certainly wasn’t having that effect on her, so she didn’t think that was the case. No, it was just the camaraderie of warriors who’d survived a battle together creating the atmosphere she sensed.