Chapter 43 – Firestorm One (Patreon)

USD: Sometime in the morning

Location: Nu Crateris, Tifara

Elis disentangled herself from an arm before sliding out from under the bedsheet, escaping into the bathroom to pee. As she came out, she bent down to snag her panties and slide them back on. A quick check of the time told her what she already knew: she had overslept and missed her morning sitrep with Alex.

That was sloppy.

It was not the first time she’d had went to bed with a soldier. It was something she had done regularly, even with her squad mates. The service had been very lax in allowing relationships between members of cryo-teams like hers and did not care at all who they shagged during the time they were awake.

So why did she feel a knot of pain in her chest as she considered what to do with the lump still in her bed?

She knew the answer almost immediately, it was because he reminded her of him.

Not personality wise, she didn’t even know the man in her bed’s name. It was his face, the fact that he was younger than her and handsome.

She had even, for a short time the night before, been able to pretend that he was him. When they had both exhausted themselves, she had been able to fall asleep with him plastered against her back and arm around her.

That was why it hurt.

Pulling a tank-top and pair of shorts on she put her guest out of her mind and began to read the updates on her datapad.

It took her only two lines before she felt like she had been kicked.

|AMCN strike authorized for tomorrow. |

|Call me as soon as you can. |

That was not good.

Elis looked back to her guest, “Hey, wake up.”

He grumbled and rolled over, but that was the end of the response.

She got up and tried again, “Hey, wake up, time to go.”

He rolled over and looked up at her with a confused look on his face, “What?”

“Time to go.” She repeated. This always felt so awkward with strangers. Thankfully, he got up, stumbling towards the bathroom. When he came out she tossed his clothes at him.

He took them, then looked at her, “Do I have time to put them on?”

She wanted to laugh and tell him it would be funny to send him out in his skivvies, but she only managed to nod and say, “Yes.”

She watched as he pulled his fatigues on. “Sorry. Just… I have stuff to do.”

“I understand. It’s no problem, Ma’am. It was great spending time with you.”

Now she felt like a bitch for kicking him out. Why did he have to be polite and understanding?

He headed for the door, but she swallowed and spoke, “Wait.”

He turned around with a confused expression.

“Elis, Elis Myers. What’s your name, corporal?”

“Daniel Ashburn, Ma’am.”

Elis stepped forward and gave him a kiss on the cheek, “Thanks, Daniel. I enjoyed our time, too. Sorry for kicking you out like this.”

“No worries.”

He disappeared and the door clicked shut, Elis leaned back against the wall, fighting against all the different emotions overwhelming her.

It felt like a long time before she managed to pull herself together and pull out her datapad.

“Call Alex.”

---

USD: The next day

Location: Dedia IV Low Orbit, Above Shorrishia’s Hive

Alex watched the high zoom optical feed on the main monitor. The railguns had been firing non-stop for almost ten minutes, and hundreds of the kinetic rounds had turned the landscape near the front line into a hellscape of fire and devastation.

Lasers hit targets closer to the bastions of the fortified Dedian army. The orders had already gone out to shelter in place. There had been no need for secrecy and word had spread incredibly fast that the military intended to deploy an AMCN missile.

There had been objections, but those had quickly fallen silent. The alternatives available sucked. Alex certainly couldn’t think of any other way to save the battle. Not with only a few days, anyway.

She worried about the long-term repercussions of deploying the weapon would be almost as bad as the army and escaping colonists being wiped out completely.

Inside the city walls, a massive build up had been completed. Armor, APCs, and tens of thousands of troops waited to storm out and clear the way for the entire army to retreat in a single movement.

“Firestorm-Alpha Actual to Blue-Star. This is a nuclear fire order. Targeting telemetry has been transmitted. Authorization code: Alpha-Alpha-Delta-Niner-Five.”

Alex watched the UI of the program the Dedians had sent her. The first line turned green, but the authorization required a second confirming one before she was supposed to fire. Not that anyone but Nameless was capable of detonating any of their missiles, even the one that MilTech had bought.

It seemed a bit silly, but she supposed if she was running a real military vessel and not a ship being controlled by Nameless, it would probably be worthwhile.

“Blue-Star to Firestorm-Alpha, confirming nuclear fire order. Authorization code accepted.”

“Blue-Star this is Governor Tyler. I am confirming nuclear fire order. Authorization code: Delta-Seven-Seven-Alpha-India-Six-Five.”

Alex watched as the letters and numbers slid into place on the screen. The bar turned green and the confirmation system.

“Blue-Star, confirming nuclear fire order authorization.”

Alex pressed a key on the console to mute her radio so she could talk to Nameless.

“Nameless, give me a planet-wide override on all military and civilian frequencies. I want to make sure no one gets caught unaware.”

[Notice: Communication system override: Military access key, accepted. Note: Offline devices are impossible to activate with this level of access/capability.]

“Yes, that’s fine.”

Alex reached down and unmuted her mic. Taking a deep breath, she addressed everyone they could reach on the planet.

“This is Tears of Fire, confirming nuclear strike package authorized by Brigadier Taverson and Governor Johnson. Ground Strike Coordinates: 3.37’4 -18.34’1. AMCN Estimated Yield: 200 Megatons. All personnel should take shelter within concrete buildings immediately. All anti-rad medication should be taken at this point in time. ETA: 5 minutes until detonation.”

She turned off the comms.

“Nameless, as per the colony’s firing telemetry, launch one AMCN warhead at named coordinates, ground penetration strike.”

[Affirmative: AMCN missile launching now.]

---

USD: A short time later

Location: Planet Dedia, Central Continent, somewhere underground east of Tifara

Szizsielia had pulled her nestlings into the hive for long enough that they had begun to consume each other. She hated it, but it was necessary to remain out of reach of her rampaging mother’s clutch.

The screams had continued unabated. They had only grown louder, until even Szizsielia’s sisters from far away were responding in annoyance. Those sisters had far larger broods than Szizsielia. They had moved far from their mother’s influence, while she had remained close.

Her mother did not truly care for any of her daughters, but as long as she was not challenged, she did not bother to harm Szizsielia. So she had learned to keep her nest small, and covert.

Now it felt like a mistake as the unceasing shrieks of pain and rage vibrated through the air and into her scaled carapace.

Szizsielia had been contemplating moving her hive in a great migration to the east or west, even if that meant she would likely have to fight one of her sisters or their own progeny there.

There was only one benefit to being so close to her mother and the horrible noise that wracked all of the Rexxor hives.

She was close enough that she could piece together the events that had begun the rampage. Her smallest, most craftiest nestlings had finally reached the location of the battle between her mother’s horde and the soft-skins.

But they were not soft skins. Instead, they had cloaked themselves between mountains they had built themselves, and they prowled the land inside metal carapaces that let them challenge even a triumvi.

Their spitters could fire small spikes through the air for miles, that would land and cause concussive fire and death. Nestlings and guardfangs had no chance to survive if they were near them.

Then had come the sky fire. Even one of her favored with the keenest eyes could not make out the metal sky ship in the heavens that had spit the fiery rods from the heavens.

Once, long ago, her mother’s nest had been brought to the world by the sky gods as a reward for the nest’s service. The soft-skins waged war much like the sky-gods had.

Szizsielia didn’t dare consider the soft-skins the same as the sky-gods, but they were powerful. If her mother’s wound had stopped, Szizsielia was sure she would have abated and not continued to stir them to war.

Now the softskins had begun to rain down their sky fire once again. It was a vicious, nightmarish scene. She wondered how long until the soft-skins would come out of their crafted mountain and strike.

It was only for a small second that her scout nestlings observed the fire blossom erupt. Then her connection to them was severed painfully by a sudden overload of death. Her mother’s cries suddenly went silent.

Szizsielia feared. Then the radiation arrived.

She shrieked in agony and her children rose in anger.

---

USD: A few days later

Location: 92 Pegasi, SMS Grazhdanin, CIC, en route to Theta Corvi jump point

Corporate Intelligence Officer Fallon walked onto the bridge in his new Solarian Officer’s uniform and headed directly for the captain’s command seat. The massive CIC room had three tiers of consoles, with the captain’s dais set in the center rear where he could observe all the officers and crewmen below.

The ship was not on alert, so only about a quarter of the seats were manned, mostly engineering stations that oversaw the continuous maintenance of the massive vessel. It was nearly state of the art for a post-collapse ship, and the electronics and systems showed no major ongoing issues.

One crewman was taking a nap.

Fallon frowned, but it was not his place to discipline the crew and the Captain was present and allowing it, so he focused on his purpose.

Captain Rolks Walker noticed him approach and stood, “Commander, welcome aboard. Would you care to join me in my office?”

“Of course, Captain.”

Watching the interplay, Senior Lieutenant Lavigne frowned. He had never seen the commander on the ship before, and he was sure he knew the faces of all the officers above him in rank.