A Forest of Stars - Kevin J. Anderson [169]
Inside the cramped bolt-hole, Zhett adjusted a spy-scanner, tuning to the private frequency used for the EDF command channel. She ran it through an encryption deprocessor that no Roamer was supposed to have, and they listened to General Lanyan giving abrupt orders, issuing instructions for the Soldier compies and their suicide Remoras.
Zhett focused the surveillance screens so they could watch dozens—hundreds—of warglobes rising like angry hornets out of the atmosphere. The spiked spheres struck fear into her heart. Though no Roamer had any love for the Earth Defense Forces after the rumored harassments and outright piracy, she still felt sorry for the human soldiers. All those lives. Clearly, they were doomed.
“Look at all the damn warglobes!” one officer transmitted. “I’ve never seen so many.”
“Stop counting and start shooting.”
Zhett turned her dark eyes toward her father. He had fear on his face, and they reached out to clasp each other’s arms, sharing strength. “We’ll be safe enough here, my sweet.”
“Trust me, I wish that were the only thing I needed to worry about, Dad.”
The General’s voice came with an anxious edge, as if he had begun the final approach toward panic. “Vanguard Mantas, take your positions. Soldier compies, you have your orders and your programming. Inflict all possible damage.”
“Come on, boys and girls,” drawled another voice. “We’ve all been waiting for a fight. Now we’ve got one.”
“Be careful what you wish for,” Zhett muttered.
They watched five more Manta cruisers break off from the main battlegroup and drop down—obviously captained by compies, as shown by the mechanical conviction and precision necessary for kamikaze strikes. Her heart skipped a beat as she watched the sacrificial Mantas explode all their munitions, drain their jazer banks in dazzling starbursts of attack, and then drive in at full speed. She saw five warglobes go down, out of so many—but a storm of crystalline spheres continued to emerge from the depths of Osquivel.
“We all know what the stakes are,” a nameless EDF officer transmitted over the comm channel.
“I should have stayed home.”
“God, I’m going to miss—”
“Eat this, you drogue shitheads! Ahhhhh!”
Zhett felt sick to her stomach as she watched explosion after explosion. Blue lightning shot from the hydrogues, and each powerful bullwhip of energy blasted an EDF target. It all occurred in the silence of space; though over the command channel, she could hear overlapping screams of panic, shouted orders, detonations, and power surges through the onboard systems.
Out in space, more destruction blossomed. Now, with the compy-crewed ships gone, even some human-piloted Remoras and cruisers attempted suicide plunges. The hydrogues chased after several of the largest EDF ships. Juggernauts opened fire but had no more effect than the smaller combat ships. Some of the flaming Earth vessels spiraled out of control, tumbling into the plane of the rings. There, before long, the drifting land mines of rubble annihilated the wounded vessels.
In less than an hour, the EDF battlegroup had lost fully a third of its vessels.
Zhett watched in horror as the hydrogues kept pounding the Eddie battleships. “Isn’t there anything we can do to help them, Dad?”
But she knew the Roamers had no great military might. They survived through guile and resourcefulness, by thinking fast and calling no attention to themselves.
“Nothing we can do except wait it out. You know that, my sweet.”
An explosion rippled nearby, disturbing the precise orbits of debris in the rings. The bolt-hole’s power generators continued to function, but the lights flickered. Zhett was thrown against the wall and barely kept her balance. After a moment of darkness, the screens came on again, showing more