Of Fire and Night - Kevin J. Anderson [200]
"Ah, Osquivel. Back to our old stomping grounds--to do some genuine stomping, by damn."
Behind them, as they departed, the battle raged in the skies of Welyr.
117
GENERAL KURT LANYAN
The EDF ships and two cohorts of Ildiran warliners settled into a well-choreographed defensive pattern around Earth, just waiting for the hydrogues to show themselves. The far-outnumbered human battleships circled with ornate Solar Navy vessels both outside and inside the perimeter. More Ildiran warliners patrolled widely.
On the bridge of the Goliath, General Lanyan counted down the hours, simultaneously eager and full of dread. He had no way to guess when the damned enemy fleet would show up. Adar Zan'nh hadn't been specific, nor had he revealed how the Mage-Imperator had gotten his information in the first place. The Ildirans were so enamored with stories, he wondered if they'd ever heard the one about Chicken Little.
Basil Wenceslas contacted him three times daily for updates. Though Lanyan reassured him, the Chairman still sounded uncomfortable about all the unanswered questions. The General answered reassuringly, "We're fully staffed and as ready as we can be, sir. We may have diminished crews, but we're capable of running our ships just fine without Soldier compies."
The Chairman did not seem cheered by the information. "No surprise, considering we only have a fraction of the vessels we had a month ago."
"I will inform you of any changes." Lanyan quickly got off the channel. At least here in the home system, he didn't need a green priest for direct communication. Besides, there weren't any green priests available other than Nahton at the Whisper Palace. And according to the Chairman, Nahton had recently become intractable.
EDF Remoras circled alongside the much larger Ildiran warliners. Though the scout flyers transmitted greetings to the giant ships, the alien crews sent no response. Ildirans had always been standoffish; every EDF soldier knew that.
The fighter pilots extended a network of tripwire sensors farther out to the fringes of the solar system in hopes of spotting the approaching warglobes. Multiply redundant teams kept diligent watch, waiting for the invasion force to sweep in. All eyes were turned outward, looking into the deep interstellar distance for the earliest possible warning.
No one, however, expected the enemy to suddenly appear from inside the solar system.
At Jupiter, the gas giant nearest to Earth, the white and ochre cloud bands began to boil. Like a horde of barbarians, hundreds of diamond warglobes emerged from a hidden hydrogue base.
The first direct clash between the Earth Defense Forces and the enemy had occurred at Jupiter. There, hydrogues had utterly defeated the most powerful EDF battleships. Now the deep-core aliens came back through a transgate inside the giant planet--a back door, an undefended route into the solar system. Hydrogues emerged already inside the outer perimeter, already within humanity's first line of defenses.
The asteroid belt shipyards were the first to report the disturbance. High-resolution extreme magnification imagers spotted warglobes streaming like a barrage of cannonballs up from the cloud bands. The initial warning came from a spacedock inspector. "General, the warglobes are coming, and coming! We've already dispatched the few fast-response ships we have left."
Urgent alarms sounded on the Goliath's bridge. The crew, already tense and on high alert, scrambled to their battle stations. Lanyan knew the few swift craft from the shipyards didn't stand a chance. "Withdraw and do not engage!"
The shipyard pilots were space construction workers, and none of them had ever expected to go into direct combat. Now, facing the armada of warglobes, they performed standard evasive maneuvers. But after two blasts from the front line of oncoming hydrogues, the pilots' transmissions ended in static.
The General issued orders. "All ships, withdraw from the outer solar system immediately! Get