0208, Saturday, July 3, 2027
Karkin Four, Merchandise Processing Facility Six
Western Edge, Earth Rings
“Clock’s ticking, people.” I unbuckle myself from the captain’s chair and stand. I figure we have thirty mikes before the plushies show up, and two hours to send our cargo through as many of the 100 western rings as we can get access to. “Let’s move.”
The team breaks into groups and heads to pre-designated areas for oversight. Some jobs include monitoring systems and tasking drones from the bridge, like Hobbs, Aaron, and Hollywood are doing, while others are on overwatch atop the ship or checking in with Cortes and Winters. But we all have the same goal: ensuring that the refugees make it home to Earth no matter what.
Much to Chuck’s delight and certainly a topic that will fuel bragging rights for the rest of our relationship, the Porsavar and Fashdew have come to rest one behind the other to form a ten-kilometer line along the dome’s western edge. We’ve crushed many of the surrounding tubes formerly used to corral humans entering the facility. In some cases, that’s helped our mission by exposing the rings leading back to Earth. But in other cases, we’ve made certain routes inaccessible. That will increase our op time. Still, with so many portals glowing so close to our port side, it’s hard not to let hope get the best of me. Then again, I’m New York Irish, so pessimism shuts it down pretty damn quick.
Thanks to Cortes and Winters’s efforts, the refugees in both ships have been briefed for this moment. The hangar bays and emergency escape ports start opening—some operational, others permanently stuck—and section leaders scout the immediate areas for debris and safe thoroughfares. In the multiple-camera feeds, I watch one scout after another give a thumbs-up to the gatekeepers inside the ships. Every few sections, a scout shakes their head, and gatekeepers are forced to push refugees back. But those instances are few and far between. For the rest, it’s a green light, and the first refugees emerge.
“Is this really happening?” Hollywood asks me. She sounds like she’s getting a little choked up. I don’t blame her. I might be getting a bit misty-eyed too—I can neither confirm nor deny.
“Sure is.”
“Feels like a dream.”
I would’ve said nightmare, but I know what she means. Watching thousands upon thousands of people migrating back through the tubes that previously signaled their enslavement but now herald their return home is emotional. Most of them move at a jog, doing that thing where you get so excited you start running but then realize you need to walk for everyone else’s sake. However, moving fast is a good thing.
In fact, it’s a necessary thing.
The initial flow rate when humanity was being harvested was twenty-five people per gate every three seconds. That works out to be 500 people per minute and 30,000 per hour. If we had access to all 100 rings, which we don’t, thanks to the mess we made getting here, it would take thirty-eight minutes to get all 1.9 million refugees through. So, with fewer gates and limited time, it means we have to increase the flow rate.
Unfortunately, we can’t do anything about that. Pushing them will only create problems and cause injuries. But if they have a spring in their step and can stay self-controlled, I’m not arguing.
Once everyone’s had a chance to get the lay of the land, I order SITREPs—from Sir Charles, first and foremost.
“So far, General Karig has taken the bait hook, line, and sinker.” Chuck brings up a holo feed from one pancake. It’s touched down in an open field far to the east of the AE’s Ops Center. At least two dozen squads of death angels have disembarked from as many dropships and surrounded the vessel. Commanders ping Srin Ock Tall, demanding that he lower the ramps to be boarded. But the ambassador, of course, can’t seem to get the hydraulic systems to work on either of the two remaining pancakes. Technology can be such a pain in the ass.
“What about us?” I say.
Chuck switches to a topo map that shows the two recon craft that had been monitoring us headed back toward the Ops Center. “They’ve been tasked with helping secure Srin Ock Tall and his crew.”
“Nice work, pal. How long before you think they come back and check in on us?”
“I estimate another thirty minutes, as long as they don’t breach the pancakes.”
“Copy that. Insarka?”
“Here, Patrick-Wic.”
“Have you established contact with the Blood Guard?”
“Yes. They have deployed two platoons via the rail system and a third by air. However, the dropships are going the long way around to minimize the chance of detection.”
“ETA?”
“Twenty-three minutes.”
“And what’s your refugee count at?”
She looks off-camera for a moment, then comes back. “So far, we have offloaded 10 percent.”
I swear under my breath. That’s not a bad figure—not at all. It’s just that hearing it out loud puts our situation into perspective. I don’t know the math yet, but I know our margin of error is going to be tight.
“Chuck, do you have any calculations on the flow rate and available gates?”
“Of course, Patrick.”
A schematic appears in the main holo window. It has a rough top-down diagram of the ring’s western edge. All 100 rings are shown relative to our ships’ resting places. Suddenly, red Xs start appearing over several gates, beginning with the outermost ones.
“The Xs indicate rings that are not available to us, either because they lay too far away to be reached reasonably or are inaccessible due to debris.”
“That’s a lot of Xs,” Aaron says from behind a console.
“Sixty-eight, to be exact,” Chuck replies.
I swear again, this time not under my breath. “You’re saying we only have thirty-two gates to feed almost two million people through?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
That’s way less than we’d anticipated. Not good.
“What does that do to our timeline?” I ask him.
“If we double the average flow rate to fifty people every three seconds, multiply across thirty-two gates, that allows you to move 59,375 people through each of the thirty-two gates in one hour.”
“One hour?” Hollywood turns and looks at me with wide eyes. “Will they have enough breathable air for that?”
Chuck replies fast. “Quite. As you might recall from our planning session, it will take two days for the MPF’s present air volume to be displaced by the planet’s ambient levels.”
“Least we have that going for us,” Hobbs says from behind another terminal.
I don’t like it, but I can’t change it either. “We hold the line and cover their retreat at all costs. Sounds like we have at least another twenty to thirty minutes before things get interesting. Chuck, update the mission clock.”
“Aye-aye, Captain.”
“Hey, Wic.” Bumper smiles from the elevator entrance on the balcony. “You need to come check this out. All of you.”
I exchange looks with Hobbs, Aaron, and Hollywood, and then follow Bumper into the lift. We ride it to the top level and exit into a corridor that leads to a shielded exterior door and an open-air observation deck. Before the sights, smells, or feel of the air on my skin, I notice the sound.
“You hear it?” the Navy SEAL says. “It’s hope.”
Hollywood takes his arm with both hands and looks over the sea of people streaming in rivulets from the Porsavar ’s belly. Below us are sounds of expectation. Giggles from children. Delight from mothers. Shaking fingers of the elderly who point to the blue circles in the distance.
“They’re going home,” Hollywood says.
I nod at her and then Bumper. “Now let’s make sure they all get there.”
* * *
The next twenty minutes pass quickly as we ready ourselves for a fight. Chuck has created a dedicated window to chart the dwindling occupancy of our ships, the flow rate through the tubes, and the passage totals across the rings. It looks a bit like tracking the S&P 500 from three different angles, only instead of stocks, we’re looking at lives.
Sir Charles has also been working with the rest of the Phantoms across both ships to ready the defenses. The Porsavar and Fashdew have ample turret emplacements, but many were either burned off during entry or crushed when we landed. Those that remain have been cleared of debris and brought under Chuck’s command.
“You think those will be enough?” I ask.
“Ha! Was Winston Churchill enough for England?”
“Which time?”
“What?”
“He lost every election until he turned sixty-two. Which time?”
“Well… the only time it mattered, Patrick. Stop messing with my analogies.”
“Just trying to get clarity.”
Insarka appears in a comms feed beside the main display. “The Blood Guard have arrived. They’re moving into support positions now.”
“Roger.”
Chuck updates the topo to show three new platoons moving toward the area to the north, south, and east of the haulers. Likewise, the two dropships enter through the holes we made and hide themselves within the cityscape.
“What about the pancakes?” I ask Chuck.
“Breakfast at Patrick’s? Why, yes. I’d love to. Thank you.”
“Chuck.”
“I’m not sure I can hold the plushies off much longer. They’re threatening to blow the transports up.”
“Well, we’re gonna need the air support.” I pause to double-check our pieces on the chessboard. “Looks like it’s now or never.”
“Ooooo, can I say it, Patrick?”
“Say what?”
“You’re about to open a comms channel to everyone and recite our mantra.”
“OTF?”
“No, silly. Thicker than blood.”
“Ah.” I smile. “Go for it.”
“Ooooo!” A second later, the general channel is open. “Hello, Phantom Team. This is his eminence, Lord Charles, in case you were wondering. Yes, I’m fine, thank you for asking. I trust you’re all well too, finding success in your various affairs and responsibilities.”
“Moving along,” I say.
“Ah, yes. Well, to get to the point, I have been entrusted with a sacred duty, one I don’t take lightly. For it seems to me that every time we commence this particular tradition, it almost always leads to certain death. In fact, statistically speaking—”
“Use it or lose it, Chuck.”
“Ah, very good. Umm, please repeat after me. Thicker than blood.”
No one comes back on comms.
“I can’t hear you.”
“You have us muted,” Hobbs says, pointing to her earpiece.
“My apologies.” He opens the channel. “Alright, where was I?”
“This is painful,” Hollywood says from across the bridge.
“Repeat after me,” Hobbs states.
“Right! Repeat after me. Thicker than blood.”
“Thicker than blood,” everyone says with more than a few eye-rolls across the feeds.
“Through fire and mud.”
“Through fire and mud,” we all say.
“Let everyone fear… oh, bloody hell!”
The team members look around.
“They’ve opened fire on the pancakes! Everyone, battle stations. The kitchen’s about to get toasty!”
* * *
Everyone but Ghost and Bumper is back on the bridge, monitoring the events as they unfold in real-time over the holo displays. The sniper and the SEAL serve as redundant overwatch atop the Porsavar despite Chuck’s ample surveillance; if they want to be extra eyes on the conflict, I won’t say no.
The transports open fire on the Androchidan forces—or, rather, Chuck has opened fire using the pancake transports as the two largest weaponized RC drones I’ve ever seen. Underbelly blaster turrets rake squads of death angels and shred their armor. Meanwhile, at least three missile salvos target dropships that attempt to return fire. It’s a little hard to count ordnance in all the explosions, but despite Chuck’s botching of the Phantoms’ mantra, he sure as hell is showing up for the fight.
Even with Chuck’s best efforts, one of the pancakes succumbs to heavy fire from a new arrival: an AE gunship. Its stubby wings, weapons pods, V-tail, and blacked-out cockpit remind me of a raptor with an attitude problem. It goes after the larger vessel with extreme prejudice and fires several missiles into the hull. Bright orange explosions flare and then disappear from the lack of oxygen. But the damage is done.
In a beautiful homage to James Doohan, Chuck exclaims, “I don’t think I can hold her much longer, Captain.”
Sure enough, the stricken pancake looks like an old 50s era UFO spinning on the end of a fishing line. Still, Chuck keeps the turrets firing, which converts the transport into a whirling dervish of death for any plushy in range. Blaster rounds stitch across vehicles and ground personnel until the ship finally collides with an enemy dropship and crashes to the ground.
The gunship turns its attention to the last pancake but finds itself outmatched in one key area: mass. During the previous transport’s final moments, Chuck drives his remaining ship toward the gunship so that by the time the enemy pilots square off, the pancake is traveling too fast to avoid.
“Take that, you wankers!”
The transport slams into the gunship and knocks it out of the sky like a heavyweight boxing champion going for a TKO. The smaller ship tries to right itself but fails. Instead, it lands amongst some trees and boulders and then detonates.
“Who said plus sizes aren’t beautiful? Skinny little tramps who’ve never lived, that’s who!”
“Chuck.” I point to the topo map. New tango icons depart from the Ops Center and move west toward us. “Looks like they’re connecting some dots.”
“Never fear, Lord Chuck is here.” He stops himself. “Too American. How about… Bad guys got you down? Not when Sir Charles is in town! Eh, a little pretentious. I suppose I could go for a more sinister angle. Like—”
“Incoming!”
“What? No, that’s wrong on so many levels.”
“No, dammit. Missiles! Incoming on your position.”
“Oh, hang it all.” Chuck barely avoids having his pancake blown out of the sky and then turns on the assailants. He fires blasters on three dropships, but another three veer off and head our way.
“They’re coming,” I say and then check the distance to target calculator that’s tracking them. “ETA five mikes.”
“Not if I can help it,” Chuck says. He’s unloading on the bogies as best he can, but they’re staying clear of his assault. The dropships are more nimble and well armored, and Chuck’s pancake is running low on missiles.
Just then, a new icon appears on the topo, and the feeds zoom in on a second gunship darting in from the east.
“Check your six,” I shout. But before Charles can respond, the gunships unleash a fusillade of missiles that burrow into the pancake’s hull and detonate deep within. The explosion flips the craft sideways, and Chuck loses control. However, one redeeming consequence is that the violent roll bats a dropship that’s ventured too close straight toward the ground.
“Ha! Didn’t see that right hook coming, did you, Skinny Mini. That’ll teach you to pick on the big girls, you twat.”
The pancake gains speed, streaks across the sky, and drives a deep furrow across the ground. At first, there’s no explosion, just a giant plume of dirt and debris. It’s rather anticlimactic. But then Chuck says, “Watch this.”
I glance at the transport’s dedicated holo window to my left and notice several indicators redlining. I can’t tell what systems they’re for—the print is too small, the screen too far away. But warnings flash, and mini alert sounds fill the air.
“Charles? What you do—?”
The main holo display goes white, as does the pirated satellite cam from overhead.
A beat later, the sensors adjust and show a massive explosion at ground zero with a shockwave rippling away. The gunship and the three nearest dropships are vaporized.
“The hell?” I look down at Chuck, who’s still secure in his cradle. “What was that?”
“I believe you’ve called this going nova,” he says with a pleased tone.
“You… blew the drive core?”
“Of course. Pretty fabulous, huh?”
“That was good splick,” Yrag says. “Gooood splick. Ha.”
I watch in amazement as the shockwave continues moving away from the blast zone. “Yut. Pretty fabulous. Not gonna lie.”
Eventually, the ripple fades and does little more than jostle the three dropships closing on MPF6.
“Alright, people, first tangos inbound.”
“And more on the way,” Hobbs adds. She points me to the AE Ops Center on the topo. Dropship icons appear over it. First six, then eight, then thirteen.
“Looks like we finally have ourselves a proper fight picked,” I say. “Time to OTF the splick out of ’em. Lock ’n load.”