I was getting buckled in with my navy pilot passenger in tow, when the lights around the dock flashed red. On the way up from 1 Bravo, I’d walked past the main hangar. Every single Sigma that could fit was being towed into one of two docking bays on this level. The dock itself was enormous and could house about sixty aircraft, but we were launching just over four hundred, so they had battened everything down and were opening the two internal hangar doors before depressurising the entire level and releasing the bay doors. I could see the far dock, just about. It was almost eight kilometres away. Once empty of aircraft, I’d be able to fly right through the heart of Globe 11 and come out the other side, if I were so inclined.
Hundreds of aircraft would mobilise through the two docks and convene just outside of the station at a distance of fifty kilometres, following the orbital path of the Bertram until signalled to make re-entry. I powered up the nucleus and gyro-spheres, checked my screens and waited for my hollotab to light up green, which it did in just under a minute.
I disengaged the mag-dock and followed Addison’s Sigma out of the bay. Nobody was calling in to the tower for pre-launch authority. There were simply too many units being mobilised for that to be efficient.
Addison took his Sigma out half a kilometre before pitching downwards and taking us fifty kilometres out, where we held steady at an altitude of five-hundred-and-thirty kilometres until the entire fleet had caught up. As the last call-sign checked into the fleet holding pattern, I looked out of my starboard window. The sight of four-hundred Sigmas was awesome to behold. A hundred of them peeled away and began surrounding the Bertram.
Two squadrons of twenty Sigmas flew ahead of our unit and turned into the re-entry path, slowly descending to the Kármán Line. We followed in close formation, with Addison in the lead, and the rest of us splayed out like a pyramid behind him.
My altimeter pinged, and I deployed my EM shield, watching as the nose of the Red October glowed orange. The re-entry phase took just under ninety seconds before we broke free of the Mesosphere and my HUD switched to atmospheric data, as we slowed to thirty-five-hundred knots.
We were back inside Earth’s airspace. Game on.
* * *
Amanda crossed the woodland path at a slight jog, with Hennessey close behind. They made another two-hundred metres progress towards the command structure when a pulsating roar distracted them.
They turned to face the dome between the two BRAF accommodation towers.
“Look!” pointed Hennessey, as hundreds of Sigmas exited the bay on the level below. It was awesome to behold the might of the entire fleet.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” said Amanda, shaking her head. “What the fuck is going on?”
“Not a bloody clue,” replied Hennessey, “but we have bigger concerns at the moment.”
They resumed their jog towards the Great Wall when Amanda’s comms pinged.
“Amanda, it’s Gemma. Ms Baxendale’s bio-band was just pinged, entering a mag-lift to the command centre. ML19 at the northern end of the Wall.”
“That’s why they abducted Libby, it has to be! Because they need her access to the command centre,” said Amanda.
“No,” came the response through her comms. “They didn’t use her bio-band to get inside. The command centre scans anyone entering, and Ms Baxendale’s bio-band was one of them.”
Amanda and Sara looked at one another. Hennessey spoke. “Gemma, it’s Captain Sara Hennessey. Are you able to isolate who she is with or whose bio-band was used to gain access?”
“That’ll take a little while, but yes, I can do it.”
“Thanks, Gemma.”
Hennessey looked at the Great Wall. “If they don’t need Libby to get inside, they must be active BRMC or BRAF personnel.”
The two Marines picked up the pace and turned north, skirting the wall boundary at thirty metres.
“ML8,” said Hennessey, pointing at the nearest mag-lift.
Amanda pulled up and stopped. “What’s at that end of the command centre?” she asked.
“Several cargo holds, the training arena, the range and the light-weapons armoury,” replied Hennessey.
“The armoury!” said Amanda, eyes wide open.
“They can’t get in there,” stated Hennessey with absolute certainty. “Libby definitely doesn’t have access. The only place Libby’s bio-band would get them is inside the hangar, which is a restricted area, and they’re at the wrong end of the command centre for that.”
“We already know they’ve had access,” replied Amanda, “or they wouldn’t have been able to manufacture bombs on this vessel.”
Hennessey shook her head. “The light weapons don’t include explosives or incendiaries. It’s mostly Scorpion Rifles and Proxys. Anything combustible, including armaments for the fleet, is stored in the bay armoury, which can only be accessed when the doors are closed and the bay is pressurised.”
“Okay,” said Amanda, taking a deep breath. “But we know they must be command centre personnel. We don’t know what access levels they may have. We still need to get there and it’s just over four kilometres away.”
Hennessey looked around. “We need a vehicle. There!” she pointed at a maintenance building behind The Loop station.
They ran over, and Hennessey swiped her band across the garage doors on the south facia. Inside was an assortment of vehicles, mostly trucks loaded with equipment for the gardeners and cleaning crew. She vaulted into an AethervoX with the words ‘Forestry’ stencilled onto the sides. Amanda ran around the back and jumped in the other side.
“Hey!” came a shout from the corner of the building, but Hennessey ignored it and gunned the accelerator, launching out onto the street before turning right and driving straight at the Wall. A hundred yards out, she turned right again onto a wide boulevard that ran the width of the level. The AethervoX bounced on its magnetic suspension as they weaved around the afternoon traffic and pedestrians at a pathetic thirty-eight kph. The speed limits on the station were twenty-five kph everywhere, and they passed more than one concerned BRMC officer tapping into their comms.
“Vehicle eighty-one. This is the BRMC. You are violating station laws. Please stop immediately.”
Amanda hit the VOX button on the dash. “Captain Sara Hennessey and Major Amanda Barclay responding to an emergency,” she replied.
“Please state your emergency,” came the response. “You are not allowed to use civilian vehicles.”
“In pursuit of a civilian hostage. Please call Colonel Grealish and relay this message. He’ll confirm.”
“I’m sorry. Did you say civilian hostage?”
“Just do it. We don’t have time for this,” replied Amanda, hitting the off button.
They got another twenty seconds further up the boulevard, when the vehicle died on them.
“For fuck’s sake,” said Hennessey. “They’ve overridden the system and manually stopped us. We’ll have to do it on foot.”
The two marines jogged up the outside wall. It took them sixteen minutes to run the remaining three kilometres.
Hennessey pulled up, holding a stitch in her left side. “ML19.” She pointed at the mag-lift. They were only three-hundred metres from the dome edge. There was nothing beyond the glass – just space and the very edge of the new moon as it crept into view.
They were both sweating in their BRMC fatigues. Amanda’s hair was sticking to her forehead, but she was fit and in better shape than Hennessey. She tapped her comms.
“Farrell.”
“Gem, it’s Amanda. We’re at ML19. Any idea which level they headed to?”
“I’ll check. Hang on.” There was a pause while Commander Farrell searched for the lift logs. “They went down to the hangar level,” she replied.
They were about to step inside when Farrell spoke again. “The logs say the last person to enter was a Lieutenant Amy Cooper.”
* * *
We were descending above the Artic circle, moving slowly south to our entry point west of Reykjavik. As we dipped below twenty-thousand metres, I heard the awesome thrum of three-hundred pairs of gyro-spheres vibrating through the hull of my Sigma, making the hairs on my arms stand up.
We were radio silent until our final approach so I stayed in the wake of 1 Alpha, matching his pitch and roll as he followed the forward squadrons down to sea level, before pulling up and skimming the Atlantic Ocean.
The ocean rushed below us at unfathomable speed, as we thrust into the edges of the storm around the British Isles. Meteorology had flagged the inclement weather during our briefing. Modern aircraft were less affected by poor weather than our historical counterparts, but the buffeting wind and driving rain still made the conditions tricky. Visibility was under thirty metres, and at the speed we were travelling we’d be bang in trouble if anything suddenly loomed out of the darkness, but the scopes were clear ahead.
We skirted the southern tip of Ireland, less than forty kilometres from the coast, before slowing to sixteen-hundred knots at the Severn Estuary and following the path of the river between Lynton and Porthcawl.
As we neared our target, the two squadrons leading the fleet pulled up and spiralled into the sky, accelerating to three-thousand knots. Addison’s Sigma stayed true to the target and the ten Sigmas of 1 Squadron proceeded to Cheltenham alone. We had just trimmed thirty-five degrees to port to proceed over Portishead towards Cirencester, when all hell broke loose.
A squadron of CAF and AEU Guardians broke through the cloud cover six-thousand feet above us and opened fire. I barely had time to acknowledge their presence when they were engaged by one of the Sigma squadrons at our rear.
“Maintain course,” came the call from Addison to 1 Squadron as Filton and Patchway flashed below us in the afternoon gloom. The plan was to bank left to a heading of three-hundred-and-forty-eight degrees as we reached Cirencester and breach Cheltenham from the south.
“1 Alpha, this is 1 Delta. We’re taking fire. Shields deployed.”
The rest of us followed suit and deployed our EM shields as we made the last turn towards Echo. The skies lit up with lightning and explosions as the battle above us commenced, but we remained resolute in our trajectory and turned in unison for the final leg of the infiltration.
The sight that met us as we made the turn was like nothing I’d ever seen. There were hundreds of aircraft engaged in an epic battle in the skies above England. Explosions flashed in the darkness, illuminating the swarm as war played out in the thunderous rain.
My comms barked as Addison calmly relayed his orders to the squadron. “This is 1 Alpha. Take your positions on my mark.”
There was a chorus of “roger” and “ten-four” through the comms, before Addison called “Three, two, one, mark!” and the squadron deployed.
I pulled up to one-hundred metres, and briefly turned starboard, before slowing and rotating back around Compression Echo. There were black rivers of filth and ash running through the broken roads around the destroyed GCHQ building. To my left I could see the launch bay, and in its centre the imposing bulk of the Nova Pilgrim.
I swept back around and positioned myself under the wings of two Sigmas at the rear of the Pilgrim, between the cargo bay and the terminal building, descending to five metres from the deck and holding steady as I watched the five Sigmas transporting the commandos dip to the ground and open their hatches.
There was a sudden crash on the right as the building above Echo took fire, followed by the screech of metal as tons of titanium exoskeleton and EM glass plummeted to the launch bay, crushing one of the inbound Sigmas. The commando that had been inside was already free, and forming up at the rear of the Pilgrim with his teammates, but the pilot had not emerged from the cockpit.
The cargo bay opened and the five commandos sprinted up the ramp, scanners in hand and disappeared into the bowels of the shuttle. The rain came down even harder, drowning out the sounds of the battle above. I looked at my scopes. What I saw was unimaginable.
There were aircraft everywhere. A thousand metal wasps cluttered the skies above us, thrashing about and peppering each other with plasma cannons. Our comms in 1 Squadron were isolated from the fleet so I couldn’t hear the carnage above us, but I didn’t imagine there was much chatter between pilots.
It took three long minutes before the commandos emerged from the rear of the Pilgrim and gave the signal to proceed, during which I could hear Addison frantically trying to hail the downed Sigma pilot. I dropped my Sigma and popped the hatch before we’d even hit the deck. The navy pilot next to me jumped out without a word and swung himself from the frame before dropping to the metal dais three metres below.
He sprinted for the loading ramp and vanished inside. I looked across at the Sigma buried under the rubble but couldn’t see any sign of the pilot emerging. Without thinking I idled the Sigma and launched myself through the hatch, swinging down and dropping to the platform, falling hopelessly on my arse as my flight boots slipped on the wet metal in complete contrast to what the navy pilot had done moments before. I ran towards the rubble on the right side of the downed Sigma, soaked through on one side of my suit, and getting wetter with every second. I could hear Addison’s voice calling to me through my comms, petering out as I put distance between myself and my cockpit.
The left side of the Sigma was open, with the hatch hanging from its mounts. Rubble buried the starboard side, and half of the fuselage had staved in. There was a fire at the rear where the gyro-sphere stanchion had wrenched from the frame of the aircraft, sending blue crackles to the shredded titanium exoskeleton of the partially collapsed building. The windows and screens were smashed, and the pilot was unconscious, lulling clumsily into the harness.
She was too high to get to and her concealed entry ladder was a twisted mess of titanium and aluminium. We rarely used the on-board ladders to enter or leave the Sigmas, because the launch bays here and on the Bertram have ground crews with moveable steps, but we’d all used them today to mount up and leave the station. There was no saving this one, or the aircraft. I ran to the hangar and grabbed the steps, wheeling them at top speed towards the stricken vessel.
As I pushed the steps back across the platform, the doors to the terminal building opened and a mass of bodies flooded out. The commandos had set up a makeshift checkpoint for entry to the Pilgrim, but it was going to take several minutes to get six-hundred people on board.
I got the steps into place and scaled them carefully until I reached the cockpit, which was filling up with smoke. The rain was beating down harder than ever, and I stumbled more than once as I rushed to the top of the steps. I heard the steady throb of gyro-spheres close-by and looked up to see our three redundancies circling the launch bay, getting lower and lower.
I slapped the centre of the pilot’s harness, releasing the magnetic clasps and hauled her unceremoniously through the hatch and onto the steps. I draped her awkwardly across the side bars and top platform, but her comfort wasn’t the priority. There was blood dripping from several gashes on her face and head. I jumped down the steps, grabbed the handles and wheeled her as fast as I could back towards my Sigma. I had to go under the belly of the shuttle, as the stream of bodies from the terminal building was blocking my path in a straight trajectory.
I could hear hundreds of footsteps tramping up the metalwork of the cargo doors above me, and the unrelenting patter of rain pounding the Pilgrim and the metal dais on which she perched. My feet were sliding as I tried desperately to turn the steps at speed, the weight and momentum of the metal stairs dragging forwards as I tried to steer left. It took two hard tugs to pull it round and shift it toward the Red October.
I made it to the base as another explosion ripped through the air to my right, and the sudden rush of atmosphere billowed into me from the gaping wound in the Opps centre as the airtight facility decompressed over the launch bay. Flames were flickering from the walls and I could feel the heat intensifying as the rush of escaping oxygen fed their fury.
The boarding process looked to be almost complete, with about another hundred queuing to enter the Pilgrim. They looked like drowned rats as the rain pummelled them in a merciless deluge. I pushed the steps to meet the edge of my Sigma, without bothering to line it up particularly well, before pulling the lever on the side and engaging the mag-lock on the base. I hauled myself back to the top, stepping over the unconscious pilot.
There was a gap of about half a metre between the top of the steps and the hatch of my Sigma, but I couldn’t worry about that – time was of the essence here. I stepped across, and then leaned back and grabbed the collar of the injured pilot, turning her over on to her back, before hooking my hands under her arms and dragging her over the gap. I wedged my legs into the edge of the open doorway, and my heels slipped as I tried to lever myself backwards with the dead-weight of the pilot in my arms.
I eventually dragged her through, just as the gyro-spheres on the Pilgrim started spinning up. Hauling her into the first seat, I grabbed the harness and fastened it across her chest, missing the left shoulder and right leg. I was up against the clock and figured she’d rather have a bumpy ride than no ride.
I stepped into the pilot’s seat and hit the hatch close and mag-dock release simultaneously. The door swung down as water cascaded in from the storm and the elegant metal wasp rose above the dais, waiting for the command to launch.
Addison’s voice was still coming through on VOX, but I hadn’t been listening. It was only as the hatch finally closed and my controller was in hand that I heard Addison screaming into the comms.
“1 Bravo. Are you secure? Jaxon, for fuck’s sake, respond!”
“This is 1 Bravo. I’m battened down and ready to go, Wing,” I replied as my stanchions angled back and the surrounding sky lit up blue, reflecting the gyro-spheres of fourteen Sigmas and the Nova Pilgrim.
“This is the Nova Pilgrim, ready for launch.”