“I wish we could use our guns,” he said. He and Theodore had decided not to risk them on the way down, in fear of revealing their existence and having them destroyed before the Magellan reached the surface. A few plasma cannons weren’t going to be the difference between success and failure on this part of the mission.

  He cursed as the lights flickered on the bridge again, and the gravity control momentarily shut down, leaving him rising against his restraints. He shot a look over at Guy, who was tapping furiously on his tablet. They had forgone any non-essential crew, leaving nobody down in engineering to speak to their damage. If Maggie couldn’t report it, it didn’t exist.

  “We’re taking a lot of fire, sir,” Miranda said, doing her best to keep the DSS moving, blocking the attacks. “I can’t keep up.”

  “I know,” Gabriel replied. “You’re doing great. Maggie, ETA to the atmosphere?”

  “Three minutes, six seconds,” the computer replied.

  Too long. Much too long. His forward throttle was maxed out, the ship gaining velocity as quickly as it could. The smaller Dread ships were closing in and smelling blood, and a second contingent of starfighters had been sent in.

  They weren’t going to make it.

  He gritted his teeth, his hands moving over the flight controls as quickly as they could, adjusting thrust, changing direction, trying to throw the enemy ships off their tail. They continued to take fire, the ship vibrating as plasma bolts burned into the hull, some of the attacks avoiding the DSS.

  He had survived too many runs just like this one to die now.

  He changed course, pointing the Magellan toward the nearest starship.

  “This worked the last time,” he said. “Put the DSS on the bow, Spaceman Locke.”

  “Roger,” Miranda replied without hesitation.

  He could see the dark point shift the front of the Magellan, and he looked ahead of it to the quickly approaching starship. The shields captured the incoming volley of plasma, bringing them closer and closer to the ship.

  At the last second, the Dread commander blinked. The ship began vectoring away, trying to avoid the bow of the Magellan before it speared them. Instead of a direct hit, Gabriel scored a glancing blow, one that tore a gash in the bottom of the enemy ship on their way by. It vented atmosphere, its attack fading as it sought to stabilize.

  The Magellan continued its descent toward the planet, the automatic Dread defense systems drawing near. They began to activate, directional thrusters aligning them toward Maggie as she approached. The good news was that they were simple machines, and they didn’t understand the idea of the darkspace shields. They focused their attack on the same point against the Magellan’s bow, allowing Miranda to place the shields and leave them, absorbing the firepower of the defensive net as they neared.

  More Dread ships were closing in, firing with a fury that lit up the darkness of space. Gabriel skirted the Magellan around most of it, and Miranda caught a large portion of the rest. They were taking fire, but it was a light rain shower instead of a potential deluge.

  “Hull breach on deck nine,” Sarah said a moment later. “Bulkheads are sealing, but. Oh, Colonel, we had people down there.”

  Gabriel winced. They needed to get inside the thermosphere and headed for Mexico City. He adjusted thrust again, diving toward the nearest defense pods. The systems peppered the Magellan with fire right up until the starship slammed into them, the darkspace shields throwing them violently out of the way or smashing them completely.

  Then they were through, dropping ever downward toward the planet.

  “Maggie, enter coordinates for Mexico City and give me a guideline,” Gabriel said.

  “Setting coordinates,” Maggie replied. “Guideline activated.”

  A flight path appeared on his command screen, giving him the optimal route to the city even as the ship began to shake, hitting the thermosphere and working to break through. Heat flared ahead of them while the ship made its second approach to Earth in a month, the Dread starfighters remaining behind it, still shooting at them as they crossed into the upper atmosphere.

  “We’re in,” Miranda announced.

  “Activate all batteries,” Gabriel said, watching the ground growing beneath them as they swept toward the surface. “Fire at will.”

  The new weapons systems were separate from the pre-existing controls, and Colonel Choi took control of them without hesitation, tapping the commands to rotate them on their turrets. They didn’t have a complete field of fire, but there was one battery that could reach behind them, and she didn’t waste any time triggering the system. The plasma cannon sent bolt after bolt at the fighters behind them, forcing them to evade.

  “Almost there,” Gabriel said, the dark spot of the Dread capital becoming visible on the ground ahead of them. “Miranda, activate our comm system, let’s see if we can get the ground forces on the line.”

  “Roger.” She abandoned the DSS for a moment, leading to the ship shaking as it took another hit. She tapped the console ahead of her, activating the radio. “Comm online. Channel open.”

  “Earth Rebellion. This is Major Gabriel St. Martin in the starship Magellan. Do you copy? Over.”

  A flow of static greeted him from the open channel.

  “Guy, are we getting anything?” he asked, jerking the ship to the left as Colonel Choi’s defenses hit one of the Dread fighters. “Nice shooting, Colonel.”

  “Working on it,” Guy said, tapping his controls. “Try again, please, sir.”

  “Earth Rebellion. This is Major Gabriel St. Martin in the starship Magellan. Do you copy? Over.”

  “Major St. Martin, this is General Alan Parker. Damn, you showed up just in time. We’re getting our asses kicked down here.”

  He had a feeling the Ishur wasn’t doing much better above him. “I’m looking for Major Donovan Peters, is he with you?”

  He held his breath waiting for the reply. Their plan would be easier to follow if the Major and the clone were still alive.

  “Colonel Peters is commanding the mech unit,” General Parker replied.

  “Is the clone with him?”

  “Clone? You mean Ehri or Orli?”

  There were two Juliet clones down there? “I don’t know, sir. I never learned her name.”

  “He’s not responding to my requests,” Parker said. “It could be that his comm is offline. The mech unit is taking a pounding. We all are.”

  “Understood, General. We’ll see what we can do to help.”

  “Whatever you’re going to do, do it fast, son.”

  Gabriel’s eyes tracked over the landscape in front of the ship. The city was getting close, and he reversed throttle in response, slowing the starship down. She wasn’t intended for atmospheric flight, and the anti-gravity systems would only do so much.

  It was going to be a rough landing any way he tried it, but as his eyes landed on a pair of mechs squaring off against a second, almost identical pair backed by a line of lek’shah carapaced vehicles that resembled tanks, he was satisfied to at least have an idea of where to land.

  “Don’t worry, General,” he replied. “I intend to.”

  52

  Donovan backed away, his eyes sweeping the landscape ahead of him in search of even the barest of cover.

  It had been nearly an hour since the battle against the Dread had started. An hour of running and shooting, ducking, and hiding, pausing and issuing commands to a quickly diminishing battalion.

  They had lost Big Bertha nearly thirty minutes ago to a heavy assault by the Dread mechs and tanks, an assault that had also claimed Orli as she tried to take on six heavy armors at one time. They had lost Bastion and Knowles at some point, too, their mechs blasted to slag by the deadly gel’shah that seemed to be in endless supply. Half of Able and two-thirds of Bertha were also down, and their mission to pull the enemy away from the Dread capital was a total and complete failure.

  Donovan had long given up the idea of winning this fight. Instead, he had decided that he would press on, keep attacking, and take as many of the bastards with him as he could. His mech was beaten but not quite broken, pitted and scarred across most of the surface, out of projectile ammunition and overheating from the constant use of the plasma cannons. He was coated in sweat and soaking wet, the gori’shah unable to wick the moisture away quick enough. His legs were tired, too, tired of maneuvering the mech away from the enemy, of trying to keep pace with Ehri as she tore apart all comers. She was a machine. He was only a man.

  Where was General St. Martin, he wondered, as he sidestepped another bolt fired from a gel’shah, ducking down behind a pile of rubble and raising his right arm over it to fire his plasma cannon. Ehri was circling behind him, using the same cover, silent in her focus. The General was supposed to be here today. Donovan hadn’t realized what a wide block of time that was until now. An hour was all it would take for the rebel army to fall apart, to be decimated and sent to early graves. General Parker had even given up on sending orders through the comm, leaving him to himself as he did his best to wreak havoc before he too was destroyed.

  The enemy mech ahead of him paused, waiting while the three gel’shah behind it fired on the rubble, blasting it away, sending shrapnel thunking off his lek’shah shell and leaving him in the open. He forced his legs to move again, pushing the mech away from the scene, hoping Ehri would see and follow. She didn’t. Instead, she broke the other direction, laying down suppressing fire and drawing the attention away from him. The mechs stayed on her, launching another barrage, blasting her mech in the leg and torso. He saw something break, a loud pop, and the mech fell to one knee.

  She wouldn’t survive another shot like that. He reversed course, sending his mech to block them, trying to get in front of her before they could fire once more. The enemy mechs were closing in, and there was no way he was going to reach her in time.

  The thought caused him to stumble, his mech nearly toppling over from the motion of his exhaustion. Only backup systems kept it upright, though it slowed considerably at the miss. He cursed, pushing harder, while two of the gel’shah brought her mech into their sights.

  He checked his HUD. His sensors were dead, the array long destroyed. It suddenly occurred to him that maybe that’s why everything was so quiet. Had his comm system been destroyed as well?

  “This is Delta Actual. Can anyone hear me?” he said over the human channels. He switched to the networked mechs. “Ehri, do you read me? Over.”

  There was no reply.

  He kept moving, trying to reach her but knowing he couldn’t. One of the gel’shah fired, and somehow she managed to tip her mech sideways, bringing it over to avoid the blast. It crumpled onto its side and then rolled onto its back, giving the enemy a smaller profile. He thought it was odd when she didn’t move right away.

  Then he looked up.

  He had barely noticed the din of the starship approaching; he had become so numb to the noise of battle. When he saw the long bow of the Magellan dropping toward him, he didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or wet himself. When a series of plasma bolts traced from the sides of the ship and into the enemy position nearby and destroyed the gel’shah and one of the mechs, he almost did all three.

  “Oh, shit,” he cried. “Wooooo!”

  He limped his mech toward Ehri, still trying to reach her and block her from the remaining enemy. More plasma bolts rained down from the Magellan, the growl of the incoming ship growing louder with each second. More of the Dread armor vanished beneath the assault, mounds of dirt spraying aside and crystallizing as each powerful blast slammed into the ground.

  The earth began to shake as the Magellan neared, the roar so loud that it drowned out everything around it. Donovan saw the fighters now, the Dread gi’shah peppering the ship with fire and trying to avoid its return volleys. It was coming in fast, so fast, its forward and hull thrusters at full burn to break the velocity. He could feel the pressure from them, the heat, and he tucked over Ehri as it buffeted against him. The Dread mechs weren’t quick enough, and the force of the displaced air knocked them down and pushed them back.

  It was as though God had dropped a steel wall from the sky. The Magellan seemed to float a dozen meters in the air beside him before tumbling straight down, countless kilograms of mass dropping onto four heavy landing gear that extended from the hull just in time. The ground shook harder as they hit the surface and began to sink, hydraulics flexing to catch the rest of the bulk. He knew the ship had anti-gravity technology within it that would make it lighter, but it was still a heavy beast.

  The ship dipped slightly and then rose again, coming to rest on the gear with a satisfied thunk. The plasma cannons on the starship continued to move and fire, tracing airborne targets and continuing to slam the ground forces now blockaded by the Magellan’s sizable bulk.

  Then the next part of the miracle came. Three ramps dropped from the side of the ship, extending to the ground below. Soldiers poured out from them, men and women in neat gray uniforms charging down the ramp and into the battle. They avoided the heavy armors but swept across and back toward the city, where the embattled infantry was making its stand. They moved with a uniformity that Donovan had never seen from the rebels, a clear contrast to the two different types of training they had received.

  Donovan shifted his mech away from Ehri’s, looking down as he did. Her cockpit slid open, and she climbed out, looking up at him. She pointed at herself and then at the Magellan. She was going to it.

  He decided to follow.

  53

  “Status,” Gabriel shouted, getting to his feet as the Magellan came to rest.

  “We’re down,” Miranda replied. “No luck getting through to Major Peters, though.”

  “Colonel Graham is deploying the units to the ground,” Colonel Choi said. “Hopefully they’ll remember to follow their training, instead of marveling over the fresh air.”

  “It doesn’t look that fresh,” Gabriel said. “It probably smells like burned flesh out there. We went over it all with them a dozen times on the way over. They’ll do their jobs. Colonel Choi, you have the bridge.”

  “Where are you going?” Choi asked, not breaking her concentration from operating the plasma cannons.

  “I have to find Major Peters and the clone,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “My father didn’t tell you?”

  “No.” She dared a glance at him. “What are you two up to?”

  “Trying to save the world,” Gabriel replied. “Give me three minutes to get off this boat, and then get her back in the sky. We can offer wider fire support hovering over the site than sitting down here.”

  “Who’s the Colonel here?” Choi said.

  “If you will, ma’am,” Gabriel added.

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  Gabriel broke for the exit before pausing. “Miranda,” he shouted. She looked up from the DSS display. “I love you.”

  “I love you too,” she replied, but he was already out the door.

  He ran down the corridor, his boots clanking along the metal flooring as he headed for the nearest exit. He paused at the nearest armory; a single Dread rifle left intentionally for him to claim. He grabbed the weapon before continuing on, spilling out into the wide hangar where light from outside was filtering in from the open ramp.

  He hurried toward it, his heart racing, hoping beyond hope that the mechs they had saved were being piloted by the Major and the Juliet clone. So much had gone right so far, why not that?

  He was halfway across the hangar when two figures appeared at the top of the ramp, silhouetted by the light. At first, Gabriel raised the rifle, unsure of their intentions. Then he caught a glimpse of the long red hair and cherubic face of his mother, dirty as it was.

  “Captain St. Martin?” Major Peters said.

  “Major Peters,” Gabriel replied, unable to hold back his smile. “Thank God.”

  “We got your father’s message,” the Major said. “Where is he? Where’s the Ishur?”

  “In trouble,” Gabriel said. “We need to go.”

  “Go? What do you mean?”

  “You,” he said, pointing at the clone. “What’s your name?”

  “Juli… Ehri,” she said, catching herself.

  “Major, we need to get into the Dread capital asap. It doesn’t matter how, but we have to find a way. My father is a hell of a pilot and a hell of a commander, but there are seven Dread fortresses up there trying to blow him into space dust.”

  “Captain, I appreciate your enthusiasm,” Major Peters said. “We’re nearly four kilometers away from the domo’shah, and there’s a battlefield separating us.”

  “I don’t care,” Gabriel said. “In four minutes, those ships are going to reach the Ishur’s position and start firing. Do you know what happens then?”

  Major Peters’ face turned pale, and he nodded. “Okay. How are we going to get there before that happens?”

  Gabriel pointed to the corner of the hangar. There was something low and long sitting in the shadows there. An excavator they had brought in from Alpha Settlement. “It doesn’t look like much, but it's as heavily armored as anything else we have. Let’s go.”

  The three of them ran to the machine. It had a drill mounted to the front of it, and a mechanical arm with a second drill attached to the rear. Gabriel led them onto the top of it, and then down into a manual hatch.

  “Close that up for me, will you?” Gabriel asked as he moved to the front of the narrow internal confines and fell into the driver’s seat.

  Ehri paused, grabbing the hatch and pulling it closed.

  Gabriel pressed the ignition, bringing the machine to life with a soft hum. The battery was only good for a hundred kilometers or so, but they didn’t need to go anywhere near that far.

  “Here we go,” he said, pushing the control yoke forward.

  The excavator shuddered and jerked as it built up power, and then kicked ahead toward the ramp and onto it, heading down and building speed. Donovan grabbed for the side of the machine as it slammed into the ground, bouncing back up and shaking from side to side before leveling out.