Conquest

-18-

Watching the action helplessly from my bunker was nerve-wracking. I found the situation almost intolerable. It gave me some perspective on why the Pentagon types hated me so much. My survival, in fact the survival of the entity known as Star Force, was now in the hands of faceless individuals that were so far out of reach I couldn’t even shout at them—not that it would do any good if they could hear me.

Around me, Sandra and Major Sarin stood tensely. All of us muttered things like “Come on, come on,” and “Aren’t they firing late?”

When the first round of tridents did finally launch from the western set of subs, I actually thought they were firing too early. But as I watched the missiles streak over my island, I realized they had to get up there and get that barrier of shockwaves going. Early was better than too late.

Trident missiles are equipped with mirved warheads. As far as I knew this was the first time the weapons had ever been fired in combat. Each trident carried no less than eight independent warheads. The sub crews didn’t have time to be fancy with the targeting, they simply launched them into the path of the oncoming barrage in a somewhat scattered pattern.

I had a panicky thought as I watched six yellow lines pop onto the screen, tracking the launched missiles. What if my laser turrets shot down the tridents? They weren’t targeting our island, but I knew the turrets were set to be highly paranoid.

I keyed open the command channel. “Major Barrera?”

“Sir?”

“Make sure our turrets are set to allow those tridents to pass overhead. Don’t let them engage under—”

“I already thought of that one, sir,” Barrera interrupted. “They’ve been configured to allow the subs to fire unmolested.”

I heaved a sigh of relief. “Barrera,” I said, “right here, right now, I’m promoting you to lieutenant colonel. You are officially second in command of the Star Force Marines. Congratulations.”

“Thank you, sir.”

I caught Major Sarin eyeing me. Had she expected to get promoted first? I had to admit, she had been key in our return to Earth. But I didn’t want that proximity to color my judgment. Arguably, Barrera’s feat of keeping a calm hand on the rudder back here on Andros while Crow ran wild for months was as big an achievement. I looked back down at the screen. I could still feel her dark eyes on me.

I didn’t glance at her again. Competence wasn’t enough for commanding officers in my book. What Sarin lacked was personal initiative. If she wanted a promotion, all she had to do was save the world from destruction a few times. Barrera had just proven it could be done.

I was vaguely surprised Sandra didn’t object to the fact Sarin was staring at me. There had been a time in the recent past where I’d been less than professional with Major Sarin—with Jasmine. That was in the past now, but I knew Sandra maintained a vigilant eye over the two of us and the nature of our relationship. She wanted to make sure it stayed cordial, but distant. I half expected a pinch or something from Sandra, but it didn’t come. She couldn’t have missed the pain on Jasmine’s face, so I calculated she knew it was all about the promotion and nothing further. Maybe Sandra approved of my passing over Major Sarin. I didn’t care. I’d promoted Barrera for performance, not emotional reasons.

I looked at the clock again. There were two of them now, one in green digits that read 4:02 the second was in red and displayed 8:47.

“And the new green timer is?” I asked.

“Projected time until our missiles meet theirs,” Major Sarin said.

I nodded. Sarin was very competent—she always provided quick, helpful operational support. But support wasn’t command. She was doing her job, but she’d never really run anything independently. I decided if we survived the next few months I’d worry about it then. Maybe I’d give her a command of her own.

Still, I sensed her staring at me. Unbidden, the sensation of kissing Jasmine came into my head. I’d only kissed her once, but the tingle of it was sharp in my memory. I pushed the thought away. It had been a pleasant, brief moment, but now wasn’t the time to relive it, even if she was watching me with hurt eyes. Maybe she thought I should have given her a promotion as a final gift before we all died.

I shook my head slightly, trying to clear it. Why was I dwelling on Jasmine? I was glad Sandra couldn’t read my thoughts. She’d want to murder me herself.

I glanced at the green clock. We had two minutes to go until the opposing waves of missiles met up in the upper troposphere. Damn, this waiting was killing me.

In the end, the sub commanders weren’t able to get all the missiles up, mirving and exploding like fireworks at the same time. But they did pretty well. The missiles from further away got there first and burst into sets of smaller contacts.

“They’re going off too early,” Sandra said.

Her fingers gripped the edge of the computer table so tightly I saw tiny fractures in the glass radiating from each thumb.

“Relax,” I said. “They just released their eight warheads in a sprayed pattern. In a moment, the warheads will go off individually.”

Then, as I spoke, they did blossom into white globes. Twenty-four airbursts. I hoped nobody was looking that way, as these bombs were high-yield. Each warhead had a potential yield of up to three point eight megatons. They were city-busters, not tactical warheads designed to destroy enemy forces.

They’d gone off a trifle early, I thought. The green clock still said there was sixteen seconds until the enemy barrage arrived. Better early than late, I told myself.

Seconds later, the next wave of missiles came in behind the first. These went off closer to our eastern shore. They were the backup wall, I realized, meant to stop the stragglers that got through the first wall of fire and turbulence. They lit up the sky with twenty-one bursts. Possibly, a few of the warheads had malfunctioned, or they had been knocked out by the blast waves from the first explosions.

All over the map interlocking mass explosions blossomed white. We felt these last twenty-one strikes. They rocked the bunker. The ceiling was made of nanites, so no concrete showered dust and chunks down on our heads. But the roof did shift, bubble and sag ominously.

“Is it going to cave in?” Sandra asked.

“Not a chance,” I said confidently, although I had no way of knowing the truth. It either would or it wouldn’t.

I stared at the screen. The front explosions were just beginning to fade when swarms of red contacts slammed into the barrier we’d created. They couldn’t change course now. They were going too fast, and were too close to their goal. As the red streaks met the white spheres, I found myself turning the point of view, spinning it around so we could see the cloud from every angle. Was there a hole?

“Some of them must get through,” Sandra said.

I sincerely hoped not, but I couldn’t argue with her logic. The green clock read 0:00 while the red clock still had thirty-three seconds to go. I wanted to gnaw on my lip, but resisted the urge. If we took a real hit, I’d have a mouth full of blood and torn flesh. We all squinted our eyes and gritted our teeth, bracing our legs under the table.

The sirens were going off, air-raid sirens that warbled high and then low again. They had time for about three undulations before it was all over.

A red streak came down right on top of us. It was decelerating, but still coming in very fast. I saw lasers streak up, meeting it, burning it. But they were too late.

We were going to take a hit.

“Brace yourselves,” I said unnecessarily. We were about to die. Bracing wasn’t going to stop a direct hit from a thermonuclear device. Neither was a hundred feet of sandy, wet earth. If anything, the soil here would transmit the shock of the explosion straight down to our bunker. If we lived, we’d be digging ourselves out.

My last thought was for Kwon and his sixteen battle suited marines on the floors above us. I should have ordered them down deeper into the command post with us. But there simply wasn’t time now.