The battle at the Moons of Hell

and started the slow and careful process of pulling the lander out of its headlong plunge to earth. Michael’s neuronics were plugged into the lander’s neural system to make doubly sure that the huge stresses on the lander’s wings stayed within acceptable limits. Even so, the synthpain was uncomfortably intense. Michael’s concern was well justified. The lander’s foamalloy wings were incredibly strong, but even they would have trouble taking the load imposed by a 750-ton lander trying to pull too sharp a recovery.

At last, the lander leveled off at 5,000 meters, and Mother allowed it to slow before bringing the main engines back up to power, turning the lander slowly back toward the landing site.

“Tac. How do we look going in?” Michael asked.

“Well, we are in the first wave, so in theory the opposition has only a hazy idea of where we will land, at least to start with.”

“Other than the college spaceport, you mean?” said Michael, at which Hadley actually laughed. Good, Michael thought. Things were looking up if the man could take a joke and not bite his head off.

“Play the game, Helfort. As I was saying, the only advantage we have is where we will hit the ground. Ah, good. Mother thinks this is the optimum final approach track.” The track bloomed in Michael’s neuronics. Pretty simple: two doglegs, both over water, which was always nice, a sharp turn onto a short final approach, which would be fun, and then onto the ground. But no terrain to hide behind for the final approach, which was a pity. They had twenty-three minutes to run, and Michael offered up a small prayer that there wouldn’t be too many surprises.

His hopes of a quiet run in were dashed fourteen minutes later. With no warning, Fusion A tripped offline, immediately depriving Michael of his starboard mass driver-powered main engine. Seconds later, the cross-feeds that would have allowed the starboard main engine to draw power from Fusion B on the port side went down as well. Fucking terrific, Michael thought.

As Michael cursed silently under his breath, Moaning Minnie first sagged and then wallowed back to height, adopting the characteristic skewed posture of a lander running on one engine as Mother quickly ran Fusion B up to full power to cover for the loss of Fusion A.

“Command, propulsion. Software lockout of Fusion A and cross-feed to starboard mass driver. No chance of recovery without command emergency override.” It was Petty Officer Aguilar, about as excited as a lump of rock as usual.

Software lockout, Michael thought. Thank you, directing staff, you bastard offspring of flea-ridden camel herders.

“Roger, propulsion. Mother. Maintain track.”

“Command, Tac. Shrivaratnam reports six Kingfisher fliers at 100 k’s inbound bearing 280.”

“Shit, shit, shit,” Michael muttered. Hostile fliers. Just what they didn’t need as they slowed for landing. “Roger that, Tac. Confirm Shrivaratnam engaging?”

“Negative. All assets assigned to higher-priority tasks.” Hadley’s face reflected what he thought of that piece of twisted logic.

“Command, roger. GAs?” Michael asked, more in hope than in expectation. While they had a good air defense capability, the heavily armored ground attack planetary landers were tasked primarily with protecting the marines as they deployed and then with breaking up enemy counterattacks in the hours after the landing, when the marines were at their most vulnerable. Their weapons were designed with close ground support in mind, not atmospheric dogfights, and so, per planetary assault standard operating procedures, responsibility for protecting the assault stream as it funneled in to land rested with the Shrivaratnam, her massive infrared planetary attack lasers more than capable of breaking up even the largest flier attack.

“Negative. Ground attack landers are fully committed.”

Oh, well, thought Michael. Doesn’t hurt to ask. But they were well and truly on their own.

“Stand by hard turn left,” Mother announced.

“Weapons, Tac. On my mark, full spread decoy deployment-we’ve got less than 65 k’s to run, so we’ll throw everything at the hostiles to try to break radar lock.” As Hadley spoke, Mother yanked Moaning Minnie around onto the first of the final doglegs, the max-g turn making Minnie’s fabric groan in protest. The lander’s synthpain levels fed through to Michael’s neuronics, rising uncomfortably as the wings, now fully deployed, flexed alarmingly under the huge load of the tightest turn Mother could get away with.

“Roger, Tac.”

“Sixty k’s to run. Stand by hard turn right.” Mother was at her soothing best. But her reassuring tones belied the desperate situation Moaning Minnie was in. Hostile fliers and landers did not mix well, especially when the top cover normally provided to landers by the ships orbiting overhead apparently had been tasked to higher-priority targets.

“Weaps, Tac. Decoy release on the turn.”

“Weaps, roger.”

This time Mother outdid herself. Tipping the lander on its ear, the foamalloy wings flexing sharply upward under the load, the synthpain almost unbearable, Mother powered up Fusion B to overcome the loss of Fusion A. That drove Moaning Minnie around in an impossibly tight turn, the g forces ramming her crew deep into their seats despite the best efforts of the lander’s artgrav. Even at the best of times, Minnie and her clan were not known for their agility even with wings fully deployed, but raw vectored power from the lander’s remaining main engine and lots of it was a wonderful thing.

“Thirty k’s to run,” Mother announced calmly as the lander settled onto the final dogleg.

Hadley and Taksin timed it beautifully. As the lander turned, decoys streaked out from Minnie’s sides. Almost instantly, the swarm of decoys came online, and all of a sudden there were Moaning Minnies everywhere-some running with the ship along its new course, some on the old course, and others on every track in between. Two were even running away. Perfect timing, Michael thought, absolutely perfect.

“Command, Tac. Estimate eight seconds to hostile missile release.”

“Command, roger.”

“Command, Tac. Hostiles have gone to restricted search mode. I’d bet my pension we’ve been selected.”

“Command, roger. No takers.”

“You do surprise me,” Michael muttered under his breath. Who else would the staff controlling the exercise select for a missile attack?

“Command, Tac. Hostile missile launch. Time to target sixty-four seconds.”

“Command, Mother. Stand by turn hard right.”

“Abort, abort.” Michael’s voice cut across Mother. “Turn left under the decoys and cut the corner onto the next turn. Put us back on the final track with 1 k to run.”

Even if what she had wanted to do was standard operating procedure, Michael could see that no matter how hard Mother turned, Moaning Minnie would be uncomfortably close to the debris of missiles closing in on them at 5,000 kph. Even if they cooked off on the decoys, the warhead debris would spread out in a high-velocity cone to envelop the fleeing Minnie. And if they survived, they would still have to get Minnie back where she belonged-back on track heading for the landing zone to dump her hypothetical load of heavily armed marines and their mounds of equipment precisely where they wanted to get off. Sure, the risk was small, but it was a risk. But by turning left, Minnie could duck under the decoys and give the incoming missiles no time to decide that she was a better target.

“New track up, Shrivaratnam approved. Stand by, forty seconds to turn, fifty seconds to missile impact.”

“Roger. Command approved.”

“Stand by turn left.” This turn would be uncomfortably sluggish with no starboard engine to overcome the port engine’s opposition. Hopefully, it won’t matter, Michael prayed.

And around they went, smooth as silk this time, Mother winding the power back as Minnie settled down for the final approach.

“Command, Tac. Stand by missile impact in ten…Stand by. Multiple warhead explosions behind and above us; no hits, no collateral damage. Shrivaratnam reports hostiles breaking off. Ground attack