Edge of the Vortex

  Edge of the Vortex

  The Earth Saga V

  DONALD B McFARLANE

  Copyright 2017 Donald B McFarlane

  Cover Art by Luke West

  www.donaldbmcfarlane.com

  For Anyone Paying Attention

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank the following people for their support.

  Nick Beaudrot

  Nick Cryne

  Tom Lindley

  Leo & Milos

  John McFarlane

  Zach North

  Nathan Pullin

  Jim Sells

  Asa Sherrill

  “The Real Joe Hunt”

  Marc Stickley- Technical Advisor

  Edge of the Vortex

  1

  Kansas

  16 January

  “No contacts.”

  Sinus Fu looked up from his flight controls at Kio for a brief moment, then back down to his instruments. They hadn’t met any Alliance resistance in orbit but had picked up comms chatter about one enemy vessel making a run from the planet’s surface and causing a bit of a nuisance, but other than that, things were quiet. And in addition to the lack of Alliance push-back, nothing was leaving the ground to come up to engage his flight, which consisted of his stealth ship and two troop carriers that would appear on any detection systems that the humans would have.

  “30 out. Make sure the Sentinels are ready.” Fu ordered. He was well aware that his task was the key to the entire attack on Terra. Once the Barrier Generator was in operation, a counterattack by the Alliance would be futile. The planet would be under Coalition control, and that would hopefully spell the end of the Alliance and the war.

  “’Bots online and ready.” Kio reported.

  Fu quickly triggered the communications systems. “Security team leaders, remember to set your perimeter 100 from the Generator. Transport pilots, immediate dust-off once your cargo is down.” Fu killed the channel. He hadn’t worked with conventional forces in many years, and while this operation was not considered a full-scale planetary invasion, it was one of the largest land assaults conducted in recent memory.

  The stealth ship dropped smoothly through the clouds towards the target that was chosen as a suitable location for the Barrier Generator. The three Nexus Drives would be set up at positions antipode to the Generator, with one being near where the mineral was discovered, and two other drives being located in the southern half of the planet on remote islands.

  The bulk of the 10,000 troops assigned to the initial attack on the globe would be extracted once Sector Commander Varus, who was in overall command of the effort, was convinced that no more resistance was to be expected from the locals. Fu wasn’t sure when that would be or certain of what would happen if Varus went through with his plans to vaporise the six large cities to drive the Terrans to subjugation.

  Dropping the landing gear, Fu put the ship on autopilot and got out of the flight seat and moved towards the rear of the ship where the kit lockers were located and grabbed his helmet, and his rifle then joined Kio and watched as the rear hatch started to lower, revealing a cold, featureless landscape that was twenty metres below the ship and getting closer every second.

  Putting on his helmet, Fu ran a quick systems check on his armour, and then flipped up the blast shield on his visor to give himself a better view. Fu was surprised that nothing had tried to intercept them on their descent, but he knew that sometimes discretion was the better part of valour, and if their objectives could be won without the shedding of blood, he wouldn’t complain.

  When the skids on the stealth ship finally hit the ground, Fu and Kio dashed down the ramp, weapons up and ready, storming away from the ship for five metres before hitting the ground. Behind them, the four Light Sentinels that were attached to their team split left and right coming out of the ship, heading around to the front and sides of the ship and set security.

  Fu waited for the ‘set’ notifications from the robots, which were moving a little slower than he would have liked to come through on his heads-up-display. Tech getting old. Once the all-clear came in, Fu just had to wait for the company that was providing the outer cordon to get set before he started the Barrier Generator set up. Fucking conventional forces were the bane of his existence.

  “Down.” Came in through Fu’s headset. The troop transports were supposed to hit the ground the same time as the stealth ship. They were late.

  “Setting perimeter.” Was the next transmission.

  The ground around Fu was as flat as possible, with good visibility in all directions. There appeared to be minimal dead-ground in the arch of fire that Fu was holding down on within four hundred yards. It was the perfect location to defend.

  “Set.” The notification that Fu was waiting for finally came through.

  “Kio!” Fu pushed himself up from his prone position, and quickly slung his rifle over his back and started running back towards the stealth ship. “Echo one through four, collapse to the transport. Ready Generator set-up!”

  Fu quickly charged his way back to the ship and reached the ship’s rear storage pods and hit the release mechanism, opening the two hatches that covered the storage pod that ran under almost half the length of the ship. The pods were ideal for tasks such as this one, bringing in the relay towers.

  “Kio, right side.” Fu knew that Kio knew his drills back and front. He also knew that unless Echo 3 and 4 failed, which droids did from time to time, they would assist Kio just as planned, just like Echo 1 and 2 would help Fu drag the huge Barrier generator mast from the left storage tube, and pull the six sections of twenty metre tubing away from the rear of the ship, and start to attach them to the one hundred twenty metre tower that would act as the fourth and final point of the Nexus Drive that would send a massive force field into the upper atmosphere of the planet that would prevent any spacecraft from entering or exiting the world without the proper shield modulation frequencies. The Barrier Generator was the most critical component in sealing the world off from the Alliance, and any chance of rescue for those still trapped on the surface.

  With the pods emptied, Fu and his team started setting up the system. There was a level stretch of grassland just twenty metres from where the ship had set down, and both teams rushed there with their components. Fu was carrying the lightest part of the three pieces that were dragged from his side, and even with his armour allowing him extra strength and power, he was straining against the load. Perhaps he was just getting too old for this kind of fun.

  Carrying the tip of the relay, Fu raced behind the two much faster droids that were carrying the telescoping parts of the Barrier Generator tower. Looking off to his left, he spotted the two droids that were assisting Kio in the set-up of the ground base and power source for the relay which was in essence nothing more than a giant pole that would protrude out of the ground and act as the central nervous system for the energy field that would engulf the planet.

  The first droid to make it to the set-up point was Echo 1, and it immediately lay down its section of tubing and extended it to its full length while Echo 2 stood nearby, silent, waiting to attach the middle section to the tower relay. Once E1 was complete with its task, E2 quickly moved to connect its section while Fu stood ready, his section cradled in his arms. The lull in action gave him a short reprieve to survey the surrounding countryside. It was featureless and barren. In the distance, he could see one of the troop transports climb away from the ground, just as a pair of Coalition fighters made a low pass over the group.

  Looking to the skies, Fu scanned the horizon and was still baffled by the lack of some form of a counter-attack from the Terrans. He was expecting more than the silent welcome they had received. And just as Echo 2 gave the
team leader the all clear for the final piece of the relay, a call came in over the open net of approaching ground forces from the south.

  “E2, continue assembly.” Fu quickly commanded. “Kio, take charge here. I’m going to check out this contact.” And without delay, Fu was running south, towards the incoming contact.

  It didn’t take Sinus Fu much time to cover the 100 metres to the perimeter that had been set by the forces assigned to protect his mission. Fu was well aware that the forces that were assigned to his detail were adequate, but in many ways, they were not what he would have wanted to guard his flanks.

  The Coalition infantry wasn’t used to ground combat, since the Coalition rarely operated on terrestrial bodies anymore, and the droids, the Lights Sentinels and the Gun-Balls that had been attached were old and unreliable. The last thing Fu wanted was his position overrun, but after his encounter with the child near the Planetary Command Ship, Fu didn’t want non-combatants killed, and when the call came in that an attack force was approaching, he wanted to confirm that the assault force was just that.

  Fu’s Shimmer Suit, while not currently cloaked, still allowed him to move swiftly to the perimeter that had been set by the support element. No time had been allowed to set fighting positions, but the infantry had taken up a defensive stance, and the Gun-Balls, wheeled heavy weapons platforms, were in support-by-fire positions ready to engage any incoming threat.

  Fu found the section commander standing just behind his skirmish line looking out towards a pair of objects that were rapidly approaching the Coalition forces at high speed.

  “Status!” Fu demanded when he reached the junior officer.

  “Incoming enemy forces!”

  Fu could tell there was excitement in the young trooper's voice. It was hard to find conventional forces with combat experience in the service, and there was an excellent chance that the forces that had been assigned to support Fu were green.

  Looking to his left and right, Fu noted that all the organic infantry were laying in the prone position, weapons pointing towards the direction that they were supposed to defend with the smattering of Light Sentinel’s and Gun-Balls stood tall and obvious to any observer ten metres behind the infantry.

  Fu looked out towards the direction of the incoming threat, and using his helmets advanced optics spotted two four-wheeled vehicles approaching their position. It was evident to Fu that the vehicles had a driver and someone in the cab up front with them, and then three passengers in the flatbed behind them. It was also evident to the experienced operator that the approaching forces were not military.

  Looking back at the ground element commander, Fu quickly assessed the armour that the infantry leader was wearing and quickly realised that it was rated several levels below the armour he was wearing, and while probably impervious to any weapons that the approaching threat might have been packing, Fu knew that the last thing that Sector Commander Varus wanted was unnecessary conflict with the local occupied peoples, and if the infantry started taking fire, and even if they suffered the slightest scratch to their armour, Fu knew that they’d lash out with excessive force. What he needed to do was defuse the situation before it got out of hand.

  Looking at his right forearm, Fu double checked that the suits comms system had the local language synced into the Shimmer Suits translation system, and once he was sure everything was in order, he looked at the ground forces commander.

  “Here.” Fu extended his rifle to the infantry leader, who took it without question. “Get down, and don’t fire.” Fu started walking towards the perimeter. “And have your droids hold their fire!”

  The ground was hard under his boots as he walked up to and then through the skirmish line. The skies overhead were overcast, and while his suit kept him comfortable, Fu could tell that his surroundings were cold from the data his suit kept feeding him.

  Magnifying his optical suite, Fu checked the two vehicles that were approaching over the open fields. They were still over three hundred metres away, and moving quickly, but that didn’t stop them from opening fire. One of those days. Fu thought to himself and lowered the blast shield on his helmet. He knew that Varus’s plan of subjugating the planet was contradictory on several levels, strike fear into the hearts of major governments but at the same time, appear to be non-threatening to the locals.

  This was one of those situations where Fu could have easily solved by having the ground force command incinerate the incoming hostiles, but he knew that Varus didn’t want the area around the Barrier Generator turned into an ash-covered wasteland, so patience was the word of the day.

  Fu didn’t bother cloaking his Shimmer Suit, which had been repaired since his last excursion to Terra, he wanted the approaching humans to know that he was coming, and to keep their focus on him, and not do something to startle some infantier into opening fire.

  The two vehicles slowed as they crossed the 100-metre line, and were drawing closer together, which was not tactically sound, but perhaps it was the natural reaction of those that were battling the emotions of courage and fear at the same time.

  75 metres.

  The incoming fire was getting more accurate, and the ground at Fu’s feet was getting peppered hard by incoming rounds. The shooters in the back of the vehicles while not accurate, were eager.

  50 metres.

  First impact on his torso. The Shimmer Suit absorbed the impact and let the spent lead round fall to the cold ground.

  45 metres.

  A red light went off in the upper right corner of Fu’s heads-up-display. The suit had detected a weapon that could pose a threat to him, and without waiting to discover if his suit was correct or not, Fu dropped his right hand down to his pistol and pulled the weapon from its holster, allowing the weapons sync-sight to come up on his HUD, and as soon as he had a clear line of sight on the vehicle on the right, he fired a single shot, followed up by a quick shot at the second vehicle.

  The charged particle rounds tore through the air in a bright purple burst of energy and hit the front-ends of the vehicles fractions of a second after they were fired and stopped the vehicles in their tracks like they had hit a brick wall. Minimal damage was done to the driver's compartment, but the cars engines were melted and fused into a twisted ball of metal in an instant.

  40 metres.

  Fu stopped. It was the locals move.

  Clearly, the sudden halt that their vehicles had come to shocked those that were on board, and when they finally came to their senses, they were still just as eager to continue the fight.

  Fu watched as the men piled out of their vehicles and took up a concealed position behind the rear of the stopped transports while laying down very inaccurate suppressive fire. They were an undisciplined bunch, but they had moxie, and that put a smile on Fu’s face. He enjoyed a prey that didn’t realise that it had been caught or outsmarted or just beaten by better technology. This was the later. The Terrans couldn't combat Fu in his Shimmer Suit, and he knew it.

  The next round that made contact with Fu hit him in the right shoulder and was enough to give him a light shove backwards. Okay, he thought to himself, play-time is over. Quickly switching the settings on his laser pistol to the lowest, he brought the weapon back up and fired off a series of well-placed blasts until all the Terrans, but one was lying motionless on the ground.

  Fu could tell that the last shooter was clearly not one of the more aggressive Terrans since he stopped shooting once his comrades had been neutralised, and lowered his weapon so that it was no longer pointing at Fu.

  Covering the distance to the standing Terran quickly, Fu checked the damage he had caused to their vehicles, which appeared terminal. Reaching the first stunned body, he bent forward and ran a bio-scan of the individual which confirmed his suspicion that the local was just stunned. Standing back up, Fu walked over to the remaining shooter, and flipped up the blast shield on his helmet, while activating the translator that was built into his suit and quickly toggled through the language sel
ections that were programmed into the computer banks.

  He knew based on his geographical location that English was the local tongue, and he quickly switched on the suits external speaker unit and reached the stunned individual who hadn’t moved while Fu had covered the 40 metres to the disabled vehicles.

  Fu knew that he was dealing with someone who had neither professional combat training nor much in the way of fitness. The person was dressed in work boots, a pair of blue jeans, a thick camouflage jacket with an arrowhead logo with the letters KC on top and a cowboy hat on his head. The man had a close-trimmed white beard, and white hair visible under the hat. The weapon he was holding looked to be a bolt-action rifle by Fu’s assessment, and while accurate in the right hands, it was not a threat to his Shimmer Suit.

  Stopping just a metre from the motionless human, Fu holstered his pistol and put his hands on his hips in an authoritative stance. “Terran. Can you understand me?” He spoke slowly and with an emphasis on each word.

  The human didn’t react, he just blinked slowly.

  Fu looked down at his forearm control system and checked that the suits external speaker, which was located on the side of the helmet, was functioning and that he had selected the correct language. Satisfied with what he found, he looked back at the human and repeated himself. This time the person blinked a few times, then looked down at the rifle in his hands, then at Fu.

  “Yes.” The man said slowly shaking his head. He cleared his throat and repeated himself. “Yes.”

  Fu nodded and turned to look at the direction he had approached from. The Barrier Generator was already erected, and he could see a pair of Gun-Balls rolling around what was probably the skirmish line the infantry had established.

  “Do you see that mast?” He asked, looking back at the Terran.

  The man nodded.