Archive of Our Own

Estimate

     The report had arrived on a crypt carried by hand from the windowless Security Committee building across the square. The first page floated above the liaison officer’s desk, bracketed by winking orange Committee telltales. He had read the summary several times, and his eyes still rested on its closing sentence. “Because its effect is highly unpredictable, Abaddon’s exclusion zone is significantly wider than our prior estimates: the zone extends outward two hundred meters from the surface of the ladder, and runs vertically from the city up to the ring.” Pages of supporting analysis followed, the fruits of years of fraught work by Committee agents working secretly in Zalem.

     Two hundred meters. We thought it was only twenty!

     Beyond his desk and through the window – unlike the Committee across the square, Fleet indulged in a view – a flight of corvettes rested on their landing gear. Figures from maintenance crawled around them, running checklists ahead of the evening’s launch, when the corvettes would be cycled into orbit. This flight and a few others like it made up the United Republics’ token defense remaining around Mars. The bulk of Fleet, in its many hundreds of ships, was only days away from Earth.

     So the zone is wide enough for a corvette.

     Not only Fleet was gone, but the invasion forces too. Beyond the corvettes and past the line where the square gave way to red sand, the rolling plain was roughly graded to match the contours of Mare Crisium on Earth’s moon. Weeks ago, mixed human-cyborg brigades had practiced maneuvers across that plain until mere hours before their embarkation. They had left behind footprints but by now these were erased by thin, fast winds.

     And every corvette can land a battalion.

     The officer called to his aide. “Find me some time to address the next Fleet status meeting. And get the staff a security clearance to view this report!”

Moon

      “Fischer, show me the survivors.”

     At Kosaku’s order, Fischer tuned the command deck’s screen to Swan’s hold. From a camera there, inside the airlock, they watched a double file of figures walk up the ramp and into the corvette, gently buoyant in the moon’s sixth gravity.  Their posture, confident and upright, seemed incongruous to Kosaku in light of their appearance – every suit was charred and patched, evidence of blast hits and hastily-applied seals.  Through their helmets he saw large eyes gleaming over fey grins.

     “What do they have to be smiling about?” asked Turner from Kosaku’s right, at the helm. “Earthers just cut down half of their battalion!”

     “More than half,” Kosaku mused. “They got it bad. But they’ve been spoiling for this fight for years. I think they’d still be smiling if they had all died fighting!”

     Fischer looked up from her console at Kosaku’s left. “They’re smiling because they killed every Earther under the dome. A massacre wasn’t part of the mission but they’re thrilled about it. They won’t shut up about it on the suit net.”

     Kosaku frowned at the figures on the screen. “Text them to cut the chatter and focus on boarding. We need to be ready to lift soon. Any word from the other ships?”

     Fischer toggled through reports. “Situation in Serenitatis matches ours. They’re getting half-battalions back, no Earth prisoners.” She paused, her eyes widening. “Imbrium and Vaporum – nobody’s meeting the ships. One hundred percent fatalities on both sides! How is that possible?” 

     “We’re testing a lot of new gear out here. Earthers are too. They must have had a surprise for us.” Kosaku looked at the Earth, hanging in view at the top of the screen. “We have a surprise of our own, thankfully.”

     The double file completed its walk up the ramp. Beyond it, on the grey plain of Crisium, Martian and Earth corpses lay scattered in all directions.

     Turner glanced between the two officers. “The new mission came in last shift, right? When are you two going to let me in on it?”

     “After we lift, pilot.” Kosaku turned to Fischer. “Have we got orders yet?”

     Fischer’s console chimed, and she nodded. “Looks like they just arrived.”

Mission

      Earth’s moon was a pale half-disk behind Swan and her convoy. Ahead lay Earth, only hours away at their steady one gee. Kosaku could almost feel the corvette champing at the bit – her engines could burn much harder – but she was bound by orders to convoy with Fleet’s largest battleships, which made one gee at best, and then only on emergency power. Around, ahead, and astern other Martian convoys surged forward at the same rate, or faster; a flight of corvettes not held back by larger Fleet ships burned at three gees, rapidly disappearing from view.

     “That flight is getting into the fight fast!” Envy tinged Turner’s voice. “They aren’t stuck here minding the battleships like us.”

     Kosaku faced his pilot. “We can bring you up to speed, at least.” He tapped a short command into his armrest. “The new mission briefing will decrypt for you now. Read it in detail. Fischer here has had access since it arrived and she tells me it’s foolproof.”

     Fischer cocked her eyebrow. “Maybe not foolproof. Foolhardy, sure – this mission is as likely as not to get us killed, even if the intelligence is perfect. But we wouldn’t fare much better under our old orders, so it’s a wash.”

     “I’m in suspense!” replied Turner. “We were supposed to join the assaults on the orbital habitats. What else can we do with a hold full of soldiers?”

     “Committee agents discovered a gap in Zalem’s defenses,” replied Fischer. “We already knew they couldn’t focus their tesla weapon on targets inside five klicks – Abaddon is farsighted – but we just learned that they won’t fire it at targets within two hundred meters of the ladder, at any range. Too big a chance of burning through it and dropping Zalem right onto Star City.”

     Kosaku spoke next. “We’re to dive through that gap at maximum gee and take the cities by direct assault. Our squadron of sixteen corvettes will land an entire brigade on Zalem and another down on the surface. This way, we have a good chance to capture their leadership — bombarding the site from orbit would make that impossible.”

     Turner stood up from the helm and took a step towards the screen. On it, a battleship blocked out a third of the stars. Kosaku and Fischer watched Turner in silence. When he spoke his voice was tense.

     “We’re taking these soldiers to Zalem? Through a fifth-klick hole, just praying they don’t fire up their god-damned lightning cannon?” He pointed at the screen. “When that big bastard right there can drop enough nukes from orbit to erase those Earthers ten times over?”

     Turner paused, both hands now clenched at his sides.

     Kosaku sat impassively. “We have our orders.”

     Turner continued. “We’ve trained for the orbital assault for months. We have never trained for a powered descent within shouting distance of a space elevator.”

     Kosaku spoke, his voice dangerously low. “Sit down.” He waited as Turner returned to the helm, stiffly. “You’ll do your duty.”

     “Yes, sir,” said Turner. “I’m sorry, sir.”

     Kosaku nodded. “What is our time to reach Earth orbit?”

     Turner consulted the helm. “One hour to turnover, three and a half until we make orbit.” He sighed. “A two hundred meter gap. Captain, that will be tight.”

     Fischer spoke from her console. “The fast movers will make orbit much sooner; they’ll probably start exchanging torpedoes with the Earthers in twenty minutes.”

Dive

      The command deck was lit with the deep red of battle lights. Before Kosaku, the screen displayed a green outline of Earth as seen from the pole, intersected by blue tracings indicating the orbital ring, its ladders, and farther out a sprinkle of habitats. Swan’s convoy, a tight cluster of red icons, was stationed in geosynchronous orbit high above the continent home to Zalem. Closer to the surface, hundreds of Martian and Earth ships in red and blue raced faster around the planet, surrounded by a dizzy rainbow of pips indicating torpedoes and countermeasures.

     Turner spoke from the helm. “Dive order has arrived – Fleet found us a window. We’re to cancel orbital velocity, compensate for Zalem’s distance from the equator, and otherwise point our noses down and go. Thirty minutes at five gees. Burn in two minutes.”

     “Two minutes? Cooling our heels up here for an hour and they give us two minutes. Wait – what was that?” Kosaku leaned forward towards the screen. “Replay that sector!” He pointed to a region on the screen above their orbit.

     Fischer consulted her console. “The computer didn’t flag anything there. Replaying.” A rectangle on the screen stuttered, and then for an instant displayed a yellow icon as the replay caught up to the present.

     “Could just be weapon radiation hitting our phased array,” said Fischer. “Lots of fireworks down below – radar is dismissing five false positives a second right now.”

     “Could be. Still makes me uneasy. What is it that we’re not seeing?” Kosaku rubbed his temple. “Report it to Fleet – we’re leaving behind enough firepower up here to handle it, whatever it is. Time until dive?”

     “Forty seconds,” said Turner.

     Kosaku opened a channel to the hold. “This is Captain Kosaku. Lieutenant colonel, confirm your battalion is belted in for five-gee burn.”

     A voice from the hold spoke from the deck intercom. “Confirmed. Get us down in one piece. Gelda out.”

     “Thirty seconds to five gees,” said Turner. Yellow strobes began supplementing the red battle lights.

     Kosaku hailed the other corvettes of the squadron. “This is Captain Kosaku. All corvettes be ready to follow flight leads. Leads report back ready for burn.”

     “Swift ready.”

     “Bittern ready. Are we really going to make it through that hairball in low orbit?”

     Turner announced fifteen seconds. On screen a cluster of red icons disappeared as they were met by blue pips.

     “Essential comms only, Bittern,” Kosaku said. “We’ll make it through. Fleet’s maneuvering to draw the fight away from the top of the ladder. Wren?”

     “Wren ready!”

     Fischer closed her eyes as Turner applied a final confirmation to the helm. As the engines lit Kosaku felt a great hand push him into his seat, and sixteen corvettes began gathering speed away from the convoy.

Zone

     Kosaku could barely focus on the ladder. On screen, viewed from the side, it was a manic cylinder flickering up at six kilometers per second, lit only by the white glare of their engines — the sun had disappeared behind the curve of the Earth minutes earlier. Banks of windows whipped up in staccato bursts; docking bulges heaved upward like meteors falling backwards.

     “Three hundred fifty klicks to surface. Ring transit in twelve seconds,” Turner managed. After nearly half an hour, speaking at five gees was painful. The tongue moved strangely and the lungs strained to push air.

     “Confirm flights arrayed for ring transit,” ordered Kosaku in a hushed voice.

     Fischer confirmed, almost imperceptibly. The squadron hurtled tail-first past the orbital ring in flights of four, furiously decelerating from the peak speed it had reached at turnover a dozen minutes before.

     Kosaku hailed the squadron. “All ships enter the zone. Go carefully – no margin for error.” He closed the channel and spoke to Turner. “Take us in.”

     As Turner worked the helm, Kosaku felt a slight tug as Swan leaned inward. The ladder enlarged on screen into an obscene blur. Spaced evenly around it, the other three corvettes of Swan’s flight copied her lean into the zone.

     “Distance to ladder?” whispered Kosaku.

     “One hundred and fifty meters,” answered Turner.

     “We’ve entered the zone.” Kosaku paused, then coughed a small laugh. “Think Zalem knows we’re coming?”

     “Our engines are running so hot,” Fischer paused to breath, “it must be bright as day down there.”

Abaddon

      “Getting new readings below,” said Fischer. She tuned the screen to show the view down, the ladder racing upwards from the dark surface of the Earth. “Matches our Abaddon model. It’s charging.”

     “They won’t dare fire at us this close to the ladder,” said Kosaku.

     “Unless the intelligence is wrong,” replied Fischer. “Readings are spiking!”

     Kilometers below the squadron, a golden bloom of ball lightning blossomed open in space near the ladder. The corvettes raced down to meet it.

     “No time!” shouted Turner. He could do nothing but grip the helm.

     Swan’s flight of corvettes whipped past the bloom as an electric arc crackled inwards towards them. The three higher flights of corvettes followed, the arc dancing among them, and then instantly the threat was fading away far above.

     “Report!” called Kosaku.

     “Abaddon is recharging,” Fischer said. “And Wren is missing.”

     “Find her. A corvette doesn’t just disappear,” said Kosaku. He faced Turner. “Zalem won’t risk another shot if we hug the ladder tighter. How close can you fly us?”

     “She’s stable up here but once we hit atmosphere she’ll start to buck,” Turner replied. “Fifty meters?”

     “Readings spiking!” called Fischer.

     Kosaku hailed the squadron. “In to thirty meters. Now!” He felt a sharp yank as Swan lurched closer to the ladder. It swelled ominously at the edge of the screen.

     “Distance?” asked Kosaku.

     “Thirty meters, give or take,” replied Turner.

     “Readings are flat,” said Fischer. “They’re holding off. And I’ve found Wren. She’s below, falling dead at five klicks per second.”

     Kosaku hailed the corvette. “Wren, status?”

     The deck intercom crackled with static. “No signal, captain,” said Fischer. “I read no engines, no reactor. Slow tumble away from the ladder.”

     “By now they’re going to crater even if they get the engines relit,” said Turner. “They’re out of room to stop!”
     “Fifty seconds for them,” said Fischer. “Twice that for us, under power.”

     Fifteen corvettes hugged the ladder, burning bright, two hundred kilometers in the sky above Zalem.

Damocles

     “Time?” asked Kosaku.

     “Sixty seconds until we cut to one gee. Passing one hundred klicks. Starting to feel atmosphere; gets thick in another thirty seconds,” replied Turner.

     “And Wren?”

     “Ten seconds to go,” Fischer replied. “Tumbling hard and red hot. Locks are open – she must have deployed her battalion into space. Bad odds, but better than riding her all the way down into the dirt.”

     The command deck watched silently as Wren completed her dive. The corvette impacted on farmland beyond the wall protecting Star City, throwing up a curtain of dirt like a fountain. The ground shook as a visible shockwave surged outward, collapsing a swath of buildings behind the wall.

     Kosaku made fists with his hands. “Earther bastards.”

     The deck intercom chimed. “We’re being hailed,” said Fischer. “It’s from Zalem.”

     “Let’s hear what they have to say.” replied Kosaku. Fischer opened the channel.

     “You found a place to hide from Abaddon. Clever.” The man’s voice was smooth and calm. “But your friends in orbit have nowhere to hide from Damocles.”

     “Surrender your city,” growled Kosaku. “Otherwise we’ll take it by force!”

     “You and what fleet?” asked the voice from Zalem.

     Kosaku closed the channel with a punch to his armrest. “What the hell is Damocles?”

     “No idea, captain.” Fischer frowned at her console. “New readings, this time above.” She tuned the screen forward, to show the racing ladder disappearing up into the black sky in front of Swan. “Another match for our Abaddon model, but its scale is off the chart! Large spike in –”

     The whole sky flashed white, crossed by a tangle of golden bolts. The screen chirped and displayed a test pattern as the deck lights flickered off.

     “What!” Kosaku barked in the darkness. “Turner, are we still flying? Fischer?”

     Turner worked the helm intently as the deck lights returned. “Still standing on our tail at five gees. Twenty meters to ladder.” He gulped. “Still descending at two klicks per second, forty klicks to go.”

     On screen the test pattern blinked out and the sky appeared again. “Squadron is still diving in formation with us,” said Fischer. The sky was burning. “Oh my God,” she gasped.

     From the horizon to the top of the sky, rainbows of auroral energy swung over the Earth and the fifteen corvettes diving down the ladder. Countless shooting stars blazed across the sky in all directions.

     “Put up tactical,” whispered Kosaku.

     On screen, the familiar blue tracings of the orbital ring and its ladders appeared, intersecting the green outline of Earth. Between these, the corvettes hugged Zalem’s ladder as a cluster of red icons, descending imperceptibly. The space beyond the ring was empty except for a new yellow glimmer above their previous station high in orbit.

     “Hail Fleet,” ordered Kosaku.

     “No response.” Fischer found her calm again, working the console. “No radar contacts, no friendly codes. Scopes have a visual on debris where we left the battleships. They’re gone.” She paused to wipe sweat out of her eyes. “Fleet’s gone. Ours and theirs too. But the anomaly above our old orbit is back. It’s huge. Whatever just happened – it started there.”

     “Damocles.” Kosaku stared at the screen. “The Earthers had another surprise for us.”

     The engines roared dully under their feet. Outside, the sky was deepening into sunset shades of red. Seconds ticked by until Kosaku spoke again. “Fischer, decrypt our letter of last resort.”

     Fischer nodded. Turner spoke from the helm. “Full stop imminent. We’re there.”

     Kosaku opened a channel to the hold. “This is Captain Kosaku. We’re arriving. You’ll have a minute to prepare while we fight to your landing zone. Maybe less.”

     There was no strain in the voice that replied through the deck intercom. “Ready to kick the door in. Gelda out.”

Zalem

      As their engines finally cancelled the last increment of speed built up during the dive, the corvettes came to a perfect stop in the sky. Below them Zalem was a vast glittering disk, a metropolis suspended over a second, even vaster city on the surface. They hovered around the ladder where it met a nexus of cables that draped outward to the edge of the disk, supporting its circumference as firmly as the ladder supported its center. Past the edge, the cables draped even further down to distant anchors.

     Kosaku hailed the squadron. “Make for your landing zones, hugging the ladder and cables! Weapons free!”

     The corvettes tipped gracefully away from the ladder until they hovered sideways, and began a corkscrewing descent that weaved among the cables and down the ladder. Cannons in Zalem found clear shots upward and began firing. Swan’s return fire boomed through the command deck.

     “Fischer, have you got the letter ready?” asked Kosaku. “Read it out.”

     “It’s just two words,” she replied. “’Destroy Zalem.’”

     Several speechless seconds again ticked by. The corvette nearest Swan caught a burst of cannon shells astern and began yawing wildly, spitting flames.

     “Of course, destroy Zalem.” Kosaku watched the stricken corvette enter a flat spin. “If we captured the city now who would we turn it over to?”

     He hailed the squadron. “You’ve all seen what just happened in orbit. And you know what it means: we’re not going home. Our only duty now is to obey the command in our letter of last resort, and it is simple: destroy Zalem.”

     Kosaku paused as the spinning corvette exploded, sending a hailstorm of debris falling toward the city below. Turner cursed under his breath.

     “I wish our holds were full of torpedoes,” continued Kosaku. “But we have soldiers instead. So that’s what we’ll use. Bittern lead, Swift lead, make for the surface and land your flights’ battalions as close to Zalem’s stem as possible. Wren flight, Swan flight, make for your landing zones on the disk. Make sure every battalion understands the new mission.”

     Kosaku closed the channel to the squadron and opened one to the hold. “This is Captain Kosaku. Earthers wiped out everything above the ring. As far as we know we’re the only Martians left around Earth. Your new orders are to destroy Zalem.”

     “Understood.” The voice from the deck intercom didn’t hesitate. “Easier than capturing it. Gelda out.”

     As they settled low over Zalem, half of the corvettes surged outward and over the edge of the disk, headed for the surface. The rest, including Swan, sought their landing zones to disembark their battalions.

     Turner spoke from the helm. “Captain, we’re closing in on our landing zone. Fifteen seconds.”

     Nearly to the disk’s edge, Swan heaved in close to a pylon pierced by a cable running from its nexus at the ladder, now far above, to its anchor on the surface, still far below.

     “Fischer, open the airlock,” ordered Kosaku. “And prepare to give our battalion the green light.”

     Now between Zalem’s skyscrapers, rather than above them, Swan descended cautiously, even though none of Zalem’s cannons could find the corvette among the structures. Her airlock slid open, admitting a wave of humid night air that washed over the waiting battalion, carrying alien scents from Earth. The jump light over the airlock shone red.

     “Five seconds,” said Turner.

     Directly under the corvette, a cannon emplacement erupted from the soil of a city park and elevated its barrels into Swan’s belly.

     “Cannon!” exclaimed Fischer, as she frantically worked her console. “Bringing ours to bear —”

     Still shedding soil, the cannon fired a burst of shells that punched into Swan from port to starboard, sending shrapnel ripping through the hold and across the ranks of the battalion. Too late, the corvette’s own cannons replied, wrecking the emplacement and the park around it.

     “Report!” called Kosaku. Alarms blared as Swan pitched drunkenly backwards towards the edge of the disk.

     “They cut us in half,” replied Fischer. “All systems failing!”

     “I barely have the helm!” called Turner.

     Swan tipped tail-first beyond the edge of the disk and began sinking below Zalem. As Turner fought for control, the corvette swayed back and forth over the cable descending from the pylon to the distant anchor.

     “We need to get back up to our landing zone,” said Kosaku.

     “No chance,” replied Turner. “She’s not going up again. Best we can do is control how she falls.”

     “We’re over the cable. Can you keep us here?” asked Kosaku.

     “Yes – for a few seconds!” replied Turner.

     “Do it,” ordered Kosaku. “Fischer, give them the green light.” He opened a channel to the hold. “Get your battalion out, lieutenant colonel. It’s now or never.”

Cable

      From the back of the hold, Gelda saw the jump light turn green. Between her and the airlock, the shredded interior of the hold was a slaughterhouse, strewn with the cyborg and human remains of her battalion. Red and blue blood ran together on the deck in every direction as Swan struggled to keep an even keel.

     He said it’s now or never.

     “Green light!” Gelda picked up her rifle and began a dash toward the airlock. “Move! Move!”

     There was no time to count the dead or comfort the wounded, even as they reached for her – there was only enough time to slap those still standing on the shoulder as she passed them.

     Here’s forty-four, and fifty. Here’s ninety-nine!

     “After me! Come on!” Closer now, through the airlock she saw cannonfire, a burning city, chaos.

     Those not too stunned by the carnage to act started sprinting behind her. Only as Gelda reached the edge of the airlock did the dark, swaying cable below come into view.

     She leapt into the night.