“We’ll do what we can,” Rogue One says. “Fucker’s too fast for our cannons unless he’s close, and we’re Winchester on air-to-air.”
I hear more heavy gunfire in the distance—not the Devil’s Zipper sound of the Shrike’s massive antiarmor cannon, but the slower staccato of drop-ship autocannons. Somewhere in the alleys beyond the contested intersection, MANPAD launchers send their ordnance skyward. I can’t tell who launched them, or whether they’re aimed at our drop ships or theirs. My plot is a mess of red and blue icons in close proximity, the battle rapidly escalating into an unwise clusterfuck of epic proportions. One of the fleet Shrikes makes a low pass at full throttle, gun blazing at a target over by the airfield half a klick away. I shoot a hundred-round burst of fléchettes after it in frustration, even though I know that the little three-millimeter tungsten needles from my rifle won’t do much more than scratch the paint. The Shrike banks sharply to the left and roars away, dumping clouds of countermeasures in its wake.
The shock wave of an explosion shakes the earth under my feet so hard that I have to take a step back from the concrete barrier for balance. When the sound of the detonation rolls across the city, I know right away that whatever just went off was way too big for a conventional warhead. All around me, the shooting ebbs. I turn toward the source of the sound and see a massive plume of frozen earth and ice reach a thousand feet or more into the sky to the north. Some of the troopers next to me shout in surprise and confusion. Then the ground shakes again, another titanic thunderclap bounces the dust on the street in front of us, and a second plume of frozen ground and dust rises near the first one. Now all the shooting near the admin building has ceased, friendly and hostile fire alike. There are only two kinds of weapons in the task force arsenal that can throw frozen dirt half a klick high on impact like that, and I’ve had enough nukes lobbed into my vicinity to know that these are not nuclear warheads.
“What the fuck was that?” Sergeant Fallon asks in an almost comically quizzical tone.
“Kinetic strike,” I answer. “Someone sent down a little notice from orbit.”
“Now hear this,” Colonel Campbell’s voice comes over the fleet emergency channel. “All fleet units, listen up. This is Indianapolis Actual.
“I just fired two kinetic warheads at the ground between Camp Frostbite and New Longyearbyen. There are ninety-eight more of those in my magazine. All combat action against colonial units or civilian assets on New Longyearbyen will stop as of this moment, or I will launch the next pair right into the middle of Camp Frostbite. If you’re still shooting at your own people after that, I will shoot the rest of my kinetic warheads at every piece of fleet equipment down there that’s bigger than a belt buckle.”
In the brief pause that follows, some of the HD troopers nearby look at each other and laugh in disbelief.
“I also have all four of my nuclear launch tubes warmed up and dialed in on the Midway and her escorts. Rest assured that I will get my nukes off if you shoot missiles at me. I’ve also released both my stealth interceptors with nuclear ordnance, and those things are so sneaky that even I couldn’t find them.
“The fleet will cease all offensive ops on the moon, and recall all its birds to the Midway. Take any offensive action against Indianapolis or any of the civvie installations on the surface, and I will launch every nuke in my tubes at Midway. Then you can test if your point-defense systems from two modernization cycles ago can handle two dozen half-megaton warheads from short range.”
Sergeant Fallon shakes her head with a disbelieving grin and looks at me. “Did he just threaten to shoot nukes at one of our own ships?”
“He did,” I confirm. “But he does have a history of that.”
“I think I love that man. I want to meet him.”
“What you’re doing on that moon down there is reckless idiocy that’s costing lives,” Colonel Campbell continues on the emergency channel. “Consider putting someone in charge on that flag bridge who isn’t a clueless part-time warrior. Now recall those birds and cease fire, or the next brace of kinetic warheads goes out into Camp Frostbite in sixty seconds. Indianapolis Actual out.”
Nearby, some of the HD troopers clap and cheer.
“You think he’ll do it?” Sergeant Fallon asks.
“I wouldn’t doubt it for a second.”
“Gee, too bad they shuttled their entire space ape regiment into Camp Frostbite just a little while ago,” she says wryly. “I’d hate to be back there right now. Those kinetic rounds hit pretty hard. I bet they make big holes.”
All around us, dust and dirt from the massive impact plumes to the north of town have started to fall like dirty rain.
“Yes, they do,” I say. “All the punch of a low-yield nuke, without that nasty radiation.”