14 November, 2115:
At first light, barely minutes after we launch Anton and his transmitter-building team in a pair of our most-functional ASVs, MAI flashes us the real-time of an attack on Melas Three.
Rockets come flying out of the desert to the west, roughly aiming at the launch pad where Morales and her crew are trying to get the newly refitted AAV off the deck for a test flight. Long-range optics pick out the familiar cloaks of Nomads, flutters of red-ochre camo against the rocky landscape like the rocks themselves are moving. The outer batteries fire back, selectively tearing up rock and sand, but by then—barely a few seconds delay to confirm targets and firing orders—there’s no sign of cloaks or movement of any kind on our sentry systems. Either they dug in after the volley, or they’re disciplined enough not to give away their positions even when they’re getting cut to pieces.
The first two rockets fall just short of the pad, banging into the rammed-earth slopes that dampen the bunker sidewalls. Morales begrudgingly runs her team for cover below decks. A third rocket is better aimed. The AAV pilot—Lieutenant Jen Samuels, a trainee before the Big Bang—does probably the best thing she can do under the circumstances: she cranks the maneuvering jets and turns the big aircraft, its landing legs lifted only inches above the pad, and takes the hit on the starboard wing. The projectile blows away about a third of the sizeable delta wing, kicking the whole ship sideways and punching scrap metal through the empty utility carrier pod beneath it. But the scream of the engines sounds clean, and there’s no potentially catastrophic hydrogen leak, only Samuels spitting a few choice obscenities because a chunk of shrapnel cracked her cockpit plexi.
“Can you get air?” I hear Lisa—who’s moved over to Melas Three to serve as base commander—coaching her on the Link. Samuels answers by burning up off the pad, then performs an evasive jag to avoid another rocket. Her broken wing collapses and hangs off the side of the ship, dragging on the deck. A sequence of short bangs kicks both wings off the ship as she blows the pivot assembly explosive bolts, and the ship shoots higher (but less gracefully) without the extra weight. Bullets are pinging off the hull. “Get some distance, Lieutenant,” Lisa orders, but then I hear Matthew cut in before Samuels can confirm.
“You got belts in your turrets, Lieutenant?”
“Minimal load only in Nose A and B, sir,” she tells him, “and I don’t think MAI’s got targeting tuned.”
“Then fly, Lieutenant,” Lisa repeats. “We’ll make you enough room for a Gopher-Hole landing as soon as we can give you some cover.”
“She’s got a lot of wobble, Colonel,” Morales puts in. “Not advised.”
“I’m also not keen on opening a drop bay with the red-sheets so close,” Matthew counters. “Last thing we need is something hot lobbed into our innards.”
“Can you pop a few Pinballs over their heads?” I chime in to ask Lisa, feeling like I’ve just done what Matthew did: trod over her authority. Even though this is her first base command, she’s as competent as any of us.
“Kinda mild response, given the sitrep,” Matthew criticizes face-to-face as I get myself into Ops.
“Best spread without a good target,” I remind him. “And it’ll hurt.”
Lisa’s already taken my advice and launched a pair of the anti-surface warfare weapons over the heads of the Nomads’ firing position. Pinballs airburst over a potential enemy entrenchment, spraying tens of thousands of flechettes capable of piercing light body armor. The idea during the Eco War was to pop pressure suits and discourage anyone on the ground from continuing the fight. But since there’s no longer a risk of suffocation, I’m hoping to just wound, and to give Samuels an opening.
“Bay Two, Samuels,” Lisa orders. “Gopher!”
The Gopher was developed to get a damaged ship down, assuming it was under fire by pursuing Discs, and was a signature of the Melas Three airbase. The elevator pad on Bay Two drops fast down to hangar level, making a hole in the bunker. The incoming ship flies over, brakes hard and drops as quickly as it can, then the blast doors seal up over it. But it does leave the hangar vulnerable for several seconds. Hopefully the Nomads are too busy bleeding to take advantage.
Samuels looks like she’s fighting the controls as she brings the ship over the open bay. But before she can line up, MAI’s blowing alarms because another rocket is heading for her.
“Drop hard!” Lisa shouts. The rockets blows the tail off the ship before Samuels can react. The ship lurches and the nose catches the edge of the bay as she tries to keep stable. I hear her curse again. Then she cuts the engines back a little too hard and the broken AAV slams down hard into the deck, crumpling the landing gear. I can see pressurized gas bleed out near the rear engine assembly.
“It’s okay!” Morales confirms, sounding more than irritated. “It’s just O2. No mix.” MAI gets the blast doors shut and cranks up the exhaust fans. Samuels pops her emergency hatch and scrambles out, looking mostly intact on the sentry monitors.
Lisa sends another Pinball. No sense wasting our own rockets—the Nomads are smart enough to avoid giving us a target.
Sakina immediately volunteers to deal with the situation, but I insist she remain at Melas Two with me. Her review of the video feed confirms that the attack was most likely by Farouk’s band. A call to Abbas confirms that they’ve got a new leader: Farouk’s nephew Mohamed, young and eager to make his name, and by all reports smarter than his late uncle.
We keep close scans of the valley all day. I agree with Lisa’s unwillingness to risk sending troops to flush out the Nomads. They haven’t moved since the attack, likely unwilling to show themselves no matter how badly they’re hurt.
Nightfall confirms this theory, as motion sensors and night-vision show cloaks slinking away in the dark and cold. In the morning, a flyover finds three bodies. We make a show of giving them a quick burial in the gravelly soil close to where they fell.
Morales needs two new wings, one tail assembly and some cockpit polycarb to fix the AAV, some of which she can scavenge from the other wrecks, the rest she can patch together. Spare landing gear parts are still plentiful in stores. Samuels was offered another ship, but seems content with being grounded for awhile.
But with all the excitement, we weren’t paying as much attention as we should have to Anton’s mission.