Converge Chapter 3
The next morning, Bron and the rest of his team boarded a black SUV and followed Commander Ztren up the 9A to the north end of Manhattan. In the daylight, Ztren was revealed to be a stocky woman with slate gray hair pulled into a single tight braid, trailing down the back of her much patched senior lieutenant's uniform. She had a perpetual frown on her otherwise soft featured face. Her eyes, when she glanced back over her shoulder at Bron's vehicle, were dark, like smoky quartz.
A short time after the highway entered the old growth woods that comprised Inwood Hill Park, they disembarked, and she took them along a recently cut trail that led to higher ground. It was carefully arranged for maximum concealment, and, though she had to move in a crouch, even the commander could move unseen by any unfriendly eyes across the Hudson River. The sky was a gloomy, featureless gray, and Bron tugged the collar of his green parka tighter around him against the cold wind.
Bron was still in good shape, and was barely out of breath by the time they reached the hidden hilltop observation post occupied by the Borough Defense Unit. Dug in to camouflaged bunkers, a mixed platoon of Terrans, giant, and micronized Zentraedi kept the north, west, and east approaches to the narrow island of Manhattan under constant observation. After being introduced to the post officer, Bron was allowed to inspect the site. He quickly noted that while the local soldiers were well-equipped with precision binoculars and even some night vision scopes, their armament was light; hand held automatic weapons and a few Zentraedi Armada issued auto-rifles. These giant scaled firearms were at least equivalent to the cannon on a twentieth century tank. Then he spotted a familiar figure moving toward him through the serious-faced Bororough troops.
"Aria Stockton?"
The honey-haired military affairs reporter nodded coolly at his question, and held out a hand, which he shook.
"Inspector General," she greeted, looking at him with her intense amber eyes. She was wearing a beige trench coat under her camera harness, and her faithful camera drone hovered just a short distance away.
"Come. You're here to see the opposition, aren't you?" she asked in her clipped voice. Though the former United Kingdom citizen had been a veritech pilot before she suffered debilitating injuries during the war, she had all the mannerisms of a seasoned MBS correspondent, and had never been one to waste time on pleasantries.
"Right." Bron agreed, and let Stockton take him to an unoccupied watch station. They stepped on to the wooden decking and looked through a crenel out at the surrounding landscape. A few tiny, icy snowflakes blew into his face, but otherwise visibility was good. Manhattan was a literal island of safety and relative prosperity in a sea of destruction. The opposite shore in every direction was scorched, blackened, and choked with piles of fallen concrete and masonry, where rusting girders poked out like the splintered ends of broken bones. He could see cars, gray ash over rusted red, standing on end or washed up against the sides of buildings, partially buried in drifts of debris. The Henry Hudson bridge, to the north, still allowed passage to what was left of the Bronx. All else was devastation.
"Washington Bridge survived on the east side," Ztrel murmured, leaning over them on hands and knees. Her eyes were great gray orbs that Bron could see his own reflection in, and he made himself look back at the landscape. "It also connects to the Bronx. As far as we can tell, York only has a blocking and observation force there. It's north and west we're more concerned about. The George Washington Bridge is still standing, and leads into Jersey, though it's really only safe for foot traffic. But a force of hovercraft or boats could easily cross from the western shore to the harbor or marinas on this side in minutes."
"And the tunnels?" Stockton asked.
"Two are intact. The Holland car tunnel, and the Lincoln train tunnel. We've mined both."
"You're being… kind of free with military intelligence," Bron said uncomfortably, glancing sidelong at Aria.
"Stockton may be a reporter, but she is also a proven warrior," Ztrel said with a dismissive wave of her hand that would have taken Bron's head off if he hadn't ducked. "I am not concerned."
"So how strong is York, really?" Bron asked, as he lifted his head again.
"See for yourself," Aria prompted, gesturing at a large set of tripod mounted binoculars. "It has twenty times magnification. I understand they salvaged this set off of a destroyer that was half-submerged down at the piers."
Bron leaned in, wincing slightly as his forehead touched the chilled rim around the lenses. He swiveled, trying to get oriented, and Aria guided his hand to the focusing rings. At first he could see little. Dust. Ruins. The crumbling corpse of Old Earth filled him with regret and shame every time he was confronted with it. He, Rico, and Konda had not been the only catalyst behind the events that had led to the defections, the mutiny, and the last-minute, desperate alliance between the RDF and Breetai's fleet, but could he have done more? Were there lives he could have saved? What about after the Rain of Death? What if they had become involved in events earlier, instead of wasting two years in dead end jobs? The questions were beginning to haunt him, in spite of Mary's praise and Vanessa's reassurances. Did these same thoughts preoccupy Konda, driving him to ceaseless research and networking out of the public eye, to the exclusion of everything else? Was this why Rico's humor sometimes held that bitter, self-critical edge?
The clouds broke apart, and golden fingers of light stabbed down, glinting off smooth, oiled metal. Bron froze. Behind the shattered window of a tumbled brick office block across the river, he could easily identify the barrel of a heavy machine gun. He scanned the surrounding area with a practiced eye. Observation and analysis had been his job aboard Breetai's flagship. Once he knew where to start, he quickly found more camouflaged positions. Observation posts. Artillery revetments. Anti-aircraft missiles, covered by netting. Sandbagged dugouts. Land-mined streets. The work done to hide York's forces was professional, and Bron knew that for every position he had spotted, there were probably many more that he had not.
"What are those armor units back there?" Bron asked. Far from the shoreline, he could just make out a thick, stubby cannon barrel, part of a slab-sided turret mount, and a distinctive bubble canopy.
"VBT-1 Centaur," Aria answered. "A semi-transformable hovertank, built by the UN Army during the Global War. A testbed for some of the first technologies unlocked from the SDF-1. Eventually they decided the destroid was a more promising weapon system. York has close to a battalion of them."
A rumble of thunder rolled out from the fragmenting cloud cover as a flight of F-16's, the third Bron had heard that morning, made a close pass of Manhattan. "Where did they get all of this stuff?" he wondered.
"It was a mad scramble for resources in the wake of the Rain of Death," Aria said. "Admiral Gloval only had so many units he could deploy in North America or overseas. Surviving United Earth Forces troops, cut off from higher command, or reporting to commanders who were no longer alive, had a choice to make about where their loyalties lay, the same as the remaining civilian authorities did. A few units did survive, or the hardware did, in depots hardened against orbital attack. They couldn't survive a direct hit, but the Armada's bombardment was hastily organized. The fleet only had a few hours to find and select targets across the entire globe, while civilians and military units evacuated to whatever shelters had been built in the two years since the Launch Day attack. The UEG was well aware that Earth was vulnerable."
"Surviving military units from across the eastern US consolidated around the junta in York - a cabal of ex-UEF officers united by their hatred of us, and their distrust for the UEG leadership," Ztren added. "We know they systematically raided weapons stocks around the Northeast military district, including mothballed equipment, which is how they recovered the F-16's and Centaurs."
"Weren't you able to get any heavy weapons of your own? You-" Bron lowered his voice, looking around at the resolute, but ill-equipped defenders. "You don't seem to have a lot to work with."
Ztren pursed her lips, and shook her head. "Manhattan is peaceful. The Borough council encouraged us to leave our weapons, along with our old lives, behind, when we came out of the wastelands. President Abhram thought that the leaders in York were just afraid of attack by rogue Zentraedi, and that if we didn't stockpile weapons, we wouldn't look like a threat. The equipment we have was intended for driving off raiders and for local law enforcement. We're so short of gear that I gave up my own set of combat armor to a trooper at one of the guard positions."
Bron sighed. "All the local units really threw in with York?"
"Not everyone. The Persephone was docked in the harbor during the Rain of Death. They took some damage, and we tried to convince Captain Kekoa and his crew to join with us, but once repairs were finished, they decided to stay with the UEG. Still, York might have been even bolder if that carrier weren't anchored out there." She gestured toward the Atlantic with a tilt of her head. "There were a few others, individual UEF troopers and officers that didn't agree with what the junta was doing, that deserted their units. Some of them have offered to help."
Aria's eyes narrowed. "Do you know if they can all be trusted?"
Ztren looked sidelong at the troops in their sheltered positions, and didn't answer. Bron shifted uncomfortably. The idea of not being able to trust the soldier to one's left or right was both entirely unfamiliar to him and deeply disturbing. The mass mutiny and defection of Breetai's fleet was an event unheard of in centuries, and the records of earlier occurrences were suppressed and limited to sealed data files accessible only to Exedore and other high ranked fleet advisors. As for out-and-out treachery, the Zentraedi had only learned of the concept since coming to Earth. Bron and the others returned to the hillside trail, where they could speak in private.
"Outgunned, outnumbered, and possibly infiltrated by turncoats," Aria said, pointedly, "and yet you still plan to fight."
"We know how bad the odds are, but we are not going to simply give in to York's demands," Ztren replied.
"So what happens if they attack?" Bron asked.
Ztren scoffed. "We lose."
Shelters. Tank traps. Concrete barricades and crane-stacked containers, piled forty feet high. Pits blasted in the streets, blocking major thoroughfares. Fortified apartment blocks, layered with sandbags and thousands of feet of razor wire. Booby-traps. Land-mines. Stockpiles of explosives, scavenged from abandoned construction sites. Strategically placed caches of weapons and Molotov cocktails, filled by volunteers working around the clock. Commander Ztren and her Terran counterpart, a UN marine captain who had retired after the Global War ended, put into place every defensive strategy they could think of, short of preemptive spoiling attacks. Despite all of the effort, the defenders could at best slow down, not stop a full-scale invasion by York's armed forces.
"We're really just hoping to hold out long enough to carry out our evacuation plan," Director Carstein told Bron, patting the rusting orange hull of the three-decked Staten Island Ferry. "We've readied every ferry and excursion boat that's seaworthy, and a few more that aren't," he added with a grimace.
The Manhattan side of New York Harbor was eerily silent. It was impossible to prevent observation from the hostile far shore, and so the preparations were only made under cover of darkness. Bron, Mary, and a handful of Manhattan officials and dock workers were out on the pier. Bron's skin crawled at the thought of how many weapons held in unfriendly hands might be tracking him right now. He tried to focus on what Carstein was telling him.
"It's as much the urban landscape that will work against York, as any organized resistance," Carstein continued. "Manhattan is densely built up, and an attacker can't count on any of the streets being clear. Every city block is a potential ambush site. The plan is to slow them down long enough to fill all the boats we have with civilians and get them out to sea."
"But surely they'll try to stop the boats. They have troops over there right now, watching us," Bron pointed out, frowning.
"We know," a lantern-jawed Zentraedi in orange and brown coveralls said. Aderac, the harbor supervisor, had been a flight direction officer on one of Dolza's cruisers, managing the launch and recovery of Gnerl fighter pods. Now he managed the docking and logistics of the watercraft on the Manhattan side of the harbor, from tugs to ferries to tourist boats, all the way up to the handful of container ships. Carstein had been interrupted by an urgent call, leaving Aderac to discuss the details of the plan. "Before any of the boats cast off, we're going to launch barges loaded with trash and tires, and set them ablaze. The smoke will hopefully screen the evacuation, and the enemy aircraft will be busy supporting the main attack on the city."
"The Persephone is still offshore." Mary said, rosy-cheeked and swaddled in a heavy muffler against the cold. "The UEG Assembly declared this morning it would provide asylum to all Manhattan refugees. Any boat that reaches the UN Navy battlegroup should be safe."
"But the risk…" Bron shook his head. "The refugees will be helpless targets out there. If York has any small attack boats, or even holds back one flight of F-16's, there could be a massacre in no time."
"Just what do you think York intends for us when they occupy Manhattan?" Aderac demanded. "You've heard the stories. We'd rather face the sea than trust their 'mercy.' If you're really worried about us, don't waste your time trying to talk us out of this, get your UEG to help."
"I promise, I'm doing my best," Bron said, red-faced from his own feelings of helplessness and shame, rather than the cold. The sense of responsibility was gnawing at him more painfully with each hour he spent in Manhattan, and with each new person he met, whose life might depend on what he reported to the UEG. Perhaps the news of the evacuation plan would be enough to convince the Assembly of how desperate and deadly the situation was.
Carstein finished his call. Unlike most of the planet, Manhattan had cell service, even if it didn't extend more than a short distance beyond the island. As Carstein snapped his phone shut, he clenched his jaw.
"We need to get back. York has signaled that they're sending over an envoy. They're bringing us an ultimatum."
"Third group of twenty contacts approaching on new vector. Performance profile suggests Regult battlepods. Group Two has taken fifty percent losses and is attempting to break contact with Reyes's squadron," Vanessa reported, peering at the compact blue screen of her mobile terminal, interpreting the white-lined grid and the movement of red, yellow, and green icons. She had no cause to complain; if Admiral Hayes hadn't ironed out the details of joint UN Spacy / Allied Zentraedi Fleet operations with Breetai during the capture of the Factory Satellite last year, Vanessa would have probably found herself standing on the round glass plate of a Zentraedi sensors display the size of a dance floor, trying to puzzle out the different symbols and relaying orders through her headset. Each bridge station was the size of a two story building, and the cavernous, crowded main floor of the Sal-Dezir's bridge rang with the deafening reports and commands of a Zentraedi ship on war footing.
Lieutenant Straza, at her own terminal in the overlooking command bubble of the Sal-Dezir's bridge, reacted instantly to Vanessa's report. "Gold Sabers, regroup without delay and move to intercept new contacts! Relaying approach vector now." A veteran of countless campaigns, Straza was adapting well to her temporary role as flight direction officer for Reyes's squadron during the afternoon's exercise, particularly because she was more familiar with the capabilities of battlepods than any other living officer.
Reyes and his pilots moved back into formation and sped toward the larger and more numerous foes without hesitation. Vanessa had quickly learned why Reyes had qualified for the Lightning test program and for squadron command. He was talented, but not in the same class of superhuman piloting skills that Max and Miriya Sterling resided in. He was charming and well-liked, but did not have Rick Hunter's natural, almost unconscious leadership qualities. What he did have was a surgeon's precision as a flyer, and a situational awareness that extended beyond himself to every pilot under him. He was constantly watching, warning, encouraging, and organizing his pilots, without ever losing focus or leaving himself vulnerable. A well-led veritech squadron flew as a number of mutually supporting flight groups. The Gold Sabers fought as a single entity, and Vanessa found it almost frightening to watch the way they descended on the next group of battlepods and began neutralizing them in a perfectly orchestrated onslaught of target locks and overlapping fields of fire.
Vanessa was wearing two hats, acting as overall mission commander and as sensors technician for the UN Spacy side of the live exercise. The training cohort was scattered all over the ship - bridge, engineering, launch bays, and gunnery decks - observing how combat operations were handled aboard the Sal-Dezir. It was a great opportunity for learning… and to get a sense of the mood and preparedness of the Zentraedi crew.
Vanessa had never had to coordinate an engagement of this size without access to a standard sensors station, and missed the wall-sized display of her old position on the bridge of the SDF-1. She missed the presence of Kim and Sammie at her back even more. There was a twitch in her shoulders as she reflexively started to turn her head to call out an update to Admiral Gloval, and stopped, swallowing against the lump in her throat. It was up to her now. There was an immediacy to that fact that she hadn't felt in any of the simulations on the Factory Satellite. Vanessa steeled her resolve, scanned the combat area again, and saw the opening.
"Order Hecate to burn retros and come to new heading! Target all weapons onto enemy destroyer Delta-Charlie! Engage and destroy!"
Her coms tech relayed the orders to the UN Spacy destroyer's outmatched but determined crew. The dagger sleek ship radically altered course and then dry-fired all four of its primary particle beam cannons. It then locked on with its battery of heavy Trident anti-warship missiles. The Zentraedi destroyer, designated Delta-Charlie for the exercise, was maneuvering alongside the Sal-Dezir's two other escorts when it exposed its vulnerable belly, and Vanessa's computer quickly calculated the results and flagged it as crippled, then destroyed. The hubbub on the bridge rose in excitement as the vessel fell out of formation, leaving its command ship momentarily unprotected.
"Full release, all Reflex weapons! Execute attack on primary target!" Vanessa ordered, her heart racing. The Valkyries of Reyes's Gold Sabers, pursuing and picking apart the latest group of battle pods, broke contact, shifted to guardian mode, and then flipped 180 degrees, releasing a full spread of notional Reflex missiles. It was a reversal of Vanessa's defeat in the Tokugawa simulation. She held her breath, tracking the path of the missiles, the distance closing in seconds.
"Warheads armed! Detonation in three, two, one-!"
The bridge crew lapsed into a stunned silence, then roared. Their voices mingled outraged disbelief with awe and respect. Unable to contain herself, Vanessa cheered, her voice joined by Straza and the other trainees. Then Vanessa felt a dark presence towering over her, and turned, craning her neck. Captain Gotta was there, looking down at her, his green eyes murky and unreadable. Vanessa expected an outburst, remembering Straza's description of his stubbornness and short temper. Instead, his voice was subdued, heavy and low, resonating through her bones and driving a spike of anxiety through her.
"You have destroyed my ship. Impressive, Commander Leeds. But the exercise is not yet over."
Vanessa's jaw dropped, and she whipped back around to her monitor. "Signal Hecate! Evade! Evade!"
Too late. The Sal-Dezir's two surviving destroyer escorts unleashed a full barrage of low powered beams, bathing the Hecate in a blue nimbus. Vanessa's readouts flickered red and reported the friendly ship lost with all hands.
"Gold Sabers! Gold Sabers!" Vanessa heard Straza calling out, "Go to full thrust and attempt breakout at nav-point Echo!"
Scores of Gnerl fighter pods converged on the veritechs, closing off every line of retreat. Reyes rallied his pilots and struck back, but they were hampered by the fact that their standard payload of missiles had been swapped for the Reflex warheads they had just expended to destroy the Sal-Dezir. In spite of the heavy toll they inflicted, the squadron lacked the firepower to break free, and began to take losses. The last few Valkyries, fighting back-to-back as battloids, were snuffed out each in turn, until Reyes gave a final groan of frustration over the coms. The bridge became very quiet. Vanessa stood paralyzed, her mouth dry, her tongue pressed hard against the roof of her mouth. This felt worse than her defeat in the Tokugawa scenario. She slowly turned around to look up at Captain Gotta again, her entire body stiff. The Captain did not acknowledge her.
"The exercise is concluded," Captain Gotta announced to the crew. "Section chiefs are to report to me in two cycles for debriefing and evaluation. We will, all of us, improve," he said darkly.
"You do not seem pleased with your success," Gotta said. "The destruction of a command ship and a destroyer for the loss of one obsolete and much inferior destroyer and a single veritech squadron is a mighty victory. You have embarrassed my crew."
He made no mention of whether he was embarrassed. Angry? Vengeful? He was keeping his face expressionless, and that unnerved Vanessa. He was not behaving as she would have expected, based on what Straza had told her. The two of them stood alone in the command bubble. Gotta had tersely ordered the space cleared of other officers, Terran and Zentraedi, immediately after the exercise ended.
Vanessa was uncertain of how to respond to him. Zentraedi command culture was different from her own. Would he be insulted if she shared her true feelings about the outcome? She swallowed, and collected her thoughts. She was beginning to accept that she had always gained more by speaking her mind, even if it often put her in uncomfortable situations. She looked again into Gotta's green eyes, their depths unknown, closed to her like the surface of a moss-choked bog.
"I… was not prepared for the scale of losses suffered by my forces, Captain. The UN Spacy has few warships right now, and cannot afford Pyrrhic victories," she said.
True enough, and yet that did not entirely explain what she was feeling. After her defeats on the Factory Satellite, whatever the reasons for them, she felt shame. She had personally failed, let down her crew mates, and disappointed Lisa. Today though, she felt horror, and guilt. The Hecate was a real ship, with a real crew. She liked Reyes, and now knew the names of each of his pilots. If this had been a real battle, every one of them would be dead. The responsibility was hers. Maybe the raw numbers of the exchange were favorable, but that would never be enough for Vanessa.
Gotta made a rumble in his throat before responding. "It depends, does it not, on whether the sacrifice is worth the gain?"
"I suppose," Vanessa agreed. "But most training exercises don't tell us what the stakes are in the mission briefing. I… I have to feel like I still failed my crew, even if I didn't fail my mission objective."
"I see. So a single Terran life is worth more to you than many Zentraedi lives."
"Absolutely not!" Vanessa said fiercely. "I mean- forgive me, if I made it sound that way," she added, deflating. "The war taught me to see the value in all lives, or to at least try to. Just destroying the enemy doesn't justify all the suffering that would result."
Gotta raised an eyebrow. "The Masters would not agree. Why else would they create and maintain an entire race of expendable warriors? If an objective is not met, it is clearly because not enough lives have been spent."
"And what about you? What is a life worth to you? What is your ship, your crew, worth to you?" Vanessa pressed back, her tone challenging. She did not enjoy being toyed with. She couldn't read Gotta, and she was determined to find out what he really believed.
"You ask what is the worth of a dying ship crewed by a dying race?" Gotta asked, his voice at first low and rich, then sinking to a rasp. His face twisted, and Vanessa took a step back. She wanted to stand her ground, show the resolve expected of an officer, but here, alone, the giant awakened a primal fear. Whatever lay within the depths of those eyes was dangerous, perhaps deadly, and she was so very small. She couldn't even get down from the platform that elevated her to the height of Gotta's chest without the help of a full-sized Zentraedi. Gotta's fists clenched at his sides, with a sound like the trunks of oak trees groaning in a wind-storm.
"Captain, I-"
"My opinion is clearly unimportant," Gotta said, regaining control of his voice. "Just look around you at the state of my ship, my crew. Anyone who wishes to leave may do so at any time. And why not? What duty is there to perform? What battle is there to fight?"
"You can't believe that!" Vanessa called back, trying to rally, trying to put some strength in her voice.
"I said it doesn't matter what I believe!" Gotta growled, striking a hammer blow against the wall panel at his back with his fist. Vanessa could see a dent the size of a bomb crater as the ringing of the metal died away. Then the panel, a sheet of alloy as wide as a two-car garage, dropped free and hit the deck with a sound like car accident. Gotta regarded his handiwork, and barked a laugh that was utterly devoid of humor.
"How fitting. More damage that will never be repaired."
Vanessa realized that she was clutching the front of her uniform jacket, and relaxed stiff fingers. She forced a breath into her frozen lungs.
"What you believe does matter. It matters to me," she managed to say.
Gotta's chest rose and fell. His own breath was like a draft of air from a deep cavern.
"What matters is accepting that the Fleet is dying," he said, his voice falling again.
"If you believe that, why have you brought your entire crew out of cryostasis? Why is your ship's complement of mecha fully armed and ready? Why take these training exercises seriously at all?" Vanessa demanded, dropping all pretense.
"Because there can still be dignity in death. Dignity in how one faces it. Or how one seeks it. That was true when the Zentraedi served the Masters. It's still true now."
"How do you intend to face it?" Vanessa asked, her sense of foreboding growing.
Gotta stared down at her, then thumbed a com panel. An aide answered.
"Your orders, Captain?"
"Convey the Lieutenant Commander to her unit's quarters," Gotta ordered. "We are finished, for now."
"Yes, my lord."
"Go back to your officers, Commander. Hear their observations. We will speak again tomorrow."
The aide wheeled Vanessa out on one of the carts, his own bulk blocking her view of Captain Gotta. The last she saw him, he was staring at projec-beam readouts. Readouts that were, ultimately, meaningless.
What does he intend to do?
Next time… the envoy, crossed sabers, and dead-stick reentry…