By the time we reached Avalon, a few hours had passed. Unlike the teleporting trick I pulled on the Sagittaur fleet, we couldn't just warp right on top of the three troop ships. The gravity of Avalon would affect our Alcubierre Drive and break our ships apart or something. Not to mention, we risked emerging right into the planet itself and…that wasn't a pleasant scenario to imagine.
Instead, I focused on the massive, bloated troop ships. They were no longer spewing their cargo of drop troops, but were holding position in orbit over Avalon and providing fire support by bombarding various areas. My scowl deepened when I zoomed in and saw the atmospheric conflagrations caused by relatively weaker lasers, which appeared more for precise targeting than wholesale destruction.
After all, if they wanted to slay a world, kinetic kills would bring about an extinction event on the level of what occurred with dinosaurs 65 million years ago. Antimatter would be much, much worse, devastating whole segments of the planet and all but obliterating it. just a few grams of antimatter would release unimaginable quantities of energies. I couldn't predict what several kilograms or even tons of antimatter would do to a planet.
Avalon would probably cease to exist.
However, they were slow and holding position, so they were sitting ducks. Easy targets. For whatever reason, they refused to move from their current locations despite the surviving human ships bearing down on them. Were they more resilient than their combat ships? Or did they have a surprise waiting for us?
I didn't want to find out. Instead, I gave the order.
"Fire torpedoes."
A holographic screen tracked the trajectories of the torpedoes as they swam away from their launch tubes at the prows of the human ships. Like sharks, they glided silently in the void, illuminated by the plasma glows that propelled them forward. Many minutes later, the torpedoes' simple AI adjusting their course and making corrections whenever necessary, they reached the Sagittaur troopships and impacted.
I watched warily, half-expecting a forcefield or something that would nullify the torpedoes. I had watched too many science fiction movies…and I still remembered that famous scene in Independence Day where Will Smith's pilot character, along with the US Air Force launched missiles as an alien ship, only for them to detonate harmlessly against an esoteric barrier. Most likely, this would be the case here. Though I wondered why their battleline ships didn't possess such protection.
And then the torpedoes punched through the fragile hulls, drilled deep inside the massive troopships and exploded with nuclear fury.
We had made the necessary calculations and struck at an angle, firing the torpedoes from a plane that came from above Avalon's ecliptic. That way, even if the torpedoes overshot or missed their targets, they would sail above Avalon's atmosphere and continue streaking onward toward space instead of crashing into the planet. We had also calculated the resulting force of the explosions and the directions in which the debris would be blown away in, and hit from an angle that would minimize damage to the planet's population below.
The explosions tore the three titanic troopships apart and sent their wreckage wheeling away from the planet. Those pieces of debris that did eventually fall toward the world below, unable to resist the embrace of gravity, began burning up in Avalon's atmosphere. With the force of the fusion torpedoes, the majority of the troopships were vaporized by the sheer heat, and so the pieces that fragmented and fell toward the planet were relatively small.
Avalon's atmosphere would do the rest.
"We're coming within range!" Lin Xue reported. "Adjusting course so that we will hold orbital positions far from the point of impact. We don't want to be running into wreckages and a sea of radiation."
"Space is full of radiation, anyway," I muttered. "It's the ozone layer of planets that keep the radiation and cosmic rays out so that life can thrive on their surfaces."
"You know what I mean. Even if the ships of the line and escorts can withstand the intense heat from those explosions, the dropships aren't as durable. No point taking risks when there's no need to."
"No argument there."
"We'll drop wherever we must," Lionel Johansson said, standing up from his station where he was monitoring the space combat. He nodded at me. "With your leave, Commander, I will go take charge of my legion now. We have a planetary war to wage."
"Godspeed, and good fortune to you, Knight-general."
After Johansson left, Shang Xiao stared at me in astonishment. "What's with that archaic manner of speaking? Are you acting in a historical drama or something?"
"No, I'm just being a pretentious prick by imitating the pompous dialogue spoken by characters from the Warhammer 40,000 universe."
Shang Xiao glanced at Lin Xue, who simply shrugged and returned his blank stare with an expression of resignation.
"Never mind. Anyway, I'm going to get ready to deploy on the surface too. I'm not letting General Johansson and his knights have all the fun to themselves."
The dropships were being readied, but first I had to coordinate with Avalon Command because I didn't want to get my soldiers blown out of the air by friendly fire. Friendly fire was far from friendly, and it would be a colossal waste if we came all the way here just to be killed by the very people we were supposed to save.
Holographic images floated around me as I consulted maps. Aegis and Arondight hovered about, providing an overview of the strategic picture on Avalon. It appeared that the Sagittaurs had landed on three vital positions, overrunning Avalon Army positions and razing everything in their path as they made for as of yet unidentified objectives.
"I don't understand what's going on," General Gallus said, communicating simultaneously with me and Lionel Johansson. "There doesn't seem to be any discernible goal. They are avoiding the population centers, which is good news for us, but the bad news is that we don't know what they want. They did destroy a couple of cities that happened to be in their way, but instead of sticking around, they continued onward."
He waved at something in the air, and a new window appeared next to his screen, projecting estimated paths of the enemy if they maintained their current trajectories and movement patterns.
"They seem to be heading for this mountain right here." He tapped on the map and expanded it, conjuring a real-time screen capture of the mountain. "This is Mount Excalibur, the tallest mountain on Avalon."
"That does look huge," Shang Xiao remarked, staring at the window over my shoulder. He was much taller than me, so he towered over me and had no problem looking from behind me. He seemed impressed. "It's even taller than Mount Everest."
"It's not as tall as Mount Olympus on Mars," I muttered.
"Who the hell cares?!" Lin Xue snapped. She stared at Gallus. "What's in this Mount Excalibur? A holy sword?"
"A…holy sword?" the Avalon general repeated incredulously.
"Never mind. Do you have any idea what they might want there?"
"I have no idea," Gallus said. "We have nothing there. Maybe a few adventurous mountaineers, but that's about it. perhaps they want to mine the mountain for resources. Rock? Diamonds? Minerals? But they can just as easily find those elsewhere."
"It doesn't matter," Lionel Johansson cut in. "Let's prioritize landing our forces first. Do you have landing zones for my knights?"
"Ah, yes. We have prepared landing fields for your dropships. I'll send you the coordinates." Gallus nodded and swiped a few more screens to transmit the details to us. "Have your pilots contact Avalon Air Control over channel two-seven-five."
"Understood." Johansson nodded grimly. "Do not worry, General Gallus. No matter what agendas the enemy may harbor, as long as we crush them, they will all be for naught. We will not let them reach that mountain."
"I concur," I concurred, and then rolled my eyes at the redundant dialogue tag. Clearing my throat, I continued. "We'll do our best to crush the Sagittaur before they can get to the mountain, but we should investigate it later."
"One step at a time, Commander," Johansson said. "We should focus on the present task of eliminating the enemy first. Only then can we begin considering other objectives."
"Yes, sir. Of course."
Shang Xiao, Lin Xue and I managed to locate a shuttle in the hangar, but instead of the enormous sleek bug-shaped dropships that Johansson and his knights were strapped in, we had chosen a lighter and smaller shuttle with swept-back wings and resembling a dove. It had a few weapons, of course, light lasers and a plasma cannon, but it was nowhere as heavily armored and armed as the dropships.
That was fine, because it was much faster, more agile and maneuverable.
"Let's go!" I said as I sat at the pilot seat. Once Shang Xiao and Lin Xue had strapped in, I yanked on the controls and had my shuttle drop. The bay doors opened up beneath me and the shuttle descended, seized by gravity. Gripping the controls, I tried to steady the little ship as it descended, but I had no way of getting rid of the violent tremors that shook us.
"Couldn't we just teleport to the surface?" I complained to Aegis and Arondight when I felt my stomach heave and my vision swam from the tempestuous rocking.
"No, it's more fun this way."
"Also, it wouldn't be a science fiction story if we don't have at least one dropship scene."
Seriously? That was their reason!?
Shaking my head in exasperation, I pulled the shuttle up sharply, the air around us turning red-hot from friction. Laser batteries from below spat ruby orbs at us, not the antiair weapons of the Avalon Army, but the Sagittaurs. Apparently, their mobile fortresses and vehicles were nearby.
We were coming in hot, not too far away from one of their known positions, to reinforce the buckling line of Avalon armor. As the descent steadied and the shuttle was no longer buffeted by turbulence, I spared a glance at one of the holographic monitors. The line of Avalon tanks was being blown apart by precise volleys of laser fire from long-range Sagittaur artillery.
Actually, the whole Sagittaur army seemed to be nothing but artillery, supported by teeming horde of calvary.
No, not calvary. When I zoomed in and magnified the screen, I saw that they weren't alien horses. The Sagittaurs themselves were their own horses…they were centaur like aliens, a humanoid torso growing from the top front of an equine body. Hooves stampeded upon the ground, and brown fur covered their bodies.
"Centaurs," Shang Xiao said. "They are bloody centaurs."
"There are a few differences, though. Their faces, for example, don't look very human." Lin Xue was studying them seriously.
"They are missing scorpion tails, and why do they have mouths? And why aren't their fur blue?" I whined. Both Shang Xiao and Lin Xue stared at me.
"What are you talking about?"
"Never mind." It was clear that nobody in this generation read Animorphs by Katherine Applegate, even though they were now made freely available on the Internet. It was a waste. They were one of the best young adults/teenage fiction I had read in my youth.
Instead, I did a barrel roll, just like Sergeant Herrera requested. The only thing I was missing was an elite fireteam of Colonial Marines, ready to take the fight to the xenomorphs at the Katanga orbital refinery station. A ruby lance seared past us, just missing our wing because of my little stunt.
"Ugh…" Shang Xiao looked a little ill, but he knew better than to ask me to keep the movements to a minimum. He would rather throw up than get blown up.
"Over there!" Lin Xue was just as pale and sick, but she pointed a shaky finger at the landing zone. I nodded and eased my shuttle into landing mode, banking sharply to the left to evade another long-range laser from the Sagittaur. Pulling up its beak-like nose, I then guided the shuttle to the landing field, feeling the impact as the wheels hit concrete. There was a screech before I braked and the shuttle came to a slow halt.
We had finally set foot on Avalon.