Earth Strike by Ian Douglas Page A

and both lights and display monitors dimmed and flickered as the screens strained to dissipate the surge of energy grounding out of the sky. It wouldn’t be long before the screens overloaded; when that happened, the defense of Mike-Red would come to an abrupt and pyrotechnic end.
    The large three-view in the center of the HQ dome currently showed the Marine beachhead—a slender oval five kilometers long and perhaps two wide, sheltered beneath the shimmering hemisphere of an energy shield array six kilometers across. They were well-situated on high, rocky ground, but the terrain offered few advantages at the moment. The enemy was attempting to burn them out, pounding at the shield with nukes and heavy artillery, some fired from space, some fired from emplacements surrounding the beachhead and as far as a hundred kilometers away. All of the ground immediately around the Marine position was charred and lifeless, the sand fused into black, steaming glass. Incoming fire was so heavy the Marines could not lower the screen even for the instant required for a counter-battery reply.
    That was the worst of it—having to sit here day after day taking this hammering, unable to shoot back.
    “General!” one of the technicians at a sensor console nearby called out. “We have friendlies inbound!”
    “Eh? How far? How long?”
    “Two thousand kilometers,” the tech replied. “At eleven kps, they should be at the perimeter within about three minutes.”
    “Thank God. It’s about time.”
    Another gravitic round struck, the thunder echoing through the protective shield with a hollow, rumbling boom. A thermonuke struck an instant later, white light enveloping the base, hard, harsh, and glaring.
    General Gorman looked at the small man in civilian dress standing beside him. “Well, Jamel. We may have help in time after all.”
    Jamel Saeed Hamid gave Gorman a sour look. “Too little, too late, I fear. We have lost the planet, either way.”
    “Maybe. But we’ll have our lives.”
    The Marines on Haris had become aware of the arrival of the Confederation fleet only nineteen minutes earlier, when a tightly beamed X-ray lasercom burst transmission had reached the planet. Minutes later, high-energy detonations in planetary orbit had marked the beginnings of a long-range fighter strike, first as sand clouds and dust balls had swept through local space at near- c , then as SG-92 fighters had entered the battlespace and begun engaging Turusch fleet units.
    The arrival was welcome, certainly, but what the Marines on the ground needed more than a fleet action right now was close support, fighters scraping off their bellies on the Haris swamp growth and putting force packages down on Marine-designated targets around the perimeter.
    “Bradley!” he snapped, naming his Combat Information officer. “Punch up a list of targets for the flyboys. Priority on grav cannon, nukes, and heavy PC emplacements.”
    “Aye, aye, sir!”
    Gorman was a Marine, and he would have preferred Marine aviators out there…but right now he would take any help he could get, even damned Navy zorchies. If they could take just a little of the pressure off, there was some hope that the Navy transports would make it through, and they could begin the evacuation.
    How many transports were there? Enough for everyone in his fast-attenuating command? And the Mufrids too?
    Don’t even think about that now ….
    “Looks like a general engagement in local battlespace, sir,” Bradley added. The colonel was standing behind two scanner techs, watching a glowing sphere representing nearby space, highlighting planetary schematics and the slow-drifting red and green blips of spacecraft, Turusch and human.
    “Who’s winning?” Gorman asked.
    “Hard to say, sir. The Navy boys hit ’em pretty hard with that first pass, but they’re starting to lose people now. Two…maybe three fighters have been knocked out.”
    “Understood.”
    A handful of gravfighters had no chance at