War of Alien Aggression 5 Cozen's War by A.D. Bloom Page B

them could escape."
    " Get us to the enemy’s homeworld moon" Ram said. "We have to end this war."  

 
    Chapter Fifteen
     
    The Squidies’ gas giant loomed over the Lancers and the forty-one, remaining fighters, filling Jordo's cockpit with blood red, monochrome light. The reflection of Beta Draconis off the clouds was bright enough that he could see Paladin’s face in his helmet. And Dirty’s. Neither of them rotated their heads or looked around now. They kept their eyes fixed on the aliens’ homeworld moon.
    The thin atmo of that rock had an elusive green tint that could only be seen at the edges. Even from this far out, the muddy yellow ridges and blue-green valleys made it clear why they called it the 'moldy pea'. The Squidy population lived almost entirely underground in cities carved out of the soft rock. Besides the glittering places their mega-nests broke the surface, yellow, crusty, volcanic hills and cyan lowlands dominated.
    The last fighters of the Hardway Air Group ripped across the vacuum towards it. Lancer 1-1 looked for Boomslang on LiDAR and radar and saw nothing, not even faint IR emissions from her exhaust. For a single, fearful instant, he thought maybe that wasn’t because of her stealth, but because she actually hadn’t successfully launched from Arbitrage before the enemy turned that ship to debris and gas. With any luck, Boomslang had slipped out of the bay while all eyes were on the death of Matilda Witt and they had been a hundred Ks away by the time the first of the alien warheads and the vengeful salvos from the Squidies’ fleet found Arbitrage .
    " Take a peek to our 3 o'clock," Burn said.  
    " Nothin’ there. Not that I can see." But then, the glimmer of an intermittent heat reading 100,005Ks to starboard flashed in his helmet visor. It was gone in an instant, but he knew it was them. All at once he felt relief and fear flash through him. That ship’s stealth wasn’t perfect. If he could see them, even for an instant, then so could Squidy.  
    "Network of planetary defense stations coming up," Burn said. "And then the defense satellites around the homeworld moon itself."  
    The coded message from Hardway came as text. Every one of them got it and Jordo was thankful for that. Of the forty-one pilots, only four of the remaining squadron leaders knew the real reason for this extended and suicidal breakaway incursion all the way to the aliens’ homeworld moon. Killing Matilda Witt was just sugar on the pill and not telling his pilots their real mission still felt like a betrayal, but none of them could risk talking about it now.  
    The order from Hardway said to bypass the blockade guns and the orbital defense strongholds and use the 38th SD and the remaining warspite torpedoes on the Lancers' Sky Jacks to attack the city-sized alien fleet headquarters in orbit around the homeworld moon. It looked to be three times the size of Sagan Station and the main Staas Yards. They might damage it, maybe, but the real mission was to make a path for SCS Boomslang by ensuring that nobody was looking her way while she crept up on the homeworld moon to deliver the war’s final blow. Disruption and distraction was their real mission.  
    "We're going a ll the way to Squidy Town," Paladin said. "Like Hardway could stop us now that we’re through the lines."  
    Dirty said, "We've o nly got six torps left between us and the 38th. Do they really think that’s enough for a battlestation?"  
    "We’ll hit it in the sweet spot," Burn lied. "Spybirds discovered a critical vulnerability." She made that up and Jordo couldn’t tell if they believed her.  
    The battlestations in orbit around the aliens' sulfur and cyanobacteria covered moon all glittered at once. The exhaust flares looked like a thousand sparks breaking away from the alien defenses and swarming. "They're launching a lot of something . Multiple contacts from multiple points. Small," Dirty said, "Fast. Faster than fighters."
    " Here come