Operation Arrakis: Central Command by scifantasy "Missiles! Hope Flight, we have missiles airborne. 23, 47, 69, still coming!" Sci, now sitting in the Red Home's pilot chair, hit the switches to start the engine and tapped out an emergency commcode. At least they can't blame this one entirely on me, he thought as his comm started the authentication dance with the SACUL system. "Mike," he called to the intercom, "get to a gun port." On second thought, they probably will anyway. Sci tapped out a text message and plugged SACUL into the comm traffic silently. He wanted them to hear, not to talk, and they weren't good at the whole "stay silent" bit. Sci was already activating the radio and decrypt sequences for getting onto the allied flights' communications net when the sensors picked up on the patrols heading his way; Josh's warning came a second later. Sci acknowledged it and waited tensely. As soon as the channel was open, Sci started talking. "Allied patrols, abort your approach." "Who is this?" Sci tapped a command into a console and a US military identity and codes came up. "Major Nommoc Esnes, special operations division." A snort came from the other end. "This is Lieutenant Colonel Mike L. Likdaor, and unless I miss my guess, I outrank you, Major. So you had better have one hell of a good reason for me to turn back." "I have orders from Allied Central Command, authentication code India- Delta-One-Zero-Tango--" "Son, I don't care if you're calling from the President himself, I'm not turning around while those missiles are out there." Sci rolled his eyes--quickly. "If you keep flying, you're about to fly into an invisible energy barrier that'll turn you into a pancake." "What? Leave me alone." The line went dead. "No luck, Seven," Sci reported. "Nobody's list--" "Sci, try the self-destruct on the control module!" "What? Why?" "Hyper says the missiles and the shield are coming from the same place! If we take out the shield we might get the launch control facility too!" Sci slowly shook his head. "Acknowledged, Seven." He turned to Arrek, who blanched, and gestured. "Set it up. I'll hit the button." Arrek swallowed, nodded back, and turned to his console. Sci waited as Arrek woried, checking his scanners as he watched the planes approach the barrier. "Major, wait!" Thayer broke in. Sci tensed himself for what he knew was coming. "Becki could be in there!" "I know, Hope Three," Sci said. He could actually hear his voice get wearier, thought some detached part of his mind. "But if we don't stop those missiles a lot of lives will be lost today." After a few seconds, Arrek looked up, and nodded. Sci pressed the send command. Nothing. Sci sighed with relief. "No good, it's still not responding." He checked the engines--in the green--and engaged the repulsorlifts just as Josh advised the same. As he watched his scanner, the distance between plane and shield went to zero, and the plane exploded. The other two planes in the formation tried to pull out, but they were going too fast, and both impacted the shield. He switched back to the allied communications. "Allied patrols, abort your approaches, let me handle this." He got startled "Acknowledged" responses from the allies, and breathed a sigh of relief. He switched gears again, checking the SACUL feed, and was very glad it was muted. They were screaming their heads off. Sci ignored it--they'd stop in a minute and get to work. Next was the ground team... "Lead to Blade and One. What's your status?" "We've found Becki," came Kristy's voice. Whew. "You might want to get back to your entrance, or maybe just go on and meet the rest of the team at the shield bunker...but then, maybe it won't make any difference either way at this point." Sci made the last course correction to bear down on the launch site, and waved Arrek to another gun port. "Boss, we're kind of in a situation here. Could you not be so much with the tergiversation?" Sci actually managed to smile and find a spare second for humor. "A sesquipedalian situation?" "Okay, I deserved that. But what the hell's going on?" "Subtlety approach failed--enemy has launched some birds. Our pilots are after them now." He flipped channels just in time to hear them start to ask questions and got back on with Hope Flight. "Thayer, the ground team's found Becki. She's safe." He heard "Thank God" and smiled tightly, maneuvering the Home taking up most of his attention, as Arrek began to pick off missiles. Suddenly his sensors registered a loss of power to Thayer's rear shields, and he heard a shout. "Check your fire, Cochran!" "Then stay out of the way, dammit!" Sci swore under his breath, but the changes in the battle were top priority. As the teams split, Sci had the Home's computer run the numbers on their velocity and acceleration, and when Brad asked, Sci called up the results. Not good. The missiles were a well-deployed pattern, one intended to saturate the areas with fire, a handful per site. Worse, this was not a military strike. Among the targets in the first salvo were the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, the White House, and the Capitol. All the military might in the world would bounce off of the shield, so no wonder they're not going for bases. Thankfully, Arrek and Mike were doing a great job with the second wave as they approached--that one was probably monuments and more capitols--so none of them were making it out. Any that got by them got suckered by the countermeasures the Home was deploying. A side display lit up with a camera feed from Josh's fighter. Sci spared a second to look, and his eyes narrowed. As he and Josh discussed the missiles' origins, Thayer and Noreh turned the last of their targets to dust and circled back to help the Home. Sci checked his tracking and swore again--if Josh and Brad didn't take out the last missiles fast they'd be outside the shield. Suddenly Noreh and Thayer were pounding fire on the launchers, and the missile barrage stopped. Sci smiled tightly until the pair of SAMs blazed trails for the fighters. "Arrek--" "I'm trying," came the other man's voice, "but I can't get a good shot. The fighters are too close to the--" The phrase Sci muttered when the missile hit Thayer's ship could have gotten him ejected from the cheapest Black Sun brothel in the galaxy. Meanwhile, another part of his brain noticed, Josh had missed one of the final two missiles. Sci kept eyes on both Thayer and Josh as they tried to regain control of their situations... Suddenly the last missile exploded rather violently. As Arrek, Brad, and Josh cheered, Sci joined in half-heartedly, mostly concentrating on the fact that Josh hadn't fired anything. He only knew of one other way to blow up missiles like that. But now wasn't the time for that conversation, Sci thought, as Arrek returned from the gun port and stood in the doorway watching Thayer's ship hit the ground. "Oh, no, Thayer..." said Arrek. "What?" came the voices of Becki and Kristy. Sci checked the comm and grimaced. The ground team's frequency was open.