A Pale Dawn

by Chris Kennedy

  The lieutenant sent the feed to Nigel’s CASPer. All that remained was a series of glass-like craters carved out of the rocky prominence that had previously stuck out of the desert.

  “Woulda been nice if the mayor had thought to mention that,” Nigel muttered.

  “Maybe she didn’t know,” Douglas replied. “It’s not like there are any cameras left up here to view the devastation.”

  “I don’t care how far down you are…you have to know you just got nuked.”

  Douglas nodded. “You would think. What do you want me to do?”

  “Dropship One, EMS Franklin Buchanan,” a voice called on the radio. “Be advised, you will have to land at the Dixia Cheng entrance and work your way over to Underdeep.”

  “Well, we certainly aren’t going through the front door,” Nigel said. “Take us to that other city entrance they just mentioned.”

  “You got it, sir!” the pilot replied. He paused and then added, “Uh, I’m picking up missile radar emanations from that direction.”

  “Not surprising, since there is a large Goka contingent that’s invested Dixia Cheng,” Nigel replied.

  “So much for my unopposed drop…” the pilot muttered.

  * * *

  Tunnels, Underdeep, Paradise

  Walker’s forces were down to a squad of CASPers and two squads of the Underdeep security force in light armor, and he had to continue to give ground in order to keep the battle from turning into a hand-to-hand affair. In their light armor, the security forces’ lives would be measured in seconds if it came to that. From personal experience, he knew the CASPers wouldn’t last much longer.

  Fucking bugs.

  “Charges set,” Sergeant Waters said. “Those are our last explosives.”

  “Got it,” Walker replied. “Pull everyone back past the tunnel that goes to Dixia Cheng.”

  “We don’t have much farther to drop back,” Rachel DuBois said, “Once we’re past the Dixia Cheng tunnel, it isn’t very far until the tunnel splits and we’ll have to divide our forces.”

  “We don’t have enough forces to divide,” Walker said. “If we split up, the Goka will be on us in a heartbeat.” Walker shrugged inside his suit. “Won’t matter much, anyway, before too long. Most of our suits are low on ammo; we’ll be down to hand-to-hand soon enough.”

  “Colonel Walker!” a runner yelled as he ran up.

  “What is it?”

  “The aliens are breaking through the tunnel to Dixia Cheng!”

  “Shit,” Walker muttered. Just what he needed, more of the damned Goka. Louder, he called, “Everyone back beyond the tunnel to Dixia Cheng! We’ll make our stand there!”

  * * *

  Dropship One, Descending to Paradise, Paradise System

  “How do you want to do this, sir?” the pilot asked. “We didn’t brief a hot drop, and it looks like there are at least a couple of missile systems active there.”

  “Stay as low as you can and bring the other three CASPer dropships into a line abreast. We’ll do a low altitude, low deploy across the target. Once we’re down, have the Lumar dropships land.”

  “You got it,” the pilot said.

  “Just give us a five second heads-up when it’s time to go,” Nigel said.

  He stood and dropped the ramp. “Okay,” he said to the troops as they stood to join him. “LALD protocol. The landing zone is hot with at least two antiaircraft missile systems and an unknown number of Goka. Kill anything black and crawly; don’t let them get in close because their knives are sharp, and they like nothing more than to cut us from our suits. Any questions?”

  There weren’t any as the troopers ran through their final checks.

  “Okay,” Nigel said. “This planet has a bug problem…”

  “…and we’re the solution!” the troopers roared.

  “Damn right we are,” Nigel said. He moved to the end of the ramp.

  “I fucking hate these,” Sergeant Rahimi said as he came to stand next to Nigel and watched the terrain racing past.

  “Beats dropping from orbit,” Nigel said. “You might survive going splat on a LALD.”

  “I don’t care,” the sergeant replied. “I still fucking hate ’em.”

  “Five seconds!” the pilot transmitted.

  “Here we go!” Nigel said. He bent his knees and leaned forward, watching the desert race by just meters below him at about 750 kilometers per hour. Before he had a chance to think, his jumpjets fired, and he was in the slipstream. Something flashed past him—an antiaircraft missile?

  Shit!

  The computer compensated for downrange travel, and he ended up hovering at the edge of the field. He killed the jumpjets, dropped to the sand, and spun to find the rest of the company dropping in four strings across the landing pad. Sparks and fire showed where one of his troopers had crashed. Whether due to suit malfunction or combat damage, the suit hit at several hundred kilometers an hour and cartwheeled across the ceramic pad into one of the anti-aircraft missile systems. Several of the missiles had detonated, destroying the emplacement.

  He was one of the closest people to the other emplacement, and he jumped to it as a missile roared off its rails. In addition to the operator, two more Goka were guarding it, and they came skittering out, firing laser pistols as they ran forward.

  Two MAC rounds killed the first, and one of his troopers jumped in to land on the other, shattering it. Another trooper missed landing on the missile operator, but his arm blade snapped out and skewered it.

  A quick scan showed the landing pad was theirs. “Bring in the Lumar,” he called on the aviation circuit. “Lieutenant Colonel Valenti,” he said, switching to the company channel, “find us a way into the town and someone to guide us to where we need to go.”

  The first dropship was already coming in to land, and Nigel went to meet it. The craft’s ramp was down, and a Lumar jumped off before the dropship had even touched down. A CASPer followed him off the ramp a half second later.

  “Major Sulda!” Nigel said. “Major Gage!”

  “Sir!” said the alien, jogging over to him.

  “Yes, sir?” Gage echoed.

  “Valenti is finding us a way in,” Nigel said. “Sulda, take your troops with him. We don’t want to hurt any of the Humans here, but they might be…surprised to see you. If you see any Goka, kill them immediately.”

  The Lumar nodded once. “Go with XO. Kill bugs not Humans.”

  “That’s right,” Nigel said. They’d been working with the Lumar on the trip through hyperspace and had found that, while they were exceedingly tough and great fighters, the aliens could really only remember three directives at a time. After that, things got complicated for the giant humanoids and they tended to either forget certain orders or jumble the directives together. “Go here, do this, kill the MinSha, and don’t kill the Humans” might very well become “Go here, do this, and kill the Humans.”

  Like any weapons system, you just had to know how to use it effectively, and the Asbaran leadership had implemented a system where the Lumar never got more than three orders, and they always had to repeat what they thought those three orders were. Once that was set, though, the Lumar followed their orders with a single-minded purpose that made them excellent shock troops. As Sulda gathered his troops, smacking some in the back of the head when they didn’t listen, Nigel smiled. They really were good troops…you just had to know how to handle them. He turned to Gage.

  “Take Proud Fist Company and back up the Bold Warriors,” Nigel ordered. “Same conditions apply. Try not to kill any of the locals, but every Goka you find is fair game. If you see anything I’m missing as far as leading the Lumar, let me know. You’ve got a lot more experience with them.”

  “Yes, sir!” Gage replied, with a tinge of surprise in his voice.

  “What?” Nigel asked.

  “Nothing, sir. It’s just…”

  “You didn’t expect me to care about the Lumar? You thought I’d just throw them away like they were e
xpendable?”

  “Well…uh…”

  “This is a mercenary company,” Nigel replied, “and it isn’t cost effective to throw away your assets unnecessarily. I wouldn’t break a rifle, nor would I send someone to be killed, no matter what their race.”

  “Oh,” Gage replied, his voice now tinged with disappointment.

  “It is more than just that, though,” Nigel continued. “The Bold Warriors gave me their loyalty, and, even if I haven’t always liked aliens, this is something I can understand and appreciate. In my culture, loyalty is rewarded. I will not throw their lives away needlessly, nor will I throw away the lives of the Proud Fist.”

  “So, an old dog really can learn new tricks,” Gage said.

  “I’m not that old,” Nigel replied. “But yes, I can.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter Eleven

  Underneath Manaus, Main Continent, Chislaa

  “Do you think you can open it?” Sansar asked.

  “Looks like a pretty standard control pad,” Corporal Eric Chase replied as he pulled out his slate. “My slate can power the pad, but if there isn’t enough power to run the door mechanism, we might have to hook it up to some of the CASPers.”

  As the connection was made, a low hum went through the tunnel, and the glow strips brightened noticeably.

  “What…what are you doing?” Fentayl said. “You didn’t say that you would make it light in here. There are people whose eyes will be hurt by this!”

  “Sorry, Fentayl, we didn’t know that would happen,” Sansar said. She tried to sound soothing, although she didn’t know how much of that would be lost in translation.

  After a couple of seconds, lights winked on down the length of the tube, making it brighter than many of the Minchantaa had ever seen in the perpetual gloom of the jungle. After a few more seconds, the lights dimmed back to just the glow strips, which now seemed extremely dim by comparison.

  “Sorry about that,” Chase muttered. “Apparently, that’s the default setting.” He worked with the system for another two minutes then said, “I got it.”

  “You do?” Sansar asked. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. The system is somewhat antiquated, and it has some security features I’ve never seen before. It took me a few minutes to bypass those, but I now have the whole system operational again.”

  “What about the other teams?”

  “I broadcast it to the other teams as I was jacking in, so all of the other hackers saw what I was doing real-time. All the doors are ready to open. We’re just waiting on your go.”

  Sansar brought up her commanders’ view on her Tri-V and separated it into four windows. Bravo, Charlie, and Delta each had a platoon of troops and were tasked with clearing the walls of the city and rescuing the hostages there; Alpha, who she would be following, was tasked with taking out the HecSha command center, so it was the largest group with two companies of troops. They had triangulated the lizards’ transmissions, and most seemed to come from one location. The doorway she was waiting at was within 100 meters of the facility, as best as she could tell, and she hoped they could chop the head off the alien merc force quickly.

  The final platoon was scattered around the outside of the city, just inside the edge of the forest. Each trooper had five Minchantaa warriors with them. If any of the HecSha tried to flee to the forest, the natives would help the troopers track and eliminate them.

  “Task Forces commanders, report status,” Sansar ordered.

  “Alpha, stacked and ready to go,” Major James Henry replied. His view matched hers closely, as he was standing next to her, just outside the alcove holding their doorway.

  “Bravo, ready,” Captain Tiffany Reynolds replied. She had the eastern door.

  “Charlie, ready,” Captain James Cliffson said from the southwest door.

  “Delta, ready,” Captain Anne Light said from the northwest door.

  “All right, everyone, let’s go save some Humans. If you see any of the Minchantaa, don’t shoot them. We want them as friends when we’re all done here. Begin the assault on my mark. Standby! Mark!”

  Corporal Chase pushed a button on his slate and initiated the door-opening sequence. First, four massive mechanical interlocks—one at each corner—released and moved out of the way. The first time Sansar had seen them from underneath, she’d immediately understood why they hadn’t been able to remove the cover from above. It would have involved breaking all four of them, and the force required to do so—and applying it correctly—would have been staggering.

  Once the locks were clear, the ramp cycled down from where it was held, closing off the bottom of the access pipe. If anyone had ever gotten past the entrance lid, they would still have had to defeat that. Whoever had built the tunnels had taken their security seriously.

  The ramp touched down, followed by a grinding noise, but the lid didn’t move.

  “What’s that?” Sansar asked.

  “I don’t know,” Chase replied. “It looks like the lid is stuck. The system says it’s opening…but the damn thing isn’t moving.”

  Sansar took a breath to order the other groups to hold in place, but saw she was too late. Bravo and Charlie were already streaming up their ramps, and as she watched, the lead elements of Delta started up theirs.

  “I’m going to re-cycle it,” Chase said. The ramp went back up and came back down. There was no grinding this time, but a loud hum could be heard. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” Chase said. “It looks like something’s blocking it. I don’t know if I’ll be able to get it open.”

  “Blue Sky!” Sansar said. The biggest concentration of enemy forces, and no one was going to be there to stop them. “Forget it. Major Henry, shift to the eastern door; it’s the closest to the headquarters. Captain Reynolds, we’re going to be coming your way. All task forces, once you clear the walls, watch for reinforcements—Alpha is going to be late!”

  * * *

  “Shit,” Captain Tiffany Reynolds said. Her platoon’s worth of troopers had spread out toward the wall and had only met light resistance. Unfortunately, she was the closest to the headquarters building, so she would be the first one hit by any reinforcements the HecSha sent—and she knew they were coming.

  “Second Squad, return to the door and take up defensive positions. Once the word’s out that we’re inside the wires, they’re going to guess we came out of the tunnels. We have to hold it long enough for Colonel Enkh to get here. We can’t let them get into the tunnels!”

  The CASPer-clad troopers took what cover they could, hiding behind shops and homes, and boosting onto the roofs of a couple of the more sturdy-looking buildings. It wasn’t long before the first HecSha soldiers appeared, running down the street toward them. It was the first time she’d actually seen the aliens, and Reynolds couldn’t decide if they looked more like giant lizards with wide, flattened heads or mini-tyrannosaurus rexes. About five and a half feet tall, the lizards wore armor that blended with their mottled skins.

  The HecSha running down the street weren’t as much an assault as they were a loosely organized race to the wall. She smiled. And they obviously don’t know we’re here!

  She sent targeting instructions via her pinplants to her troopers, assigning individual targets to some and general fields of fire to others. The HecSha troopers approached in singles, then twos and threes, and then in a large mass.

  “Hold fire,” she transmitted to the squad, hoping to catch as many in the open as possible. There were far more HecSha than she would probably be able to stop, but she had to try. If nothing else, she had to at least slow them down. “Steady…”

  As the first one drew abreast of the squad it suddenly stopped running, and its tongue flicked out.

  “They’re onto us!” Reynolds transmitted, aiming her rifle at the HecSha who continued to sample the air. “Fire!”

  She pulled her trigger, and a beam of coherent light connected her suit’s laser rifle to the HecSha’s head and speared through it.

 
Rockets, MAC rounds, and laser bolts ripped into the HecSha forces, and the lizards scattered, diving for any cover they could find. Although they left a large number in the street, there were far too many for her squad to target all of them, and at least twenty-five—more than double the number of troopers she had with her—made it to safety and returned fire.

  “Colonel Enkh, you’d better hurry,” she transmitted. Despite accurate sniping, the HecSha were spreading out and would soon be able to flank her small group. “There are an awful lot of them, and I don’t know how long we can hold!”

  * * *

  Sansar raced through the tunnels, silently urging Fentayl to run faster. If they’d been on the surface, they could have used their jumpjets and been there in seconds. As it was, they had to negotiate the twisting and turning tunnels, and her audio receivers were filled with the screeching of metal on metal as the CASPers ran into walls as they sped around corners. The metal of the tunnel walls was stronger than the giant mechs’, and she knew the troopers who had to paint the giant armored suits were going to have their work cut out for them on their next trip through hyperspace.

  “Almost there!” Fentayl said, looking back over her shoulder before darting into a passageway to the left.

  The speed at which she changed directions caught Sansar by surprise, and she barely negotiated the turn. Sansa swore as she scraped along the wall, rubbing off some of the laser-reflective paint on her own CASPer.

  “Here!” the Minchantaa leader said, pointing ahead of her to the ramp that lay in front of them. She moved to the side of the tunnel as Sansar led her troops up the ramp and into the sunlight.

  Sansa’s suit automatically dimmed its pickups as she burst from underground and into full light for the first time in hours. She turned toward the sound of weapons fire coming from her right and nearly ran into a HecSha that had somehow gotten behind the blocking forces. Too close for weapons, she reached out and grabbed the lizard by the neck with one hand while she slapped the rifle from its hands with her other. Having disarmed it, she grabbed its head in her free hand and twisted it around once, snapping its neck, then dropped it to the ground.