The Midnight Sun (The Omega War Book 2)

by Tim C. Taylor

  Once in position, the specialist took the time to verify the calibration of the firing mechanism, though he knew he was in full view of any human looking this way from their ring of fortifications less than a mile to the northeast. This had to be done correctly, whatever the risk. It was entirely possible that there in the enemy fort, just a missile strike away, was one of the Usurpers, there to ensure its human servants did its bidding.

  Soon they’d find out.

  The specialist allowed himself a low growl of hatred but didn’t slow as he completed his task.

  He signed that he was ready and, below the ridge line, the team leader signaled back that he should fire.

  The specialist activated the firing mechanism, and an undetectable blast of compressed gases launched gossamer sacs of microscopic sensor feeds into the night. The sacs would be borne aloft by the sea air and quickly disintegrate into nothingness. The sensor beads that were their payload would aerobrake just before reaching their target.

  Over the coming hours, microscopic dust would rain down, and over the course of the following days, the most innocent of gentle breezes would be used by the micro nodes to move closer to one another.

  And closer.

  Grain by grain along the ground.

  As its nodes grew close enough to resonate, they’d draw energy from each other, which they’d use to quietly exert a subtle influence on nearby nodes, summoning them into formation.

  Later, when the network was engorged on hidden potential energy, they’d amplify and transmit any information that passed through the network. Vibrations in the ground, the guarded song of shielded electrical cables, emissions in the radio spectrum – everything passing through would be captured like flies in the network’s web.

  The whole operation would take about two days, and when it was complete, they’d know every word the humans spoke.

  Unless they were discovered.

  Nothing was truly undetectable if your opponents had the equipment and willingness to search you out, but the passive sensor grid was as close to imperceptible as the specialist’s race could devise. They could do no better.

  The reconnaissance team streamed back along the featureless ground, soon reaching the sandy flats that would be washed clean of all traces of their activity by the tide.

  Unchallenged, they sank beneath the waves.

  They swam in silence, without speaking, for they had a long journey ahead of them. And they feared the elder’s ire at its end.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 82

  “I have eyes on the prize, Sergeant.”

  “Copy.”

  Private Christiana Desault had spent the last few days grumbling. Watching the south bank of the river Pripyat from her concealed position meant prying her eyes open with matchsticks to make sense of the scene on the far bank. Gnarled tree limbs, clad in resinous brown and grey bark, bifurcated repeatedly into twigs and branches that waved their verdant foliage in the breeze off the river. The undergrowth was a complex dappling of greens in a muddy base.

  The riverbank was basically a camo pattern, and she’d been staring into it for two days. No wonder her eyes hurt. Sometimes creatures perfectly adapted to the environment slithered or crawled or trotted to the bank to drink their fill of the only clean water for a hundred miles.

  But all that was forgotten in an instant, because the shape that had taken a knee at the edge of the trees a hundred yards downstream was not of this world, no matter how clever the patterning of the light scout armor. It was a human Midnighter who was scanning the north bank through her binoculars.

  “I see them,” said Sergeant Bianchi.

  Them? Her squad’s data net was lagging, because it used tight beam comms bounced off relays pinned to the trees, but the CASPers of her fellows were adding to her own suit’s knowledge, and in her HUD, hesitant targeting symbols appeared for two more probable enemies. If they were really there, they were a short distance further downstream of the Midnighter with the binocs.

  “They’re stray animals come to the watering hole,” said the sergeant. “They’re nervy, easily spooked. No one move a muscle. If anyone so much as scratches their butts inside their suit, I’ll flay them alive.”

  In the magnified Tri-V image inside her CASPer, Christiana’s target waved on someone behind them.

  Her thunderous heartbeat was deafening. A tingling grew in her stomach and spread over her skin, teasing her to break into nervous laughter. It was the exact same feeling she’d had as a child, hiding behind the curtains playing hide and seek with her brother. But she had to wait. Had to hope her concealment was good enough. And when she broke cover this time, it wouldn’t be with a child’s playtime laughter but inside a 950-pound war machine, lighting up with both arm-mounted machine guns.

  On the far bank, the Midnighter abruptly snapped a cautionary hand signal. Halt!

  Christiana felt a chill. Had she been spotted? She froze, not even daring to breathe.

  The observer on the far side slowly lowered her binoculars.

  That was good, right?

  A shrill audible alert pierced the inside of Christiana’s CASPer. A wireframe view of her suit thrust itself into her Tri-V displays, showing the area of upper torso armor that was currently melting.

  Laser!

  Training cut in.

  She activated the torso aerosol that would briefly reduce the energy the laser was dumping into her suit. More importantly, the light-scattering particles allowed her to see the beam. For a fraction of a second, she could see a vicious red line. It was angled upward – coming from halfway up the trees on the south bank.

  Christiana took two powerful rearward steps, crushing the carefully concealed nest she’d resided within the past two days. She lit up the laser shooter’s position with both machine guns.

  Trees erupted in splinters, shredded leaves, and the shrieking natural denizens of the swamp. While her right arm stitched a pattern of bullets through the trees, she lowered her left to take out the observer with the binocs. But her target had already disappeared from her HUD, and before she’d lowered her arm, an impact on her left side sent her skidding ten feet along the muddy ground.

  She lay immobile on her right side, her status board awash with red.

  Christiana yanked hard on the emergency release. The CASPer’s cockpit popped open and she jumped out into the mud. Around her was an awful silence, which meant the enemy had faded away.

  By rights she should be examining her suit to assess it for emergency repairs, but she heard a furious voice over the headset inside. It sounded like the colonel. She gave a heavy sigh, closed the canopy on the angry CO’s voice, and waited for the CASPer she could hear stomping through the mud toward her.

  “Very sensible,” said Sergeant Bianchi through his speakers, gesturing at the closed cockpit. “It’s not your fault, Private. The Colonel’s not angry with you. He’s made it very clear that the fault lies with me.”

  “Will the Midnighters come to the river again?”

  “For my sake, I hope so,” Bianchi replied. “And for theirs. To eke out a few more wretched days eating alien beetles and drinking from fetid pools is not a good ending. Better to end matters quickly.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter 83

  That night, the Dove led the assault across the Pripyat in person. The bloodhounds made slow progress up the trees that had been blasted by his troopers that afternoon, but they found minimal signs of having inflicted casualties. A little Zuul blood splattered across a fallen branch, and that was it. He led his force two klicks into the swamp before turning back empty-handed.

  But on his return, in his battered camp chair with the aid of a glass of chilled Amaretto and a Dominican cigar, he thought better of the day’s events.

  So what if he’d suffered one badly-damaged Mark 8 suit in return for a slight cut to one of his foes?

  The Midnighters had come in search of fresh water, and he now had eyes both human and electronic across a te
n-mile stretch of bank. The Midnighters will be drinking filth tonight, he thought, as he swirled the golden Amaretto in his crystal tumbler.

  The closest to any fatal casualties that day had come late at night, when one of the Dove’s company commanders, Lieutenant Kassel, had foolishly insisted that the next time the Midnighters showed their head, his artillery section would flatten the entire area.

  Commissar Penree had drawn her laser pistol on the treacherous lieutenant who had suggested a course of action that would damage the Raknar. If the Dove hadn’t distracted the alien by waving his arms and interposing his body, Lieutenant Kassel would have been a dead fool.

  The irony, mused the Condottieri CO, was that Peepo couldn’t have discovered the secret of how to activate the Raknar, or she’d already be terrorizing the galaxy with a force of the ancient warrior mecha. The real purpose of their mission was to deny these assets to the one man in the galaxy who did know their secret. There was no need to be down here in the swamp sleeping with leeches when they could’ve achieved that objective by thermonuclear strike.

  But none of that mattered. Both he and Penree had promised to deliver these three Raknar to General Peepo, and that was what they would do. Failure was unthinkable.

  * * *

  The next day, the Midnighters showed themselves once more, this time ten miles downstream.

  The Dove hadn’t thought they could reach so far in their wretched condition and through this difficult terrain, and he was lucky he had the eyes to spot them. He reinforced the half squad who’d seen the Midnighter scouts while marching his CASPers to either flank.

  Strong Condottieri columns crossed the Pripyat a mile to either side of the contact.

  He’d hoped to catch them unaware, to pin them at the river while his flanking columns encircled them and wiped out the exhausted stragglers he’d pursued through this jungle for ten days now.

  But all they found was empty swamp. He suspected this had all been a ruse to divert attention from their real line of retreat. It’s what he’d do.

  He began cycling his mercs through rest periods while he considered options, but a new development came to him out of nowhere.

  “I’m coming in. Don’t shoot!”

  The man’s voice came from the trees to the east. “Don’t shoot!”

  It was a deserter, or at least that was the impression the man wanted to convey. He was gaunt, and livid red boils on the left side of his face spoke of the perils he’d faced in this swamp.

  When the man was brought before him, his arms imprisoned in the grip of two CASPers, the Dove noted the defiance in those bloodshot eyes.

  Flask of good Cognac in his hand, he circled the prisoner for several minutes before asking, “And who, sir, might you be?”

  “An unemployed registered mercenary, sir. I heard a commotion by the river, and thought I’d drop by to see whether the Condottieri had any current vacancies.”

  “That depends,” the Dove replied. He reached for his jacket pocket and a new cigar tube, cursing when he realized he’d left them at the north bank. “Tell me your name,” he demanded.

  “Sanjay Sharpe,” he replied. “Most people call me Blades.”

  * * * * *

  Chapter 84

  The armorer shone her flashlight on Branco’s waiting CASPer.

  So intimately did he know the inside of the Mark 8 that, even in the depths of darkness that was night time in the vast swamp, he could enter the canopy by feel, attach himself to the haptic suit, and run through the start-up procedures without so much as opening his eyes.

  He didn’t need the armorer to guide him.

  But he needed her nudge to motivate him.

  He took a step toward the waiting mecha, and even this small encroachment was an assault on his nose from the stench within. The mud, sweat, and fear followed the band of Midnighters all the time, but inside his mecha the stink was not only more concentrated, but was a deeply unpleasant reminder that his bowel control had long since lost its fight with the consequences of drinking polluted water and their first attempts at eating the local wildlife.

  He’d asked Betty how she kept her strength so effectively when her rations had run out first. She seemed pleased to be asked and told him how, beneath the bark of the trees, the sap inside was succulent and nutritious. Above all, she’d explained, the rich soil teemed with life that crawled, burrowed, and slithered. She even demonstrated slicing the venom sacs from the brown slugs that pursued them constantly and gulped down the flesh without harm.

  Branco’s guts churned at the memory. His constitution wasn’t nearly so robust as the Tortantula’s.

  “Get your butts inside those CASPers,” ordered First Sergeant Albali, his voice low in volume but rich in menace.

  Nearby, Sergeant Hrrn was snapping his jaws at his own Zuul contingent of the raiding party.

  Branco took another step toward his waiting mecha. Behind him, Albali walked the line of four human CASPer drivers before stopping at the trooper to Branco’s left. Gjalp.

  “Have you turned pussy, Gjalp?” Albali sneered. “There was a time when Soren Gjalp would be the first volunteer for a raiding party. All I see before me is a waste of rations who won’t get in his CASPer. Would you like me to write a note to the Condottieri to excuse you from this campaign because you’ve got a sore tummy?”

  Everyone was tired, and sometimes tired people required firmer steering. Hrrn had literally bitten Dichouff for insubordination the day before. Branco understood all that, but suggesting Soren Gjalp was some kind of coward was like sticking your finger inside an erupting volcano to see whether it was hot. Pointless and highly dangerous.

  Yes, these were difficult days.

  “No way,” snapped off Gjalp, bounding into his suit as if the Sergeant had rammed a cattle prod up his ass – which he probably would if he’d had one. “I’m still Gjalpy,” he said as he wriggled inside his controls. “Gonna bring some mayhem, Top. I still got it.”

  “What did you call me?” growled Albali, his suit’s speakers loud enough to wake the arboreal denizens and send them fleeing in a wave of scurrying claws and rustling leaves. “Do I look like a top? What, are you gonna spin me?”

  “Sorry, First Sergeant.”

  Albali cleared his throat awkwardly. It was the closest he’d get to an apology. “Top – I mean First Sergeant Landers – earned the respect of her NCOs and troopers like you, Gjalp. I haven’t earned that title yet.”

  “We’ll let you know when you do,” said Corporal Cleggy.

  The First Sergeant gave a curt laugh. “Make sure you do, Corporal.”

  Branco was inside his canopy now, activating his suit. The familiarity of the startup ritual helped him to focus, and he quickly slammed on his game face.

  The Condottieri were obviously trying to wear them down.

  So, obviously, the Midnighters had to prove to the enemy that they were still full of fight.

  Even though it was a lie. Five CASPers and four of the five surviving Zuul made up this party to hit hard at their pursuers, who were only a few klicks away. It was a big risk. Only 33 effectives remained to the Midnighters, with 14 more sick and wounded. They’d loaded the tugs with spare ammo, but even so, they’d soon run critically short. If a Condottieri raiding party came the other way, the nine in the raiding party would be sorely missed by the remaining defenders.

  “Hey!” Albali shouted as a sudden burst of motion swept away from the CASPers.

  Branco’s HUD came online. It was Osuru. He was out of his CASPer and running for the trees. There was more movement to the right where the Zuul were assembling. One of theirs was also running for the trees. Albali had his gun arm ready. No doubt his reticle was giving him a kill shot.

  “Damn,” he said over comms. “I can’t take out the maggot. Too noisy.”

  Sergeant Hrrn came over to the first sergeant and whispered something too quiet for Branco’s audio sensors to pick up.

  They conferred for a couple of minute
s and then Hrrn, Z’yggul, and Gzzuh bounded into the trees in pursuit of the fleeing mercenaries. A minute later they were joined by Laatrix, the other surviving Zuul, who’d been asleep.

  “Zero hour is postponed by one hour. Get some rest. Sleep in your CASPers. I’ll be keeping watch.”

  Branco had no memory of going to sleep, but the suit told him forty minutes had passed when the excitable Zuul party returned, snapping at each other.

  Of Osuru and Dichouff there was no sign, until Branco saw Sergeant Hrrn handing something over to Major Sun. He magnified the sight and saw it was the personal effects of the two deserters.

  They wouldn’t be coming back.

  * * * * *

  Chapter 85

  Two more gone so far tonight, thought Branco as he waited for the signal to attack. With so few left, the company’s breaking down.

  To make up the numbers, Betty and Tatterjee had joined the raiding party, to the obvious delight of one, who’d had to be told repeatedly she must stop snapping her jaw so loudly no matter how eager she was for the fight. Tatterjee had such an evil streak that in his own way he also loved killing work, but tonight he looked sullen and barely spoke.

  In previous raids, they’d take out a few sentries, damage supplies and equipment, and rob the enemy of sleep and their sense of security. The commanders always impressed that they must never engage; they must withdraw and stay alert to guard their own camp in case the enemy mounted an immediate response.

  This time was different.

  From their vantage point in the trees, the Zuul signaled that the enemy was readying to suit up and move out.

  When the Zuul opened fire to keep the sentries occupied, the Midnighter CASPers hopped into the enemy encampment with the last of their jump juice, pouring rockets, MAC shells, laser bolts, and machine gun rounds into every open CASPer cockpit. The Condottieri drivers outside of their suits fled for cover.