Machine gun fire raged continuously. He heard screams of human pain. He realized he was screaming too, but he hadn’t been hit. His people were dying around him, but he could only hear them go; all he could see was a confusing blur until the alien jumped into the river.
The salty cold hit him, sobered him, and tried to drag out what little air he’d taken with him in his lungs. But he held on until the alien transported him below the relative safety of the raft that had supported Raknar-Beta.
Albali shared Lily’s qualms about what came next.
He opened his eyes and saw the Rietzken floating patiently, waiting for the human’s kiss.
Enemy fire crashed into the raft, but the armor plate they’d attached to its underside kept them safe for now. But it wouldn’t last long.
The big Spaniard gripped the alien with his thighs – man, those bony plates cut deep! – and shuffled up and over its head so he overhung its cylindrical crest. After breathing out the last of his air, he planted his mouth over the puckered orifice on the end of the crest. Immediately, he felt a pressure pushing against the seal he was making with his tongue. He relaxed and let in the air the alien was trying to give him.
It tasted warm and meaty. But when he told himself he was breathing in the aroma of fresh pepperoni and chili pizza, he drew it deep into his lungs and quickly established a rhythm: breathe in through the alien’s blow hole; blow out through his own nose.
Yes, a blow hole.
When Captain Blue had explained the procedure in which the amphibious alien extracted oxygen from its gills to fill its buoyancy sacs before pushing it straight out of its blow hole, she’d grinned with that manic look that worried him sometimes, and told them it would be like swimming with dolphins or little baby whales. Everyone loved dolphins, right?
Sure they did. But Albali knew that if this evil business with the Merc Guild ever blew over, and he made it back to the merc pits, whenever he drank with other mercs, the tale would follow him of the day he’d run away from battle by sucking farts out of an alien’s butt.
The pay on this job had better be damned good.
Around him, other Midnighters were performing the same ritual. He counted seven. Anyone not back by now wasn’t coming back, he reasoned grimly. Lily hadn’t made it.
His Rietzken handed him goggles from one of the caches secured next to the buoyancy tanks beneath the raft. With Albali still riding its back, the alien walked along the armor-plated underside of the raft and over to the control pad.
The raft rocked with the force of explosions. It began to break in two.
Albali waited until everyone was giving him the OK sign with curled finger and thumb before hitting the launch stud.
The firing immediately slackened.
Above water, hidden Daimler-Koch micro-mortar tubes flooded the air with smoke and frag bombs.
In a nice touch, blowing the rigged charges also ripped open bags of blood from beneath the raft to give the impression of bloodied corpses. Albali had no idea where the blood had come from.
Hot frag shards lashed the water.
Incoming fire ceased altogether.
He was about to give the order to move out when the Rietzkens moved anyway.
They needed speed now, not dodging, so the journey was stable enough for Albali to see where they were headed.
Skimming just above the river bottom – it was only a dozen feet deep here – from muscular ballerinas, the Rietzkens transformed into armored jellyfish. Their long tentacles stretched behind then began to pulse as they squeezed together to pump river water through their length. At three pulses per second they were a blur, and by the devil could these things move! Within seconds they were going so fast his goggles were ripped from his face.
Lips still planted over the creature’s blow hole, Albali rode the Rietzken all the way out to sea.
He’d escaped. Not all of his team had, and even for the rest of them, it was a temporary respite. The time for running was over.
It was time to fight.
* * * * *
Chapter 111
The Tri-V inside the Dove’s CASPer bank showed the scene out to sea where two small craft were picking up the Midnighter survivors and the alien fighters.
“Seven Hills, do you have a clear view on the coordinates I’m sending you?”
“Yes, Colonel.”
“I wonder…are you perhaps reading any enemy activity in that vicinity?”
“No, sir…”
“Not even the pair of craft that have just dived beneath the waves? Clear as daylight in my CASPer.”
“We don’t see them, sir. Sensor coverage is green. If anything’s there, we should be seeing it.”
The Dove took a deep breath. It seemed that underestimating his opponents was not a flaw he’d abandoned in his youth after all. “One more question, Seven Hills. Your sensor network – the one that can’t see anything our enemies choose to hide – where does it tell you Midnight Sun is located?”
“Headed straight for you, just below the waterline. You should be seeing it any moment now.”
The Dove trained his suit sensors farther out to sea. They revealed nothing but a scattering of bird-bats bobbing on the swell.
“The one thing we can say with certainty about Midnight Sun,” he told Seven Hills, “is that she won’t be where your systems say she is. We’ve been compromised, and badly. Switch off the sensor network and keep it off. I want a full reboot of all your battlezone plotting systems and, yes, that includes the artillery targeting links. The only connection I want outside of Seven Hills are comm links to myself and Provost-Major DiAngelo. Cut everything else. May it please God that this is enough to clear us. And Captain.” He paused, dreading the steps he must now put in place, both here and in space.
“Sir?”
“From this moment forward, anything that moves and doesn’t have a white dove painted on it – don’t wait for confirmation. Destroy it.”
“Understood, sir.”
Dove cut the link and established a new one to the commander of Regina Margherita.
“Dubroc, go.”
“Ah, Commander. It’s a pleasure to hear your voice, but such a shame that you’re stuck up there in space and can’t experience the delights of this world for yourself. So I thought I’d share with you my delight at the clear skies. When I look out over the ocean I can see a perfect blue.”
“Would you describe that as azure?”
“Not quite, Commander, but what I can see is very close to being azure.”
“I understand, Colonel. Thank you for sharing what you’re seeing. Dubroc, out.”
* * * * *
Part 5: THE COUNCIL OF VENGEANCE
Chapter 112
“Don’t slack off for an instant!” shouted Sun at the exhausted survivors. “If we don’t get these Raknar in the water, you’ll have me to answer to, and I’m not in a forgiving mood.”
She put the shoulder of her CASPer to the metal foot of the upended Raknar-Beta. The sole towered half as high again as her Mark 8 CASPer, but would its mechanisms be damaged by the application of brute force and ignorance?
There was only one way to find out.
She shoved with all her massively-augmented strength, ramming her own mini-mecha’s feet deep into the sand. With her strength adding to the winch groaning on the back of the Rietzken vessel, the hundred-foot giant shuffled on its back a few yards further down the beach toward the two waiting boats that would tow them out to sea.
The other Raknar had fared no better, grinding to a halt after the top of its torso had gouged a pit into the sand. Its feet had barely left the edge of the trees where they’d been hidden from Condottieri eyes.
“Their polished finish will be ruined,” wailed one of the Rietzkens nearby. Although the aliens were apparently another branch of the Midnight Sun Free Company, they weren’t plugged into the tactical network, so it was difficult to tell them apart. Sun’s HUD even told her they were enemy targets. T
his one wore a primitive metal collar that looked iron but didn’t rust. She knew who this was.
“Casualty of war, ma’am. I doubt Jim Cartwright will mind a few scratches.”
“My concern exactly, Major Sun,” Gloriana replied. “Cartwright will never appreciate these priceless objects with the eye of a true collector.”
Sun pushed against Raknar-Beta’s foot, deciding it was best not to share with Gloriana that from what she knew of Jim Cartwright, he’d prefer these mecha to be scored and scratched so the taunts and slogans he’d want painted on their bodies would key more easily.
The Raknar’s progress halted. Once again its immense weight was forcing it down into the beach.
She took advantage of the halt to link into the camera view from the three elSha sentries stationed a thousand yards up the beach toward the river delta. The elSha could detect no signs of the Condottieri. As far as Sun could tell, the Dove’s mercs were still milling about eighteen klicks to the north, expecting the false signal of Midnight Sun to emerge from the waves at any moment.
But the Condottieri wouldn’t stay there forever. This was the riskiest part of the plan she’d agreed to with her sister. Dragging the ancient mecha down the beach to temporarily dump them in the sea, out of the enemy’s reach, meant exposing themselves to view from orbit. A response wouldn’t be long in coming.
It was a race against time.
But they could still make it.
Top was organizing the rescued mercs into their CASPers, which stood silent and vulnerable near the waterline. The Rietzkens had landed replacement parts and ammo the night before. With the backs of the CASPers loaded down with drums of MAC rounds and ammo cases for the chain guns, her Midnighters wouldn’t be defenseless in the inevitable fight to come. Top was ordering some of the active CASPers to load up more of their fellows while he sent others into the battle to get the Raknar safely down the beach before the Condottieri response hit them.
Her side camera saw the other Raknar moving, and she watched in astonishment as – under the direction of Commander Venix – Betty scooped away at the sand beneath the mecha’s top and then bunched all her limbs with stored tension. From his mount on her back, Branco secured straps through a Raknar weapons mounting point and attached them to Betty’s harness.
Venix thrust his walking stick in the air. At his signal, Lieutenant Flkk’Sss and the crowd of Rietzkens pulled on the inert mecha. The beach filled with a high squeal that made many in the team curl up in sudden shock. Sun had never heard this before, but it was Betty straining every ounce of strength to straighten those ten powerful limbs, each appended by a claw that dug deeply into the sand.
Raknar-Alpha moved. A shift that was barely perceptible, but it moved – and began to build speed.
Branco whooped, but it was a hollow sound that died almost instantly. They were all tired, but Branco was acting as if he’d pushed beyond exhaustion and into a trance-like state. She didn’t care because Raknar-Alpha made it halfway to the waterline before Betty’s straps snapped and the Tortantula, with her human partner, rolled away along the sand like tumbleweed. And lay still.
“Branco,” she called. “Are you okay?”
His reply was a long time coming. “We’ll be all right,” he replied unconvincingly, his speech slurred. “Even Tortantulas need to take a breather.”
By now, Raknar-Beta was attended by CASPers, and their strength meant it made steady progress to the sea.
“Jenkins here, ma’am.” Sun’s HUD highlighted the Jeha engineer scurrying along Raknar-Beta’s torso. “We’re ready to start using the wooden rollers we cut last night. Now that we have a proper engineering solution in place, I estimate we’ll be in the water in four minutes.”
The rollers made all the difference, reducing the time wasted by constantly digging the loads out of the sand. With both Raknar safely on the way into the water – to be recovered once the reinforcements summoned by Sinclair had finally arrived – Sun turned her attention to what would happen next.
Midnight Sun was flooded and crippled; she was no hiding place for any but the Rietzkens. So it would be a return to the swamp for Branco, Betty, and the fifteen surviving CASPers. Sun had thirty-five ship’s personnel too. A few, such as the MinSha lieutenant, could prove useful in the fight, but the elSha and Jeha were never going to be fighters. What about the Reitzkens, though? Would they fight?
“Are you staying with us or returning to the water?” she asked Gloriana.
The alien had sat there, fiddling with its iron collar while everyone around strained their last reserves of energy to do her bidding. It was just as well Blue was still on the ship, unable to see this lazy fat squid.
“Don’t interrupt, Major.”
Interrupt what, exactly? Sun thought, but then the Rietzken stopped playing with her collar and explained, “Your species consistently underestimates other races. You and your sister have been delightful, but sometimes those excrement-filled heads of yours are most tiresome. I haven’t been indolent. I’ve been doing this…”
Sun’s HUD flickered with a sudden flurry of activity. Threat indicators disappeared to be replaced with blue symbols for two squads of ten Rietzkens.
She expanded her view and saw the six Rietzkens manning the boats were also now on her tactical grid. The squad status panel flowed with new data representing Rietzken health and ammo status.
She sent her attention to the north, beyond the three elSha sentries, where the team of four Rietzkens were taking up positions in an ancient impact crater a mile from the Condottieri fort, and out to sea she could see Midnight Sun.
“It’s about time,” said her sister from the ship’s CIC. “Thought you’d forgotten me.”
“What’s your status?”
“Good thing I remembered to pack some batteries, because that’s all this battlecruiser’s running on now. I don’t know what she’s capable of, but I can still listen in on Seven Hills. It’s like a soap opera, really. You’ll never guess what Sergeant Klein gets up to. For that matter, when Klein’s husband…crap. You’d better hear this.”
“But what about the Raknar?” queried a man’s voice Sun didn’t recognize.
“Understood, Colonel,” he said after pausing to listen to the side of the conversation that Blue hadn’t intercepted.
“Fiorentino to A and B batteries,” said another man’s voice. “Reload with fragmentation shells to burst twenty feet above the ground. I want 100 rounds over the heads of those Midnighters. C battery will continue with its current instructions. Let’s hope this draws out Midnight Sun.”
Sun reined in her attention and took in the frantic preparations around her on the beach. With airburst fraggers, CASPers and the Raknar themselves might survive; everyone else was about to become shredded meat and chitin.
Gloriana had promised her human subordinate she had tactical command.
It was time to put that to the test.
* * * * *
Chapter 113
A sequence of animal grunts registered in the force leader’s implant. Lagging several milliseconds behind, a separate process thread supplied a running translation.
“This is Major Sun. Team Three, do you copy?”
The faces of his three subordinates turned to face him. They could all see where this led. Many generations of his forebears had traveled a treacherous and humiliating path to this reckoning with the Usurpers. That his team would strike a glorious blow was of far greater importance than the crushing disappointment that their involvement would be so brief.
“I repeat. This is Major Sun. Do you copy?”
“Yes, Major Sun. I hear you.”
“Are you in position?” asked the human.
“No. We’re neither stealthed nor hardened. Our line of retreat is not yet prepared. But we’re within firing range.”
“Then I’m sorry, Force Leader. The enemy is counting on their artillery batteries to be a hidden reserve that’ll decide the course of this battle. Prove them
wrong. Wipe them out.”
“Complying,” he said, gesturing to his team to load the howitzer with x-ray cluster shells. The effect of x-ray munitions was unpredictable, but his team wouldn’t be allowed the luxury of many shots, and he judged x-ray shells would deliver maximum destruction.
“Major, whether you realize or not, you are now at war with one of the strongest Veetanho factions. Let me offer two items of advice in the time that remains to me. One: Veetanho usually hold multiple reserves and are experts at knowing when to unleash them for maximum effect. Two: always assume Veetanho strategic plans run several levels deeper than they at first appear. Good luck. We’re ready.”
“Thank you. Fire at will.”
The leader gave the order, and the howitzer they’d carefully positioned piece by piece under the enemy’s nose finally spoke. The recoil shock was largely absorbed, but the pressure wave ripping through the air shook clouds of sand out of the ring of hills that surrounded them. Every three seconds, the gun fired again.
The shells sailed high over the rim of the ancient impact crater and fell on the neighboring crater – now fortified by the enemy – a mile to the northeast.
The effect of the barrage was uncertain, so he ordered the crew to keep firing until every shell was spent and the barrel had grown so hot it was beginning to warp.
Then he ordered the team to abandon their gun and flee.
By now, their barrage was falling on the interior of the enemy base, where the humans thought they’d kept their artillery secret.
Human autocannons on the fort’s walls threw a curtain of lead in the air to meet the incoming rounds. The wires, blades, and aerial mines set to guard against CASPer attack from above now shifted to a bombardment defense configuration.
Many Rietzken shells exploded prematurely, taken out by the Condottieri defenses. But those defenses had been optimized to defend against airborne CASPers, not advanced artillery shells, and a few shells drew close enough to the target to begin splitting into submunitions. Those that survived a little farther began throwing out bomblet rods, which ignited their F11-powered lasers for a few milliseconds of intense and viciously-concentrated energy release.
The Midnight Sun (The Omega War Book 2) Page 37