by Peter Nealen
But the command ship didn’t hold his attention for long. There was a lot of activity on the plain. Two large formations of armored vehicles were trundling through the fields, sending up great plumes of dust behind their tracks, and more transatmospheric fighters were spooling up for launch, with another flight just now arriving from somewhere off to the south.
“They sure don’t lack for numbers, do they?” Costigan muttered.
“No, they do not,” Kranjick agreed. “One has to wonder where they’re getting all the material. How long has this been in the offing, to grow this many clones and build this much war machinery?”
“We still don’t know how long it takes to grow the clones,” Scalas pointed out. “If they’ve discovered a way to accelerate growth, as the Valdekans believe…”
“Does it matter?” Soon asked as he joined them. “They’re here, in numbers that no one has ever seen before. I think we’d better see the mission through before we worry about the implications of cloning tech.”
The column of vehicles had halted about two hundred meters below them, hidden from the enemy by the bulk of the ridge, turrets turned skyward and searching for fighters.
“Soon is right,” Kranjick said. “Time enough for speculation and planning once we’re off-planet and far away from this system.” He tapped his gauntlet, tying his armor’s comm unit in with his vehicle’s. “Commander Rehenek, this is Brother Legate Kranjick of the Caractacan Brotherhood. Your General-Regent sent us to find you. Please respond.”
There was a long pause. Faint static hissed over the comm channels. Given the amount of disruption, radiation, and stray energy in the atmosphere, it was actually somewhat surprising that it wasn’t far worse.
“This is Commander Rehenek,” a voice replied in faintly accented Trade Cant. “Stand by for rendezvous coordinates.”
Scalas bristled a little at the young man’s tone. They were here as allies, not subordinates. But he forced himself to calm his thoughts. Humility was a virtue to a Caractacan Brother. As was patience.
Rehenek rattled off a series of numbers, and the Brothers quickly calculated the position he had given. They would have to cross the ridge and descend about halfway down the mountain, through the woods, to reach the rendezvous. Worse—one of the enemy’s armored columns below was moving almost straight toward the rendezvous coordinates.
There was nothing for it, though.
Kranjick tapped several controls on his gauntlet, and a holographic representation of the ridgeline appeared in the centurions’ visors. He traced a glowing line to show their planned route. “There appears to be a saddle here,” he said, indicating a notch in the ridge. Whatever geologic catastrophe had created the gap in the massive rivulet of lava was long lost to time. “We should be able to get through without skylining the vehicles on top of the ridgeline. From there, we can move relatively quickly to the rendezvous point.” Which, upon closer examination, was another hanging valley, not unlike the one where the starships had landed.
Kranjick suddenly looked up sharply. Scalas followed his gaze and saw a cluster of dark dots, high and coming in fast. Another air attack.
Kranjick slapped another key, and the holo vanished. “Get to your vehicles,” he ordered. “Time is flying.”
The armored officers scrambled back down the slope and ran to their designated sleds. As soon as Scalas was aboard, his driver pulled the troop door shut and revved the fans, getting the vehicle ready to move. The sense of urgency was palpable.
The first of the angular Unity fighters flitted overhead, followed a moment later by the rolling boom of its supersonic shockwave. The rest of the flight followed in a tight wedge. Powergun turrets tracked the enemy ships, but the gunners held their fire. The sleds and tanks had much the same chameleonic coating as the infantry armor, and though it was scarred, there was still a chance that they might blend into the mountainside.
Of course, the starships would still be targets, but even grounded, they could still put up a ferocious fight as long as their reactors were hot. And they would still be hot, that deep in hostile territory, grounded or not.
But then one of the Valdekan IFVs opened fire, and any hope that the vehicle column might go unnoticed was lost.
To the gunner’s credit, at least it was a good shot. A 3cm powergun bolt punched into the last fighter’s engine, and the ship exploded, its burning wreckage plunging down toward the forest in a fiery arc.
At that point, there was no sense in anyone else holding back. Every vehicle in the column with line of sight on the aircraft opened fire, and a veritable blizzard of blue- and green-tinged lightning blazed up out of the woods. The enemy fighters had begun to scatter like frightened birds the moment the first ship blew up, but they had been caught flat-footed, and six more of them were swatted out of the sky in mere seconds. Three exploded instantly as high-energy plasma packets struck their powerplants. One took a trio of bolts across its wing root and seemed to fold in half before spinning down toward the mountainside. It hit with a thunderous explosion, the roiling fireball of its demise setting nearby trees ablaze. Another took a hit in the nose and flipped end over end before going into a flat spin and falling toward the ground. Yet another showed no smoke, no wound where it had been hit, but simply rolled over and plummeted toward the ground. The pilot must have been killed.
They had not killed the entire formation, however, and the survivors were now diving for the treetops and banking sharply to come around for an attack run.
One stayed too high and it simply vanished in a white flash, struck by a starship’s 20cm powergun bolt. There was hardly any debris to be seen in the aftermath of that catastrophic hit. The rest stayed low, skimming the terrain and rushing at the column, powergun fire spitting from their wing roots.
The Valdekan IFV that had started the fight died spectacularly, its turret blown off and greenish fire blazing from its upper deck as its ammunition supplies detonated. A Caractacan tank avenged the Valdekan vehicle a moment later, a 1cm powergun bolt blowing the fighter’s angular cockpit canopy to molten shards and reducing the pilot to a headless chunk of charred meat. The fighter bored into the ridgeline above the column, impacting with enough force to shake the ground beneath the vehicles.
The Valdekan vehicles’ camouflage wasn’t as effective as the Caractacan vehicles’ chameleonic coatings, and they suffered for it. By the time the fighters swept overhead and disappeared over the ridgeline, three of the five Valdekan armored vehicles were burning. Only one of the Caractacan tanks had been hit, but it was hit badly; smoke poured from it as three of its six-man crew bailed out and ran to the nearest sled. The rest of the crew was presumably dead.
“Keep moving,” Kranjick’s dispassionate voice commanded over the comm. “If they come back, best not to provide them with sitting targets.”
Costigan’s tanks started driving ahead once more, heading for the saddle, ten kilometers up the ridge. Turrets continued to turn, powergun barrels elevated toward the partly cloudy sky, scanners searching for the enemy. But the fighters didn’t reappear.
It seemed that the Unity commander valued his fighters more than his clones’ lives. From the looks of things, the clones were cheap. Transatmospheric fighters were expensive.
The column forged ahead, climbing the mountain slope and driving through the dark, bluish trees, ramming massive trunks down where needed.
“I’m hoping those clone tanks can’t make this kind of headway,” Kahane commented as the holo showed a trunk nearly a meter in diameter getting cracked in half. “Those tanks we fought at the breach didn’t seem to have nearly the weight or power that ours do.”
“Cheap vehicles, mass-produced for massed assaults,” Scalas agreed. “But they’ll find a way through, sooner or later. They can always use their main guns to knock the trees out of the way if they have to.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Kahane said. “I guess if they’ve got munitions to spare…”
Scalas looked across th
e troop compartment. “Torgan! Keep that HVM launcher close. I think we might end up needing it.”
The younger Brother nodded and clapped the tube with a gauntleted hand. “I never let it get far, Centurion. Quirinus might steal it if I did.”
Sitting across from him, Quirinus scoffed. “I don’t want to lug that heavy thing. I’ll let you carry it, then steal it when there’s a really juicy target.”
Torgan shook his head in mock sorrow. “Do you hear that, Centurion? Stealing from another Brother!”
Scalas just nodded. The banter was a good sign, but there was a brittleness to it, the jokes slightly forced. The men were trying to keep their spirits up with levity, but they weren’t really feeling it. The fact that Torgan and Quirinus’s byplay only drew a handful of grim chuckles said that much. Even so, Scalas wasn’t worried. Caractacan Brothers were no regular soldiers. They were warriors of the highest degree, and no matter how low their spirits, they would fight the hordes of clones as fiercely and as staunchly as if they were fresh and rested, facing a handful of ragtag pirates.
Discipline, honor, and courage didn’t rely on feelings. And discipline, honor, and courage were what made a Caractacan Brother.
18
The sky remained clear as the column started down the slope. Mostly clear—through gaps in the trees, the distant specks of aircraft or transatmospheric fighters could still be seen circling above the distant command ship. But they were keeping their distance, at least for the moment.
Scalas suddenly imagined the command ship opening fire on the column with its primary weapons, and felt his chest tighten. They would be hard to detect at this distance, especially masked by trees and terrain from time to time, but a single heavy bombardment missile could conceivably wipe the entire column off the face of the planet. Or a handful of 20cm powergun bolts. Yet the command ship stayed quiescent, and they were soon down among the fingers and draws along the side of the ridge.
In another hour, with the sun dipping toward the horizon, blazing briefly through gaps in the clouds, the column reached the hanging valley. Another ridge masked them from the command ship and all but the highest of the aircraft circling above it.
As they came out of the trees, Costigan’s tanks spread out, their turrets swinging freely to cover every centimeter of open ground. Bluish grass grew on the banks of a clear, rushing stream. The valley appeared deserted to the naked eye, but not to the vehicles’ advanced sensor suites.
“Commander Rehenek,” Kranjick called out. “The tanks are mine. You have nothing to fear from us.”
A moment later, a figure stepped out of the trees on the far side of the valley, in the very spot where the sensor suites had pinpointed the reinforced company of Valdekan troops and their vehicles hiding under camouflaged netting. The commander’s vehicles were very unlike the bulky vehicles that Atelevek had brought; these were narrow and articulated in the center, with small powergun turrets fore and aft. With their separately suspended wheels, they appeared to have been purpose-built for use in mountains and forests.
As soon as Scalas’s driver brought his sled to a halt, Scalas banged on the hatch, which dutifully lowered. The infantry Brothers piled out, weapons ready, moving a little gingerly from having been crammed into the cramped rear compartment for the last few hours. Scalas straightened, feeling his back pop, then strode toward where Kranjick was climbing out of his own sled. It still amazed him that the older man could show no discomfort even after folding his considerable bulk into such a small space for so long.
As the Brothers set in their perimeter, Kranjick led his centurions across the narrow stream to meet Rehenek.
Commander Amra Rehenek was a short man, shorter than his father, and slightly built. Even so, there was an intensity, a vibrancy about him, that was palpable even through the deep weariness that showed on his face. He wore a combat suit similar to those worn by Atelevek’s commandos, and he held his helmet under his arm, his powergun slung over his shoulder.
Kranjick came to a halt a few paces from the young commander, looking down at him with his own helmet still in place and his BR-18 in his hands. Rehenek looked up at him, a faint squint around his pale eyes, and ran his free hand through his lank, dark hair.
“You are the Caractacan legate?” he asked.
“Yes,” Kranjick rumbled. “Your father asked us to find you.”
“Good,” Rehenek said briskly. “If your men are half as good as their reputation, I could certainly use your help. The enemy has a considerable force gathered around the command ship, and it’s going to be a hard target to get to.”
Kranjick shook his head. “That is not our mission, Commander. We were specifically asked to get you and as many of your men as possible off-world, to rally support for the liberation of Valdek.” He held out the data chip. “Your mother sent this.”
Rehenek’s eyes flashed and his jaw worked, but he stepped forward after a moment and took the chip. He pocketed it without looking at it. “I know what it says,” he said bitterly. “‘Run, save yourself, Valdek is lost.’ Well, I don’t believe it.”
“Whether or not you want to believe it is immaterial, Commander,” Kranjick said. “Facts are facts. Look around you. Your mother and father coordinate a defense that is slowly being whittled away, in the last standing planetary defense fortress on this world. You are attempting to assault a grounded battlecruiser—and presumably at least a division of troops and armor—with a reinforced company. And you may not know it yet, but a dreadnaught of a size that has not been seen in living memory has entered orbit in the last few hours. Valdek is lost. And our launch window to get you off is closing swiftly.”
“Valdek is not lost until these vrykolok march over the bones of the last of its defenders!” Rehenek snapped. “You would have me abandon my people, run off to the stars some distant safe haven while they suffer under the boots of these abominations? Never! My place is here. If that means I die in Valdek’s defense, then so be it.” He straightened and squared his shoulders. “I am going to take that command ship or die in the attempt. Either you can come with me, or you can leave while your launch window is still open.”
Kranjick did not budge. “We gave your father our word.”
“And that means nothing to me,” Rehenek retorted. “My father is wounded, and though my mother is strong, I am her weakness. Of course they wish me to leave. But my duty is here.”
“Is it your duty to kill any hope that is left to your people, boy?” Kranjick ground out relentlessly. “To fight gloriously and die, leaving no one to lead them except their new overlords? No one to rally a liberation fleet, thus leaving them under the boots of the vrykolok, as you call them, for Heaven knows how long?” He took a step closer. “You are no common soldier, boy. You are a leader, and will soon be a head of state. You have responsibilities that extend beyond your own glory.”
As if it had been orchestrated, at that moment the comm chimed. “Challenger to Brother Legate Kranjick.”
Kranjick did not move, but simply answered, “Send it.”
“We thought you should know, sir, that we just lost all contact with the fortress,” Captain Hwung-Tsi reported.
Kranjick switched to external speakers, his vision slit still locked on Rehenek’s face. “Say again, Captain,” he said heavily.
“I say again,” Hwung-Tsi repeated, slowly and loudly, probably thinking that the comms were bad, “we have lost all comm contact with the fortress.”
Rehenek’s expression was frozen. He didn’t move a muscle. Kranjick said nothing more for a moment, letting this news sink in.
“Brother Legate?” Hwung-Tsi called out. “Did you copy?”
“Yes, Captain,” Kranjick said. “Is it possible that it is simply a comm disruption, given the storms we went through on the flight over the mountain?”
“Doubtful, sir,” Hwung-Tsi replied. “We had decent comms until a few minutes ago. They did report that the dreadnaught appeared to be deorbiting and descending toward th
e fortress itself. That was one of the last exchanges we had with anyone in the fortress.”
“Acknowledged. Do you have a current read on the dreadnaught?”
“Negative. It’s over the horizon, on the other side of the mountain. The attack group coming from L2 appears to be entering low orbit, however, and there might be another group coming in from L3.”
“Copy that, Captain. Keep me informed if you detect anything else.” Kranjick closed the circuit.
Rehenek wasn’t looking at Kranjick anymore, or at any of the Caractacans. His eyes were far away. This news was clearly a shock, and Scalas wondered just how many shocks a man had to face before he went numb to it all. Valdek had been hammered by an unprecedented war for weeks now; he couldn’t imagine what all the young man had seen since the “Galactic Unity” had first entered the system.
“There is nothing left, Commander,” Kranjick said softly. “If your world is to have any hope of liberation, you need to leave it.”
Rehenek brought his gaze back to the present and focused on Kranjick. There was nothing but bitterness and rage in his eyes. “I thought it went against your Caractacan Code to flee before an enemy,” he sneered.
Kranjick took a step forward at that, and Rehenek recoiled despite his bravado.
“Flee?” Kranjick growled, his helmet’s speakers making his deep voice even harsher than it already was. “If you do not truly understand the difference between flight and strategic retreat, boy, then I wonder if perhaps your people wouldn’t be better off if you killed yourself in a pointless assault on an asset that, given the presence of the dreadnaught overhead, is clearly no longer vital anyway.”