by Tim C Taylor
With the obscuring Flek clouds stripped out from her tactical map, the view from above was like looking down upon a jungle canopy, or the islands of coral that glistened in the shallow waters of the Littorane homeworld. But the mega structure that covered Athena was artificial, and not built from the ceramalloys that were the standard construction material throughout the Empire. The world tree that covered Athena was made of burnished metal. If not for the obscuring clouds of Flek, Athena would be a gleaming jewel against the black of space. Even Athena’s oceans were crisscrossed with a network of metal walkways and habitations.
Xin’s eye settled on an island in the Southern Ocean that the human mapping team had named Australia, after a landmass on Earth of similar size. The objective of Operation Blowtorch was to seize and hold Australia. If the Legion could take a continent-sized segment of the world tree, and establish a firm foothold on the White Knight homeworld, then all doubts about the Legion’s ability to take this world would be dispelled. Surrender terms would be reissued, and they would discover just how strongly the New Empire would stand by its beliefs.
Would the soldiers of the New Empire stand and die for a principle?
Xin shook her head. That was the biggest known unknown: what had sparked the White Knight Civil War in the first place? If it was naked ambition, the defenders might be willing to give up Athena in return for safe passage. But what if they fought for political principle, or religious purity? The leaders of the New Empire might be every bit as convinced of their divine backing as the religious maniacs that were the backbone of the Littorane officer corps. If the New Empire was fighting their own holy war, the Legion would have to tear the world tree apart, trunk by trunk, until finally the missing part of the world – the Imperial Citadel on the far side from Australia – would return to the physical universe, and they would finally have the White Knight Emperor in their power.
And if that was what it would take, then Xin wouldn’t hesitate to rip this world apart to get her armored gauntlet around that frakking Emperor, and make him answer for the Cull and all of his disgusting crimes – whatever Arun might think on that matter.
Xin softened and calmed at the thought of Arun. He was out of his recovery pod now, except when he returned for short bursts of centrifugal treatment, when the pod was spun around to put a little pseudo-gravity into his re-knitting bones. But he was a long way short of being fit for duty.
He hadn’t even fussed over her, told her to be careful, when they met last night. Arun had simply told her to get the job done, adding a feeble squeeze through his grip on her hand.
She bit her lower lip. She had rescued his shattered body from that Hardit commando ship, but as the weeks had rolled by, it was increasingly obvious that part of him had never really come back. Tears leaked from her eyes, rapidly ballooning in the zero-g until the automatic systems in her helmet activated, and rapidly wicked away these obstructions to her vision.
“We’ll get through this,” she whispered to herself. “And when our daughter is born, you’ll come back to us, whole again. I won’t let you do otherwise.”
Xin looked once more at Australia, 2000 klicks below the Gallipoli, a command vessel that tried to pass itself off as an unremarkable troopship within the huge layered clouds of Army Group Sky Strike’s orbital presence. In reality, Gallipoli had uprated armor and was surrounded by picket ships. For the first time, Xin wanted to know what was going through the minds of the defenders right now. Had they any notion that for most of them, their final day had come?
Xin clenched her fists, or as best she could within their gauntlets. She had fought alongside many brave soldiers who were themselves parents. Why couldn’t she be like them? One thought of the child within her, and her daughter’s wounded father, and her concentration was shot to pieces.
Xin instructed her AI to deliver the standard combat drug. Over the next few seconds, it felt as if the hatch was shutting on the distracting noises of life. By the time the hatch hissed shut, anything not concerned with Operation Blowtorch was reduced to cold information, of no tactical relevance, and the enemy below were vermin who deserved to die. She grinned at the thought that they were about to do just that.
Zero hour was now less than 200 seconds away. Lieutenant-General Xin Lee, commander of Army Group Sky Strike filled every remaining second of the countdown with checks on her subordinates, and of her command post systems.
Everything was ready.
The countdown reached zero, and Xin said a single word: “Go!”
——
The opening act of the invasion fell to the Heavy Support Squadron, a formation of missile destroyers that gave real punch to Army Group Sky Strike. The warships, and most of their crews, had defected from the rival Imperial navies during the war. Xin and her trusted allies had ruthlessly purged the crews of any who were unsure where their loyalties lay. They didn’t merely follow the Legion, they were loyal to her personally, to the extent that she trusted them more than ships under Indiya’s Navy echelon.
Admiral Kreippil had objected to the use of abject turncoats in such a role of honor, but Indiya had overruled, perhaps feeling the guilt of keeping the secrets of the Bonaventure for so long.
As Xin watched the missile tracks from her destroyers snake down through Athena’s atmosphere, she considered how strange it was to think of honor at a moment like this. She had promised Arun to get the job done, and she expected every single individual in her army group to do precisely that. Honor and glory were concepts the Admiral could flap his gills over, but they had no place in her command.
Anti-missile missiles streaked up from batteries concealed within the White Knight world tree, hugging the Flek clouds until the last moment to limit the effectiveness of the Legion’s beam weapons trying to knock them out from space. Enough of her missile bombardment got through to release their payload: blooms of defensive munitions that made the choking orange clouds glitter and spark with high-energy discharge.
A handful of the Legion missiles had disappeared with no explanation. Tech teams would be furiously thinking to work out why, but Xin trusted them to do their job, and enough missiles had gone through to cover the next barrage.
The Heavy Support Squadron launched another salvo under cover of the first. The attrition from the Imperial defenders was minimal, and nearly all of the salvo survived to the upper reaches of the Flek clouds, where they lit the sky in a lattice of airburst nuclear bombs. They were low-yield nukes, fission reactions rather than fusion, designed to irradiate more than destroy. The nukes were wrapped around with thermal shielding to protect their true payload: canisters of kinetic projectiles known as lazy dogs. Scattered by the bomb shockwaves, and irradiated by the dirty fission reactions, the lazy dogs dropped their diamond-tipped noses toward the Australian world tree and accelerated toward terminal velocity. This was weaponized nuclear fallout, a strike ordered by Xin to protect her armies’ descent from orbit by confusing the hell out of enemy targeting systems. But she was hoping the lazy dogs would be far more than a form of defensive munitions.
Xin waited calmly for the reports on what damage the lazy dogs had inflicted when they struck the upper canopy of the world tree at hypersonic speeds. Always, there was uncertainty in this final attack on the White Knight homeworld. If the enemy had formidable new engines of war, technologies of which the Legion had no concept, then this was where they would be encountered. Was there an equivalent to the barrier fed by Euphrates? Some new factor that would render her battle planning obsolete?
The reports came through. The lazy dogs had torn through the upper canopy of the world tree, shredding the area around Australia as if it consisted of leaves, not gleaming metal.
Already, a second salvo of lazy dog nukes was entering the upper atmosphere, but there was no time in the invasion plan for a lengthy bombardment, because no matter what devastation her forces wrought on the upper canopy, Athena’s world tree extended deep below the surface, and could easily be bolstered with de
fenders through underground supply routes.
She had seen enough. Xin and the other senior field commanders – Aelingir, Graz, and Mountain Root – signaled confirmation that phase 2 of the operation was to proceed.
Xin launched three of her Shock Wings, keeping two in reserve.
Meanwhile under cover of the mayhem in the skies above Australia, Army Group Deep Strike began its descent in stealth drop ships, tens of thousands of them plummeting toward the seas around Australia, where they would slow in the lower atmosphere, so they could slide over the waves, unnoticed.
In stark contrast, what the Shock Wings of Xin’s army group were about to deliver would be anything but unnoticed.
— Chapter 30 —
Flight-Corporal Nolog-Ndacu constantly scanned his tac-sphere for threats. 21st Scour Squadron had descended to less than a klick above the ruined upper levels of the Australia habitat. He mistrusted the poisonous orange clouds that cloaked everything on this strange world, but the radar showed the towers and walkways of the metal world tree had torn open like a forest of exploded gun barrels. Any outer defenses in the upper canopy had been wiped away by the lazy dog strike, but this was too easy.
He leaned over in his co-pilot’s seat and thumped the pilot’s thigh three times. To many of the other species in 2nd Shock Wing, the action would appear odd, or even mutinous, but the Valiant picket aircraft of the 21st Scour Squadron were crewed by Tallermans, and for the natives of Tallerman-3 the most natural form of communication was through underground rumbles. Speech was reserved for royalty and philosophy.
Three sharp taps on the pilot’s tough hide meant a request to ease off with the frantic evasive maneuvers.
Flight-Sergeant Oen-Sec complied, allowing Nolog-Ndacu a clearer view of the tactical situation.
The 21st was flying a concentric ring formation just above what passed for rooftops around here. The inner ring of nine Mark-3 Fury scour-copters was protected by an outer ring of thirty-six Valiants, who were flying a picket role, cocooning the squadron in a protective shell of defensive munitions thrown out by the aircraft AIs.
Nolog-Ndacu spotted a gap between the metal spires and instinctively distrusted this distinctive feature, aiming a barrage of flares to confuse enemy sensors, and smoke to scatter and dissipate attack by beam weapons. He reached out and used his finger to paint the suspicious area in his tac-sphere, which transmitted an update to the tac-spheres throughout 21st Squadron, adorning the region with yellow warning symbols.
This operation was taking too long. They were vulnerable here, and although the Valiant’s fuselage was stuffed full of ordnance, their supply was not infinite. Nolog-Ndacu resisted the natural impulse to draw his head down beneath the armored ring of his neck. What are we waiting for?
The answer came through a tac-sphere update, Nolog-Ndacu realized as he thumped the pilot to increase the sharpness of his maneuvering once more. Like the 21st, the rest of 2nd Shock Wing was holding position, but the other two Shock Wings deployed in the initial attack were heavily engaged against waves of aerial infantry moving to close quarters combat.
Nolog-Ndacu went rigid as rock. What the hell was aerial infantry? Athena was a huge moon, but still only a moon. They had expected aerial counter-attack to take the form of missile exchanges against unseen opponents over the horizon. Close quarters combat? Against aircraft? But that’s what the report had said.
Deploying the squadron into the atmosphere had been difficult enough, but none of the aircraft was capable of ascending to orbit without first returning to the aircraft carriers high in the upper air. Could this aerial infantry reach the aircraft carriers? That didn’t bear thinking about.
“Docker to all Scour Squadrons. Unleash the Furies!”
Finally, Wing Commander Dock’s order meant the 21st Scour Squadron could live up to its name. The Valiants peppered the area beneath them with micro-nukes to flense away any outer layers of defense that might await the Furies, and then the scour-copters descended below the tips of the ruined spires, where the Valiants couldn’t follow. The scour-copters were on their own now.
Nolog-Ndacu kept his binocular vision fixed to the tac-sphere, alert for threats from above and to the flanks, but his rear eye – the organ evolved to detect threats sneaking from behind – was trained on a view of the Furies’ descent into the world tree.
The tree analogy was apt, because the heavy attack helicopters opened up the firing apertures in their bellies, and began to cut through the branches and upper trunks of the metal tree-habitat, lopping them off and causing them to fall clattering down, down towards the moon surface many klicks below.
At first the cone of pure energy lancing out from beneath the scour-copters had been visible only in its effect, but now the sickly Flek-clouds glowed around the outer edge of the energy cone, coruscating fingers reaching out from the cone and into the surrounding clouds, which grew thicker down amongst the tumbling spires.
Nolog-Ndacu didn’t like the look of that.
It’s only a zero-point starship drive, he told himself. Admiral Indiya herself used one decades ago. They’re perfectly safe – so long as you’re on the right side of the energy cone.
But the fingers sparking out of the cones thickened and lengthened. The clouds glowed with light even after the Furies had passed on. This wasn’t in the briefing.
He thumbed a comm connection into being. “Papa-36 to Sierra-3, your weapon looks like it’s about to ignite the atmosphere.”
Surely the squadron leader on board Sierra-3 would know what was happening. She was there.
“Sierra-3 to Papa-36. Negative, not enough oxygen in atmosphere to burn. Not possible. Impressive light effects only. Stay alert. Out.”
“Copy that, Sierra-3.” Don’t worry your pretty little head. Nolog-Ndacu did as he was ordered, keeping his mouth shut, and his rear eye on the scour-copter attack.
The spires and limbs of the world tree were piling up, like the heaps of foliage deposited at the edge of the seasonal floods on Tallerman-3. The Flek was pooling into ever-thicker pockets of gas that glowed like a stellar nursery – beautiful but deadly.
An audible alert brought his attention up and east beyond the horizon. Missile lock! Someone had the Valiant in their sights.
Nolog-Ndacu hurled a wall of ordnance eastward – all the Valiants did – and awaited orders.
“Come on, Wing Commander,” Nolog-Ndacu muttered to himself, “get those Furies out of there.”
“Docker to all call signs, the crystal ball gazers have peered into the swirling mists and detected approximately 21 fighter squadrons headed our way. Scour Squadrons have nothing to worry about. Valiants shall greet them with a volley of little buggers, Dolly Birds Three, Seven, and Niner with me. Let’s show these White Knight jokers what a Legion scimitar can do. Out.”
Now this is why a good Tallerman distrusts speech, thought Nolog-Ndacu, although years of serving Wing Commander Dock meant his strange ways were just about intelligible. Nolog-Ndacu sent a volley of LB-37 LONAR ballistic missiles toward the cloud of enemy missiles heading their way from East. The little buggers as Docker called them, could detect even stealthed missiles and were near-impossible to evade, but were big. Each Valiant only carried one. The Wing Commander was to take three fighter squadrons – dolly birds, after the preening of the pilots – to counter the threat assessed by the observation teams in orbit. The Scimitars flown by the fighter squadrons were outnumbered, but with the Legion’s complete orbital superiority they should be able to see off this enemy threat.
Nolog-Ndacu’s rear eye blinked, a natural threat alert that temporarily blinded his front vision and gave the sensation of being doused in icy water. He was swiveling his head around to face this threat from the rear when the Valiant lurched, and then started to fall out of the sky.
“We are blind,” he reported to Oen-Sec, “EMP fried our sensors. Deploying reserves.” The Valiant juddered violently, its engine whining as Oen-Sec applied maximum thrust. They were
probably about to die, but Nolog-Ndacu felt perfectly at peace as he waited for the reserve sensor array to come online. Like any good Tallerman, Nolog-Ndacu was calmest when he faced mortal peril; it was only as he awaited the next, inevitable, existential crisis that he displayed an unusual aptitude for worry.
By the time Nolog-Ndacu’s tac-sphere had returned for duty, Oen-Sec had wrestled the Valiant back under control. With his demise no longer quite so imminent, Nolog-Ndacu felt the tingle in his legs which was the closest a Tallerman ever came to blind panic. “The shockwave came from a fusion reaction starting up,” he told the pilot, simultaneously trying to remember his training about the lethality of radiation. “It’s not the enemy, the scour-copters did this.”
“The squadron leader was wrong, then. The atmosphere is on fire.”
“Negative, Flight-Sergeant. The late squadron leader was technically correct. The air isn’t burning, it’s fusing. Elements in the Flek are fusing, and that’s releasing enough energy to then fuse the nitrogen that is the main atmospheric constituent. It’s a chain reaction, slowly building.”
“… arses out of that hellhole, and climb to max altitude.” Comms are back online, noted Nolog-Ndacu. “I say again. Docker to all call signs. Arses out and climb high.”
“Roger that,” Oen-Sec said, adding over the internal comms: “For once, the Wing Commander’s words make perfect sense.”
— Chapter 31 —
Xin watched stoically as her Shock Wings withdrew, defeated not by the enemy but by a failure to understand the battlefield. Just what was this Flek? Nuclear fires burned in pockets scattered deep within the undergrowth of trimmings cut from the top of the world tree. The air was dissipating the heat sufficiently to prevent the fires from spreading more widely. Not yet… But maybe with a little encouragement…