Building New Canaan - The Complete Series - A Colonization and Exploration Space Adventure
Page 51
But carrying out her plan also meant she’d temporarily lost sight of the enemy. All she could see was the empty beach and the ocean, which glittered as it reflected the brilliant stars of the Cradle. All she could hear was the wash of waves on the shore.
Then all of a sudden, a figure in black armor hit the sand right in front of her. He jerked backward, as if he too was startled by the surprise encounter. Almost before she registered the soldier’s arrival, Erin’s weapon was up and she was firing.
At nearly point-blank range, she couldn’t miss. All it took was three rounds before the man was down and dead. But her weapons fire would have alerted the other enemies.
It was too soon. She’d wanted to draw them away, farther down the beach. It couldn’t be helped, though. She had to move fast before they were all over her.
Erin ran along the base of the cliff, aware that more soldiers would soon be dropping to the ground behind her. Next to her head, the cliff face popped, and rock exploded. Red-hot stone chips rattled against her helmet and dust obscured her vision. Erin turned, spraying fire, and heard the thud of boots hitting the sand. She ducked and another shot burst overhead, showering her in rocky debris.
Her HUD identified the enemy’s location, and her gaze locked onto her assailant, followed by the rounds she was firing. The soldier leapt away, but it was too late. Halting her spin, Erin expended the rest of her magazine on the collapsing soldier, not stopping until the figure was still.
More enemy troops were appearing on her HUD, closing on her position. Erin couldn’t deal with them all with no backup, but she knew the terrain like the back of her hand. She recalled a patch of jumbled rocks that ran from the cliff base all the way to the water line, not far from her present position. If she managed to reach the rocks, she could hide amongst them and harass the soldiers, distracting them from their goal for as long as she could. She hoped that someone would turn up to help in the defense before it was too late.
She only had to reach the rocks. Swapping her rifle to beam mode while she exchanged projectile magazines, Erin burst from her now-useless cover. She sprinted across the beach, zigzagging randomly, heading toward the line of jagged rocks that were black silhouettes in the distance.
A fountain of sand spurted from a spot right next to her boot as her foot hit the ground. A round whacked into her shoulder, almost unbalancing her. Warmth spread from the site, but her armor held.
Only another few meters to go. Her HUD was giving her the positions of her pursuers, and she fought the urge to look back at them, knowing that a split second’s delay could mean her death. Worse, it would mean the enemy soldiers would resume their search and discover her family.
A force like a titanium fist punched the back of her helmet, sending her crashing face-first onto the sand. Pain began to radiate from her head, then relief came as Walter flooded her system with analgesics. Erin wrenched herself onto her back and fired low and wide, laying down her own cover as she scrambled backward. She only had to make it to the rocks.
Five or six soldiers were running toward her, the flashes from their weapons lighting up the night like a macabre firework display. Erin’s fire caught one across his knees and sent him tumbling forward. Another round from the enemy struck her knee. One more hit her arm.
Then her back finally slammed into solid stone.
At last!
Erin threw herself to her left, hoping she’d guessed correctly and that a gap between the rocks lay in that direction.
She took another hit before she found she’d been lucky. She scrambled through a crevice between two rocks and into a labyrinth of craggy surfaces. But she had no time to pause in her new refuge—her pursuers were only seconds away. Keeping low, Erin held on to her weapon tightly and ran softly among the jumbled rocks and boulders.
At first, she had no particular strategy in mind, only intending to keep the soldiers occupied as long as possible in their search for her, but then she had an idea.
She turned toward the ocean.
Though the information her HUD displayed regarding the enemy was limited, Erin found she could hear them plainly. The invaders were not taking care to be quiet. They were scraping and banging against the rocks as they searched for her. She would have loved to rise up and kill a few, but that would give away her location too soon.
With all the time she’d spent at the beach house, Erin had become familiar with the rhythm of the tides. She knew that, currently, the water was at its highest point, and no bare sand lay between the waves and the edge of the rocks. If she was careful, she would be able to slip into the ocean unseen. The enemy soldiers could search for her all night and never find her.
After a few minutes’ progress, partly walking bent double and partly crawling, Erin arrived within a few meters of the water. The noise of the waves was loud here, making it harder for her to hear the racket her pursuers were making.
She crouched and waited, ready to make her move.
Great. It looked like she was on her own. Her armor was reporting that the damage from the enemy’s previous shots was fixed, so that was something. At least she wouldn’t find herself waterlogged.
Erin moved to cross the remaining distance to her escape, but a soldier passed right in front of her. She froze, nerves alive as she held her breath, praying that her armor’s stealth capabilities were better than her enemy’s scan systems.
Then he moved on. In a few moments, he was gone.
Exhaling, Erin crawled into the space the soldier had occupied. She passed through it and immediately slipped into the water’s rocky edge. A wave hit her. Keeping as low down as she could, Erin allowed the water’s retreat to tug her deeper into the ocean. Another surge arrived and washed over her. This time as the wave flowed out to sea, Erin propelled herself to follow it with her knees and elbows. After the third wave struck, she was in the water and swimming.
She waited until she was about thirty meters from the shore before surfacing. Then she swivelled around to look toward the field of rocks. Her HUD showed the outlines of soldiers still searching for her in the darkness, but with dismay, she saw they weren’t the only enemies on the scene. More troops were descending the cliffs. Some were already on the beach and heading in the direction of the beach house. Erin had to get there first.
Aided by her armor, her progress was swift as she swam, yet she could not cut through the water fast enough for her liking. If anything, it felt like the beach house, with its lights out, hiding in the shadow of the cliff, was growing more distant.
She could imagine Martin waiting in the darkness, preparing to fight. Isa would be in Jude’s room, a gun in her hand. She would be the final line of defense for their child.
Erin battled on through the water. She felt like she was swimming through molasses. Had she done the right thing in going out to meet the attackers? If she hadn’t decided to lead the enemy on a wild goose chase, she would be with Martin and Isa already. But if she hadn’t tried to lead them away, soldiers would already be attacking their home.
The shore in front of the beach house came into Erin’s view. She began to swim diagonally. As soon as she left the water, she would be in plain sight, a prime target for the approaching soldiers. But her sudden appearance on the scene might distract the troops from the house or draw fire away from Martin. Perhaps somehow, between them, they could defeat all the soldiers who had arrived in search of the SATC.
The odds were impossible, but she had to try.
Her boot touched sand. A strong swell was pushing her in. As Erin crouched in the surf, her HUD registered ten armed figures heading directly for the dark grey structure of the beach house. They’d nearly reached it.
Light flashed from the shadows. One of the soldiers fell. Her HUD noted that Martin was shooting from near the cliff base, also trying to draw the enemy away from the house.
A barrage of return fire echoed against the cliff, and Erin fervently hoped that Martin had taken cover.
Three enemy soldiers moved toward the cliffs, advancing along its irregular surface, while another four moved toward the beach house.
Oh hell no! You’ll get to Jude over my dead body.
Drawing her weapon from across her back, Erin rose out of the water and began to run toward the soldiers, knowing that against superior numbers and with no cover, her dead body was a strong outcome.
She switched to a dual-fire mode, her rifle shooting beams and projectiles, using the combo of superheating and kinetic energy to crack armor.
The enemy soldiers had been so focused on the beach house that none had noticed her approaching from the ocean. Her attack was so unexpected that the soldier nearest Erin was dead before he even knew she was there. But the others immediately hit the ground and returned fire. At a range of just a few dozen meters, moving erratically wasn’t going to cut it. This time, her only strategy was speed.
I just have to make it to the stone firepit, that should give me enough cover….
Despite her words of reassurance to herself, Erin knew it would take a miracle to reach it safely.
She flew across the sand, spraying shots at the prone enemies, trying to keep them from getting clear shots of their own. As she ran, fire came from the edge of the cliff face, streaking out over the beach, hitting one of the soldiers as he rose to advance on Erin.
She was five meters from the firepit, her left foot off the ground, when a kinetic slug hit her in the stomach. The impact bowled her over, and she slid across the beach. Walter dulled the pain, but the alerts on her HUD told her that her gut was a mess.
Rolling over, she struggled to get up, grimacing as she got to her knees. To her right, one of the enemies approached, and she fired from the hip, her spray of rounds hitting him in the chest.
Something hit her back, the force throwing her forward, and pain lanced through her when she hit the sand, her weapon falling from her grasp. Her HUD was flickering as her armor’s sensors failed, and she rolled over, hands pawing madly through the sand in search of her rifle. A strange sensation came from her right side, and she glanced down, eyes widening to see that half her torso was gone, biofoam spilling out of her armor in an attempt to seal up her…everything.
Her armor’s last actuators gave out, and she fell to the sand, desperately telling her body to move, but unable to even twitch a finger.
Out of her peripheral vision, she could see an enemy soldier striding forward to deliver the killing shot. She screamed in her mind, finally getting an arm to respond, her hand barely grasping the butt of her rifle.
What happened to Landfall’s defenses? Where’s the surface Marine division?
It was their job to protect the SATC. Where were they? They had to be arriving soon.
Erin hoped that somehow, Martin and Isa and Jude would be saved.
A boot lashed out and kicked her weak arm away from her rifle. Then the end of a barrel tapped against her visor.
Everything went black.
CHAPTER TWO
STELLAR DATE: 04.07.8941 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Landfall, Knossos Island
REGION: Carthage, New Canaan System
Erin opened her eyes and sat up. She blinked, and the interior of the small booth at Landfall’s military training facility came into focus.
It always took her a few moments to return to reality after participating in an invasion sim.
Walter replied,
Erin continued peevishly,
Erin opened the sim booth door and went out into the corridor, which was lined with closed doors that led to similar booths. The training facility was full as usual. Tanis had mandated that every New Canaan citizen complete a schedule of simulated and live training sessions to prepare them for an invasion.
Everyone knew an attack was coming. They just didn’t know when, and Tanis wasn’t taking any chances.
Erin fully understood the need for the extensive training. In the years that had passed since the Intrepid’s arrival, individuals who had once been space-hardened had become accustomed to a soft life planetside. What was more, many of New Canaan’s settlers had never even seen combat, due to spending most of their long journey in stasis. Yet they were all sitting on a ticking bomb, and that bomb went by the name of picotech.
There was no question that, one day, the Transcend would return to claim the prize—if not them, then some other greedy, jealous, fearful enemy.
In all honesty, the Transcend had never left…a fleet had been guarding the system’s perimeter since the day the Intrepid had crossed the heliopause.
It was entirely right that Tanis should force everyone to prepare for an invasion. Erin didn’t enjoy the training, but she accepted the need for it. Unfortunately, not everyone felt the same way. Complaints in the media from ordinary civilians and prominent individuals alike had been loud. Erin was glad she wasn’t governor. Building massive shipyards concealed in moons and space stations had to be far easier than dealing with millions of opinionated citizens.
On her way to the lobby, Erin passed the training facility’s control center. The door was open, and she spotted a familiar figure in the room, talking to the seated training staff.
“Hey,” Erin said, leaning on the doorjamb and poking her head into the room, “Major Usef.”
The major was taking up most of the available space as he stood over two seated controllers.
Usef glanced back at Erin impassively, only lifting his eyebrows to acknowledge her presence.
“It’s good to see you,” she continued, ignoring his cold response. “I didn’t know you worked here.”
Usef replied, “It’s only a supervisory visit. I recently took over responsibility for the civilian invasion training schedule.”
“You did?” said Erin. “That makes a lot of sense, the session just now was brutal. This is the first time I’ve actually died in a training sim. I’m guessing I couldn’t have survived no matter what I did?”
“That’s right, ma’am,” said Usef. “When I reviewed the
selection, I noticed there weren’t any no-win scenarios. It’s essential to expose civilians to the entire range of possibilities they could experience in the event of an invasion, including the inevitability of their own deaths. Everyone must become accustomed to feelings of despair, hopelessness, and utter desperation, and learn to continue to fight anyway. We can’t have people giving up just because it seems like we’ve lost the battle and everyone’s going to die.” He spoke in a matter-of-fact tone.
“No, I suppose not,” Erin replied, wondering at Usef’s calm attitude toward the prospect of New Canaanites fighting to the very end despite apparently impossible odds. “So, considering that I was always going to die,” she said, “how did I do?”
“You’ll receive your report as usual,” Usef replied stiffly, but then he appeared to loosen up. “Unofficially, you didn’t do too bad—barring your desperate charge at the end. However, for your next session, I’d like you to take part in a military exercise, not a civilian one.” He paused a beat and added, “I want to see if you can follow orders this time.”
“Whoa! Hold a grudge much, Usef? That was years ago.”
Above the heads of his oblivious subordinates, the major gave her a subtle wink.
Erin rolled her eyes and walked out, deciding that her time would be better spent in finding a surprise for Isa than talking further with Usef.
CHAPTER THREE
STELLAR DATE: 04.07.8941 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Marine Eco Station #14, Knossos Island
REGION: Carthage, New Canaan System
When Martin arrived at the beach house with Isa and Erin that evening, their home looked just as it had during the training sim. He supposed that Malcolm had set the windows to fully opaque; no light shone out from within the building. The low rectangular shape was little more than a dark shadow against the black backdrop of the cliff face.