by B. V. Larson
Cautiously Repeth approached the lip of the tunnel in which they stood, ten meters up from the floor. The laser bores had dropped a large mass of rockslide against the back of the stadium-sized chamber, crushing some kind of machinery beneath it. Above and across, two smaller tunnels showed above the rubble.
“There!” she said, then shoved Swede sideways. They fell slowly as impacts pocked puffs of rock-shrapnel off the floor. “Tunnels, ten o’clock high!”
The rest of the squad lit up both tunnel entrances with their PRGs, portable railguns that fired heavy ferrocrystal BBs at breathtaking velocities. Thousands of rounds funneled crashing into the openings and the enemy fire stopped immediately in a cloud of rock shrapnel.
“Have we even seen the enemy?” Repeth asked.
“Neg. That was the first fire we took,” Swede replied as they bounded to their feet. Looking back the way they had come, he pointed. “Here they are.”
Repeth turned to see a double line of Marines approaching fast, so she said to Swede, “Go follow Bull. I’ll direct traffic here.” As soon as he and his squad had jumped down to the floor, she held up her hands to slow the approaching troops and tell them what to do.
***
“All right, we’ve gotten the landing force there, now they’re on their own,” Absen declared. “And so are we. Leave one wing of Crows there to cover the Marines, the rest to rendezvous with us. Any that can’t fight, return to the carriers.”
“Aye, sir,” Commander Johnstone responded, passing the orders.
“Sir,” Okuda spoke up, “the Guardian is still accelerating faster than we can fall back. They will catch us behind the moon.”
“No, we need to stay in view of the planet,” Absen replied. “Keep off to the side, don’t let it eclipse our view.”
Okuda opened his eyes and turned to stare at the Admiral, who stared back imperturbably. The helmsman’s eyes seemed to ask, what is it you’re not telling me? Absen shook his head imperceptibly, and Okuda closed his eyes again. Turning back to his cockpit he plunged back into his virtual senses.
“Crossing six hundred thousand klicks,” Ford called. “I think we’re getting more standard railgun hits, but only because their fusion beams are picking off all of the specials.”
“How’s the ammo holding out?”
Ford shook his head. “We’re using a lot, flinging it at them at long range like this. Most of it is missing, and I have to keep the pattern spread or the Guardian will just dodge the whole thing. It’s a tradeoff between concentrated damage and hit probability.”
“I didn’t ask for a tactical analysis, Ford. Tell me how long can we keep up our fire.”
Ford dipped his head. “At this rate we’ll run out of railgun shot well before he catches us. Perhaps ten minutes.”
“Cut it back to harassing fire, then. Keep tossing a few large rounds, force him to destroy them, but save the nukes.”
Fifteen long minutes went by as the Guardian chased them and they held their range open, pecking away at the giant sphere. Coming on inexorably, it seemed like a force of nature instead of warship.
***
Your job is not to fight, Jill, Repeth reminded herself. Your job is to lead, direct and support. That’s why she waved platoon after platoon past her and into the tunnels, until finally Third Platoon, Safari in the lead, jogged up to her.
“Echo Company is three hundred meters back, by the tank,” Safari explained. “Major Choi insists on getting the rest of the armor past the disabled heavy before his infantry deploys.”
Her first instinct to go back and browbeat the cautious company commander into moving lost out to her duty to Bravo Company and her own people. “All right. I sent Fourth, Fifth and Sixth platoon through that center tunnel, Seven and Eight to the right. They are meeting light resistance and pushing forward into a large underground complex. I can’t get through to Bull with First and Second, so I respectfully suggest we haul ass up and find out what’s going on. Sir.”
“Yes, mother,” Safari quipped. “THIRD PLATOON, FOLLOW ME!” Forty Marines did just that, in two loose lines, leaping lightly to the floor ten meter below then bounding forward into the tunnel. Automated stabilization programs fired tiny bursts of suit jets to keep them upright and moving correctly, but even so more than one of the diggers – the green troops – managed to bounce himself off the ceiling.
Repeth brought up the rear, sending her squadcomm ultra-wideband ranging ahead, querying on the command net. Finding nothing, she tried First platoon’s freq, then Second.
Bingo.
Gabbles of combat came though in broken pieces, sounds of a firefight. “Third platoon, I hear Second in a furball up ahead, look sharp.”
A moment later something slammed her sideways, driving her into the starboard tunnel wall. Zero-G reflexes took over as she turned off her stabilizer and flipped upside down in midair, kicked off the ceiling, then rotated back upright. Something big…
Out of a steampunk nightmare reared a boring machine, rotating cones covered with carbon teeth tearing at the tunnel walls. It had thrown her across the room with a spray of rock and now ground forward into the other side of the tube, crossing as if to create a perpendicular access. A few seconds only and it was through, spitting gravel and dust behind it.
On its heels came armored Hippos, enormous beings three meters tall weighing a ton each carrying weapons to match. She found herself all alone behind the mass pushing into the tunnel as the enemy turned to follow Third Platoon. “THIRD, AMBUSH REAR!” she screamed across her squadcomm, but it was too late.
Pulses of plasma from the Hippo’s huge guns ripped apart the rear ranks of Third platoon. In response Repeth detached all eight grenades from their niches in her armor and used her link to set them for command detonation even as she pitched them in a group under the enemy’s feet.
Only one creature was looking her way; the Hippo unit had obviously had some form of observation that allowed them to time their ambush to when the Marines had gone past, and did not expect resistance from her direction. Perhaps, also, they underestimated the humans for their size, so much smaller than they and not to be taken seriously.
Repeth changed their minds.
Snatching her PRG up again she drilled the Hippo as it swung its weapon in her direction. On full auto a one-second burst sent over one hundred ferrocrystal BBs in a tiny reproduction of the battleships’ railguns, different only in its scale. At 50,000 meters per second each one-gram projectile penetrated her target’s armor and, after slowing inside flesh, ricocheted around inside the creature. It collapsed boneless on the ground, but not before a bolt of green plasma bounced off the tunnel wall and washed over her in a wave of heat.
Sending the command to detonate, she leaped backward and curled into a ball. Shockwave sent her rolling for a hundred meters down the tunnel before she could skid to a halt. Her HUD showed the Hippos knocked down like bowling pins but several were still firing and, except for the one she had railgunned, none seemed dead.
Tough bastards, she told herself, just as briefed. So much for them coming in on our side.
Then the pain hit her.
She felt as if her entire body had been steam-cooked – and perhaps it had. Dead epidermis ripped loose all over and sent debilitating agony though her nervous system. Gasping, she sent an order through her suit link to give her a double dose of painkiller and stims, and then tried to keep still. I’ll heal, just need time, she told herself. Automated systems pumped nutrient solution into her veins to give her Eden Plague something to work with.
Repeth’s grenades had nevertheless given Third Platoon a chance to recover, and now thousands of stray BBs came her way as her comrades fired at the Hippos. “Fire low! Skip your rounds!” she yelled on the platoon push. “I’m still back here!” Hugging the ground, she hoped they understood. As long as the tiny spheres struck the floor, then a wall or two, her armor could probably keep her safe.
Green plasma flashed her direction as m
ore Hippos poured through the hole in the side wall. Too damned many. They are cutting us off, she thought. They’ll roll us up if that bastard Choi doesn’t get here soon. Low-crawling backward with her suit jets holding her to the floor was a nightmare of pain and torture, but soon she scrambled around a bend in the corridor and tried to make contact with Echo Company. Finally she got ahold of Major Choi on the command freq. “Echo One, this is Bravo November One, Bravo Company is cut off by a Hippo counterattack, we need you to push up and relieve!”
Choi replied, “We are having difficulty getting our tanks down the slope, you will just have to hold.” With that he cut the connection.
Swearing a blue streak, Repeth used her suit jets to blast herself down the corridor, using all her zero-G skill to avoid slamming against the walls and ceiling, the pain finally dulling. Bursting out of the tunnel mouth into the open space where they had paused before, she saw confusion reigned as a couple of hundred Marines set to moving rubble, apparently trying to build a ramp for the two heavy tanks to crawl down.
In normal gravity that would have been insane, but on this small moon it could probably be done, barely – but her people were dying back there. Switching coded frequencies she addressed her counterpart in Echo Company, Sergeant Major Charlie McCoy. “Charlie, this is Jill, I got three platoons getting wacked by Hippos up there in the left tunnel, we have to get the infantry up to relieve them! There’s no time for these tanks!”
“Roger, Jill, I’ll handle it.”
Repeth switched to the brigade net, a bold but necessary move, as Bravo Company had been on the southernmost tunnel and had been attacked from the south, being hit first. “Brigade TOC any station this is Two Bravo November One with flash traffic. Hippo digging machines attacking from the south, have already intersected friendly tunnels and Hippos are counterattacking in at least company strength. Repeth out.” No time for more, that will have to do.
A moment later two line platoons with Echo company’s semi-portables scrambled down the slope toward her. She didn’t speak, just waved them to follow and began moving with all deliberate speed back toward the firefight, hoping there was someone there to rescue.
Coming upon the tunnel break she found nothing but several dead Hippos and two dozen fallen Marines farther along. It looked as if most of Third Platoon had been wiped out. She rolled one broken command-armored figure over, already knowing what she would see. Safari. Nothing has a shorter lifespan than a butterbar in his first battle, she thought, God rest his soul.
Flashes and shocks rippled from up ahead while the borrowed Echo Company troops caught up. Repeth said to their lieutenant on the local freq, “Suggest you leave one man at this intersection and when the rest of Echo comes up, send a probe each direction. You might catch some Hippos napping, or kill that digging machine. The rest, let’s get going.”
Pushing herself to her limits – not of strength or endurance, but of balance – she bounded down the low tunnel, skidding and using suit jets profligately, leaving the others behind. Suit air showed less than half now, but she knew she could always recharge off a dead Marine’s armor, so she ignored the risk.
Five hundred meters and several turns later she saw the flashes of the Hippos’ green-plasma weapons. Stopping short, she eased her head around the bend in the tunnel to see a mass of enemy firing in the other direction, perhaps thirty to forty deployed in a wide spot. Two of them faced her way, but did not seem to see her.
It appeared the enemy was bottlenecked in front of a narrow place, with brisk Marine fire coming at them through the small opening perhaps two Hippos wide. One alien edged up to try to fire its weapon around the lip of the circular entrance but was cut down by a bright orange laser flash.
They have one semi-portable still functioning, she thought. That’s the only thing that can do wholesale damage to these monsters. Peering back, she called, “Get up here, we can take them in the rear! Form on me!” Repeth pulsed her suit marker lights once to show them where she was in the dark, for the battle HUD overlay skipped and shuddered in these tunnels.
It seemed ages but was probably only thirty seconds before almost one hundred Marines lined up in a very old-fashioned, almost Napoleonic line formation. “All right, like a door, people, like a parade ground right wheel. The two semis are the hinge on the right; crews will take ten steps forward and emplace. Everyone else keep your dress, I don’t want any fratricide, and just like the days of old, don’t fire until you are lined up nicely, I will give the order.” Everyone followed her instructions now as in the heat of battle no one cared that she was not in command, in fact not even part of their unit.
Somehow, Sergeants Major just seemed to get obedience.
“Forward, HARCH!” As one the line moved, keeping admirable discipline except for a few diggers that their fellows had to grab and haul back from charging. Ten steps later the semi-portables slammed to ground.
Green fire sprouted from the two Hippos on rear-guard first, cutting down five or six Marines as they played their plasma weapons across the line. “FIRE!” Repeth ordered as the rest of the enemy about-faced and began to draw beads.
Fourscore personal railguns and two semi-portable laser cannon turned a disciplined enemy formation into a pile of meat in less than three seconds. “Cease fire, cease fire!” Repeth called. Walking among the fallen foe, she kicked plasma guns away from their hands and looked for any still alive.
One of the Hippos reared up suddenly and she blasted it herself, joined by a line of bright orange from the semi. “All right, change of plan. Finish off the wounded,” she called. “They’re too damn big to take prisoner and it looks like they are not going to give up.” Against the Admiral’s policy, but these nonhuman sons of bitches had shown no sign of surrendering or rebelling against their Meme masters. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d face a court of inquiry for her actions. Sometimes the battlefield didn’t square with policy.
Pushing past the messy pile, she hailed through the bottleneck. “It’s all clear here; who’s back there? Bull?”
The hulking figure that stepped out could be only one man, with that garish Star of David painted on his oversized armor like a Jewish bull’s-eye. “Thanks, Reaper. Good to see you. Now let’s go finish this gefickende job.”
***
Absen stroked his chin with a gloved finger as his diminished fleet’s Parthian shots continued without effect. “Status report on the landing?”
“They’ve broken through into the underground complex and are driving back heavy resistance. Casualties are high, but General MacAdam says victory is inevitable,” Rick relayed confidently.
That’s what I said about the fleet action too, Absen thought to himself. Now I have to make it true.
“Skipper, the Guardian is turning…it’s heading toward the landing!”
“What’s the range from the orbitals to the Guardian?”
“Eight hundred thousand klicks and extending,” Scoggins answered. “Why, sir?”
Absen ignored the question. “Helm, reverse course on my mark, straight toward that bloody bastard. Just keep us away from the moon laser’s arc of fire. Ford, I want a phased barrage with all our remaining offensive missiles and all the railgun fire you can give me – including specials. We throw everything we have at him, empty the stores. Time it to strike all at once, missiles to converge from as many directions as possible, right about when we get within one hundred K of him.”
“Aye aye, sir.” Ford turned back to his board, unable to suppress the look of naked desperation he exchanged with Scoggins, who smiled reassuringly in return. Taking a deep breath, he fed in the Admiral’s instructions.
In the holotank the Earth fleet seemed to slow in its retreat, then move back at the Guardian, which described a slowly-increasing arc toward the moon. Red lines and icons sprouted from Conquest and her task force as the computer projected the ships and weapons’ paths. Railgun fire streamed to intercept, while clouds of missiles fired by Conquest’s launchers
first spread outward, then converged, their plots intersecting at the Meme supercapital ship.
Dozens of enemy fusion beams licked out to pluck the human weapons out of space, but there were thousands of targets for the Guardian to fend off, even discounting the millions of railgun shot. As the range closed, more and more EarthFleet weapons struck the massive vessel, only to be absorbed, ignored.
On the main optical screen Absen saw the enemy ship change course back toward his fleet. “Good…we’re pulling him off the landing.” Abruptly a hole grew in the center of the Guardian, a swelling eye that opened where none had been before. “Helm, Conquest only, full reverse!” It was a horrifying order, a true commander’s decision made on intuition and instinct. Falling back for a moment, the dreadnought pushed away even as its six escorts bore forward like an honor guard, placing them squarely in the monster’s sights.
Suddenly the bridge saw battleship York’s fusion drive ignited to flank speed at the same time a handful of escape pods and ejectable modules shot forth from her doomed body. “What the hell is she doing?” Absen asked.
The only one on the bridge who knew refused to answer. In his virtual space, Rick Johnstone had foreseen the doom of the battleship as soon as he had calculated the aim of the Guardian’s superprimary fusion beam, and had used his stolen command codes to force the ejection of all possible occupied lifeboats. Simultaneously he had caused York to sprint directly at her enemy, ensuring the monster would focus on the battleship and nothing else.
At least I saved a few, damn me to hell, he thought. And maybe its armor will hold.
From the Meme ship’s eye jetted a fusion beam greater than any they had ever seen, ten times at least as powerful as any Destroyer had created – though not so incredible as the moonbase laser. It reached out and, like a blowtorch to a wax candle, struck York with a blazing belch of fused plasma hotter than a thousand suns.
For perhaps ten seconds her thick armor, the best EarthFleet technology could produce, held. Sloughing away in chunks and scales, soon enough even that stupendous shield gave way, and the rest of the ship and its remaining crew ignited as one, vaporized, and vanished.