by Jay Allan
Cain was in the center of it all, slashing with his blade, smashing his armored fist down on opponents, even falling to the ground in a desperate armored wrestling match with an enemy officer, one that ended when he was finally able to bring his blade around and drive it through his foe’s throat.
The fight was brutal, as savage and unimaginable as any Cain had seen. His people were gaining the upper hand, there was no doubt about that, but they were taking losses too. All around, there was the debris of war, twisted, burned chunks of armor and weapons…and encased in their shattered tombs of heavy metal, the wreckage of men and women.
The differences between the dead—and the wounded, screaming in pain, exposed to deadly radiation the instant their suits were breached—seemed slight, and in many ways, Cain knew they were. The Black Flaggers were no First Imperium robots, nor even identical Shadow Legion clones. They looked very much like the Marines, fit, and mostly young, men and women, representing the various ethnicities of man, appearing in many ways as though they’d just been snatched from the streets of a hundred colony worlds.
The enemy did not retreat, not for a long while. No doubt, their commanders hoped their superior numbers would ultimately tell. But the Marines had gained too much initiative, and they were at their greatest advantage in the close-range melee. Cain waited, counting each second, even as he continued to fight, killing one enemy after another, the reflexes of a hundred battles coming back, taking charge of his aging but still capable body. His gut told him the enemy would pull back, that they’d seek to set up a new position and return the battle to a more conventional fight between ranged weapons.
And, then we’ll give them just that…
Cain threw his arm up, blocking a strike from an enemy trooper, and he drove his blade into the man’s midsection. Even the hyper-sharp knife struggled to penetrate the strong armor there, and it took all the enhanced power his arm could manage to drive it through.
His blood was full of adrenalin, the surge of energy he’d always felt in battle in full effect. But he was worried too, concerned that the enemy didn’t seem to be breaking off. If they held long enough, he knew his own people, Marines or not, would eventually falter.
Then he saw it. Black Flag troopers climbing out of the trench, running out over the flat plain behind. There were still enemy soldiers fighting his people, but more and more began to stream away. There was no panic, no disorder…the enemy had not developed a sudden fear. They were clearly obeying some command, some directive to pull out and reform.
“Now,” Cain shouted, even as his head darted around, making sure no enemy was coming at him. “Autocannon teams, get your weapons deployed, and open fire.” This was no time for crispness, to wait until all units were deployed and open fire simultaneously. He wanted each gun firing the instant it was ready, without wasting so much as a second. It wouldn’t take the enemy long to pull back, to cross the deadly open field and gain at least some sort of cover. And Cain wanted every one of them he could get in that time.
He felt the same feral instinct he always had, enhanced perhaps by the anger, the rage at those who had stolen so much of his life. He knew these soldiers were brainwashed, most likely stolen from all over Occupied Space and conditioned until they were mind-numbed zombies. But right now, he didn’t care. All he cared about was victory.
“Let’s go, gunnery teams. I want those autocannons firing!” A few of the weapons were already active, and more were coming online. He had ten of them, and by the time all were in place, he could see the deadly toll they were taking. All across the line, whole groups of enemy soldiers fell, dozens, hundreds.
The others continued to withdraw, their order unaffected by the incredible carnage all around. Against a conventional enemy, Cain knew he’d have already won the victory. No force he’d ever seen, not even the hardest Marine veterans he’d ever led, could endure what his people were unleashing on their stunned foes. But the Black Flag formations, dwindling like blocks of ice on a hot day, continued to maneuver calmly, utterly unaffected by the losses they had suffered.
Slowly, steadily, the survivors reached another defensible spot, a small ridge similar to the one Cain’s people had just taken from them. They dropped down, taking the easy targets from the Marine gunners, and a moment later, Cain reluctantly gave the order to cease fire. His teams could inflict more casualties, he didn’t have any doubt about that, but he also knew his ammunition supply was rapidly dwindling…and even if he was able to get more ordnance from the shelters, those stores were running out as well. Every shot had to count from here on out.
He stared across the plain, now the new ‘no man’s land,’ and he felt the urge to send his Marines forward again. They were exhausted, spent…but the enemy had abandoned all their heavy weapons, and he knew there a brief opportunity here, before they brought more forward. But one look at his own force told him that was too much, more that he could get from his Marines. They’d inflicted massive losses on the enemy, but a third of their own number had fallen in the fight. The enemy didn’t have any autocannons right now, but the element of surprise was gone too. The near-compulsion to push ahead, to drive the enemy from one position to the next was almost irresistible, but reason prevailed. Even if his Marines did manage to push the Black Flaggers back farther, they were only a part of the line. All they would do was expose their flanks to the enemy on their right.
“I want scouts and spotters in every platoon, and I want those autocannons ready at the first sign of any move.” He didn’t think the enemy was coming, not at least until they could reinforce their flank. But he wasn’t going to get caught with armored pants down, as his counterpart just had.
He felt good. His Marines had performed magnificently, and their victory, small and local that it was, would have a ripple effect down the line. It would buy time, help hold things together. For at least a little longer.
Then, as if to tear away whatever satisfaction he might have felt, he saw a runner heading his way. He sighed softly, wondering if there was a chance, any chance at all the approaching Marine carried good news. After all, he was waiting for help, the only hope for victory resting on his allies coming to Armstrong on time. But his gut told him a different story, one his experiences had proved to be far more common.
“General Cain, we’re picking up incoming landing craft.”
“Have we been able to identify the ships?”
For an instant Cain wondered if he’d been too quick to assume the worst. Could this be help on the way? Martians? Black Eagles? He felt the slightest spark of hope.
And then it died.
“Yes, sir. They appear to be Black Flag vessels, similar to those in the earlier landings. We project at least twenty thousand troops inbound, General. Perhaps more.”
Cain just stood there, silent. The lack of new enemy landings had led him to believe the Black Flag just might have landed all its soldiers. But reinforcements on this scale? Whatever hope he’d clung to for victory, or at least a lasting stalemate, it was gone, replaced by hopelessness and despair.
It was over. As soon as the enemy could land these new troops and form up, they would hit the Marines all along the line…and everywhere it would be the same story. Positions collapsing, disordered survivors retreating, desperately trying to reform, to hold back the unstoppable enemy.
The shelters would be lost, the wounded, the civilians…Sarah and the medical teams. He thought for a moment about issuing evacuation orders, but where would he send them? They were better off where they were, fighting off their assailants with clubs, if necessary, than they’d be streaming across the open, devastated plain, being gunned down in their thousands.
Cain’s memories drifted back, over his battles, so many battles.
After so much struggle, serving with so many heroes…is this really how it all ends?
Chapter 22
“The Red Plateau”
Planet Armstrong, Gamma Pavonis III
Earthdate: 2321 AD (36
Years After the Fall)
This is the day I will die. He’d fought for more than half a century. Erik Cain had been wounded more times than he could count, endured fifteen years of captivity, starvation, and torture…but now he knew he’d come to his end.
The enemy had landed its reserves, by all estimates, at least twenty thousand fresh, fully-equipped strike troops. To face the onslaught, he had his Marines, their ranks gutted, the survivors exhausted, many wounded, conserving what last bits remained of their ammunition and supplies. Cain would fight, there was no question about that, and he didn’t doubt his Marines would as well. But there was little question where this battle would lead. The end.
Cain had regrets, many, but he was prepared to fight his last battle. He wanted to live, of course, to see his boys survive this war, as he himself had so many, and go on to make more of a life for themselves in peace than he’d every managed to do. Darius was too much like him, he knew, an even more exaggerated version. He loved his older—by three minutes—son dearly, but he knew Darius would torture himself, that he would be driven from one obligation to the next, even if that harsh prison he constructed for himself was a gold-plated and luxury-filled one.
Elias might break free of what seemed to be the Cain family curse. He, too, was a creature of duty, but there was more of his mother in him, cynical and questioning, yes, but not pathologically so. Perhaps he could break out of the cycle of endless war, find someplace to settle, and live the quiet life Erik had always wanted, but that had always eluded him.
Sarah. She would die too. That cut at him far deeper than his own impending demise. His mind twisted around, trying to find some way, any way, he could save her. But there was none. Even if he’d come up with some miraculous plan, he knew she’d never leave. She wouldn’t abandon the hospital and the wounded…and she’d never leave him behind. He knew that, without the slightest doubt. Now, he wondered if he’d even see her again. If the enemy would hold back the inevitable final onslaught long enough for one last moment together.
He looked out over the trench. His Marines were well dug in. He’d brought all that remained of the ordnance forward, positioned every autocannon and mortar himself. He’d even stripped away the guards keeping watch on the civilian population and moved them to the front. He didn’t fool himself that his people had a chance…but they would sell their lives dear. That many fewer of these…zombies…to face Darius and the others someplace else. He knew well that defeat on Armstrong did not necessarily mean the war was lost. Not as long as warriors like the Black Eagles were still out there, and other allies. Augustus, Roderick Vance.
Cain hoped the civilians in the shelters, totally unguarded now, would remain calm, or at least reasonably so. Perhaps they believed the enemy would take them prisoner. Let them think that. The truth will do them no good…
Cain knew the enemy associated Armstrong with the Corps, that they wouldn’t differentiate between combatants and civilian service personnel…right down to the shopkeepers and chefs from the restaurants downtown—what had once been downtown. He had no idea what the enemy’s ultimate plan was for all humanity, should they prevail in their war of conquest, but there wasn’t the slightest doubt in his mind that no one would be allowed to leave Armstrong. The planet would be a radioactive tomb, a message to all who dared oppose them.
He leaned forward, cranking up his magnification, trying to get a good look at activity along the enemy’s line. Nothing. It didn’t make sense. The enemy troopers were just milling about, more than enough of them to roll right over the Marine positions. But they’d been static for hours.
The first assault wave had attacked the instant the soldiers hit the ground. Cain had no idea why the enemy was waiting. Was it psychological warfare? Did they want his Marines to sit and think about what was coming?
He turned and walked toward the main HQ. It wasn’t much, just a few shelters dug into the ground. Cain twitched a little as he walked. He and Gilson had introduced a rotating shift, sending a couple percent of their people into the shelters at any one time. They would aid the wounded in reaching the field hospitals, and then they would get two or three hours off the line. Not enough time for a meaningful sleep or anything, but enough to pop open their suits and stretch their muscles a bit…and to grab a hot meal, when there had still been hot meals. Now, there were barely meals at all, and what remained were as often as not quarter rations no more appetizing that a broken off piece of a nutrition bar.
Powered armor had revolutionized warfare, and soldiers equipped with fighting suits were the kings of the battlefield, but for all technology could build superior equipment, they couldn’t change the basic realities of human beings. It took a tremendous amount of training to get a new recruit acclimated to armor, not to mention counseling, drugs, and outright conditioning. It was difficult to stay in a suit for days, even weeks at a time, under combat conditions, pissing into a hose, shitting into a tube, and all the while dreaming about the astonishing luxury of scratching an itch. Even after more than a century of armored warfare, eight to ten percent of trainees washed out of training for the simple reason that they nearly went mad when confined in their suits.
The suit’s internal harnesses did everything possible to secure a Marine, and his various appendages and parts, to prevent the wearer from sliding all around, but the ready room after a unit returned from duty was always a display of multi-colored bruises, contusions of all sorts.
But the torment of endless stretches in combat conditions increased exponentially with time, especially in a situation like the current one, where the radiation in the battlezone was beyond lethal levels, denying the Marines even a quick moment to pop a helmet, get a gasp of air that hadn’t been recycled five thousand times.
It had been over a week since Cain had been inside. The suit did everything it could to keep the atmosphere as clean as possible, but after more than seven days, there was no mistaking the smell of putrid Cain. He tried to stretch, a near impossibility in armor for anyone but a fighter as experienced as he was. And still, as thoughts of discomfort, and sadness for Sarah and his family drifted through his head, he watched the enemy position, seeing no sign they were preparing to attack.
He stepped down, into the half plastic, half rock and mud ‘room’ he and Gilson shared as an office and command post. “I don’t understand. This is not their way. Why worry so much about rattling us when they’ve got us dead to rights?”
“I wish I knew, Erik.” Gilson and Cain had been rivals of a sort, once. Cain had actually come up under her command, but he’d quickly caught up, and the two had surged forward together, the next generation of the Corps’ leadership. That had been a long time ago, and the two had gotten past whatever competitive issues they’d once had. The Corps was big enough for two beloved commanders, at least two who tended to agree as often as they did.
Almost as if in answer, both of their comms crackled to life. “General Cain, General Gilson, we’re picking up signals from out in the system.”
“Signals?” Cain beat his co-commander to the punch, probably by half a second.
“Yes, sir. Comm signals, even some energy readings.” The Marines were stuck to their last few receivers, small and close to the ground. That eliminated most readings beyond orbit.
If we’re picking up energy…it’s not very far out there. More enemy ships coming in? Or…”
“It sounds like there is a battle going on up there, sir. The jamming’s preventing us from getting any clear transmissions, but it sure sounds like somebody’s fighting.”
A battle? Cain tried to hold himself back, to tread softly on allowing hope to creep into his thoughts. Was it possible? Had one of their allies arrived? Enough, even, to defeat the Black Flag fleet?
* * * * *
“Core force, continue forward. Flanking detachments, hold those ships back. Whatever it takes.” Darius Cain sat on the bridge of Eagle Eleven. He’d reluctantly transferred from his usual Eagle One because of the old fla
gship’s heavy damage. Eagle One was still in the line, still ready to fight, but Darius needed a ship that could keep him plugged into the action, one that could take the most damage and keep going. Right now, that was Eagle Eleven.
He’d always considered himself more of a ground tactician than an expert at naval combat, but he knew his way around in a space battle. Well enough to realize what a chance he was taking. The enemy fleet was big, considerably larger than the one that had attacked the Nest…but this time, the Eagles weren’t alone.
Darius Cain’s fleet had encountered a large force en route to Armstrong, one that had taken a few tense moments to identify. But when the scans were complete, and the messages exchanged, it was clear his people had encountered Admiral Garret and the battered remains of the fleet that had defended—or tried to defend—Armstrong.
Garret’s first words had answered the question that had been plaguing Darius the most. He’d left behind an Armstrong full of live Marines, dug in and ready to fight off any attack. Darius knew his father well enough to understand what that truly meant.
It had taken a very brief discussion between the two fleet commanders to reach agreement on a course of action. The combined force would return and engage the enemy…and relieve Armstrong. It wouldn’t be easy—Garret had extensive details on the enemy forces, and no matter how Darius tried to look at it, success seemed…difficult, at best, and an outright longshot at worst. But none of that mattered. Not now. He’d just rescued his father, and whatever it took, he wasn’t going to lose him again.