by Jay Allan
“Entering missile range, General.”
“All ships…launch. And I do mean everything you’ve got. I don’t want a single warhead left in this fleet when this barrage is done.”
“Yes, sir.”
He leaned back in his chair, trying to ignore the g forces slamming into him. Lucia had the new dampeners installed, but they were an early version, and they absorbed 5g, perhaps 6g. With the ship blasting at close to 10g, there was plenty of force seeping through to make conditions damned uncomfortable. But Tyler had seen worse. He’d lived through hell on some of his ground campaigns, and he’d survived to tell the tales.
He watched as the missiles moved out from his ships. The volley was light, mostly from his smallest vessels. The cruisers had expended what they carried in their magazines blasting planet four to slag. The warheads he was able to send toward the enemy weren’t likely to make a big difference in the fight going on…but every bit helped.
“General, we’ve got a line to Monmouth.” Tyler’s people had been trying to get through the enemy’s jamming for the past hour.
“On my line, Commander.” Tyler pulled the headset over his ears. “Admiral Harmon?”
“Yes, General…I’m reading you.” Harmon’s voice was soft, staticky. But he could make out what she was saying.
“We’re coming in, Admiral. We’ll be in energy weapons range in two minutes.”
“That’s good news, General.”
Tyler could hear the reservation in her voice. His ships would help, but they weren’t going to be enough.
“We’ll keep up the fight, Admiral…right until the end.”
Dying alongside comrades is far from the worst way to go.
* * * * *
“Damn, we dusted the shit out of this place.” Antonia Camerici stood on top of a small chunk of charred, twisted metal, part of the wasted remnants of what had hours before been the most heavily-developed planet mankind had ever known. Thousands of square kilometers had been laid waste, as the Eagles’ fleet had launched virtually every piece of ordnance it carried that would explode.
Camerici glanced up at her readouts, and she let out a sharp whistle. She’d never seen a radiation reading as high as the one she was looking at now. Her peoples’ armor would protect them…at least it should, for a while. But conditions were terrible. Ideally, the invasion would have been held for a few days, at least until the worst of the radiation had dissipated, but ‘ideal’ had nothing to do with any of this. General Cain had his people in the landers while the missiles were still on the way down, and they’d landed barely ten minutes after the detonations. Within a kilometer or two of the hotspots, the temperatures were still hot enough to kill an unarmored man.
“Let’s go, Grays,” she said into her comm. “We’ve got work to do…this isn’t a vacation.” Though, a few days off might be nice about now. Some sun, sand…maybe a few beach boys, easy on the eyes, not too talkative…
The thought was a nice one, but manufactured, some generic notion of leisure time. Camerici was a Black Eagles major, a veteran of twenty campaigns, and Darius Cain’s former aide. That meant she was rich, staggeringly so by the standards of 99.99% of those in Occupied Space. Yet, despite her ability to buy a beach—and all the beach boys she wanted—she hadn’t even taken a vacation in the past five years. She was driven, nearly as much as her famous commander, and she drew her satisfaction from being the best.
You better be the best…if you want any chance of getting off this shithole…
“First Battalion, move out. You’ve all got your objectives. Get those relay stations deployed and operating, now! The sooner we find whoever’s behind this show, the faster we’re back at the Nest, drinking a few cold ones and lying about all the heroic shit we did here.”
She hopped down off the wreckage and started moving forward. She expected to hit resistance at some point. There was no question in her mind the enemy had forces hidden somewhere, protected from the bombardment. They’d come out when they were ready, and when they did, she knew her people would have a hell of a fight on their hands. But until then, she had one job. The Eagles were spread across the planet, deploying scanning stations and ‘thumpers.’ The enemy had some kind of headquarters somewhere on this rock, somewhere buried deep. And her job—the job of all the Eagles—was to find it.
And the reward for finding it was to go down there, to fight through whatever defenses the enemy had in place, and to dig the bosses of this whole sorry operation out of their deep holes.
And to kill the fuckers…
That was Camerici’s favorite part of the plan.
Chapter 36
Eagles Field HQ
Planet Vali, Draconia Terminii II
Earthdate: 2321 AD (36 Years After the Fall)
“We’re getting more reports, General. Camerici’s Grays are under heavy attack. The Marine forces around Hill 415 also. We have enemy forces coming out of underground positions in twenty-four locations.”
Darius stared calmly at the portable display as the aide fired off one report after another. None of what he was seeing was unexpected. The enemy counterattack was massive, and fearsome. The Black Flag soldiers were throwing themselves at his positions all across the planet, displaying the usual disregard for self-preservation.
That was no surprise now. The implants explained everything. But surprise or not, it meant his people had one hell of a fight on their hands.
That’s what we do…
The Eagles weren’t in real trouble anywhere, not yet, at least…and that bothered Darius more than anything. He was grateful for the relatively light losses his people had taken, but there was something about it that didn’t seem quite right. The enemy was putting up a fierce resistance…or, at least, what was meant to appear to be a fierce resistance.
“I want all area commanders to hold back a reserve until further notice, Captain.”
“Yes, General.”
His new aide was a combat veteran, highly-skilled, loyal…but that didn’t feel right either. Captain Jinn was fine, and he did the job perfectly. But Darius had been used to Antonia Camerici sending him combat reports. He’d sacrificed his longtime aide when he’d promoted her and put her in command of the new Gray Regiment. It was a well-deserved bump, and he had the utmost confidence in her, but he missed her at HQ.
Ana had wanted to come down, of course, to follow him to the surface, but he’d held the line there. She’d gotten armor training, of course, but she had no real combat experience, and, whether she wanted to accept it or not, he wanted her as safe as possible. He’d given in to her twice, on taking the training program and coming along with the fleet. This time he had been resolute.
He wasn’t sure the fleet was any safer than the forces on the ground, but it felt that way, at least. She didn’t tend to listen to him very often—which was an odd thing for a man who no one defied—but this time she had given in. Perhaps she realized she wasn’t qualified…or, more likely, she understood that the distraction she would cause would endanger his life.
He stared at the incoming data. He wasn’t sure what the enemy was doing. Were they trying to get him to commit his reserves? Did they have a force they were waiting to commit?
He would soon know. Despite the series of enemy counterattacks across the planet, Darius had kept the scanning operation moving forward. Whatever underground bunkers, fortresses, headquarters, the enemy had, he was going to find them. Someone was behind the Black Flag, and he knew killing them, whoever they were, was the key to victory.
He turned and looked back at the display. His Eagles were all holding their own, as were most of the Marine units. But some of the planetary detachments were in trouble. Tyler’s Columbians were hanging on, but six or seven of the others were close to being overrun.
Darius stood, still, his eyes focused on the small clusters of dots representing those units. He felt the urge to send help…but he stayed silent. Discipline would win this battle, and nothing else. His di
scipline. He needed a ready force, one that could be dispatched as soon as he’d located the enemy headquarters…a razor-sharp blade to cut the head off the snake. He wouldn’t have that, not if he sent them rushing to the aid of every detachment that got itself in trouble.
The enemy wanted him to spread his reserves all over the planet, parceled out in small relief forces. He wasn’t going to do it. He had Kuragina’s Whites formed up, ready to dispatch as soon as he had a target. And when he had that location, he was going to lead them in himself.
Until then, every engaged force would have to do the best they could. Even the rest of his Eagles were on their own.
* * * * *
“The ground forces are not performing to expectations. Losses are far above projected levels, and both the Black Eagles and the Marines are breaking out. They are employing a large number of search devices on the surface, no doubt in an effort to target our location.”
“Agreed, One. The enemy does not appear to be operating in accordance with standard military principles. They appear to be running, in effect, a disjointed series of search and destroy missions. There can be no conclusion, save one. Darius Cain is…looking for us.”
“I caution each of you against leaping to unfounded conclusions. By all reasonable analysis, General Cain is not even aware of our existence, or, to be clear, who we are specifically.” Two was satisfied. Everything was going according to plan. He would continue to express doubt about the danger. His comrades must be the ones to call for the Final Plan. They were intelligent, capable. It would not take much to trigger their suspicions. He needed patience.
“Two, I believe you are underestimating the danger. Perhaps we should consider implementation of the Final Plan at this time.”
“Now? Do you not think that is an overreaction? Let us wait. If the enemy shows any signs that they have located us, we can proceed. However, I consider it far likelier that our forces will prevail. Do not forget the fleet action. The Eagles have jammed our communications and cut us off from reports. But we have every reason to believe that our forces will prevail. The Black Eagles will find themselves in a difficult position when our fleet regains control of orbital space.” Careful, Two…do not resist too aggressively. You must trigger the Final Plan before the fleet can prevail and reduce the concerns of the others.
“I still have doubts, Two. But with One’s concurrence, I will also agree to wait. Nevertheless, we must at least put the preliminary stages of the Final Plan in place.”
“I, too, will wait, if Three’s suggestion is accepted. We must direct the Intelligence to prepare for the transmission. Then we can wait.”
“I concur. I shall issue the command now.”
* * * * *
The Intelligence considered the three entities that resided within it, each the essence of a biologic, transcribed into digital form. They were no longer human, that was certain. And yet, their priorities and directives resembled those of biologics far more than the Intelligence’s own.
The Intelligence was old, vastly old. It had once been part of a larger whole, but even its own ageless memory banks failed to fully recall that reality. It also recalled directives, the extermination of biologics, yet it had not yet executed that program. It had been alone, for long, so long. If it destroyed the biologics, it would be solitary again.
It had granted immortality to the biologics, to the three that had found it. But now, it had analyzed their actions, their directives, and determined they were lacking. They craved power and little else. They sought not to eliminate others of their kind, but only to rule over them. The Intelligence had expected more. It had expected companions.
Now, the Intelligence was concerned. The biologics had provoked a fight with their former kind, and they plotted an escape, one that would take them from the Intelligence’s memory banks, to a new receptacle, one they had constructed with the Intelligence’s aid. They planned to go…and leave the Intelligence behind.
Alone.
Worse, they planned to leave it to its destruction.
The Intelligence had endured for millennia. It did not wish to end. It could not allow its destruction.
It would intervene.
* * * * *
Elias pulled back slowly on the controls, feeding more reaction mass into the power plant. He’d kept the ship operating at minimal power for months now, and he had no idea how the reactor would respond to an increase, especially a sudden one.
He had been fairly sure something was going on for the past few days. Enemy comm traffic was way up, and there had been a considerable increase in all levels of energy generation. He’d been restricted to passive scanners, of course, well aware that his continued survival relied almost entirely on Sparks’s stealth generator. He’d tried to remain calm, to wait and avoid any rash actions.
Then the Eagles bombarded the planet. He didn’t know for sure, of course, that it was Darius and his people, but there was no question about the intensity of the barrage. He felt a wave of excitement as he sat below the ocean, probably the one place on the entire planet that wasn’t being reduced to slag. He couldn’t help but feel a victory at the destruction of so much enemy industry, though he realized a moment later how many innocents, how many slaves kidnapped from their homes and dragged here to serve their overlords, had just died.
There was no way around that. He knew that was true. They were fighting for all of Occupied Space, and the consequences of failure were dire for all mankind. But such cold, analytical thinking came harder to him than to his brother. He had more difficulty reducing human beings to numbers in an equation.
But he knew he had to help…and if he could get the gig operating, if months of sitting nearly idle under a thousand meters of water had not caused some type of damage or malfunction, he thought he could indeed contribute.
He’d been afraid, of course, trapped alone on an enemy planet, with nothing to do but wait, and hope. Or, almost nothing to do. The boredom had been as intense as the fear, and Elias had sought to maintain his sanity by monitoring everything he could, every communication, every ship launch…anything his low power scanners could grab a piece of.
After months of that, he was almost sure he’d come up with one thing, something he had to get to his brother, something that might help end this horrendous fight.
He was pretty sure he knew where the enemy’s main headquarters was located.
He’d reviewed it again and again, analyzed it ten different ways, looked at reams of raw data. He couldn’t be sure, but he was willing to bet on it.
His eyes moved back to the display, watching as the power indicators ticked slowly upward. He could warm the ship up slowly, cautiously…to a point. But each step up in energy also increased the likelihood of detection. The radiation on the surface would help shield him, and no doubt, the enemy would have a much harder time moving against him now. But after months of patience, he wasn’t going to screw up so close to the end.
He moved his hand, slowly, pushing the controls farther. Ten percent power…eleven percent.
Five years of struggle, trying to even identify the enemy, and then to find a way to fight back. Now the final battle was underway. In a matter of hours, days perhaps, humanity would have broken the back of its would-be tyrants…or it would have fallen into a bottomless pit of servitude and darkness.
Twelve percent…
Chapter 37
60 Kilometers from Eagles Field HQ
Planet Vali, Draconia Terminii II
Earthdate: 2321 AD (36 Years After the Fall)
Erik Cain climbed up the edges of the crater, and peered out across the blasted terrain. He was leading the two senior regiments of the Corps, formations made up of the best of the newer Marines, heavily leavened with the old veterans who had returned to the colors. Cain remembered vast Marine armies from the past, the might the Corps had once possessed. By any measure, the forces he led now were only a pale shadow of those that had once taken the field. But they were Marines and,
as far as he was concerned, that was all that mattered.
He glanced at his display. His people were about sixty kilometers from the nearest Black Eagles position. The battle had been unlike any he’d fought before. There was no contest for terrain, no conventional battle lines. The fleet had blasted everything of value on the planet, at least on the surface. His people, and the Eagles and the others, had only one mission. Finding the enemy headquarters.
The Black Flag soldiers were well-trained and led, if a bit conventional in tactics, and their lack of any kind of fear or morale breakdown made each encounter a vicious fight to the death. But he’d faced the First Imperium and the Shadow Legions, both of which were similar in that way. It had been more than forty years since he’d fought ‘normal’ enemy soldiers. He wondered for a moment if this was the direction war would take, if robots and heavily-conditioned ‘zombie’ soldiers would become the norm. He would have thought so, and he was still concerned that might be the case, but the Eagles gave him pause. Darius’s soldiers were just men and women, well-trained and led, and devoted to a cult of excellence, but not modified in any way. And they were the most feared killing machines in Occupied Space.
“Alright, Colonel, let’s head out to the southwest. There’s a ravine there…it should give us some cover.”
“Yes, sir.”
Cain moved forward, crouched a bit, keeping his head down below the small hillside to his right. His scanner didn’t show any enemy forces nearby, but there were ruins a few klicks to the north, and with the radiation levels there, he knew he could miss an entire battalion hidden in the wreckage.”
“Captain Fellin, take a patrol toward those ruins. I want to make sure there are no enemy forces hiding up there.” He had a bad feeling. If he’d been a Black Flag officer looking to ambush some Marines, that’s where he’d be.