“Ninety seconds. I’ll shift extra power to the anti-grav, but you’re going to feel rapid deceleration.”
“Keep me from splattering against the inside of my mech suit, that’s all I ask.”
The blackfish was shaking hard enough that deceleration was the least of his worries. Could the ships take the pounding? Olafsen had decided to mount an attack without the support of Vargus’s fleet in part because he’d estimated that the enemy, hidden as it was, wouldn’t have enough external guns to cut him down in time.
Don’t lie to yourself. That isn’t the reason, and you know it.
The men started up their chant again:
Blood, spoil, plunder, death.
Valhalla!
Olafsen was thrown forward in his harness. The jolt was so violent that even between the anti-grav, the momentum-dampening harness, and the protection of his suit, he nearly blacked out. He opened his eyes and shook his head to clear it. Fire burned ahead of him, jetting into the launch bay from some external source.
Competing anti-grav systems pulled him in two different directions. The first, from the ship, made it look as though he was staring straight out into an alien corridor, round and twisting snakelike up and away. Then, when he took two steps forward, suddenly he was looking down into the thing from above. He slid forward and fell in a heap of men in mech suits. He tried to stand up, but men were falling on top of him, and he had to shove them aside before he could rise.
There were so many men in the pile that the ones at the bottom would have been in danger of getting crushed down there, if not for the lower gravity inside the corridors. No more than fifty percent, he thought, based on the ease with which his mech suit moved his fellow raiders.
The air was damp and warm, and, according to his sensors, filled with volatile organics, a nearly toxic brew that indicated that the aliens were barely attempting to filter the air from their factories and mines. Who had time for such niceties when you were in a furious race to build up your forces before you were either discovered by enemies or you’d consumed all the human bodies in your larder?
Olafsen got clear of the mass of men still tumbling out of the blackfish where it had rammed through—a hundred mech raiders in all—only to see birds come screaming down the hallway, flapping their wings as they half-flew, half-ran toward him. Only drones with drab feathers and no weapons strapped across their chests. Olafsen and two others, including Demon Grin, lifted guns and fired as they approached.
Too late, he saw that one of them clutched something metallic and egg-shaped in its beak. A raider shot the buzzard through the breast, but it continued on momentum and slammed into the man, where it exploded.
When the air cleared, there was little left of the drone but feathers. The raider lay on his back, screaming. His faceplate was cracked open, his face covered in blood.
Olafsen didn’t have a chance to look to the injured man, because more birds came swooping in from his rear. These ones wore harnesses that hooked over wings and held guns at either chest or shoulder level, which they controlled with their beaks. They fired into the pile of raiders still trying to get disentangled from where they’d fallen in a heap. Other birds howled in from the other side, but these were more worker drones, and few were armed.
The tight spaces filled with gunfire and carnage, the fight growing hotter by the minute. Men fell here and there, but the raiders slaughtered so many birds that the corridor was soon clogged in either direction. The opposition died as quickly as it had begun. Olafsen breathed heavily, his heart pounding. He reloaded and turned on the com.
“Platoon One, hold the launch site. The rest of you follow me.”
About twenty men peeled off from the others and took position in the corridor. Plates of tyrillium scale dropped from the ceiling on chains. The ship remained above them, still attached to the base walls, and was now feeding in supplies. The men of Platoon One began to assemble the plate into gun shields.
Olafsen led the rest of his raiders down the corridor toward where the feed on the inside of his faceplate indicated another blackfish had broken through. All four of the other ships had penetrated the enemy base within a few hundred yards of his position, and two of the assault teams were still under fire from the initial entry, but close to breaking out.
A third assault team had discovered a room filled with eggs and was torching it. The final group of raiders was pushing into what the commanding marauder captain said were dorms for workers, with drones huddled together like a flock of roosting starlings. An easy slaughter.
Olafsen angrily ordered these last two marauder captains to resume their attack. The fools. They could deal with eggs and drones later. First, they had to find the warrior caste of this huge base and eliminate them.
“Stay on your original objectives,” he growled. “Do not deviate from the plan or you’ll answer to me.”
Olafsen’s men joined up with a second group of raiders—the egg smashers—and continued for several minutes with little opposition. They got lost in a mazelike structure of snaking, tubelike tunnels that widened or narrowed with little rhyme or reason and opened into small rooms stuffed with equipment and big ones that were nothing but empty warehouse space.
According to their locators, another assault team was only twenty or thirty feet away, below and to the rear, but whenever Olafsen tried to meet up, he found himself hooking back around or lost in a maze of side chambers.
Dead drones filled one of these rooms, stacked like firewood. They looked haggard in death, their plumage plucked, their bodies bony and starving. Mounds of bird excrement filled another room to the height of several feet, and it smelled so strongly of ammonia that the men were gagging through the filters of their suits before they could stumble back into the corridor.
They fought another short, sharp engagement before finally connecting with the other raiders.
A few minutes later, Olafsen and the front elements of his small army, now grown to nearly 250 men, crashed into a huge, warehouse-like space, large enough to swallow his whole blackfish fleet. It was a hive of Apex industry, if not the overall center of enemy activity.
Machinery clanked and whirred, fires glowed from open forges, and plasma torches sparked. There were hundreds of drones working assembly lines, operating machinery, and flying about, as well as keeping busy at a myriad of other small tasks. Others, their plumage spotted with green, gold, or scarlet feathers, rode carriages suspended on wires above the work floor, screaming and squawking at the drones below. Foremen of some kind.
Two drones flew overhead, and some idiot in Olafsen’s company, apparently not thinking of the consequences, lifted his assault rifle and gunned them down. Olafsen braced himself for a fierce response from the enemy as the pair spiraled down, screaming as they died, but none of the workers seemed to notice.
“By the gods,” he said. “They’re carrying on as if nothing is happening.”
Or was it possible they hadn’t heard above the din of the factory floor?
Demon Grin stood by Olafsen’s side. He waved his guns. “We’ll make quick work of them. Give the command, Marauder Captain. We’re ready.”
Olafsen turned on the general channel and ordered his forces to sweep across the factory floor, shooting everything in sight. Raiders leaped eagerly into the fray, unleashing hell with rifles and hand cannons. They blasted birds above and below, and smashed equipment with a hail of outgoing fire.
There was so much movement, so much shooting from his own men, that Olafsen was slow to notice the huge overhead crane swinging toward them. It was two stories high, with chains holding a chunk of what looked like the inner hull of a warship.
“Look out!” he yelled as it swept toward them.
His men scattered as the chains unhooked, and the huge piece of machinery fell. Most got out of the way, but several didn’t react quickly enough. The piece of equipment slammed into the ground, crushing some and pinning others in place.
Buzzards hurtled down
from above. Others dropped from openings in the ceiling and landed on the crane, where they cocked their heads as if sizing up prey, then dove toward the factory floor. They slammed into raiders, knocking them from their feet.
Gunfire exploded from overhead catwalks, from birds remaining on top of the crane, and from fortified positions with birds protected behind crates of supplies, giant ingots of iron, vat-like crucibles, and assembly lines. Airlocks opened along the walls some fifty yards ahead of them, spitting more birds into the mix, these ones brightly colored members of the warrior caste.
A terrible squawk pierced the air, rising above the clank of machinery and the rattle of gunfire. A giant bird, thirty feet tall, came striding across the factory floor. Its beak and claws were of metal, and a series of weird harnesses strung across its wings and looped around its neck, holding guns.
A handful of raiders had pushed eagerly toward the center of the factory floor, leaving a trail of slaughtered drones in their wake. They moved swiftly into a phalanx-like formation at the approach of the battle strider, with those carrying assault rifles positioned in front, kneeling, and heavier weaponry firing over their shoulders. Gunfire from above pinged off their mech suits with little effect.
The strider initially paid little attention to this forward group of raiders, moving toward Olafsen’s main force instead, until gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades struck it across the chest, and it cocked its head. Green light flashed from its eyes, and the raider phalanx collapsed in a heap. The giant bird straddled them, and long, snaking appendages dropped from its chest. They coiled around raiders and hoisted them from the ground.
The raiders regained use of their suits as the strider lifted them. They thrashed and bucked, and some of them pried with clamp-like hands in an attempt to free themselves. One nearly hacked his way free with a cutting attachment on one hand. The battle strider, screaming in rage and pain, flung the captured men across the factory floor. They landed hard, and were immediately beset by enemies swooping in from above. The birds tore off faceplates and pecked at joints in the armor. Men screamed as birds got through and tore them apart.
Olafsen might have died if not for the advance team of raiders. He’d been out in the open with several other men when the battle strider came stalking toward them. The bulk of his forces would have been caught in the paralyzing ray and finished off. Instead, the strider had stopped to destroy the phalanx, which let Olafsen and the others duck for cover. Other men dug in behind wrecked equipment or crates of supplies along the flanks. They exchanged fire with the birds threatening to overwhelm them from above.
A diving bird struck Olafsen from behind, and he went down. He rolled onto his back, guns at the ready, only to find Demon Grin and Bug standing over him, tearing apart the bird with their mechanized arms.
“Get the strider,” he ordered over the com. “We have to bring it down.”
All available weapons aimed now at the giant bird resuming its march toward the Scandian lines. Bullets and grenades slammed into it, but seemed to have little effect. It lifted its wings, and fire squirted from nozzles held in place by harnesses. It opened its mouth and spewed gunfire. Three raiders fell. Another ran screaming, the paint boiling off his suit as the flames stuck like jelly to its surface.
The strider turned its green ray on four more raiders and dropped them in their tracks. The cursed thing looked like a monster and fought like a machine. It had already stopped their advance, and threatened to destroy the entire assault. They had to bring it down, and quickly.
Two men ran forward holding a large-caliber gun and tripod, and Olafsen spotted his opportunity.
Ducking another swooping attack, and with bullets zinging past him and dinging his breastplate, Olafsen darted out from his hiding place, shouting for others to follow. Mech raiders clanked from behind machinery and piles of dead enemies and fired up at the strider, which had stopped to tear the head off one of its victims.
This fresh gunfire drew its attention, and brought relief to the forward elements being shredded by the strider attack. The rifled cannon was nearly ready. Olafsen order his men to fall back as one of the raiders shoved shells into its breech.
The second raider aimed the gun and fired. It recoiled sharply. The battle strider fell back with a cry. Its wing hung loose, and an oily, reddish-black liquid fell from its breast. It cocked its head, searching for the source of its torment. It spotted the men at the cannon and flashed green light from its eye at the same moment the shooter pulled the trigger. The shell slammed into the strider, and it staggered backward and collapsed.
Raiders now concentrated on bringing down the birds that had continued to torment them while they’d battled the strider. The enemy mounted vicious attacks from perches above and from the air, but died quickly when shot.
Olafsen ordered fragmentation grenades, timed to burst overhead. Birds came spiraling down, screaming. The enemy counterattack was fading quickly.
More information scrolled across the inside of Olafsen’s faceplate, and he studied it even as his men hunted down the last factory drones and killed them. An advance team had located a nesting chamber filled with hundreds of eggs. Thousands. What’s more, the air was purer there—the platoon leader thought they must be close to the oxygen plant. Maybe the power plant, too.
“I’m on my way,” Olafsen said.
Björnman called over the com.
“I’m in the command center. At least I think that’s what it is.” Björnman stopped to gasp for air, as if he’d been running. “Weird computers and stuff, and a lot of technical geegaws. We’ve placed charges. I lost about twenty men, but it could have been worse. I thought there would be more fighting.”
Olafsen thought of the battle strider. “There was fighting enough. We’re lucky the aliens threw their effort into rapid expansion and not more fighters. Otherwise, we’d be in trouble.”
Assuming the enemy wasn’t holding a large force in reserve. Except he was on the verge of penetrating the very heart of their operations, and surely, if they had more defenders, now was the time to use them.
He got on the general com. “This is it, men. Time to gut these buzzards and win the fight.”
#
Olafsen fought another battle when he reached the oxygen plant, and the enemy mounted a counterattack when his forces had smashed it and were moving on toward the power plant, where Scandian engineers put their minds to work figuring out how to push it critical so it would enter a meltdown state.
With the exception of that lone battle strider, his raiders were stronger than the buzzards, and cut down ten for every man who fell. But he’d still suffered losses, losses that would have been worse still had the enemy not stopped to consume injured and captured Scandians.
By the end of the first day, the enemy’s fighting force was gone, and all that remained was to smash what was left of the base, melt down the power plant, and get out of there. The engineers finally figured out the plant, and they made a run for it before it reached critical. Once Olafsen was airborne with his blackfish, he hung around, pulverizing the surface structures with pummel guns.
Björnman called over from his blackfish when the small fleet had pulled away to slip free from the asteroid belt.
“Victory, but by the gods, am I glad to get out of there. The stench of those things.”
“I’ll be happier still when we’re back on board Bloodaxe,” Olafsen said. “These blackfish are fine little ships, and they can take a hell of a beating, but it’s the hitting back part they’re not so good at.”
“Good to stretch our legs, though,” Björnman said. “Too long stuck on a ship, if you ask me. How are we going to let Vargus and the rest know what happened here?”
“I’m going to send a subspace. Who is closest? McGowan? I think it’s McGowan.”
“A subspace is dangerous.”
Olafsen laughed. “We just invaded an Apex base with five hundred mech raiders. And now you’re scared?”
“Ha!�
��
“You all right?”
“Sure, fine.”
“Come on, Björnman. What’s going on behind that big forehead of yours? I can hear the wheels creaking from here.”
“Vargus will be mad, you know,” he said at last. “You lied to her.”
“You’re worried about a lie?” He laughed.
“I like that woman. She tells it to us straight. And we lied.”
“We had to test it out. Had to know how our mech units would do in face-to-face combat against the buzzards. And we needed to do it without letting Vargus know or she’d have insisted on sending in her Royal Marines.”
“Who would have stolen some of the glory?” Björnman said. “Is that what you’re worried about?”
“No,” he said, feeling a little peevish. “Who would have left us with more questions than answers.”
“I still have questions.”
“So do I. We won, but at a cost.”
“Forty-eight raiders killed,” Björnman said. “Nearly ten percent of our force. And the enemy was undermanned, mostly worker drones. Maybe a hundred that could fight. And only one battle strider.”
“We might not be so lucky next time,” Olafsen agreed. “They’ll be on a war footing, ready to repel boarders.”
“And we won’t be able to sit there with our blackfish, unloading men.”
“They’ll try to capture or destroy our ships when they go in,” Olafsen said.
Björnman fell silent again, until Olafsen had to check to make sure the com link hadn’t been lost.
“So . . . do you think we can take one of the big ones?” Björnman said at last. “That’s where you’re going with this, right? A direct assault on an Apex harvester ship?”
“With five blackfish and a few hundred raiders? While the harvester hits us with that green eye and the claws start grabbing our ships?” Olafsen let out his breath. “No, not a chance. We’ll need some sort of trick, or we’ll never even make it inside.”
Chapter Five
Carvalho had the small moon in his sights. It looked like a lumpy potato, with an especially ugly wartlike protuberance on one end. It kept one face toward the red planet below, which the briefings called New Mars, after a similar planet back in the original Terran system.
Sun King (The Void Queen Trilogy Book 3) Page 4