by PP Corcoran
Reinmann examined his options briefly. Allow some enemy ships to escape while he closed the range to point blank, or launch his missiles now. “Any sign of enemy targeting radar or counter measures?” queried Reinmann.
Checking his board again before answering, Ardent’s Tactical Officer shook his head. “No, sir. Nothing beyond navigational sensors and increased comms traffic…” A broad smile split the lieutenant’s face. “I think we’ve caught them with their pants down, sir.”
Reinmann returned the young officer’s smile with one of his own. “So it would seem. Initiate Fire Plan Delta.”
The Border Patrol’s Warlock class cruisers might not have been on a par with the more modern cruisers equipping Battle Fleet but at this juncture, firing on a static target with no defenses, it was akin to shooting fish in a barrel. Twenty-four missiles erupted from their tubes, their seeker heads going active as they cleared the ship’s shields. Designed to fight through enemy electronic interference and avoid anti-missile fire, they flew unerringly to their target. Six minutes after launch the missiles impacted, and ten million tonnes of station was wracked by nuclear holocaust. K’Tai ships of all sizes attempted to make emergency breakaways from the dying station, only to be consumed by roiling clouds of superheated plasma as Reinmann’s second salvo fell upon them.
Ardent and Illustrious powered past the station at a range of only 200 kilometers, rail guns and chemical lasers firing continuously. Blocks of steel accelerated to 3000 kilometres per hour plowed into K’Tai vessels fleeing from the station. The steel blocks punched through the ships’ light armor, tearing through anything unlucky enough to be in their path. The gunners traversed their turrets left and right, virtually cutting any unfortunate ship in half. Gigawatt lasers flashed across the short distances at the speed of light, bursts of fire vaporizing anything they met. Armor and hull plating turned to superheated plasma, which turned anything it encountered into melted slag.
In less than fifteen minutes the remains of Hermes Station, none bigger than the size of a typical flitter, and the ships it had been servicing were falling into Agate’s gravity well. On the surface of the planet, the population witnessed an unexpected firework display as the smaller pieces of wreckage burned up in the atmosphere. Larger pieces impacted across the planet’s surface; the scars of their craters would mark the surface for centuries to come and the debris they flung high into the atmosphere would tinge the sky for months.
Reinmann looked on with mute satisfaction. With Hermes Station gone, the K’Tai would no longer be able to use it to trans-ship Redlazore or use the station as a naval base, putting a major crimp in their operations. Whoever the boss K’Tai was, he was not going to be happy. Pushing those happy thoughts to one side, Reinmann turned to his next problem: recovering the crews of Shield Zero Two who were waiting dead in space, fuel exhausted and air supply running low.
“Captain, we have the beacon from Shield Zero Two.”
“Understood. Navigation, plot an intercept course. Let’s collect those crews and get the hell out of Dodge before the main K’Tai fleet gets back here.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Insertion
DAY TWENTY-FIVE
The clamshell drop doors below him snapped open and the bay filled with bright, reflected light as the mechanical arm moved him from a vertical standing position to the horizontal, his vision filling with scattered white puffs of clouds flashing past below. The computer program monitoring his heartbeat and respiration noted a sudden spike, although not enough to cause a medical abort. The view on Captain Simon Gregory’s wraparound display was stunning, if not a little terrifying at the same time. The land mass was covered in the dark green of vegetation, bordered by lighter brown as it met the blue of sea water. The skies were crystal clear, without even the tiniest hint of pollution to taint the puffy, cotton wool clouds. It was also scaring the crap out of him. Whoever had come up with the idea of exo-atmospheric insertion needed to be hanging beside Gregory and the other four members of his Pathfinder patrol, lying encased in the quarter tonne of ceramic and polymers which comprised their Orbital Insertion Suits.
When news of the K’Tai invasion of Agate reached Eighth Fleet, one of the largest obstacles facing Admiral Helbrunn at the planning stages of a counter attack was the lack of intelligence. What was happening on the surface of Agate? Near orbit flybys were risky and could tip her hand to the K’Tai. She needed to know enemy troop dispositions, locations of supply and weapons facilities. And, of top priority, what had happened to the civilian population? The mission profile was tailor made for a unit such as the Pathfinders, conceived to operate for long durations behind enemy lines, to gather intelligence covertly and relay it back to command before, if required, destroying or securing key installations prior to the arrival of larger assault forces. The fact the Pathfinders were an army unit and had been tapped by Admiral Helbrunn for the mission rather than a marine unit led to some inter-service bitching with Eighth Fleet’s marine contingent’s commanding officer. He argued his own Force Recon marines should be assigned the mission. Helbrunn had squashed the bitching with a very heavy foot. She had other plans for Force Recon and besides, the Pathfinders were the best equipped and trained for the task at hand.
Thus, Gregory and his fellow soldiers found themselves held in place by two retractable claws inside the dart-like OIS, which could easily be mistaken for the space to surface missiles they had originally been designed to be, ready to spear into the upper atmosphere of Agate, currently rushing by at 30,000 kilometers per hour at what Gregory’s eyes were trying hard to convince him was close enough for him to reach out and touch. The clouds became invisible as the ship crossed the terminator and inky darkness consumed Agate.
The flat unemotional voice of the naval pilot shook Gregory out of his daydreaming. “Coming up on release point, stand by.”
The pupil-tracking software of the suit followed his eye movements as he blinked through the menu, until he found and selected what he was looking for. The suit’s flight control computer obligingly brought up the projected flight path on his display. He would never admit it, being army, but the navy pilot had managed to get them within fifty kilometers of the planned release point. No mean feat, considering they had been on a zero-power approach for the last nine hours, relying completely on the pilot’s calculations of Agate’s orbital path and the initial velocity gained immediately after release from the Battle Fleet heavy cruisers--cruisers which were currently causing maximum mischief to distract the K’Tai defenders, while the tiny, non-standard inter-system ship made its approach to the enemy occupied planet. The craft was fancifully named MRCIARC, which in long-winded military parlance stood for Minimum Return Covert Insertion and Return Craft, the fanciest name Gregory had ever heard for a barely fifteen-meter-long, three-meter-wide, three-meter-tall composite box with an engine attached which carried two pilots and a cargo of up to eight troops with minimal equipment. In the trade, the MRCIARC was referred to as the ‘Flying Coffin’.
The pilot’s cool, professional voice came through his suit’s speakers. “Standby. Standby…”
Gregory felt his body tense involuntary as the pilot paused before letting out a short, snorting laugh. “Go Army… Green light on. Drop! Drop! Drop!”
The unexpected use of the army salutation brought a grin to Gregory’s face, but it soon turned to a grimace as he was slammed in the back as the restraining claws withdrew and a pusher plate sent him unceremoniously out of the little craft’s belly doors with enough acceleration that he began his fall into the planet’s gravity well rather than just hanging in permanent orbit. The telemetry readout showed the other members of his team were also clear of the ship. The chances of an OIS becoming hung up in the bay was minimal, though it had been known to happen. An uncomfortable position for the occupant of the OIS, who waited in hope that one of the two pilots noticed his predicament before executing any form of radical pull-away maneuver. Gregory had once, in training, watched
a hapless soldier flung out of the bay on an uncontrolled flight path, the sound of his screams for help over his suit radio were etched in Gregory’s memory. That individual had been recovered safely; however, on a real mission, he would have been left to his fate: either an uncontrolled re-entry where he could expect a fiery death or, perhaps more unfortunate, shooting through the darkness of space on a ballistic course until his oxygen supply dwindled away to nothing. Gregory knew which one he would prefer.
“Warning! Course deviation. Two degrees port one degree down angle,” intoned the monotone voice of the suit’s onboard computer. With the barest of movements, he gently thumbed the controls of his suit’s integrated thrusters. Small puffs of inert gas came from the left-hand side and belly of the suit as Gregory carefully nudged himself back on the correct flight path. Getting his angle of approach right was vital. Too shallow and he would simply skip off the upper atmosphere. Too steep and the thickening atmosphere would cause his suit to burn up, spreading his remains across the night sky like a swarm of fireflies caught by a gust of wind. It was doubtful if even the smallest part of him would make it to the surface intact in the event of a burn up.
Gregory’s visor opaqued as he flashed into the thin air of the upper atmosphere and his suit began to heat up. The skin of the suit went from minus 270 degrees Celsius to plus 1648 degrees Celsius in the blink of an eye. Faster than a speeding bullet, the five soldiers flew on. Gregory lost external telemetry as the ionization interfered with his suit’s sensors. The speeding man could only put his faith in the team’s training and skill to ensure they stayed on course. He need not have worried. After a few minutes, the external sensors came back online, showing the Pathfinders flying in a perfect wedge formation.
Dropping lower into the ever-thickening air, Gregory was at last able to deploy the suit’s wings allowing him to control his own destiny. The suit’s internal navigation system showed 273 kilometers to the designated Landing Zone. A check of readouts showed he was still traveling at a touch over Mach Three. Carefully, Gregory began a series of gentle S-turns combined with the deployment of his suit’s aero-brakes to reduce his speed.
As he closed on the LZ, his speed decreased to a manageable 150 kilometers per hour. With a gentle tap of the controls, he led the patrol in a slow turn to port, each patrol member giving the LZ a thorough visual and electronic inspection. The approach route had brought the patrol high over the vast Caramon Plain, beyond which the Scraggy Mountains rose like an impenetrable natural barrier blocking the way to Gemini City. The LZ itself was a calculated risk. The planners were sure the K’Tai would ensconce themselves in the Redlazore-rich area between the Scraggy Mountains and the Zodiac Sea, the same area which held the majority of the planet’s human population. The Caramon Plain held a scant human population, mostly consisting of maintenance personnel for the automated farms. The Pathfinders’ flight path meant they should have bled off their supersonic speed over the ocean, the hope being that any sonic boom from their approach would never reach human or K’Tai ears. The final section of the insertion, overland, was timed for the early hours of the morning, when they hoped most people were sound asleep in their beds.
Let’s hope there aren’t any night owls among them, thought Gregory, as he fully deployed his aero-brakes, slowing the OIS dramatically and causing it to drop from the sky like a homesick stone. As the altimeter flashed through 500 meters, Gregory activated his grav chute, the high-pitched whining of the power unit reaching him as the chute hungrily consumed energy as it fought to slow the quarter tonne suit. Despite the grav chute’s best efforts, the OIS hit the Agate countryside with a bone-jarring crunch. Automated systems cracked the suit’s seal and Gregory pushed the heavy lid open with one hand, his other pulling his ACR clear of its retaining straps, thumb automatically pushing down on the charging stud. Before his lungs had taken their first breath of Agate’s fresh, unpolluted atmosphere, the Advanced Combat Rifle was up and sweeping the area around him for threats. Doing a complete 360-degree turn, the smart scope mounted atop the ACR successfully processed the Identify Friend or Foe signals coming from the remainder of the patrol’s subcutaneous implants. Reassured his command had made it safely down and that nothing was about to jump out of the surrounding brush, Gregory slung his rifle and tapped a control on the inner skin of the OIS. With a low hiss, a panel on the side of the suit sprang open. With a grunt, Gregory hoisted the fifty-kilogram pack over his shoulder, pausing to adjust its straps into a more comfortable position. Everything he needed to survive and fight for the next thirty days was contained within the pack. Using the butt of his ACR to steady him, Gregory went down on one knee, activating his jacket’s in-built wrist comm, a militarized and far more capable version of the one available to civilians on the open market. As the patrol commander studied the map, familiarizing himself with the route which would take them to their first objective, a point deep in the thick forest on the far side of the Scraggy Mountain range, the remaining members of the patrol one by one formed a loose circle around him, all mirroring his kneeling position. Four pairs of human eyes and electronic passive sensors constantly scanned the area around the patrol’s Landing Zone, searching for any sign they had been detected. Satisfied the route to the objective was unchanged, Gregory pushed the information across by secure data link to Corporal Wu, the long-barreled sniper rifle in the corporal’s arms barely shifting position as the man removed his hand from the rifle’s front stock and acknowledged receipt of the data packet with a thumbs-up gesture. The sniper would scout alone ahead of the patrol--a solitary job, but one the native of the forest world of Garan had taken to like a duck to water. A body the size of a small tank leaned in close to Gregory and began speaking in a hushed, conspiratorial tone.
“Fleas set, Boss. Camo systems on the suits active. Give the word and the suits will be molecule-sized spitballs by lunch time.” Sergeant Obo, the only patrol member born on Earth, was Gregory’s second in command. The two men had worked together since Gregory had joined the Pathfinders after two tours with the Army Rangers. The sergeant and captain’s working relationship had taken on a near symbiotic form, where each was able to anticipate the other’s needs or orders. Obo’s setting of the Fleas, the slang term for tailor-made nanites which, when activated, would munch their way through every electronic and mechanical part of the OIS, meant stripping the highly complex and ridiculously expensive pieces of equipment back down to their base elements. The camo system draped over each OIS was little more than a smart Molonov impregnated disruptive pattern material, like a large bed sheet, which hid the OIS from visual and sensor detection while the Fleas did their work.
“Time to be on our way, then.” Raising his voice to a harsh whisper loud enough for all the patrol members to hear, Gregory gave the command to send the patrol on its way. “Move out.”
Wu stepped off first at a pace that would pull him well ahead of the remainder of his comrades. Corporal Collins was next to move; the communications and systems tech had his wrist comm synced to Wu’s, enabling him to follow the scout’s every move. Gregory let Collins get to the edge of unaided vision before he heaved himself to his feet with one more shrug of his shoulders as he adjusted his heavy pack into a more comfortable position. Behind him Corporal Suarez, the patrol medic, hung back until he got a tap on the shoulder from Obo, confirming he had activated the Fleas, before rising to follow the patrol commander. Sergeant Obo took a final look around the LZ, to ensure nothing vital was left behind, then disappeared into the brush with the rest of the soldiers, allowing this part of occupied Agate to return once more to peacefulness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Repercussions
DAY TWENTY-SIX
Even with the compensators at maximum, Lord Harvik had spent so long in space he could feel the none too gentle maneuvers the shuttle pilots were forced to take to avoid the larger pieces of what had been Hermes Station. The millions of tonnes of metal and composite polymer which once represented the peak of
humanity’s industrial and technological might in the Agate system was now a man-made debris ring gradually encircling the planet it had once hovered over so majestically.
As gravity exerted its natural power on the debris field, the pieces of destroyed station which had not burned up in the atmosphere or impacted on the surface of Agate were slowly, but, inexorably being stretched into a thin disk, akin to those found around a gas giant of the outer system. In time, Agate would have its very own disk to glint in the light of the system’s sun and be visible from the surface, a testament to the destructive power of the modern age.
For Harvik, the disk would be a reminder of his failure to protect the Imperium’s latest conquest. The weight of the failure lay heavy on his shoulders, more so now he had been summoned to attend the Claviger to explain his failings in person. How was he to have anticipated the humans’ willingness to destroy Hermes Station? The capital investment to build such an impressive station in the first place must have been equal to the combined GDP of a medium-sized planet. The willingness of the League Navy to destroy such a high-value target in the first skirmish proved one thing to the master tactician above all else… The humans had no intention of allowing the K’Tai to simply waltz in and take the Agate system and its precious Redlazore without a fight. He, like the Devisee Sidal and every senior officer involved in the planning of the operation to conquer Agate, simply expected the League to roll over and accept the new status quo, and once the League understood the overwhelming power of the K’Tai Imperium, relations between the two-star nations would return to some semblance of normality. A small frown creased the older K’Tai’s brow. Harvik was beginning to sense the K’Tai Imperium had underestimated the resolve of the League.