Ascendant

by Jack Campbell

  The estimate proved to be fairly accurate. “They’re on their way,” Mele said as alerts showed up on her pad. “Twenty minutes until estimated arrival. Six shuttles and an aerospace warbird.”

  The Marines nodded and stood before her, outwardly casual but inwardly tense, she knew. Just like her.

  She ought to say something. Mele hesitated, looking them over. “All right, you apes. This’ll be the first real fight for the Marines of Glenlyon. Centuries from now, I want people to be looking back on this fight with awe and toasting us with the best booze money can buy. Make me proud. And let’s all make a memory that no one will ever forget. Any questions? No? Seal armor. Keep it sharp from this moment on.”

  As her helmet display activated, Mele checked it against the pad she still carried. There was a lot going on in orbit. The enemy must have launched every shuttle they had. The many shuttles not heading for this facility were dropping down toward the planet, escorted by warbirds. Saber, tied down protecting Shark from the enemy destroyer, could do nothing.

  For how many thousands of years had humanity waged wars, developing better and better weapons? And how many times during those thousands of years had someone proclaimed that some latest weapon had made foot soldiers obsolete? But here, on and above Kosatka, the fight would once again be decided by grunts, fighting face-to-face and maybe hand to hand. Because that was what grunts did, and that’s why, in the end, they were always needed no matter how many other fancy toys people came up with to wage war.

  She hoped the grunts on the ground were better prepared than Major Brazos and his militia up here.

  * * *

  • • •

  “Here they come,” Dominic Desjani said, gazing upward.

  Carmen Ochoa looked up as well, seeing the glint of sunlight on dozens of shuttles as they dropped from orbit toward the surface of Kosatka like sparks from a fire falling to earth. She couldn’t help smiling at the memories the vision brought. “A dream come true,” she said, the words dripping with sarcasm.

  Domi gave her a glance. “A dream?”

  “When I was a little girl on Mars, after my parents were killed, I had to spend a lot of time hiding,” Carmen said, her eyes still on those shuttles high above this world. “I spent some of that time daydreaming, imagining a day when shuttles would fill the Martian sky, dropping down from space like a shower of leaves from a tree killed by a flash freeze. Fire from the sky would strike the dictators and oligarchs and gangs who made life on Mars a living hell for most of us, then the peacekeepers would leap out of the shuttles. Their armor would be gold and silver, and their weapons would shine as they killed every single one of those who had spent their lives making others fear them. And then the peacekeepers would wave me aboard and take me with them when the shuttles lifted. I’d sit in a safe and comfortable seat, with as much food and water as I wanted, and watch the surface of Mars dwindle behind us as we rose, and when we reached Rhiannon Station in high orbit my parents would be there, not dead after all, but waiting for me. And we’d get on a ship and leave Mars and never look back.”

  Domi’s gaze on her grew anxious and sad. “That’s one hell of a daydream for a little girl. I’m sorry, Red. No one should have to live a life that spawns those sorts of dreams.”

  “People still are living such lives,” Carmen said with a sigh. “When I finally really got on a ship and left, still alone and years later, I didn’t look back. Because I didn’t have to. I couldn’t leave Mars. It’s still there,” she said, tapping her head as she looked back at Dominic. “And now people like the rulers of Mars are trying to come here and make life hell for other little girls and boys,” Carmen added, her voice going from softly contemplative to hard as steel in the space of a few words. “Not while I’m alive to fight them, Domi. Not while I can fight them.”

  “Not while we can fight them,” Dominic said, reaching to grasp her hand with his. “Did you ever daydream a honeymoon like this?”

  “No,” Carmen admitted. She smiled again, a hard, relentless smile, as manta shapes bolted skyward, heading toward those points of light far above the planet.

  “Let’s hope our own ships can keep the enemy warships busy,” Dominic said, also watching Kosatka’s counterattack zoom upward. “Even those aerospace craft have a hard time dodging particle beams fired from low orbit.”

  “Warship,” Carmen corrected. “The enemy only has one left, thanks to Piranha and Saber. But we also have only one left, and that’s not even ours. If Saber leaves . . .” She shook her head. “If only we had enough warbirds to hit that enemy warship if it came down to low orbit.”

  “We don’t even have nearly enough to stop those shuttles,” Dominic said.

  The sky filled with far-distant blossoms of smoke that glittered with embedded chaff and flares as the landing shuttles threw out countermeasures to hide themselves from the weapons on Kosatka’s aerospace craft.

  High above Carmen, where the sky turned black and the world formed a blue-white-green-brown curve beneath, where the thin atmosphere glittered with ice crystals and humans had once believed angels and gods dwelt, death now danced on thrusters, hurling charged particles and missiles and projectiles of metal. Unarmed shuttles dodged and dropped in erratic movements designed to throw off enemy predictions of where they’d be and when. Warbirds from Apulu, dropping with the shuttles, engaged Kosatka’s warbirds, while Kosatka’s aerospace craft tried to shoot down anything they could. Badly outnumbered, Kosatka’s warbirds had the advantage of knowing just about everything else in the atmosphere was enemy, while the enemy had to take more time to identify targets to avoid hitting their own birds.

  Little could be seen with the naked eye from ground level but occasional flashes of light amid the clouds of countermeasures covering the sky and the broken shapes of stricken craft spinning downward out of those clouds. Carmen raised her rifle and sighted through the scope, but even with maximum magnification not much was visible unless she happened to be viewing just the right spot at just the right time. “That’s a shuttle. Falling fast and on fire, but still under some control,” she told Dominic. Carmen felt a weird simultaneous mix of sympathy for those trapped inside the burning shuttle and satisfaction that they were unlikely to survive to reach the surface. “A warbird. Half a warbird. I can’t tell whether it was ours or theirs. Oh, hell. Something just blew up inside the chaff clouds. Bigger than a shuttle or warbird.”

  “Maybe a couple collided,” Dominic suggested.

  “If so, I hope it was two of theirs.” She saw light reflecting off many shuttles dropping out of the chaff, heading for their landing points. “A lot of them made it through.”

  Three warbirds came into sight, twisting around each other in wild gyrations. Carmen had no way of telling who was who, whether it was two invaders versus a single defender or if two of Kosatka’s warbirds were trying to take out a single one of Apulu’s.

  One of the three warbirds exploded, while a second whirled away with a broken wing spinning off. The pilot of the stricken craft ejected, a dot falling through the sky until a parachute bloomed. The third warbird zoomed back up into the chaff, vanishing from her sight.

  Who had won? Carmen stared at the falling pilot, wondering whether she should be hoping he or she made it down safely, or if they were an enemy and hoping the chute would fail so one more foe would be out of the fight for good.

  “Our systems are starting to project landing sites,” Domi said beside her. “No surprises. Looks like they’re going to land around the main spaceport here, power generation centers, ground transportation hubs, and industrial areas. Here and in Drava. They’ve already got everything in Ani since we had to abandon it.”

  “There are small special forces units that are going to keep hitting the ‘rebels’ in Ani so they can’t help attack Lodz or Drava,” Carmen told him. “But if the invaders gain control of all those critical areas they’ll eliminate our abili
ty to sustain a fight over time.”

  “I’ve got a big knife that doesn’t need ammunition or power,” he replied.

  “Domi . . .” Carmen squeezed her eyes shut, struggling against a wave of despair. “Damn. I don’t want you to die.”

  “I’ll make you a deal,” he said, his voice soft. She wondered how his face looked, but wouldn’t open her eyes to find out. “I’ll keep you alive,” Dominic continued, “and you keep me alive.”

  She inhaled deeply before she could reply. “Deal.”

  He paused as a call came in. “We’ve got orders to move to a projected landing site in the warehouse area just west of here. You coming, Red?”

  “Sure.” Carmen lowered her rifle, waiting as Dominic roused his soldiers and gave them orders. The unit broke into small groups, all of them scuttling through alleys and next to buildings, trying to remain as much under cover as possible to avoid being tracked from above.

  The city they moved through was still unnaturally quiet. An occasional stray animal or rodent, some native to this world and some brought by humans, dashed into hiding as the defenders ran past. Otherwise, the streets and buildings felt empty, the normal noises of people and their devices gone, only the faint sigh of the wind audible between the sounds of boots striking the still-new pavement.

  The block of warehouses they’d been sent to defend was centered around a large, open loading area that made a perfect landing site. Carmen frowned as Dominic began dispersing his soldiers to cover the loading area. “Domi, if these guys use Red tactics they’ll land a diversion force in the obvious place but also drop forces on the streets around it, behind wherever anyone targeting that landing spot would be positioned.”

  Dominic paused, his eyes shifting around the area as he thought. “What’s the best move for us if they do that? We don’t have enough people to cover the loading area and all the streets around these warehouses.”

  “Cover part of it. Have soldiers targeting the loading area from one or two sides, but also have people covering the streets behind them so you can ensure an escape corridor for those in the warehouses.”

  He nodded, looked around again, then started giving orders to his company. “Platoon One, occupy the warehouses on the west side and cover the loading area; Platoon Two, cover the street behind them. Platoon Three, take the warehouses to the south, and Platoon Four, cover the street to the south. Questions? Go!”

  Dominic watched his soldiers move but took a moment to give Carmen a questioning look. “Just what was it you did on Mars, Red?”

  She shook her head. “You agreed never to ask about that.”

  “Sorry. It’s just . . . you know a lot about certain things.”

  “I survived, Domi. By doing a lot of different things. That’s what you need to know.” Carmen took up position inside one of the warehouses to the south, kneeling next to a partly opened door she could fire through. With the power to this part of the city shut down, and even the emergency lights inside the warehouse turned off, the brightness of the day outside formed a stark contrast to the interior dimness. Carmen blinked against the brilliant light, her body turned mostly away from Dominic, signaling that particular conversation was over.

  The only person she’d ever unburdened herself to, spilling out many of her secrets and the hidden past, had been Lochan Nakamura. And he had, as promised, never spoken of any of it afterward.

  She’d slowly come to realize that Lochan was like the man she’d hoped her father would have been if her father had lived long enough for her to really know him. Lochan was the sort of guy you could count on. So was Dominic, but in a different way.

  Carmen heard the roar of the descending shuttles before she saw one coming into view as it settled toward the center of the loading zone.

  “Fire!” Dominic ordered.

  She didn’t think she had much chance of hurting the shuttle with her rifle, but Carmen aimed at what should be vital spots and fired, making sure each shot was centered. She couldn’t afford to waste ammunition, which would now be even harder to come by than before.

  Someone else among the defenders had a “dumb” shoulder-fired rocket, though. Unaffected by the countermeasures thrown out by the descending shuttle, the rocket zoomed straight into the craft and tore a hole in the underside near the middle. The blow must have crippled the shuttle’s maneuvering systems. The smooth descent changed to an abrupt leap sideways, the shuttle twisting under the push of thrusters venting out of control.

  Carmen flinched back behind the door as the shuttle slammed into a warehouse along the north side of the loading area. Shuttle, warehouse, and the contents of both exploded, rocking the building that Carmen was in.

  As the echoes of the blast faded, Carmen heard more shuttles coming in to land on the streets on all sides. Sounds of battle erupted to the south and west as the screening platoons opened fire to keep the escape routes clear.

  “First Platoon, Third Platoon! Fall back!” Dominic ordered.

  Carmen joined the others in her building as they hurled themselves across a street that had suddenly become a free-fire zone, solid slugs and energy pulses flying in seemingly every direction, the shapes of shuttles rising skyward again after dropping off their first load of attacking soldiers, the crash of grenades punctuating the other noises, and under it all the cries of pain and shock as some of the shots and flying shrapnel struck and tore human bodies.

  She lunged into the nearest doorway, gasping for breath, her heart pounding, as the fight continued to rage just outside.

  “Pull back! Come on!” Dominic was yelling, gesturing to his soldiers still on the street, exposing himself to enemy fire to help cover their retreat.

  Carmen shook her head to clear it as a string of projectiles traced a line of holes along the wall above her with a close-set series of bangs and crashes. Don’t lie there. Don’t panic. Paralysis and panic mean death. You learned that as a little girl. Don’t forget it now. Getting her feet under her, she moved next to Dominic and yanked at him. “Get down, you fool!”

  He glared at her, resisting her pull. “I have to lead my unit!”

  “Which you can’t do if you’re dead!” she yelled back. “Right now you’re not only exposing yourself to fire, you’re also clearly giving orders! Why not hang a big sign on yourself saying I’m in charge, kill me now?”

  Dominic’s glare changed to reluctant understanding as he dropped back a little inside the building and began calling orders on the command circuit. “First and Third Platoons, confirm you’ve pulled back. Second and Fourth Platoons, withdraw through the First and the Third. We’re going to pull back three streets to the office complex at the corner of Zavadska and Petrikower. All units acknowledge!”

  He gave Carmen a desperate glance. “Red, cover me while I make sure everyone heard. There’s a lot of jamming.”

  Carmen checked her own gear, seeing the enemy jamming also interfering with her scope’s ability to transmit video to whatever was left of Kosatka’s command structure. She knelt by the nearest window, rifle leveled but ensuring the barrel didn’t stick out to be seen by enemies, controlling her breathing and focusing on the sounds of battle nearby.

  She heard racing footsteps coming along the street from her left as the fire from Dominic’s unit faltered while the defenders fell back. The footfalls were heavy, reflecting the weight of someone in battle armor.

  The invader came into sight with shocking suddenness, running toward the door protecting Dominic. Carmen’s finger twitched without conscious thought, firing at the right moment for a high-powered shot to smash into the side of the enemy’s battle armor.

  Even at point-blank range the round might not have penetrated the front or back armor, but the sides of battle armor, where the protective layers thinned to ease arm movement, were more vulnerable. The impact of the shot knocked the enemy soldier sideways, falling onto the street. He rolle
d to a halt, using one arm to raise a weapon toward the window where Carmen was still aiming from.

  She put a second shot into his faceplate.

  Carmen heard shouts outside, but as she strained to understand the words over the sound of battle someone yanked her back away from the window.

  She spun with a snarl of defiance fed by fear to see Dominic still pulling at her. “They know you fired from there! We have to get clear!”

  Part of learning to survive was learning to listen to good advice. Carmen yielded to his pull, following Dominic as they ran into the next room just before the window she had been crouching at exploded under the impact of at least two grenades. Debris rattled against the interior wall they ducked behind and in some cases punched through.

  Carmen rolled back to her knees and covered the door while Dominic tried to get through to his unit. “All platoons report. Are you clear?”

  She spotted movement near the exterior door and fired. “We can’t stay!”

  “Got it. Give me one more minute, Red. All platoons, report!”

  “Anyone who isn’t already out of these buildings is probably dead,” Carmen snapped at him.

  “They’re my people!” he shouted back, anguished.

  “So are the ones still alive, and they need a leader. Come on, Domi!”

  Under her urging he followed as Carmen ran through the building and out the other side to a street that felt bizarrely untouched by the violence raging just a street away. She dashed across the street while Dominic covered her, then rested against a pillar supporting an overhang, her rifle aimed at the building they had just left, as Dominic sprinted to join her.

  They fell back through another street, finally slowing a little as they jogged toward the meet-up point. She kept an eye out for trouble as Dominic concentrated on trying to get his unit re-formed and assessing their losses.

  The office complex had provided high-value financial services, so the ground floor offices had substantial walls for security. Carmen sat in a high-backed leather chair once used by a senior executive, her rifle resting between her knees, trying to rest. She watched the men and women of Dominic’s unit meet up with cries of relief as they discovered friends who had made it here, or suppressed cries of pain at realizing other friends were missing.