War To The Knife

by Grant, Peter

  Within fifteen seconds one hundred and seventy-six missiles, fully half of those available, had been activated. Nineteen malfunctioned in one way or another – their launch containers failed to eject them properly, or their rocket motors failed to ignite, or their aerodynamic moving surfaces malfunctioned, or their guidance systems froze. The remaining one hundred and fifty-seven missiles streaked towards the eighty shuttles just beginning their low, slow pass over the arena.

  ~ ~ ~

  OLD TRAFCON

  “Holy shit!” Jake exclaimed in feral glee as he bent over the display in the basement. Now that there was no need to conceal anything from TrafCon – all of whose displays had just died – it showed all airborne traffic in and around the city. As they watched a horde of missile traces began to spread across the display, all heading directly for the enemy shuttle formation. “There must be two missiles for every shuttle!”

  “That was the idea,” Quincy assured him as he tapped rapidly at his console. “I loaded a pre-written program telling the system to allocate multiple missiles to every high-priority target – and that close to the Satrap, any target designated as hostile is automatically classified as a top-priority threat.” He pressed a key triumphantly. “Phase Three program is loading!”

  ~ ~ ~

  ABOVE THE ARENA

  “Holy shit!” General Allred unconsciously echoed Jake’s exclamation as he stared in awe through the viewscreen of his shuttle, now two kilometers behind the main enemy formation.

  Without warning the white smoke of missile traces popped into sight, seeming to come from all points of the compass, some passing directly over the low-flying Laredo assault shuttles but ignoring them. The Bactrian shuttles’ slow-moving formation couldn’t possibly have presented a better target. The missiles streaked into it and began to explode. Shuttle after shuttle tumbled from the formation, trailing flame and smoke, shedding clouds of shattered and twisted pieces of metal. Many smashed into the arena, causing massive casualties among the five thousand troops and more than ten thousand carefully selected spectators below. The surviving shuttles began to dodge and jink wildly, diving and weaving in a desperate attempt to evade the incoming missiles – but they kept coming in a seemingly endless stream, exploding against shuttle after shuttle, sending them careering earthwards.

  Thirteen shuttles out of the eighty made it to ground level. Five couldn’t pull out of their flat-out evasive dives in time and smashed into the soil, breaking up in clouds of smoke and dust, wreckage bouncing in all directions. Another scored a direct hit on the arena’s commentary box, wiping out the entire parade control staff and their radio links to every unit involved. The troops on the field, already running in all directions to escape the chunks of metal large and small plummeting among them, were now cut off from contact with the Command Bunker in Tapuria, and therefore bereft of central control and organization.

  Almost everywhere the troops’ flight was blocked by the two-meter plascrete walls below the viewing stands surrounding the sports field on which they’d paraded. The only way in or out was through eight tunnels beneath the stands, spaced equidistant from each other around the arena. Unfortunately for the soldiers, all but two were partly obscured or blocked by the military vehicles and weapons systems arrayed for inspection around the arena perimeter. The main tunnel was concealed beneath the reviewing stand, out of sight of the soldiers – and at a time like this, out of sight was definitely out of mind. Its twin was at the other side of the stadium, offering a means of escape towards which nearby soldiers ran – just in time to be smashed into red ruin by a crashing assault shuttle that fell right in the mouth of the tunnel, sealing it completely.

  Seven shuttles managed to pull out of their dives, scorching along a few meters above the ground, so low as to brush against the tops of the trees in their path. They scattered in all directions, pilots ramming their throttles through the gate. The last missiles pursued them, felling another three before the incoming barrage ran out. The four surviving vehicles raced on, heading away from the city. No orders came for them, so their pilots independently but unanimously decided not to wait for anyone to issue them. The further away they could get from that maelstrom of hell, the better. The panic-stricken profanities of the others on board merely solidified their decisions.

  General Allred’s pilot slid her throttle smoothly forward as he activated his microphone. “All Laredo shuttles, go, go, GO!”

  ~ ~ ~

  ARENA

  Lieutenant Yazata’s jaw dropped and her eyes bulged in astonishment as the first missile slammed into its target overhead. She saw the shuttle reel out of formation, all the reaction thrusters on its starboard side blown clean off, twisting and tumbling in mid-air as it fell towards the arena. Before she could take in what was happening she was bowled off her feet by a hurtling human body. “GET THE SATRAP OUT OF HERE!” she heard Major-General Huvishka bellow as he felled her.

  Most of the officers and dignitaries on the reviewing stand were frozen, gaping in shock and horror. Beside her Captain Dehgahn grabbed her belt and hauled her unceremoniously to her feet, even as more shuttles plummeted towards them. “MOVE!” he roared at her, then leapt to follow the General. Numb with shock, she instinctively followed him.

  The General plowed through the ranks of the Satrap’s bodyguards as if they were so many bowling pins. Most of them were staring skyward in dumbfounded astonishment. Ignoring them, he seized the stunned Satrap in a bear hug and swung him bodily towards the stairs at the rear of the reviewing stand, yelling at the Crown Prince, “COME ON!” Before the younger man could respond Captain Dehgahn reached him and grabbed his arm, dragging him bodily in the wake of the General as he pushed his way through more of the bodyguards, some of whom were coming to their senses and trying to form a screen around them.

  Lieutenant Yazata followed in their wake, bending to seize two rifles dropped by fallen members of the bodyguard as they struggled to get to their feet. As she reached the stairs she looked up to see pieces of a destroyed shuttle falling towards the reviewing stand. “LOOK OUT!” she screamed, and the others heard her. The General glanced up, then threw the Satrap bodily over the edge of the stair railing and dived after him. Without hesitation the Captain did likewise, tossing the Crown Prince over the rail then jumping himself, and Yazata followed him without giving herself time to think. A few of the Satrap’s bodyguards followed their example, but too many were bunched up, getting in each other’s way, some hesitating at the sight of the five-meter drop.

  She couldn’t keep her feet as she hit the ground. Releasing the rifles as she fell, she rolled to one side, then grabbed them again as she struggled to her knees. The Satrap was screaming, clutching his left leg as the General reached for him, foot bent at an impossible angle. That’s a broken ankle, she thought to herself as she came to her feet and glanced over to the Crown Prince. He didn’t seem to be injured, but was wheezing and gasping for breath as Captain Dehgahn hauled him upright.

  “INTO THE TUNNEL!” the General yelled, pointing at the access tunnel behind the reviewing stand as he pulled the Satrap over his shoulders in a fireman’s lift. Under normal circumstances sports teams would make their entrance through this portal, but now it offered their only means of escape.

  Even as they dashed towards it, joined by several bodyguards who’d made the jump, the stand behind them shook as something big and heavy smashed into its left side, pulverizing it and bringing down half the platform. There were agonized screams and shouts from above as splintered timbers and scaffold steel rained down. Miraculously they avoided the falling debris as the General and Captain Dehgahn carried and dragged the Satrap and Crown Prince into the tunnel. Yazata followed numbly, feeling inexpressible relief as the roof of the tunnel closed over her head. Surely with so much reinforced plascrete above them they would be safe now?

  ~ ~ ~

  ABOVE THE ARENA

  Brigadier-General Allred couldn’t help exclaiming with glee as he watched the destr
uction unfold ahead of the formation of Laredo shuttles. Even as the pilot gunned the thrusters to gain height to their bombing altitude of a hundred and fifty meters, he exclaimed, “That’s incredible! They’ve lost almost every single shuttle, and the few survivors are fleeing as fast as they can travel!”

  “Look at the arena,” the Weapons System Operator advised grimly. “It’s like a disturbed ant heap in there with all the wreckage falling on their heads like that – and they can’t get out. They’re trapped by the interior walls.”

  “Just where we want them,” the pilot agreed. “Take it, Wizzo.”

  The WSO keyed his microphone. “All Laredo shuttles, this is Shuttle One. On my mark… stand by… three, two, one, MARK!”

  The ten shuttles had spread out into a carefully calculated formation, each vehicle positioned so as to cover overlapping swaths of ground with their weapons. As the WSO called the mark, the battle computers began to release fragmentation bombs and sensor fused munitions in a precisely timed sequence from the ordnance pods suspended beneath the belly of each shuttle.

  The sensor fused munitions ejected multiple small homing explosive bomblets, their sensors seeking any large objects like missile batteries, assault shuttles or other vehicles, particularly anything moving. As each found a suitable objective within range it oriented itself towards it and fired a charge to produce an explosively formed projectile, devastating the target below. The pattern of bomblets covered the vehicles in the VIP parking area outside the arena walls and all the armored cars, artillery pieces and other hardware arrayed around the walls inside the arena, ready for inspection. Almost all were hit. Many were destroyed outright, while the rest were damaged so badly as to be unusable. Only a few light vehicles furthest away from the arena escaped unscathed.

  The fragmentation bombs dropped in a carefully calculated evenly-spaced pattern over and around the arena. Every one ejected forty fifteen-centimeter shrapnel balls in mid-air. Each comprised a central explosive core with a short-delay impact fuse, surrounded by a double deeply-scored steel shell sandwiching a springy rubber-like compound between its inner and outer layers. As each ball struck the ground the compound compressed, then released, bouncing the bomblet two to four meters high before it detonated, spraying shards of its double casing with lethal velocity over a fifteen-meter radius.

  Almost five thousand surviving soldiers in parade dress milled in terrified confusion across the arena. Almost ten thousand surviving administrators, bureaucrats and clerks struggled panic-stricken among the steeply banked spectators’ seats above them.

  One thousand six hundred shrapnel balls rolled over them all from one side of the arena to the other. The targeting grid had divided the area into three-by-three-meter squares. The shuttles dropped at least one ball into each, blasting at least two shell fragments into every square meter.

  The carnage was indescribable.

  ~ ~ ~

  SATRAP’S PARTY

  Four bodyguards sprinted ahead of the royal group as they headed towards the far end of the tunnel, and six others followed behind. They held their rifles ready as they neared its exit, which opened onto the VIP parking area – then slammed to a halt as explosions began to rock the vehicles outside. A black ball-like object hit the ground, bounced upward and struck the roof of the tunnel at its entrance, then bounced further inside before it blew up with a thunderous blast. Shrapnel shrieked down the tunnel, ricocheting off the walls. Two bodyguards collapsed. One clutched his almost-severed left leg, screaming as the blood fountained, while the other was ominously silent.

  Beside Lieutenant Yazata Captain Dehgahn grunted, doubling over, holding his stomach, releasing the arm of the Crown Prince. As he fell to the ground she dropped to her knees beside him, seeing the red blood staining his fingers. He looked up at her, face drawn in an agonized grimace, and she saw the wordless pleading in his eyes. Outside at both ends of the tunnel the crackle of explosions grew to a thunderous cacophony, deafening everyone within. The blasts seemed to merge into a single gigantic roar of fury and destruction that pounded their ears and tore at their bodies like a wind, buffeting them as the floor and walls shook. She tried to say something, but couldn’t even hear herself think in the tumult. As it slowly receded it left desperate screams, shouts and cries for help echoing in their battered ears as if from a great distance.

  She thrust the two rifles in her hands at a bodyguard behind her. “Here! You! Carry these!” The rasp of authority was in her voice, and the startled man instinctively took the weapons from her even though she wasn’t in his chain of command. She turned to the Crown Prince. “You! Take his other arm! MOVE!”

  “That’s right, Lieutenant!” Major-General Huvishka said approvingly as they pulled the Captain’s arms over their shoulders and lifted him to his feet. Their CO was holding the Satrap over his shoulders as effortlessly as if his ruler had been a baby. “We can’t go out into that.” Continued scattered explosions confirmed his words. “Into the changing-rooms, quick!”

  They turned around and stumbled back up the tunnel to where double doors were set into both walls, one for the home side, one for a visiting team. Yazata tried the handle of the nearest door, but it was locked. She looked at the bodyguard carrying her rifles. “Shoot that lock off!”

  The man obeyed, holding her two weapons by their slings in his left hand as he brought up his own with his right. He fired a long burst, the echoes deafening all of them anew as they reverberated off the plascrete walls. The lock area disintegrated and the double doors sagged inwards. Yazata kicked them wider open and dragged Captain Dehgahn through.

  “Stop!” he gasped. “Wait! They’ll be… coming!”

  “What do you mean?” she demanded through the ringing in her ears, breath sobbing in her throat under the exertion of half-carrying him.

  “This is too… well planned! They’ve got too many… shuttles and too many weapons!” He panted for breath. “They’re bound to land troops as well… to make sure they get the Satrap. They’ll know… the only way he could have got clear… of the reviewing stand is through this tunnel… and they’ll come looking for him. I… can’t run anymore. Leave me here with a rifle. I’ll delay them… while you go through the changing-rooms… and coaches’ offices. There… should be vehicles on the far side of them… further away from the arena. Some… may still be usable.”

  Huvishka wasted no time. “He’s right. Give him a rifle.”

  The bodyguard carrying the rifles Yazata had picked up handed one to the Captain. She took the other from him and checked to make sure it was loaded as the General took one arm from around the Satrap’s legs and gently squeezed Dehgahn’s shoulder. “Thank you. Die well, lad.”

  “I’ll do my best… Sir. Live well.”

  “If the bastards let us!”

  Hurrying down the corridor, they could hear the Captain’s gasping, pain-filled breathing behind them as he braced himself against the wall behind a vending machine filled with sports drinks, aiming his rifle back towards the doors.

  They tore through the changing-rooms at a dead run. Two bodyguards raced ahead to shoot open the door to a suite of offices set aside for visiting coaches and team officials, then did the same to the door on the far side that exited into the parking area. They ran outside ahead of the rest of the group, rifles at the ready, slamming to a halt and standing back-to-back as they scanned for threats – then they disintegrated in a cloud of dust and dirt as a plasma bolt came in, seemingly from out of nowhere, digging a smoking crater in the parking lot where they had been standing.

  The General managed to skid to a halt just before he reached the door. “No good! Back the way we came!”

  As they turned to retrace their steps they heard the sound of rifle fire from the direction of the tunnel, followed by a loud explosion and an agonized scream.

  ~ ~ ~

  ABOVE THE ARENA

  Brigadier-General Allred didn’t waste time admiring the results of the air strike. He keyed his microph
one. “Laredo Six to all shuttles. Well done, everybody! Split up and proceed to your assigned targets. God be with you all. Laredo Six out.”

  All the shuttles released their now-empty ordnance pods. The four shuttles of Task Force Arena, including the General’s, banked steeply, their pilots hauling the craft around almost by main force, reaction thrusters screaming. While turning, each of the four took final advantage of its temporary immunity from the Bactrian central fire control system by targeting one of the pairs of assault shuttles parked at the corners of the arena grounds, firing two missiles at each shuttle. Sixteen missiles blazed short-range paths of destruction through the air, blasting the vehicles before their stunned crews could pull themselves together, switch to local guidance systems and return fire.

  Two of the Laredo shuttles turned towards the VIP parking area outside the arena, where the waiting vehicles had been shredded by exploding sensor fused munitions. The WSO in the lead shuttle spotted two rifle-bearing Bactrians rushing out of a door into the parking lot, and vaporized them with a well-aimed snap shot from his plasma cannon. The other two shuttles made for the reviewing stand inside the arena. Their plasma cannon began to fire as they cleared a landing area for themselves. In the process they pulverized the remains of the reviewing stand, reducing it to shattered fragments, revealing the tunnel through which the Satrap had been carried to temporary safety. The troops carried by all four shuttles readied themselves for action as they touched down, sprinting down their rear ramps and fanning out into combat formation.

  The six shuttles of Task Force Banka split into three groups of two, their courses diverging as they headed into the city. Two made for the huge supply depot next to the spaceport, two for the civil administration center, and two for the Military Governor’s compound. As they flew, their transponder ID’s protected them from the defensive systems deployed throughout the city. Any Bactrian weapon that could harm them was still under the control of the central computer, which adamantly refused to allow any of them to fire at the intruders.