After a brief combat, Kekkin reported the upper mezzanine was ours and the soldiers cheered in victory. We had lost seven soldiers, with twice as many wounded, but the survivors knew that this fight would be hard. Going in blind always is.
We had work to do. I ordered the troops to secure the access hatches, welding shut those that did not lead into the main thoroughfare. There was a large vehicle access hatch that I knew would lead into the hangar area, where supplies and passengers could be offloaded from visiting vessels. At least, that’s where they would if the station was functional.
When I was happy that the loading dock was secure, I hooked the scrambler up to a power port. Next, Rego activated the hardline communications node for the car, giving us a line to the surface.
We had no idea how many Ghantri were in this sphere, but for now, we had the corner to ourselves. The aim was to maintain this position for as long as possible, while we brought the civilians up. It was less than ideal, as we had originally planned to keep most of the refugees down on the surface until we had secured a vessel, but with the threat of the raiders we needed to move them as soon as possible. We were essentially between a rock and a hard place.
While I oversaw the evacuation on the surface, I left it up to Kekkin and Naga Team to scout out the route to the hangars and find us a viable vessel to hijack. It was a dangerous task, but one which Naga Team was uniquely suited.
I shook the squad’s hands, wished them good luck, then rode in the elevator car to the bottom once more.
With Cohen in charge, the defences in the plaza were coming along nicely. The next car load of refugees went up, and I was surprised to find that Alex had found volunteers from the refugees to act as scouts. With mother Cohen’s help, he had found people willing to march out a kilometre and keep an eye out for enemy movements. In exchange, the families of the volunteers would be on the next car. It was smart and gave us an eye on the terrain that we sorely needed.
The third elevator load of evacuees had left, with the next car due to arrive in ten minutes, when the raiders were spotted. A scout came running into the plaza, breathless and ragged from running. They spoke briefly with Alexander before the pair came over to me.
“This scout says they saw many marauders anti-spinward of our position,” reported Alex.
“How many did you see?” I asked.
The man was still trying to catch his breath, his words coming out in broken sentences. “Hundreds. Thousands. At least a thousand. Probably more. Headed this way.”
“How far?”
“A couple of hours at least. I ran as soon as I saw them. Just like you said, Alex.”
He patted him and the back. “You did well.”
“You did very well. Has your family gone up yet?” I asked.
“Yessir.”
“Make sure this man gets on the next lift,” I said, waving a soldier over, “And get him something to drink.”
“What do you think?” said Alexander when the man had gone.
“I think we’re in trouble. They had to have known where we were headed once those raiders got away.”
“Can we put more people on the car?”
“Maybe,” I said, staring up at the space elevator, “Not enough to make a difference, though. We are going to have to delay them somehow.”
“How?”
I looked around at the soldiers, resting against the makeshift barricades erected from debris. I surveyed the plaza, inspecting some of the buildings and avenues leading away.
“We’re going to need more volunteers,” I said, “Squads of hit and run teams to harry them. I’ll send more soldiers down with the next car, but I’m hesitant to deplete our force up there. If they’re attacked, they might not have enough to defend the loading bay.”
“I’ll get those volunteer squads.”
I talked to Merade again, asking her to organise a labour team to shift debris. I figured if I can block off most of the access points to the plaza, I can funnel their numbers through to a kill zone for our troops. As people got busy around me, I found that I had little to do once the plans were put into action.
A despair started to grow within me. I had let myself hope that I could pull this off, but there was little chance we would be able to hold off that many raiders for the extra few hours we needed to evacuate the refugees. If the last group of raiders was anything to go by, the enemy had upgraded their arsenal somewhat. I cursed myself for not thinking of destroying the armoury that Osiris has accumulated within the university. My lack of foresight meant that my enemy now had energy weapons they could use against us, and not just the one-in-ten that had them before.
An hour later, more scouts arrived with news, more sightings of the enemy force moving towards us. With the extra reports came updated numbers – the most harrowing count put their force at close to two thousand strong. I had to assume this was the force arrayed against us, and plan accordingly. The only thing was, I could think of nothing that could stop a force of that size, given the numbers I had.
The plaza was cleared of debris, giving a hundred metre kill zone leading to our fortifications, but if the enemy was smart, they would not charge our position. I racked my brain, trying to think of a plan to keep my people alive, wondering how many refugees I could cram into the next car.
When it arrived, the elevator brought another forty troops – the most Kekkin could spare. It also carried Harris and Renthal, who I was glad to see. I showed them around my preparations, silently hoping they would offer some brilliant trick or strategy to hold off the enemy force. I was crushed when they told me that I had done a great job and had nothing to add.
The last of the scouts returned, along with the hit and run squads. They had taken casualties and hastily reported the enemy vanguard was minutes behind them. Adrenaline started to pump through my blood and my heart began to thud in my chest.
By Merade’s last count, we still had over a thousand refugees left to evacuate, and the next elevator wasn’t due to arrive for thirty minutes when the first of the raiders attacked. They must have been chasing after the hit and run troops, separated from the main force. Forty men, wild with bloodlust, burst into the plaza and started firing blindly at our position. I needed no command to set our troops to action – they opened fire immediately.
Moments later, another wave appeared, more cautious than the first. The battle was joined in earnest.
11.
When soldiers have fought for long enough, they can undergo a numbing of the senses. The terror of combat no longer affects them. Instead, they enter into a fugue of disconnection, indifferent to their surroundings. This battle fatigue leads to a reduction in fighting efficiency, as they lose the ability to prioritise and lose reaction time. I was no stranger to it. I knew the men and women with me were capable of suffering from this debilitating condition. If they weren’t already, they soon would be.
I’d pushed them hard getting them this far. Another prolonged battle was the last thing they needed, but a soldier doesn’t always get to choose the time and place of their next fight.
We’d bloodied the enemy, not a full day previously, but they were eager to reclaim that blood, tenfold.
Two hundred enemy combatants charged our lines, cut down before they even got half way. While we fought off the charge, the enemy used that time to find cover near the outer edge of the plaza. We’d cleared what we could from the area, but larger debris was still providing a measure of defence. The line held.
After ten minutes of fighting, another problem began to surface – our troops were not equipped for a long firefight. We had battery cells, enough for four clips each, but after reloading a second clip I realised that it would not last. All the enemy commander would need to do was draw our fire for long enough and then he could just charge us again.
The only good thing I could make out of all this was that the refugees had remained out of sight and were not drawing fire.
“How am I going to get the next car fil
led?” I mused to myself as I sighted down at an enemy combatant.
“Sorry, sir?” said a nearby soldier.
“Just thinking out loud. Send word to Corporal Renthal to reinforce the left flank – the enemy is shifting troops along that rooftop.”
The soldier dashed off to carry word and I saw that the enemy had started to change tactics. While the front lines of the enemy were halted at the entrance to the plaza, they had sent men around to find other ways into the plaza. Eventually, they had realised they were blocked and started to climb. Hostiles started to appear on the upper ruins and rooftops, firing down on us.
We were taking casualties, men and women I could not afford to lose.
I checked the countdown on the elevator – twelve minutes. An eternity. There was no way we could hold out that long. Even if we could, there was no way we’d be able to load a car while under fire. We were going to be slaughtered.
“Cease firing!” I yelled. I had to call it out several times until the call was carried along the line. My troops were defiant, but hope had gone from their faces as they realised the battle was hopeless.
As the enemy realised what we had done, they too stopped firing. The enemy commander knew they had us dead to rights.
“Throw down your weapons!” came a call from the enemy’s side. The voice echoed across the plaza. I tossed my rifle down, indicating for those nearest me to follow suit. My soldiers disarmed, laying their weapons on the ground or the nearest cover.
“Stand out from your walls!”
I stepped around the marble block I was using for cover and took a few steps out into the open. When those nearest me made to follow I held my hand back. They hesitated.
“What guarantee do I have that you won’t execute us on the spot?” I called back.
A man stepped up from the rubble on the far side, I could just make out a wry grin on his face. As he approached, I could see horrible burn scars all along the side of this head and he walked with a casual air – as if strolling down a lane.
“You must be the Protectorate coward that ran from the university,” he said, “Want to know how many of your men I tortured to get that information?”
“I want to know who you are,” I said.
He threw back his head and laughed. Many of his men joined in as he turned to them, arms raised as if on a stage. In a way, he was.
“I am your saviour! I am the one who will show you the way!”
“What way?”
“The way of the Ghantri! The way of strength!”
“Is this where you give me your sales pitch? Convert or die?”
“Oh! You’ve heard it?” he said, mockingly.
“Is there another way?”
“Ha, ha!” he laughed again, “Another way?”
“You’ve won your war, you’ve beaten us. Let us leave.”
“Leave? But where will you go? Where can you go that the Ghantri cannot follow?”
“Away from this station. Another star system.”
“There’s the Protectorate cowardice in action. Always running from their fights. One day, there will be nowhere left to run, no star that the Ghantri cannot reach. What will you do then?”
“You have that much faith in the Ghantri?”
“Why not? They beat you. We beat you, too. When they come and take us with them, a thousand worlds will be ours for the taking. Your worlds will burn, your people will die, or they will join us!”
“You have no way to be sure of that outcome. You have no idea how many forces there are in the next star system, let alone the rest of the Network. Do you really think that the Ghantri can terrorise another star system? Surely you ca see the Ghantri can’t win in the long run? Look how long it took them to break the blockade here!”
He laughed again, harder than before. Most the enemy soldiers laughed with him. “It was never a blockade! It was a cage for the Protectorate, you fool! They stayed here, never suspecting that the great Ghantri had already slipped the chains and claimed the stars! All the while, the cowardly Protectorate were complacently happy thinking they had our masters contained!”
A coldness began to trickle through my veins. A realisation that this man had just told me something vital. The Protectorate needed to learn this. Whatever the cost, I vowed, they must know.
“Enough talking! Time to decide!” said the man, performing a flourish, “Convert. Or die.”
I opened my mouth, not sure what to say, when suddenly a brilliant light split the plaza from the sky above. A baleful orange fire lanced down from the upper atmosphere and as my senses recovered, I could hear a familiar sound accompanying the searing light. The wail of a Class 2 beamer drowned out all other sounds as the energy beam swept across the enemy ranks, vaporising hundreds within seconds. I followed the beam up, shielding the glare with my hand. In the sky, hundreds of metres above, the Dreaming of Atmosphere hovered just outside of the upper reaches of the station’s air layer.
With a defiant roar, I drew my PX-2 and fired at the enemy commander, who stood dumbfounded at the carnage around him. The soldiers behind me cheered as they jubilantly reclaimed their fallen weapons and opened up on the enemy.
My first shot spun the commander around and the next three caused bursts of blood to spray from his body. He went down under a hail of gunfire. Emboldened by the miraculous strike from above, I charged at the enemy position. The soldiers behind me rose, joined my charge, and took the fight to our reeling foe.
The beamer had cut directly through the main body of the raiders, obliterating most of them in a handful of seconds. Unable to comprehend the sheer level of devastation that had befallen them, the rest were gunned down as they stumbled about in shock.
In minutes, what before had looked like a tragic defeat, was a resounding victory. A handful of raiders managed to scatter to the winds. We let them. There were no more raiders close enough to stop us now.
When the battle was won, I looked to the heavens for my ship, but it had vanished from sight. I threw it a salute anyway, in case they were looking.
Ormund, I texted, did you see the Dreaming of Atmosphere?
We just picked her up on our sensors. She’s been running dark since leaving the Astral Spider. I never knew she was so close!
Can you track it?
No, they activated the cloak system again. Good thing, too. A pair of Ghantri warships are moving to investigate.
If you manage to get comms back with them, give Max my thanks. She just saved all our lives.
I will. Let me know when you secure a ship, I’ll have coordinates of a supply point for you by then.
Thanks. Will do.
I was grinning like a madman when Renthal and Harris met up with me, Alexander in tow. He was laughing merrily.
“Did you see that!” he said.
“I think half the station saw that,” said Harris, sharing my grin.
“What a time for your ship to arrive,” said Renthal.
“Maxine does have a thing for dramatic entrances, I’ll give her that.”
“We all owe her our lives. Tell her Naga Team owes her,” said Renthal, clasping my arm.
“You can tell her yourself when we get off this cursed station.”
“Who’s Maxine?” asked Alexander.
I smiled at him. “A very special woman, my friend. I have a feeling your mother and her are going to be very good friends.”
12.
Without aplomb or ceremony, I watched the doors close during the last elevator ride. Spirits were high, we all knew we had beaten a great obstacle, one that none of us thought we would make it past. For the second time in as many days, against the odds, we had cheated death.
Comrades hugged. Civilians lined up to shake a soldier's hand or embrace them. There were tears of gratitude. It was hard not to share in the emotions prevalent in the last of the evacuees.
True to Ormund’s word, coordinates of several viable candidates for supply raids were downloaded to my overlay. Adding to our goo
d fortune, Tac reported a measure of success in his own struggle.
“I have unlocked several layers of information within the Sectis’ neuro-module,” he said.
“Anything actionable?” I asked.
“Indeed. Command override codes for Ghantri vessels.”
I shook my head. “They would have been changed out by now. They would know that the Sectis was dead, or captured.”
“I do not believe it matters.”
“How do you mean?”
The elevator groaned as it climbed ever higher, passing the gravity switch point.
“A flaw. The Ghantri have no failsafe built into their architecture. Several times I had broken through a layer of defence in this module and not once had I encountered any countermeasures. No auto-erase features, not retaliatory programs, no data spikes. They can’t conceive of a scenario where they would lose a Sectis to enemy forces.”
“What are you saying?”
Harris, listening to the conversation, spoke up. “He means that they didn’t think you could capture one.”
“We didn’t,” I said.
“Right. But they also didn’t think you could pull that implant out of a dead Sectis and hack into it, either. They’re intelligent, but lack real experience with espionage and technology.”
“You heard what that enemy commander said?”
“About the subterfuge of the blockade? Yeah. Makes you wonder what they had been planning.”
“I think they had access to the Jump Drives left behind by the Destroyer hulks long ago, but lacked the technological prowess to unlock them. They wanted the Protectorate to keep their distance long enough for the Ghantri, or the Jaani, to decipher it and install them on their fleet.”
Frontier's End: A Seth Donovan Novel Page 6