Exodus: Empires at War: Book 8: Soldiers (Exodus: Empires at War.)

by Doug Dandridge

  A tank fired, its high velocity gun sending a penetrator into a bunker. The supermetal penetrator burst through the wall of the bunker, killing those directly in its path and destroying the heavy beam weapon that had occupied that compartment. The other tanks opened fire as well, blasting holes in bunkers with about half the hits. The heavy guns of the fort returned fire, putting one round through the driver’s compartment of one tank, blasting into the turret of another that blew the hatches open with its fury, killing the crew in both of the upper compartments.

  By the time the assault had gotten to within five hundred meters of the fortress perimeter the force had lost three hundred suits and nine tanks. Historically, that would have been the breaking point for many assaults, but these men and women were professionals who realized that to retreat now would be to waste the lives they had already lost. They continued forward, the tanks continuing to fire at point blank range into the bunkers, engineers now bringing their own weapons into play, plasma projectors that would send superhot gases through firing port, hypervelocity rockets, heavy grenade launchers.

  Baggett watched the assault, wincing at every casualty, wanting to cheer as each bunker was neutralized. The infantry and engineers swarmed over the bunkers, over half of them continuing into the fort to assault the artillery and air defense domes, to battle it out with Caca infantry who fought from positions, or for those who had been chased from the bunkers, out into the open where they were quickly eliminated. The engineers used explosives to break into the still resisting bunkers, and plasma weapons and particle beams eliminated the Cacas still manning them.

  Baggett tapped into the feed from one of the engineers. There was a crack on the side of the bunker made from weapons fire, and one engineer slapped an explosive device over that crevice. The device bonded immediately to the surface of the bunker, and everyone backed off to about thirty meters. “Fire in the hole,” yelled the engineer and the device detonated in a brilliant flash. It was a shape charge, its temporary magnetic field forcing the jet of plasma into the target area, blasting a meter wide hole in the armored bunker.

  The second engineer of the team ran up to that hole, taking advantage of the shock value of the explosion, aiming the nozzle of his portable plasma cannon into the openning and firing a two second blast into the interior of the bunker. The plasma, burning at a hundred thousand degrees, flew through the hole and expanded into that chamber of the bunker. The short screams of the Cacas within came through the com channel. It was a painful death, but mercifully short. An infantryman followed with a concussion grenade, which exploded as soon as it hit the heat of the plasma.

  The other bunkers were dealt with in much the same manner, those that still had Cacas within them. The engineers were moving to take care of the other lines of bunkers from the rear when the Cacas, realizing that they were about to be trapped and only possessing a few firing ports to the back of each position, came charging out of their coffins. The Imperial infantry reacted almost immediately, laying down fire on those exits, multiple beams striking each Caca and burning through their suits. Partial bodies in suits fell in those doorways and blocked them. The Cacas still inside had to push them out of the way, giving the infantry even more time to push beams of fast moving protons into those enemy soldiers. They were joined by the fire of plasma cannon in the hands of the engineers, and most of the Cacas died before they could get out of their bunkers.

  Some did get out, while others came up from underground bunkers where they had sheltered as a reaction force. The battle devolved into close combat, suited soldiers on both sides blasting at each other at point blank range. A human shot a Caca from five meters, the particle beam blasting through the armor, superheated steam rushing out of the breach. A Caca put a particle beam pistol against the stomach of a human, blowing a hole through the soldier’s abdomen.

  Watching the take from individual troopers, Baggett found him quivering in his own suit, his mind flying back to the close in fights he had engaged in as a junior officer. Against the Lasharans, the Cacas, even as a general officer against the Fenri. This time he was an observer, something that made him feel a duplicity of emotions. Guilt that he was not sharing the battle with the troops, but was an observer in relative safety. And relief for the same reason.

  In places the fight turned into true hand to hand, the larger Cacas attempting to use their larger size and greater organic strength against the humans. The human suits were stronger, though, and the humans faster. A few Cacas won their individual battles, at least the first one, before they were swarmed under by the humans.

  “We’re in,” yelled out one of the platoon leaders who had made it into the central control bunker of the fort. “We’re in.” The voice of the officer was weak with fatigue, and Baggett knew this unit would have to be stood down for a rest.

  Shit, he thought as he looked over the final casualty figures. The infantry and engineers had lost over half their numbers killed. Most of the rest had sustained some physical injuries and suit damage. The armored companies had lost eight tanks destroyed, with another seven damaged, well over half their force, with almost a quarter of their crew dead. The Cacas had lost over three hundred soldiers, almost everyone that had manned the fort. Only a handful had been captured. The General looked up to the sky, wondering what the result would have been if they would have had air support.

  The conclusion he came to was that fortifications like this would be death traps for the attacking force. The only way to take them out was from space, and those assets weren’t available at this time. And any that happened to be close to the refugee or prisoner camps would have to be paid for the old fashioned way. In blood.

  * * *

  “Why are you here?” asked the armored Caca guard to the leader of the six beings who stood in the hallway. The creatures, Maurids, were on all fours with the exception of their leader. All wore nothing but the utility harnesses they normally used to carry the tools they might need. Maurids had bodies covered with a tough fur that was almost wirelike in its consistency, and would only wear specialized clothing when needed.

  “The General called us here,” said the spokesman of the Maurids, standing on his hind legs to his full two meter height. His rear hand/feet were in the closed configuration of his kind when used for fast locomotion, just as all of the hand/feet of his compatriots were. His forward hand/feet were opened for use as manipulation units, and he gestured with them as he spoke.

  “The General is not here,” said the guard, looking off in the distance for a moment in the manner of a male going into com link. “He is not even on this base.”

  “Then we will wait for him,” said the leader, an orange striped male who was the largest of the group. “He wanted to discuss a mission with us.”

  “And what is this mission?” asked the guard. “And how did you get in here in the first place? We are in a lock down situation.”

  The Leader looked back at his compatriots, three males and two females, all experienced scouts who had worked all their lives for the Cacas. But we were told to wait on the humans to come, and to aid them however we might. Even at the cost of our lives. “All I know is that I received orders over my com link to come here, and that the General would meet us when he could. As far as the mission, that is secret, Soldier, and not one we can disclose to such as you.”

  The guard showed his teeth in anger at that last and glared at the Maurid. All Cacas thought they were all superior to every other member of every other intelligent species. So even this slow witted male thought he was better, smarter than any other creature they might interact with. Which was a serious weakness that most of the Cacas disregarded. Casas, thought the Leader with a tooth showing smile. He understood the term as it was translated into one of the human languages, and he thought in the use of that one little term the humans showed their genius.

  “We have no orders for you. I cannot let you through.”

  “We are willing to wait,” he told the male, standing as if
daring the male to ask him to leave.

  “I am not able to contact the General or his staff to ask him what to do,” said the male, a look of confusion on his face.

  And that is what we are counting on, thought the Leader. They had checked the com channels before they came up with this spur of the moment plan. And had hoped that the guards of this com center would not have priority contact with the leadership.

  “You can wait over there, away from this entrance,” said the guard, pointing toward a small chamber down the hall.

  And not where we want to wait, thought the Leader. He nodded at his other people, his own muscles tensing., starting to turn, his eyes still locked on the Caca. The Caca was wearing some armor, but not the powered variety, and only providing minimal coverage to his torso and upper arms.

  The Leader flew into his turn, moving with the fluid speed of his kind. His off hand opened to full extension, his razor claws rotating out from their sheaths. Before the guard could react the Maurid had completed the almost three hundred and sixty degree spin, his four finger claws slicing through the fur and skin and muscle into the large artery in the side of the Ca’cadasan’s neck, continuing on into the windpipe. The guard tried to react, but lacking the nerve conduction speed of the Maurids he could not even get his mouth open for a shout before his lungs were no longer capable of providing air to his vocal cords.

  Two other Maurids dove forward, grabbing the lower arms of the male in their iron grip, while the Leader grabbed the wrists of the upper arms. The three lowered the big male to the floor, keeping him from triggering any alarm, hoping anxiously that the Caca hadn’t sent a link alarm through his implant. If he did, their mission might be over before it began.

  The Maurids, looked around, sniffing the air, waiting for the alarm. When it didn’t come the leader gestured toward the door and one of the females moved quickly to it. She pulled a device from one of her pouches and placed it over the mechanism that controlled the door lock. The device went to work on its own, imputing the code they had programmed into it, then verifying the identity of a Caca authorized to enter the room. The Leader grabbed the particle beam pistol from the dead guard, while another male took his magrail rifle.

  The door slid open and the Maurids charged in at full speed, their heads turning swiftly in all directions to take in the room. The com panels were across the thirty meters of the room, manned by a half dozen Cacas who were trying to keep communications flowing through all the static and jamming that was crowding the airwaves. There were two armed guards against the wall, both turning with open mouths as they fumbled with their weapons.

  The Leader aimed and fired his pistol at the guard to the right, the red beam intersecting the head of the Caca perfectly through its center. That head exploded it a blast of heated tissue and bone, propelled by the superheated steam that the beam had produced. The male with the magrail rifle fired a burst on full auto that caught the Caca in the arm and continued into his chest, then swung the weapon upward into his head.

  The four Maurids who were not armed with anything but their natural weapons took off across the floor, running like great cats, rear legs coming up and pushing off as the front limbs reached forward. In less than two seconds they were landing on four of the Cacas, biting down with their strong jaws as they slashed with their claws. The two they hadn’t hit struggled with their weapons, one pulled out a monomolecular knife and sliced through the spine of one of the attackers. That Maurid fell off his bleeding victim, his rear legs no longer functional, gouts of blood pumping from severed arteries.

  The Leader lined up the head of that Caca with his pistol, anxious that he might hit the equipment behind the male. He squeezed the trigger for just a second, killing the Caca, then turned his weapon on the last remaining male as that one backed away, confusion and fear on his face. A second shot and that male was no longer a problem.

  “Get those bodies out of those chairs,” the Maurid Leader told his people, walking over to the male who had been critically injured. He looked down at the male, whose eyes were already glazing over.

  “You will be remembered when our people are free,” he told the male, kneeling and taking one of the male’s forward hands.

  The male gave a weak nod, and then blew out his last breath. The Leader lowered his head and said a prayer for the passing of a warrior of his people. “Let’s get some confusion spread,” he said to his followers, throwing himself into a seat and starting to work on the com panel.

  Two of his followers did the same, while a pair now equipped with particle beams moved to the door, one going out to set up an ambush while the other watched the entrance. The Maurid Leader slid a chip into one of the slots on the board he was sitting at. It took a few moments for the program on the chip to interface with the communications system, establishing an avatar that would appear to be a fully screened and cleared Ca’cadasan.

  The atmosphere was filled with static, both purposefully generated and that made by all of the radiation producing explosions that had been going off for the past half an hour. The center linked to all the Ca’cadasan commands through radio, of course, but also had a backup system that used a superconducting cable system that ran deep under the ground to at least the major command and control bases.

  “I have new orders for you from the General,” said the Maurid Leader to the officer, a Brigade Leader, who appeared on the holo over his board.

  “We were just about to start shelling the three nearest camps to us,” said that harried looking officer.

  “You are not to shell those civilians,” said the avatar over the com. “We have other plans for them. You are instead to concentrate on attacking the military forces of the enemy.” And hopefully they will wipe your sorry asses out.

  The Brigade Leader looked confused for a short time, and the Maurid Leader worried for a moment that the Ca’cadasan might demand to speak with the General himself. The program was set up to provide that avatar as well, but it was running a risk that a senior officer that knew the General might be able to catch the simulacrum in a lie.

  “Very well, my Lord,” said the Brigade Leader, a frown on his face. “We will attack the human infantry nearest to us. I hope this will add to whatever plan you have for our victory.”

  The holo died, and the Leader switched to the next headquarters on his list, hoping he could play this game long enough. The Leader did not expect to be able to hold this center long. He was sure that none of his people would get out if this alive. He hoped it was worth the sacrifice, and that the humans were the saviors the Maurid people had been waiting for.

  * * *

  Said General was raging at the Com Tech at the base he had been touring when the attack came. Moments after the attack the com net dissolved into a mass of static. After that contact had become sporadic at best.

  “We should be able to get through to the com center, my Lord,” said the apologetic Cam Tech, grimacing with embarrassment. “There’s too much jamming to get through a strong com signal, but the cables are still intact. Wait.”

  A holo screen showed the face of a Caca male, the text below stating that it was a com tech at the communications center. The General didn’t recognize the male, which in and of itself was not remarkable, as there were a lot of males on the planet.

  “My Lord,” said the voice of the male, who obviously seemed to recognize him, which was not surprising given the rank marking on his horns.

  “This is General Jawa'therista,” growled the planetary commander. “What by all the hells is going on?”

  “We are having problems with the communications net, my Lord,” said the male on the holo.

  “And are you having problems with the cable network?” asked the General, his eyes narrowing.

  “No, my Lord. The cable network is still up, of course.”

  “Then I want you to connect me to all the base commanders on that network. I will take their holos in the conference room.”

  “We are unable to ful
fill that request at this time, my Lord,” said the Com Tech.

  “Then get me the commanders of each base, one by one. I will talk to each of them in sequence.”

  “I cannot fulfill that request at this time, my Lord.”

  “What the hells is going on there? I demand that you put me through to my commanders. I can’t get through to the Great Admiral at the moment. I must talk to my commanders.”

  The holo went blurry with static for a moment, what should have been an impossibility for the underground cable system. It firmed up for a second, then went completely blank.

  “Something is going on there,” growled the General, turning to the Brigade Commander who stood beside him in the room. “I need to get there.”

  “I beg my Lord to not leave the base,” said the Brigade Commander. “It’s too dangerous out there. Let us send an air scout force to the base and see what’s happening with the com center.”

  The General stared at the other male for a moment, wondering if the male was showing good sense, or cowardice. This base was well protected, under a mountain, but the Brigade Leader was also cut off from most of the shore batteries that this center commander.

  “I want three aircraft,” he told the Brigade Leader. “A transport for myself, and two fighter aircraft. And I want them now.”

  “Yes, my Lord,” said the lower ranking male, bowing.

  The General stood there and stared at the tactical holo in the room while the other male saw to getting the transport and escorts. The shore batteries, garrisons, fortresses and camps were all indicated, still in the green of friendly forces. He didn’t know how true those dispositions were. He knew many of the camps had been taken, and wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that all of them were now in the hands of the humans. Some of the human forces were also marked on that globe, though he wasn’t sure of those either. It was not the manner in which he would wish to run planetary battle, but it was what he had.