Fearless tlf-2

by Jack Campbell

  Who could have guessed war could be boring? Right up until it starting scaring the bloody hell out of you.

  Duellos rogered up for Geary’s instructions, adding that he would keep his ships positioned with Syndic orbital facilities between them and the surface of the planet as much as possible. Presumably even the Syndics wouldn’t deliberately shoot through their own installations.

  The formation of which Dauntless was a part coasted past the orbit of the fourth world, heading farther inward toward the third world. At their closest point, Geary was within four light minutes of Formation Bravo. On his display, small images reflected relayed data from the Marine recce drones over the fourth world, their transmissions occasionally fuzzed by static from the dust filling the upper atmosphere of the planet.

  On visual, the images revealed what seemed a pleasant enough world, with large cities, abundant towns, and big areas of wilderness marred by occasional scars of mining or other resource extraction. It seemed a nearly deserted world from the images, though, with streets and roads almost empty of people and vehicles. The few vehicles sighted were clearly official, often traveling in convoys. The rest of the population was apparently hunkered down, though hiding in buildings or cellars or even shelters wouldn’t offer any protection if the Alliance decided to bombard the planet in earnest.

  Here and there, craters marked the sites of impacts from the kinetic bombardment. All of the images from the parts of the planet receiving sunlight had a grayish, washed-out quality, as if seen on a very cloudy day, because of all of the dust in the upper atmosphere. The night-side images were pitch-black, the dust blocking any starlight from reaching the surface.

  By tapping controls Geary could make the images shift from visual to infrared, to radar of various kinds including ground-penetrating, to scans of the electromagnetic spectrum. He could see other functions available but left them alone, afraid that he would inadvertently order one of the drones to do something. Occasionally a drone would report coming under fire as the Syndics tried to shoot it down, but they made difficult targets at the best of times, and with the dust cover in the upper atmosphere to duck into for extra cover when necessary, the drones were even harder to hit.

  “Captain Geary, this is Captain Duellos. Whatever remains of the surface defenses is trying to get a picture of us.” Accompanying the message was a link that showed Syndic drones popping up above the dust for brief moments to get a good look at the situation above the planet before dropping down again and being lost to the Alliance sensors before they could be targeted themselves. “There’s no obvious pattern. If they’re trying to get targeting data for something, we can’t tell where it is. I’ve ordered all of the ships in my formation to institute random changes in position and track.”

  Duellos wouldn’t hear his answer for over four minutes, but Geary responded. “Thanks. Let’s hope—” He broke off as his display sounded an alert.

  “Weapons fire from the surface of the fourth world,” a Dauntless watch-stander reported. “Particle cannon. It looks like an entire battery.”

  Four minutes ago. “Can we tell if they got any hits?”

  There was a pause that seemed to last far too long before the watch-stander reported back. “Near misses on Falchion and Renown. No hits.”

  Desjani, back on the bridge and looking considerably more rested, shook her head contemptuously. “They’re practically firing blind, and now we know there’s ground defenses still active.”

  “Duellos ordered random evasive moves just before those cannon fired,” Geary pointed out. “If he hadn’t done that, the Syndics might have gotten hits.” Unlike the ship-based weapons, the planetary particle cannons could be much larger and draw on tremendous power supplies. Even a single hit from one of them could slash through shields and rip into a ship.

  Even as Geary spoke, Dauntless’s sensors reported another volley fired. He itched to order counteractions, having to remind himself that this had all happened minutes ago and Duellos had surely already done something. “That should be enough to determine the location of the cannon on the surface of the planet,” Desjani noted.

  Sure enough, a half-dozen kinetic bombardment rounds shot from Duellos’s battle cruisers, arcing down into the atmosphere as the Alliance ships continued making random changes in position and track, and the Syndics fired yet a third volley, this one managing a single near miss on Gauntlet. “It’s a good thing those cannon take a while to recharge,” Geary commented.

  “They’ll probably only get one more volley off,” Desjani agreed. She was right; the shots all going wide this time.

  One of the Marine recce drones had been swung over to observe the position where the cannon were located, providing a long-range view of the spot near the horizon of the drone’s viewing area. The kinetic rounds launched by Duellos’s battle cruisers flashed down, leaving tracks of intense brightness in their wakes, the impacts creating huge bursts of light and throwing out fountains of debris. As the light faded, mushroom clouds rose above the site, merging into one titanic grave marker for the cannon battery.

  Geary sighed. “Let’s hope that was all they had.”

  “Unlikely,” Desjani advised.

  “I know.” Geary tapped his communications controls again. “Captain Duellos, congratulations to you and your ships. Well done. Keep an eye out for further attempts.” He grimaced at the images from the recce drones. I can understand why it’s tempting to just bomb the hell out of a planet to minimize the chance of anything surviving to threaten us. But what would give me the right to kill millions of civilians in the hopes of hitting some concealed defenses? It wouldn’t even ensure eliminating those defenses if they were hardened and concealed, and they’re probably both. He looked at Desjani. “Do you think we’ll have to deal with that at the third planet?”

  “Possibly. We have to assume the threat exists.”

  Geary leaned back, shaking his head. “Why can’t they be rational about this? They don’t have much chance of hurting us, and they’re inviting retaliation every time they shoot.”

  Desjani gave a questioning glance his way. “Sir, we’ve been fighting a war with them for a century. I think things like ‘rational’ went out the window quite a while back.”

  “Good point. Do you think it would do any good to broadcast another demand not to attack our ships?”

  She shrugged. “That’s hard to say. The energy pulse from the collapsing hypernet gate must have fried every unshielded receiver in this star system, but some might still be operational to hear you.”

  “Unfortunately, those probably belong to the government and the military.”

  “Yes, sir. And they’re unlikely to listen to reason.”

  Geary nodded, then studied Desjani. “Captain, when I first met you I think you wouldn’t have hesitated to wipe all of these planets clean of human life. You don’t seem interested in doing that now.”

  She looked straight ahead for a while before answering. “I’ve listened to you, sir, and I’ve had some long talks with my ancestors. There’s no honor in killing the helpless. Besides, what we’ve done here will require a massive investment from the Syndics to repair, whereas if we wiped out the system, the Syndics would just write it off.” Desjani paused. “And no one can accuse us of behaving like the Syndics here. We’re not them. I realized I don’t want to die doing things the Syndics would do.”

  “Thank you, Captain Desjani.” Between honor and practical considerations, Desjani had decided Geary was right. It made him feel much better than having her agree with him just because he was Black Jack. Geary had wondered what would happen if he dropped dead tomorrow, if the fleet would return to the tactics and practices he had seen when he arrived. But it seemed at least some of the officers were returning to even older practices, the ones Geary was familiar with. He wasn’t fool enough to believe that everything from the past was better than now, but surely abiding by the laws of war, the dictates of true honor, and fighting wisely instead of just bravely
were good things.

  Over the next several hours as Geary’s formation headed for the third planet, Captain Duellos had to bombard the fourth planet three more times. None of the Syndic attempts to hit his ships had succeeded, which wasn’t surprising, given the fact that the surface-based weapons couldn’t directly observe their targets and had to depend on data provided by drones popping up briefly to take snapshots of the Alliance ships. On the other hand, two of the Marine recce drones ceased transmitting, indicating they had been shot down. Colonel Carabali wouldn’t be pleased about that, but Geary thought two drones was a small price to pay for avoiding hits on his ships.

  As Formation Delta closed on the third world, shuttles launched, carrying Marines to their objectives. Most of the shuttles and Marines headed for a big orbiting complex with a large population. The rest aimed for orbiting warehouses containing raw materials and supplies that would have been taken down to the surface or sent onward to other places in the system to outfit Syndic warships under construction. Now they would be taken to the Alliance fleet to take care of its crews and go into manufacturing the supplies it needed.

  Geary kept a wary eye on the third world as his ships closed on the planet. The third world hadn’t been quite so densely covered with Syndic defense and defense-related targets, so fewer targets had been hit there, so the upper atmosphere wasn’t as heavily clouded with the dust and water vapor debris from those impacts. It still wasn’t very easy to see the surface, though. A bit warm by human standards, the world was still nice enough to be tolerable. Or at least, it had been. For the next several months it would be a bit more uncomfortable thanks to all of that dust in the atmosphere. But compared to the damage the Alliance could have done, rendering the world completely uninhabitable and smashing every city, the inhabitants of the third world really didn’t have strong grounds for complaint.

  The sensors of Dauntless and the other ships in the formation were scanning every piece of surface visible beneath the dust tossed up by the Alliance bombardment, but no defenses missed by that bombing had been detected. “All units in Formation Delta are to avoid entering low orbit around the third world and are to initiate random course and speed changes while within range of weapons based on the planet.”

  The order was still being acknowledged when very powerful particle beams tore up through the atmosphere of the third world, aiming for Daring. Fortunately, the Syndics had been overeager, firing at extreme range, and as a result their shots narrowly missed the Alliance battle cruiser. Geary punched his controls savagely. “Daring, take out those guns.”

  “It’ll be a pleasure, sir,” Daring responded. A second volley from the Syndic planetary battery ripped through the space Daring would have occupied if she hadn’t jogged slightly to one side and up. The second attack gave Daring the targeting data she needed. The battle cruiser began spitting out kinetic projectiles, the solid metal rounds racing downward through the atmosphere. This time Geary could see the flashes of light on the planet’s surface when the kinetic bombardment tore apart the particle beam battery as well as a fair amount of real estate around it.

  By now all of the Alliance ships were jinking erratically, changing courses and speeds by the tiny amounts, which were all that was needed to throw off shots aimed from the planet’s surface at targets in high orbit. Geary tried to relax, knowing they would be worried about more such attacks the entire time they were near this world. “I hope that’s all we have to deal with,” he remarked to Desjani.

  On the heels of his words a small window appeared before him, showing the worried face of Colonel Carabali. “Our troops on the orbiting city are under fire,” Carabali reported.

  Serves me right for saying something that stupid. I was just asking for trouble. “The orbiting city.” Geary called up the information. With a population of around fifty thousand, the big orbiting complex did qualify as a city by the standards of space installations. It also had a gratifyingly large amount of food stockpiled or otherwise available to feed those fifty thousand and to provision Syndic warships stopping in for supplies. The Alliance fleet could use that food, though Geary had insisted enough be left to avoid starvation. “What exactly is going on?”

  “We’ve secured most of the food warehouses and the areas adjacent to them. But Syndic special forces are firing on us from outside our perimeter, using the civilian population for cover. They’re popping out, firing, then fading into the populace.”

  It stood to reason that there would be lots of Syndic military forces among the population here, not merely to defend the system but also to provide internal security, a nice way of saying they kept the local population in line. At least some of those military forces weren’t adverse to doing things that could cause the deaths of the civilians they were supposed to be protecting. But he was thinking in Alliance terms. Those troops weren’t really there to protect the citizens of Sancere. Their job was to protect the Syndicate Worlds and the interests of the Syndicate Worlds’ leaders. If a few citizens of the Syndicate Worlds got in the way, or a few million, that was just too bad for the innocent bystanders. “What do you want to do?” Geary asked.

  Carabali looked unhappy. “We’ve got three options. One, we fire back as necessary, which will undoubtedly kill a lot of bystanders. Two, we pull back and abandon our efforts. Three, we keep taking casualties with little chance of responding. You’ll notice that under all three options, the Syndics win in one way or another.”

  “Hell.” Should he threaten to retaliate against the planet? Would that stop people who had already demonstrated a lack of concern for civilian casualties? And if it didn’t stop them, would he be willing to go through with his threat? “We need that food. Has it tested safe?”

  “So far. They didn’t realize we were coming here for that reason, so they didn’t have a chance to poison it.”

  Options. There had to be a fourth. Compromise was usually a dangerous course in military actions, but in this case it seemed like the only choice. “What about ordering all civilians out of a buffer area around our troops? Tell them to clear it fast, because after a certain time anything moving in that area is a target. Would that work?”

  Carabali nodded slowly. “It might. But if you’re thinking all of the civilians will get clear, that won’t happen. Some always stay. Some because they’re too stubborn or stupid or scared, some because they can’t move for one reason or another. There will still be some within the kill zone.”

  “But not nearly as many.”

  “No, sir.”

  Geary shook his head. “I don’t see that we have any choice. Those Syndic special forces are backing us into a corner. Too bad we don’t have a smart bullet that homes on evil.”

  “I think commanders have been wishing for that since the dawn of time, sir,” Carabali noted. “Except for evil commanders, of course.”

  “Get it done, Colonel. Give the civilians as much time as you consider prudent to evacuate, but don’t unnecessarily risk your troops.” As soon as Geary had said that, he realized he had given one of those frustratingly contradictory orders that had driven him crazy when he had received them. He owed Carabali something clearer than that. “Do you think half an hour is good?”

  “I’d prefer fifteen minutes, sir. That ought to be sufficient for the area we need cleared.”

  I won’t second-guess the person with primary responsibility for those troops. “All right. Fifteen minutes.”

  “And after that we’re authorized to use necessary force in the buffer area?”

  “As long as you don’t punch holes in the outer skin of the city. I don’t want the atmosphere all venting to space.”

  Carabali grinned, her earlier upset replaced with apparent good humor. “Yes, sir. I’ll pass on those orders now. Thank you, sir.”

  “You’re welcome.” Geary leaned back after the transmission ended and noticed Rione had arrived on the bridge and was watching. “I seem to have made a Marine happy,” he explained.

  “Oh? Is she
going to get to kill something?”

  “Probably.” Geary hesitated, scanning the system display for evidence of other threats. But Syndic Force Alpha hadn’t shown any signs of heading inward yet, and nothing else seemed active. Reassured, Geary pulled up the landing force display, seeing the ranked images that represented the views seen from each of the squad leaders currently on the orbital city. He picked one at random, touching it to make the image grow in size.

  The lieutenant whom Geary had chosen to monitor was gazing out across a small courtyard to a cluster of buildings on the other side. Curving upward and into the distance behind the buildings, Geary could see more of the city, which was arranged in the classic and functional rotating cylinder design to remove the need for artificial gravity.

  Something flashed within the buildings, and the lieutenant’s view jerked as he pulled back. Fragments flew as a piece of the structure the lieutenant was behind got chipped by a solid metal slug of some kind. Geary keyed the sound and heard the echoes of the shot reverberating. Other shots could be heard sporadically to either side. Then a voice boomed across the buildings. “This area is to be evacuated immediately. All Syndicate Worlds citizens are ordered to withdraw immediately to an area behind Fifth Street. Anyone present in the area this side of Fifth Street is subject to attack as enemy combatants.”

  The announcement began repeating. Geary, watching from the lieutenant’s view, saw men, women, and children erupting from buildings and racing away. The distant figure of a man holding a gun stepped out and made threatening motions that halted the exodus near him. “Get him,” the lieutenant ordered. Geary heard the sound of a weapon firing nearby, and moments later, the armed man jerked to one side as if he had been punched, then fell to lie unmoving. The civilians surged into motion again, stampeding past the body.

  Geary checked some other views, seeing the same thing. Shots still came from the buildings across from the Marines, but after the fifteen-minute grace period expired, the buildings began exploding as the Marines started targeting them with heavy weapons. Did I approve that? I did, didn’t I?