by Jay Allan
Erik sighed again, feeling a pang for those half-Marines, men and women so poorly prepared for what they’d been compelled to do. There was a scowl on his face, but it wasn’t anger with Storm for making the decision he did. It was acknowledgement that he would have done the same thing. Cain knew there had been a time when he couldn’t treat human lives as variables in some mathematical equation, but he didn’t remember it. He had 18,000 Marines and support soldiers and almost a million civilians…all his responsibility. If he had to send 400 men and women to certain death to save the rest he would. War had flags and banners and stories of great valor, but in the end, a lot of it came down to math.
“Hector, get me Colonel Storm.”
Claren leaned forward and ran his hand across his ’pad. “On your line, sir.”
“General Cain.” Storm sounded tired, but overall in pretty good shape, considering what he was dealing with. “What can I do for you, sir?”
“You’re planning a counter-attack, aren’t you?” Cain could see it in the units Storm was holding back. “I know I gave you a free hand, but you should check in on something like this.” He paused for a second. “I might even be able to help.”
“Sir…I have been doing the prep, but I was going to ask permission before launching the attack.”
“Relax, Eliot, I’m not upset with you.” Cain’s mind was racing, trying to decide what forces he could pour into Storm’s counter-attack. He considered sending a couple companies of McDaniels’ Obliterators, but he rejected that idea immediately. He wanted to keep them hidden and release them all in one massive stroke. It wasn’t worth showing even a few of them to the enemy until he was ready to make it count.
“I’m sending you 10 of the special action teams, Eliot.” He wanted to send more, but he didn’t dare spare anything else…not this early in the fight. “Use them as infiltration units on the front of the assault. They’re all marksman-rated, and they’ll run wild in terrain like that forest.”
“Thank you, sir.” Storm paused. “General, when do you want me to launch the attack?”
“Whenever you think is right, Eliot. You’re on the scene, not me.” Cain knew he had a reputation as a control freak but, in truth, he tended to give considerable latitude to subordinates he trusted.
“Very well, sir. Thank you.”
Cain cut the line. “Hector, get me General Merrick.” He’d sent his chief of staff with Cooper Brown to reconnoiter the ground to the south and east, around the Graywater. The enemy was bringing their third wave down behind the big river. It seemed like an odd place to deploy, and that made Cain nervous. He wanted Merrick’s analysis as soon as possible.
“Yes, general.” Merrick voice was ragged.
“What is it, Isaac? You sound tense.” Cain held off asking anything else…he wanted to know what was going on up at the river.
Merrick paused, trying to decide whether his idle speculations were well-founded enough to report to Cain. “I’m not sure, sir. I just don’t like the look of this wave. We were wondering why they were coming down where they’ll have to cross the river to move on Astria, but now I’m not so sure they are planning to advance at all. It looks like they’ve got some heavy equipment over there. I’m launching a flight of drones to get some closer intel to back up my guesses. I’m wondering if this is some kind of divisional artillery battery. It looks an awful lot like one, and I’m thinking it’s over there so we have to cross the river to attack it.” Merrick knew a lot more about artillery than Cain. He’d served 30 years with the terrestrial army, which was well equipped with weapon systems of that sort. The Marines had small contingents of atmospheric fighter-bombers and lightly-armored vehicles, but there wasn’t a lot of heavy artillery used in colonial warfare. It was just too hard to move from planet to planet. The space it occupied was better used to transport more powered infantry.
Cain took a deep breath, holding it in for a few seconds before exhaling slowly. He didn’t understand…and that made him even more uncomfortable. “Isaac, I want more than drones on this. Tell Cooper Brown I want a patrol pushed across the river. Now.”
“Yes, sir.”
Cain looked south, in the general direction of Merrick’s position. What the hell, he thought…what are they up to? “I’m not going to let them fool me again,” he whispered to himself.
“Keep it moving.” Jake Carlson was struggling through the thickets, waist deep in mud. The edge of the river was rough terrain, even for Marines in full armor. He couldn’t have moved an inch without his suit, but the nuclear-powered servo-mechanicals pushed his legs through the muck like a backhoe digging into the ground.
Moving a large powered infantry force with supplies and equipment across a river generally required engineers and bridging materials, but a small patrol in armor could cross in a variety of ways. Forces deployed to water worlds were usually equipped with flotation modules, allowing the heavier than water suits to achieve a level of buoyancy. The Marines on Armstrong didn’t have anything of the sort, which left them with a stunningly simple option. Carlson and his hand-picked team were going to walk across along the bottom of the river.
It was a perfectly reasonable tactic, though one subject to the vagaries of the terrain on the riverbed. Marine armor could withstand the pressure to at least 500 meters, and the Graywater was no more than 200 at its deepest point. But the geography of the river bottom could make the crossing difficult and hazardous.
“Alright, let’s go.” Carlson stepped into the river, sliding down the waterlogged mud of the steep bank and under the surface. He could see on the tactical display that his people were following his lead…too fast. They were bunching up, sliding down onto the Marines in front of them. “Slow it down. Give the guys in front of you a chance to move out.” The water would reduce the range of the comlinks, but that wasn’t a problem for a small, compact group.
Carlson picked himself up and started walking slowly. The river bottom descended quickly, and it was only a minute before it was almost totally dark. Their suits had floodlights, but stealth was important, and he’d ordered everyone to utilize tactical displays only.
His visor displayed an eerie reconstruction of the terrain in front of him. The programming creating the scene was extremely sophisticated, presenting an accurate, but strangely surrealistic, portrayal of the area ahead. He could see rocks and spots where there were steep drops. Anything the AI considered hazardous was outlined with a soft yellow glow.
Carlson walked slowly, turning carefully to avoid the roughest locations. He checked the tactical display every few minutes…everyone was following behind, more or less in formation. He toggled the display to a wider view. They were about 60% of the way across.
There was a shimmering yellow line across the entire display as he continued. It was a ledge, a small cliff where the depth abruptly dropped 30 meters. Shit, he thought, extending the display to the left and right, checking for an easier spot to cross. Nothing. The drop extended as far off to both sides as his scanner could reach.
“All personnel.” He spoke on the unitwide com, not entirely managing to hide his frustration. “We have a trench of some sort ahead of us…about 30 meters deep. There’s no way around…we’re going to have to jump.” And, he thought, unless the other side rises more gently, we’re going to have to climb back up. “I want 100% concentration, Marines.” He knew he could lose people here if they weren’t careful. “No screw-ups. Any of you take your eyes off what you’re doing and get killed, you’re going to have to deal with me.”
Carlson repositioned the tactical display, giving him a better look at the terrain at the bottom of the trench. Not too bad, he thought, as he looked as the computer reconstruction of the mostly flat ground.
He positioned himself carefully along the ledge and leapt out, pushing himself far enough to clear any protrusions along the cliff wall. He fell quickly. If his force had been equipped for aquatic operations he would have had compressed gas jets to slow his movement and ad
just his positioning. But he had none of that.
He braced for impact. His left foot came down first, on top of a small rock. His right foot hit an instant later, and he felt his body shifting, falling. He spun around, throwing his arms out in front of him, absorbing the force of the impact.
“Status?” He snapped out the inquiry to his AI.
“Armor is fully functional, Captain Carlson. No damage.”
He pushed himself back up to his feet, stumbling forward, clearing the area immediately below the ledge to make room. He flipped the tactical display back onto his visor as he took a dozen steps forward. His people were coming down now. Four were already following him from the landing area, and half a dozen more were pulling themselves back to their feet.
He walked another 20 meters or so, giving a wide berth to those still coming down. It took another few minutes, but all his people made it. There were no major injuries and just two small incidents…both insignificant damage to exterior sensors on suits.
The rest of the crossing was uneventful. There was a small climb, about 15 meters, and a gently rising slope the rest of the way. Carlson was the first to poke his head above the water, and the second he did, fire erupted from positions just in from the river’s edge.
Carlson ducked down and pushed himself forward against the muddy riverbank. “Incoming fire.” He shouted a warning on the com. “Everybody get to the bank and stay low.”
He listened. It sounded like two assault rifles firing. We must have run into a couple of scouts, he thought, pissed at the bad luck. He looked around his position. The bank of the river was providing cover, but he wasn’t going to get line of sight to the targets unless he popped up from his protected position. He knew his adversaries were in the same boat…and the clear option for both of them was the same. “Grena…”
He heard the whistle just as he started to shout the warning, and the explosion cut him off. The frag grenade was a bit long, exploding about 15 meters behind his position. A huge plume of water rose around the explosion, and a few of his people took minor hits from the shrapnel, but nothing serious.
“Load flashbang.” He fired off the command to the AI, and the round snapped into place almost immediately. Grenades were a tough weapon to use against armored troops. You had to practically drop a frag on the target’s head to be sure of a kill. But Carlson had something else in mind.
He stared at the tactical display. The AI downloaded the enemy’s positional information into the launcher’s targeting system. Carlson extended his arm, taking his own aim, and then he pressed the firing lever.
His arm snapped back from the recoil as the grenade blasted out of the launcher and toward the target. Another enemy round impacted as he did, just short of the river this time. Half his force got splattered with mud, and one of his people took a minor wound to the arm.
“Onto the river bank and fire on my command.” He gripped his own rifle as he shouted the order. He heard the muffled explosion of the flashbang and checked the tactical display. Right on target.
“Now!” He thrust himself up over the bank, struggling a bit with the slick mud. As soon as he was on top he opened up at full auto. He was banking on the sensor-scrambling grenade to distract the enemy long enough for his people to take them out. They couldn’t see or scan anything through the thick green cloud the weapon released, just as Carlson’s own sensors were unable to get a read on anything inside. But there were at least ten of his Marines on the bank now, sending thousands of rounds into the compact area.
“Cease firing.” If we didn’t get them with that, we’re never going to, he thought. “Rodriquez, Thompson…move out and make sure they’re dead.
He watched the two Marines head out, quickly but cautiously. There was no fire from the enemy position as he watched his people disappear into the slowly-dissipating cloud. A few seconds later, Rodriguez trotted out. “Clear, sir. Two dead bogies. No other contacts.”
“Very well, Rodriguez.” No contacts now, he thought, but it won’t be long…those two must have warned half the invasion force.
He glanced at the tactical display. “Alright, boys and girls…we’re gonna split up into five teams and do a quick scouting job.” He knew he didn’t have much time before they’d have a hundred bad guys on their asses. “Find out everything you can, but watch out for enemy contacts…and get back to the river in 20 minutes.” He knew he should just turn around and go back now. His mission was compromised. They were still at the riverbank, and the enemy knew they were there. But Cooper needed this intel…and Erik Cain did too. It was his job to get some idea of what was going on…and he wasn’t going to let General Cain down.
He turned right and then left, looking over his Marines. “Twenty minutes, you understand me? If you’re not in the river in 20 minutes, I’ll come find you and shoot you myself and save the enemy the trouble.”
“It’s confirmed, sir.” There was confusion in Merrick’s voice, an underlying uncertainty. He knew the enemy force was a heavy battery, but he still didn’t have a guess why it was there. “It looks like a battalion of infantry too, dug into defensive positions around the guns and along the riverbank. Carlson’s scouts ran into heavy resistance just in from the river.” His voice became somber. “Only half of them made it back.”
Merrick paused, but Cain was silent, so he continued with his report. “I pushed another flight of drones east, around the southern end of the Sentinel.” Cain’s force didn’t have any air assets…and their satellites had all been destroyed or co-opted. Drones were just about the only intel gathering resource they had left, and Merrick had the last few of those. “They shot them all down, but one got close enough to get some disturbing images.”
“What?” Cain’s voice was showing his impatience.
“Sending the images to you now, sir. This is southeast of here, below the Sentinel Forest. Behind the troops facing Storm’s people.” The line went silent for a few seconds, Merrick transmitting the images. He was getting better with his powered armor, but it was still taking longer than it should.
Cain didn’t criticize his chief of staff. It had taken him years of intensive training – in a controlled environment – to master his fighting suit. Merrick had broken his cherry with his armor in the field, with little chance to practice under training conditions.
“What the hell is that?” Cain was staring at the image displayed inside his visor. “They’re building bridges?”
“That’s what it looks like to me, sir.” Merrick cleared his throat. “I’m sending you more shots. It appears that one bridge may be complete and already in use.”
The image was loading as Merrick spoke, and Cain froze when he saw it. There it was, a long pontoon bridge spanning the river. All along its length, and stretching as far as the drone’s image reached, was a column of armored soldiers marching northward.
“Shit…they must have landed another wave outside our scanning range.” Not for the first time, Cain recognized the disadvantages of ceding total control of local space to an enemy. He’d have given his left arm for one functioning satellite or scoutship in orbit.
“Why would they have heavy artillery? Why go to that much trouble?” Cain’s thinking shifted to the western edge of the front. “They must have a specific plan. Otherwise, they’d never have committed the transport capacity.” Cain was talking to himself as much as Merrick. He was looking down at the tactical map as he spoke. The plains north of the Graywater were the obvious spot for a landing. From there it was less than 50 klicks to Astria, with only moderately difficult terrain and few naturally defensible positions along the way. To the east, the river curved far to the south, running just below the lower end of the Sentinel Forest. Right where the enemy was building its bridges.
“What’s the range on those guns, Isaac?” Cain could just as easily have asked Hector, but he knew his chief of staff had seen these kinds of weapons in actual use…even if only in training exercises.
“About sixty klicks. Wi
th Armstrong’s atmospheric density and gravity, I’d bet close to 70, actually.”
“Projected maximum effective range is 67.6 kilometers.” Hector interrupted, having concluded the accurate information was important to Cain.
“More than enough to bombard Astria.” He paused. “And maybe the refugee camps just north of the city, for that matter.” He paused. “They want to force us to attack those artillery positions to shut those guns down.” God, Cain thought, what I wouldn’t give for one of the air wings we had on Sandoval.
“Across the river?” Merrick asked the question, but he wasn’t expecting an answer. “We’re going to need to mass a lot of strength to force the crossing…and it’s going to be a bloodbath.” He paused. “They’re trying to attrit us. That’s why they have a battalion dug in. They know we’ll lose heavily taking out that battery…far more than they will. It will increase their numerical superiority…and losing the guns won’t really hurt their main strength.”
“That’s only part of it, Isaac.” Cain was thinking as he spoke, and the firmness in his voice grew with his realization. He remembered accounts of an old battle…mid-20th century. It was a rematch of an earlier conflict, and the defenders expected the invaders to come on the same route they had before, the only open way. The rest of the border was covered with a forest widely considered impenetrable to the tank-heavy armies of the day. But the attackers did come through the woods, and they surprised the defenders and smashed through a weak part of their line, flanking the rest of their army and seizing their capital. Blitzkrieg, they called it…lightning war in the language of the victors. “They want to tie down as much of our force as possible along the open river…a diversion while they drive their main force through the Sentinel and get on our rear before we can react. They’ll take Astria and roll up the whole army.”