They were three generations old. They’d been left to endure the elements in a locked park. Most were rusted and few had working magnetic relays, let alone ones that were aligned. But all told, there were a thousand of the tubes, which would help beef up their defenses.
Mark sighed as he stepped outside of his suit, his thick layer of nanites forming flexible armor. His nanites had three types: medical to keep him alive; suit, to fix the suit and provide him clothing; and the third, unmodified. The latter could be used much like the blank nanites in a nanite vat: they could replicate beyond their set parameters and be programmed to do things the other two couldn’t.
Evan and Rachel, with their contuberniums, jumped out of their suits as well, dropping their unprogrammed nanites on the materials that lay scattered around the artillery pieces. The nanites covered the piles, looking like foaming mercury as they created more of their own.
A trail of them reached the artillery pieces, eating the rust and processing it back into metal and straightening the accel tubes. Mark removed the control runs for the tubes, pulling apart the targeting computer and loading it with the most recent targeting files. He updated the maps as well and connected it to a Wi-Fi hub so that it could be fed raw targeting data from suits in the field.
The loading system was—surprise!—rusted and unlubricated. He picked up some nanites and put them on the surface. They quickly cleared the rust. He applied some lubrication as the nanites cleared the arm it ran along. He moved on to the separate tubes, re-aligning the magnets in each tube and redoing the wiring. He moved on to the next piece, waiting for the nanites to finish with the tubes.
Chapter 16
Eastern Defensive Line 317
Indalia, Otarvi System
6/3555
Legate Yousef made a trip over the mountain walls and various other projects that had been set up. He found Mark in the massive park that held the artillery pieces.
“By the gods, this man’s a miracle worker.” Centurion Augustus, Legate Yousef’s second-in-command, spat black tar onto the ground. They looked at the factory, finished rows of accel tubes gleaming in the sunlight. Materials were being dumped into piles of mercury-looking liquid; lines ran from these pools to the guns. The mercury moved along the rusted tubes, the rust disappearing and any structural problems set right.
“Jeez, they’re as big out of armor as they are in it,” Augustus said as they walked around the park, using his chin to point at an eight-foot man lifting up a row of accel tubes to get at a power run underneath, his arm changing into a tool as he worked.
“It seems our people were right about them being able to morph their bodies into tools,” Yousef commented as the man put down the half ton tubes as if it were a two-by-four.
“Damned strange, sir.”
Yousef’s HUD picked up Mark working on the larger accel tubes. He walked over to the man. He seemed bigger than he had in his suit, all eight and a half feet and eight hundred pounds of muscle visible through his skintight nanite clothing.
“Legate, sorry if I don’t salute. These magnets do not want to go in the right way,” Mark said as Yousef approached from behind the man who had one arm inside an accel tube.
How can he see me? Yousef shook his head.
“Please keep doing what you’re doing. I wanted to talk about the instillation of these upgraded repulsors into the walls.”
“Sir?” Mark said, confused as to why the legate was asking.
“I’m not sure about using chemical weapons that, while have a fantastic rate of fire, I’m told don’t have the stopping power against a Maraukian.”
“Sir, the weapons haven’t been tested in the field yet but I am sure they will perform as expected.”
“I would prefer to put my belief in weapon systems that are proven.”
“You know those laser projectors we emplaced are new prototypes?”
“Yes, but in an effort to clear lines of fire, one of them was used to cut down a mile of forest. I was quite impressed with it. We’ve used the system it’s based off before and there shouldn’t be any issues.”
“Sir…I think we should go and check on the progress of the Bellona in that case. Then you can understand why I want to use repulsors.”
“Very well. I have time,” Legate Yousef said as Mark finished with the tube.
“All right, lead on, Legate.”
“Where’s your suit?”
“That’s not a worry, sir.”
“We’re about to come into contact—you should have your armor ready at every time.”
“I do, sir.” He jumped into the air as his suit wrapped around him; the nanites sealed it together before he touched the ground.
“Very well.” Yousef was stunned as the armored and deadly man settled to the ground.
He led on toward his air-transport. It wasn’t much more than a lightly armored air-car with a turret on the back.
“Are you getting in?” Yousef asked as Augustus got in the turret but Mark waited outside.
“I have my own transport and I’ll offset the weight distribution of the air-car.”
“You can’t weigh that much.”
“I weigh approximately three tons, sir, with all of the super-dense carbon hendral and nanites in my suit and me.”
“Okay. Are you sure you can keep up?”
“Yes, sir.”
Yousef was liking Mark more and more. The man was prepared and everything he said was exactly as he stated. Half of the things he said might sound ridiculous but the man had carbon hendral bones—there’s nothing much more ridiculous than that.
The canopy sealed on the air-transport and Yousef took to the air, guiding them toward the towers beyond the wall. He checked his radar, seeing Mark was right behind him. He flew over the mountains. A tower toppled from an unseen explosion and he went searching for the source, finding a Bellona waiting.
He found a good spot to land, Mark doing the same beside the air-car.
“I’ve informed them that you wish for a demonstration.” Mark said as Augustus and Yousef disembarked their transport.
“Efficient, isn’t he?” Augustus said as they wandered to the tank. The hatches were open. Three heads peeked out of the top of the massive tank. They waved to the approaching party. Mark replied in kind. One of the heads disappeared as Mark led them to the other side of the tank, looking at a tower a few hundred meters away.
“Ready, sir?”
“Go ahead, Mark.”
One of the repulsors that looked like spikes covering the Bellona turned to the tower. Millions of rounds spat from the gun. The noise was horrendous as the cycling system chattered like an irate nail gun, except ten times bigger and infinitely faster.
Yousef and Augustus cradled their ears as the sound pounded through their heads and then the building teetered.
“They might be slower in speed compared to rail guns but they mushroom to kill a Maraukian in a shot, and they can fire eight hundred thousand rounds in a minute. Plus, they’re cheaper in terms of resources and power to make. We can make three of these systems for the rail gun equivalent. Do you want to see the power of a single round?”
Yousef and Augustus watched as the tower hit the ground. The crash sounded like a dull thump against their deafened ears. They felt the thump more through their feet.
“Please,” Augustus said, recovering first.
Mark nodded and caught a piece of armorite. Yousef looked back at the Bellona, where it had come from. There, the tank’s commander put a mono-blade away, a patch of silver where nanites rushed to put the armorite back together in front of them.
Mark held the sheet above his head. The turret swiveled, shooting once. They covered their ears as the shot rang out. The sheet held above Mark’s head now had a hole in it the size of two men’s fists.
“I think I was hasty in my decision. I just don’t like the idea of using a chemical, belt-fed weapon system. I thought the systems we have now are much better.”
&nbs
p; “There will always be good weapon systems. Rail guns are great for taking out heavy targets, repulsors are great for taking out a lot of soft targets, lasers—long-range targets. Each have strengths and weaknesses.”
“All right, well, I’m sold. We’ll continue with the production of the repulsors.”
“Yes, sir. If I may be dismissed, I wanted to talk with our attached troopers.”
“Certainly, go ahead.”
Mark nodded and rose into the air, flashing a wave to the tank crew, who waved back before disappearing inside their Bellonas again. The covers buttoned up as the whole tank moved forward, their turret roving.
Augustus trailed behind Yousef as they walked back to their transport.
“Now we just have to wait another two days before we see if our preparations have been worth it,” Yousef said.
“Yes, sir. But with their help, we’ve gotten much further on the defenses than we ever thought. They helped give us the kick in the pants we needed.”
“Agreed. I just hope that it’ll be enough.”
Augustus grunted wordlessly.
Us both. Yousef looked up to the sky and the unseen but present Maraukians barreling toward his planet.
Chapter 17
Eastern Defensive Line 317
Indalia, Otarvi System
6/3555
Mark watched as the carrier fired upon the Maraukian assault barge. Its lasers, now half again their range as previously and two times more powerful, ripped into the pressurized octagonal bricks called assault barges by the legion.
As the laser ripped into the outer assault barges, the transport split apart. The assault barges separated from one another and the command/jump drive, lighting their own independent drives. They fired their small missiles at the oncoming force that surrounded the carrier. Stealth ships and cruisers linked their defensive fire together. Invisible streams of light ripped the small missiles apart. Both the smaller ships of the space legion and the Maraukian transports were still too far away to use their weaponry other than missiles.
The Moby, however, was having a field day as its forward pod cannons were being used for their secondary role as they fired rounds as wide as the drop pods but half the weight and a quarter of the height. The ugly round didn’t have to worry about the inconveniences of air friction as it ripped through an assault barge the long way.
Rail gun batteries, also bigger and heavier than their predecessors, liberally sprayed the barges.
The carrier slowed, keeping the barges in their range but not vice versa. Stealth ships were ejected from the carrier; fourteen wings launched, comprised of two hundred and twenty-four Ares joining the stealth ships and cruisers as they rushed to engage the Maraukians.
A wall of missiles spread from the space legion. The Maraukians’ defensive lasers tried to stop them but didn’t have the time that they’d given the space legion.
Finally the assault barges and the space legion were in weapons range. Lasers, plasma rounds, coil guns—even the damned kitchen sink—flew between the two forces.
The space legion’s ships were faster but their speed left them light on armor and gave them only a few heavy-hitting weapons. The best being the ship killer on top of the stealth ships, which fired their rail guns big enough for a dreadnaught battleship, their powerful rounds following the missile wall.
Mark heard the whoops and cheers as hundreds of barges were wiped from the sky as the wall of fire hit the Maraukians. They were tough bastards; they were slow, but they had a lot of armor and medium-power weapons, with enough power to dispatch stealth ships and Ares cruisers with some concentrated effort.
The lines of ships blurred. Automated weapons systems took over as they passed faster than a human or Maraukian mind could process.
The cheers died as they watched the space legion fighting through the swarm of assault barges, all trying to take a piece out of the tiny force.
The space legion piled in everything they could, depleting their missile stocks and passing out on the other side of the Maraukian wave. It wasn’t anything like a formation as all of those thousands of ships raced toward Indalia on a now set trajectory. With their proximity to one another, the Maraukians could easily hit one, turning both barges into a fireball. This happened as one or another ship was damaged and drifted into the path of another.
The number of ships on either side updated both the red and green counters on those who were watching screens. It was a telling tale.
“Ready the batteries. Bellonas.” Mark strode out of the tower that commanded the sectors the Phantoms had been put in charge of defending.
He checked over the status of his suit Sarah helpfully displayed on his HUD. He waved it away as he looked at the positions along the wall. It was a huge feat and had gone better than he’d expected but there were still places on the wall that even now were being built up.
He looked at a few sections of the wall that had been overlooked by their sector commanders—or so they’d said—leaving them at less than a few feet off the ground. When it was expected that they could maybe create ten feet in a day, this was sorely lacking. He mentally kicked himself for not looking at what certain commanders had walled, suspiciously close to population centers, but not where there was a lack of them.
They’d gone so far as to move their wall back to a secondary mountain ranging the center. The first range looked like a crooked finger coming from the left and pointing to the right, with a five-kilometer gap between its point and the place the Indalias had chosen to put their wall. They failed to put a wall in the valley where the two mountain ranges parted way, leaving a near straight diagonal line from mouth to valley.
That wasn’t the only place where sector commanders had thought they needed higher walls in some areas over others, like a few kilometers to the right flank of the mouth where a four-foot-high wall and growing was only now being started.
The one that infuriated Mark the most was the hole on the left flank running along the shoreline. It was if these people, all with their minimal two years of service, had been sleeping when they’d been lectured on flank security. If the Maraukians got in there, nothing short of a kinetic strike and the forces under Mark’s control rushing in to plug the hole would do it, which was why two-fifths of his force was planted there, berating the sector commander as they piled the wall as high and as strong as possible in the time they had.
People thought if they put a wall in front of themselves then they’d get to the sides. They understood on some level that one break in the wall would make it weak, but certainly if they could stop the enemy from hitting them directly on, it was better. Wrong.
That was why Mark met up with the rest of his force not stationed on the left flank around the tower they’d called home, next to the hole in the right flank’s wall. Instead of being spread out and being able to give sensor readings off their damned impressive sensor suite as Maraukians went around smashing sensor pods as they usually did, and adding their own impressive firepower and communications abilities to the fray, not to mention the support of the Bellonas or the damned scary one-man portable repulsors the trooper legions used, they were waiting for something to go to shit and be called in to plug the hole and hope to hell they held. If they couldn’t, then the population of Indalia was going to be severely reduced.
Mark was furious. His people were going to be up against millions of Maraukians with walls made to a budget, a lack of weapons, ammunition and trained legionnaires, with fire support that hadn’t seen action in nearly a century.
The sky flashed in spots as Maraukian assault barges entered atmosphere. Cracks and rumbling could be heard by the decelerating Maraukian assault barges that shot through the skies like.
Massive rail gun emplacements built into the wall fired rapidly. The Bellona joined in, firing their anti-ship killers.
Mark grinned ferally as the first rounds hit. A Bellona hit one in the solid power core of the barge, causing it to turn into a massive firework. Othe
rs split up as their internals were opened to atmosphere, air friction and the planet itself ripping apart the unwelcome visitors.
The wall around Mark rumbled with the recoil from the massive weaponry, the counter for the assault barges rotating downward.
Then reports from the distributed network of sensor relays the Indalia’s home legion had planted across the planet registered landings.
Mark threw his hands in front of him. A map formed of the continent in front of him, highlighting the landing positions of the Maraukians.
“Legate Yousef, I request fire support on these locations.” He forwarded the updating coordinates of landings as well as times of when to fire as the Maraukians unloaded.
“Understood. We have limited ammunition so I’ll see what my officers in charge of the batteries say.”
“Thank you, sir.” Mark tried to not grind his teeth. The damned artillery officers didn’t rank very high in his books, treating every round as if it were a baby. When he’d contacted them earlier, they’d been horrified at the idea of a test firing. They’d waste so many shells!
Mark had pointedly said that it was better to see how good the systems were now and the training needed for their people instead of in the middle of a battle.
They’d responded by telling him he was a ground pounder, what did he know about artillery. Frustrated, Mark gave up without a thanks for fixing their damned guns or supplying them with the ammunition they hoarded like jealous squirrels.
Well, if they were squirrels, they’d be damned dead from starving, so scared to eat a damned thing.
“They believe it is unwise to use what little supply of ammunition they have at this point.”
“Yes, sir,” Mark said with a bad taste in his mouth. Well, the artillery didn’t want to help—big whoop. He had ways around that.
“All right, people, targets coming at you,” he said as Sarah connected him to the net between Bellonas and Phantoms.
Phantoms ran out into open areas along their wall, taking a knee as three tubes opened on their backs.
The Vanguard Emerges (Maraukian War Book 2) Page 10