“We’re underway,” Eilentes said.
He smiled across to her. Sat opposite him, strapped into her seat, she looked worried.
“We’ll be fine,” he said.
“Don’t even know who’s flying this thing,” she grumbled.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“We’re out of the ship…” Eilentes said.
“How can you tell?”
“Just can. Clearance burst… attitude nudge, pitch, accelerating for orbit.”
“That is weird,” said Caden.
“It’s a skill,” she corrected him.
He smiled to himself, then noticed Bruiser tightening straps across his body. Caden’s own safety webbing was already pulled reasonably tight, and the disappearance of gravity had not yet affected him, but Bruiser’s attempt at securing his body against the possibility of sudden changes in momentum was somewhat more makeshift.
“You good Bruiser?”
The Rodori twisted his head around and gave his usual almost-a-thumbs-up from the deck.
“One day they will make a seat big enough for you,” Caden said, “and you can say goodbye to a sore ass and cargo straps.”
“Yeah, that’ll happen,” said Daxon.
“I would rather be on that Pale Horse,” said Bruiser. “Those Tankers have bigger seats.”
“Why aren’t you a Tanker? You’re more than big enough. That one we met on Mibes… Burner? He seemed to be in his element.”
Caden’s link seemed to hang while it translated Bruiser’s reply, then gave its best approximation.
“Not my scene.”
Something tugged at the back of Caden’s mind, something he had filed away amongst the chaos of minor tasks and interesting notes. Ah, there it was.
“What was it Burner said to you, anyway?”
Bruiser hesitated before answering. “That was… personal.”
“Fair enough.”
Something in the way Bruiser had said it stopped Caden from pursuing the matter. But it was just so intriguing; links and holos did sometimes struggle to put alien phrases into terms a human could understand, but it was quite unusual for them to fail completely at translating languages so well-recorded as the Rodori dialects. Whatever it was Burner had said to Bruiser on Mibes, it seemed as though it might relate to one of those few social interactions which the race had thus far declined to describe to the Empire.
Very curious.
Caden felt a vibration through the padding of the seat, a vibration which built rapidly until it was a tremor. The silence outside the lander was broken by a faint, almost calming hissing sound.
“We’re in the atmosphere,” said Eilentes.
Caden glanced across. The dim cabin lights had now been replaced with a red glow, and he could only just tell that she had closed her eyes.
“Think happy thoughts,” he said.
The tremor became a shudder, the hiss graduated into a roar, and the tug of the planet’s gravity well reminded Caden’s body that they were plummeting towards a very large, very hard mass which waited directly beneath them.
Outside the lander, above the roar of the atmosphere, Caden heard the thump of explosive ordnance bursting nearby.
“Fire from the surface,” came the pilot’s voice. “Minor anti-air. Brace for evasive action.”
Caden tensed his body without any particular need; whatever measures the pilot took to avoid being shot down, the webbing would hold.
His stomach felt as though it had sloshed to one side, his arms and legs swung with it. The pilot had flung the lander into full reverse. He readied himself, and sure enough his limbs raised into the air of their own accord as the craft nose-dived.
“Wooooooo! Yeah.” It sounded like Bro.
“Worlds!” Eilentes said it through clenched jaws.
Caden could not help but feel entertained. “Now you know what it’s like for us.”
“Shut up Caden.”
The lander swung to one side, and he saw her head push back against the rest. Caden’s feet tipped towards her.
“What’s up with you? Isn’t this fun?”
“You’re getting a slap when we land.”
“Two minutes to surface,” the pilot’s voice said. “Minor hostile force, one klick south of the el-zee. Updating your holos now.”
“Battle readiness no more than one minute after we make ground,” said Volkas. “I want a perimeter immediately.”
It was the first time Caden had heard him speak since they left the Disputer flight deck.
“Sir,” said Chun. “You know the drill, guys.”
Volkas consulted his holo, digesting the information which the pilot had shared with them from the lander’s mapping and sensor systems.
“Looks like we will have to go straight through those hostiles,” he said. “Terrain is fairly forgiving, but it would still take far too long to go around.”
“Any other deployments near us?” Caden asked.
“We’re being supported by a Tanker squad,” Volkas said. “Guess someone decided we will be playing to our strengths at every opportunity on this mission.”
Shame Fleet wasn’t thinking that when we hit the system, Caden thought.
“Who is it?”
“A unit from Downfall One,” Volkas said.
Caden smiled. “Same platoon that was on Mibes.”
“According to this, they’re dropping a minute behind us,” Volkas said. “Should have no problems meeting up.”
“Prepare for ground,” the pilot said.
Caden braced himself. Momentum reversed in the cabin, pushing him down into his seat, the whole craft thudded solidly, and then there was nothing but stillness and the loud pinging and popping of the outer hull.
“Move it,” Chun barked.
Caden was up and out of the lander with the first of the squads, yanking his rifle from the mag-rack on the way to the hatch. The ramp had folded down already, and the aft lock opened onto a landscape which — under different circumstances — might have been relaxing.
Gentle hills rolled across the horizon. Green and golden grasses swayed and shushed in a light breeze. Small birds swooped lazily between the upper branches of slender-trunked, umbrella-topped trees. A large winged insect buzzed towards the lander, thought better of it, and disappeared into the grasses. The warm air smelled of hay.
And there, in the distance, were the topmost parts of a forest of dark, talon-like splinters, grasping at the sky. They pierced the illusion of serenity, and his stomach leapt a little, then went cold.
He was on the ground in less than a second, scoping the surroundings. The grasses might be a problem: tall enough to hide enemy combatants, if they were prone. Hell, they could be kneeling down and still stay out of sight.
Dyne and Eilentes were right behind him, he knew it without even looking.
“Objective is that way,” Volkas said, pointing.
“Hostiles are that way too,” said Chun. “Could we not have landed somewhere else?”
Caden glanced towards them, saw Volkas’ irritated expression.
“Fleet said no,” he said. “There’ll be a good reason; the reconnaissance unit doesn’t just make these things up. This is where they told our pilot to land, so we’re just going to have to deal with it.”
“What’s their strength?”
“From the data the lander gathered it looks like we’ll be up against the equivalent of a full platoon. Doesn’t appear to be any armour.”
“No problem. Between us and the Tankers, they won’t stand much of a chance.”
“Quite.”
The roar of turbine engines drowned them out, and Caden looked back toward the nose of their lander. He raised his hand to shield his eyes, and looked up. Above them, in the pale blue sky, another lander was coming down almost right on top of them.
“Anyone order some steak?” He heard Daxon say.
The second lander swooped low, lifting dirt from the ground and buffeting the platoon w
ith hot air. It tilted to one side, arced around, and came to rest not far from the first. Caden saw a red fist had been daubed on the hull, with the letters VPV scribed across it in white. The work was not artistic.
The ramp at the rear of the second lander slammed into the ground, and the moment its rear hatches clanged open a wall of armour disgorged itself onto the planet’s surface.
“Smells like testosterone,” said Eilentes.
Caden smirked. She had summed it up exactly.
He recognised the Tanker sergeant at once: what had his name been? Feior. That was it: Zolyn Feior. Known to his friends and feared by his enemies under the moniker of ‘The Fist’.
When Caden saw a Rodori hunkering down to duck through the rear hatch, cradling a flame unit in his hands, he realised he was looking at Burner.
“Motherfucker,” Eilentes spat.
“What?”
“Ragnar fucking Otkellsson.”
Caden could not remember ever hearing her swear like that before. “Who?”
“He’s the one who gave Ren that shit, before he… you know.”
“How in the worlds can you know that?”
“People talk.”
She gritted her teeth and narrowed her eyes.
“Cool it Euryce,” said Caden. “Now is not the time.”
“Look,” Dyne shouted. He pointed skyward, back the way the second lander had come.
Caden heard the boom before he spotted the source of Dyne’s excitement. It was a deep, resonant sound, the kind one felt rather than heard. Except that for a split second, it was all he could hear.
Far away in the distance a heavy carrier carved through the skies of Guathelia, bearing down on the outskirts of the capital. Between the catamaran hulls of its stacked flight decks, like a conjoined twin, it carried something that was far too large to be dropped to the surface under its own power.
“It’s the Horse,” Eilentes said.
Caden followed Dyne and Eilentes up a hillock near the landing site, prompting an annoyed snort from Volkas. Well, the man can wait, Caden thought. It’s not like he’s ready to move everyone out yet anyway. He noticed some amongst Bullseye were themselves moving to get a better view. The Tankers ignored the show entirely.
“Would you look at that,” someone said.
The carrier continued to drop, for all the worlds appearing as if it might plough straight into the ground. It came lower and lower, its belly almost kissing the dirt, slowing its air speed and relying on the raw power of its orbital drop engines to keep it aloft.
Artillery from the capital peppered the ground around the carrier immediately. Flashes and puffs of dark smoke high above the ship — visible even against the daylight — revealed the shells and missiles which the carrier’s C-MADS turrets were shooting down.
A dark patch appeared beneath it, and even at such great distance Caden could see dirt and steam rolling out between the carrier and the ground, billowing and curling around the hull. Seconds later, the CRASH reached his ears.
The carrier lifted, rose from the ground, and began to build both altitude and velocity. As she ascended, and left behind the defensive sphere of the city’s batteries, she released a wave of tactical fighters. The fighters shot straight towards the MAGA and Tanker landers, screamed overhead, and headed in the direction of the splinters. Caden guessed they were instructed to take out any surface defences around his objective.
He turned his attention back to the city. Gouts of earth were springing up around the object the carrier had left behind, now the sole target of the city’s wrath. At this distance the object looked like a building, several stories tall, and Caden could just make out a thin blur of movement on its surface; it had defence turrets of its own.
Slowly, imperceptibly at first, the apparent building shrank in size. It headed directly for the capital, rolling straight over whatever obstructions lay before it in the outskirts.
“That’s some distraction,” said Caden.
“Glad we’re not in that city,” said Eilentes.
“Caden,” Chun shouted. “We’re moving out.”
Caden patted Eilentes on the back. “Time to do our part.”
They made their way back to the lander and found that the squads from Bullseye’s first platoon had already organised themselves, were already waiting to start moving.
“Finished?” Volkas asked him.
“Quite finished,” Caden said. “By all means, let’s get underway.”
“Good.” Volkas’ reply was terse. “Sergeant, give the word.”
Chun shouted his orders, and a Kodiak rumbled by slowly. Caden watched the ground vehicle as it rolled forward, preceded by two fire teams, and wondered which lucky so-and-sos were getting to travel in relative comfort.
The other fire teams formed up; some in a column behind the Kodiak, others moving out to the flanks. Groups of Tankers alternated with the MAGA troops, creating a protective ring around the column.
Caden fell in behind the first squad, with Eilentes and Dyne following his lead.
“Bit like basic,” Dyne offered.
Caden ignored him.
“Not been on a route march for a loooong time,” said Eilentes.
“It won’t take us long,” said Caden. “We’re only a couple of klicks out.”
He cast his eye over the troops flanking the column. As informal as he had found Bullseye Company to be, the Tankers were something else.
They had something in their gait which at first he found difficult to identify. They were not exactly casual as such, but moved without the regimented precision of the MAGA soldiers. It was as if they were merely out for a stroll, and the threat of an ambush or some deadly trap laying ahead of them was no more than an inconvenience, like biting insects or inclement weather.
Confidence, that’s what it was. Confidence bordering on contempt.
Tankers, he supposed, had every reason to feel contempt for enemy machinations. He had not yet seen one of them under two metres tall, and they all looked as though they would be able to give a Rodori a good leathering; no small task for a human. Their armour was heavily customised, and some wore what he guessed were personal talismans. There was not one amongst them whose few patches of bare skin lacked evidence of large tattoos.
It seemed appropriate that they be entrusted with the deployment of the empire’s Pale Horses. The gargantuan, brutal assault vehicles were so… them.
He imagined what would be happening even now, far away in Guathelia’s capital city. By this point the Horse would have rolled into the city itself, crushing the smaller buildings beneath its giant treads and barging the taller ones out of its way as a jacked-up maulball player might shrug off foolhardy groupies. The buildings would no doubt crumple to the ground just as a groupie would, although perhaps with not quite so much pained surprise.
The occupying forces would be hard-pressed to do anything about the Horse. It was doubtful they had anything which could penetrate its hull, and even if they did… well, it had some very aggressive weaponry with which to discourage them.
“Sarge. Getting some readings. Movement, two-fifty metres ahead.”
Caden watched as Chun caught up with the trooper who was holding out his holo. The sergeant glanced at the data, then ahead into the distance.
“Send up a drone,” he said.
“Send up a DRONE!” The call was repeated.
A clunking sound drew Caden’s attention to the Kodiak, but by the time he looked a drone had already streaked from its storage pod and whooshed high into the sky. It became a tiny dot, then shot off ahead of the column.
Rapid footsteps from behind: Ragnar Otkellsson, following after Bear Mtenga. The same soldier who had taken on skulkers single-handedly back on Mibes.
The two Tankers barrelled after the drone, disappearing into the grasses, leaving behind the column of MAGA troops and their own cohort.
“Where in the worlds are they going?” Dyne said.
“To clear the way,
I’d guess,” said Eilentes.
Caden had the strangest feeling that they might even succeed.
— 07 —
Downfall
The bullets were already flying by the time Caden arrived.
The MAGA squads separated into fire teams the moment the drone relayed its telemetry and confirmed to its operator aboard the Kodiak that yes, there was in fact quite a large group of probable hostiles just over there. Caden could not help but notice the soldiers needed no great deal of guidance from their sergeants other than a heading for the threat; they just seemed to know where they should be going next. For all the sarcastic banter that went hand-in-hand with Bullseye’s presence, the company really did know what they were doing.
Perhaps they’re competing with Downfall, he thought. Who’d want to be out-classed at the basics by Tankers?
He ran with what remained of the column, Dyne and Eilentes taking off after him, and followed after the Kodiak. With no specific instructions from any of the MAGA leaders it seemed like the safest place to be: in case of crossfire, get behind metal.
The grasses thinned out as they double-timed it over a rise and into a huge depression in the terrain. The ground became rocky and dry, almost gravelly, and small boulders began to appear. Before long he could see a squat rock formation rising ahead, with a wide, natural channel which had been carved through the softest stone. Worlds knew how long ago that had happened; he’d seen no bodies of water since they landed.
The sound of weapons fire was coming from the channel, echoing chaotically. He could now hear shouting as well, although the individual words bled together as roaring. But then… it was Bear Mtenga down there, with Ragnar ‘Overkill’ Otkellsson. Maybe it was just roaring.
Corporal Frane Harth jogged alongside Caden. ‘Frenzy’, they were all calling him. He was yelling into his link as he ran.
“Bear, Frenzy. Sit-rep?” Long pause. “Overkill, Bear’s not responding. What’s the sitch? Respond.”
Caden gathered from his expression that Otkellsson was also staying quiet. Or at least, quiet to his CO. The yelling and shooting up ahead could probably be heard for miles around.
Books One to Three Omnibus (Armada Wars) Page 71