“And the fuel situation remains critical?”
“Yup. After we distribute every fuel cell the auxiliaries have and every one we could salvage off wrecked ships, the fleet will average about thirty-seven percent reserves. We’ll burn some of that slowing to orbit the third planet and accelerating away after we get the prisoners, so we’ll probably be down to the low thirties by the time we leave Heradao. Fortunately, fuel-cell use in Padronis should be minimal.”
“Can we get back with that level of fuel cells?” Rione asked quietly.
Geary shrugged. “In terms of distance, yes, easily. We shouldn’t have to fight any more battles between here and Varandal.”
“And if we do have to fight more battles?”
“Then it’s going to get ugly.”
She gazed at the display. “I have an obligation once more to point out your options in such a case.”
“I know.” He tried not to get angry. “We can load up some of the ships and abandon others. I won’t do that. We need every ship. The Alliance needs every ship and every sailor.”
“The Alliance needs this ship, Captain Geary. It needs the Syndic hypernet key aboard Dauntless.”
“I never forget that, Madam Co-President. You know, we could save fuel cells by not going after the Alliance prisoners on the third planet.”
She gave him a long, hard look. “I suppose I deserved that. You know that even I wouldn’t suggest abandoning those people. All right, Captain Geary, use your best judgment, and let’s pray the living stars continue to look after us. I will contact the Marine colonel about my impressions of the Syndic guard force at the POW camp and let her know that I am at her service if she wishes me to attempt any other conversations with the Syndic guards.”
“Thank you, Madam Co-President.”
AN hour later, the virtual presence of Colonel Carabali stood in his stateroom, pointing to two images of the POW camp on the third planet, each bearing symbols displaying different plans for liberating the prisoners. Seen from overhead, the Syndic installation was an almost perfect octagon, each corner of its eight sides anchored on a substantial guard tower, with smaller guard posts spaced between them along the sides. A tall, solid wall of reinforced concrete joined the guard posts. Triple barriers of razor wire ran inside and outside the wall, the cleared areas inside the razor wire bearing every sign of being mined and doubtless under extensive remote sensor surveillance. Farther inside the wall, ranks of buildings filled most of the camp, many of them tagged on the images with probable identifications such as prisoner barracks, guard barracks, hospital, administration, and so on. The center of the camp was clear, a large open field that served as both a landing place for Syndic shuttles and a parade ground.
Geary imagined being locked in such a place, with no hope of release. Until now.
“We’ve got two basic options,” Carabali began in her no-nonsense briefing voice, “both based on the fact that I’ve only got a little less than twelve hundred combat-capable Marines left in the fleet. That’s far too few to occupy a facility this size and defend its perimeter, even if we don’t end up facing any resistance from the guards inside the camp. I understand from Co-President Rione that our governing assumption has to be that the guards will fight.”
Her hand swept out, and a finger rested on part of the first image of the POW camp. “One option is that we can concentrate the Marines and roll through the camp sector by sector, occupying each portion, evacuating the POWs there, then moving on to the next. That has the advantage of keeping the Marines all within easy supporting distance and limiting their exposure to attack. The downside is that it will take longer on the ground, and once the enemy realizes what we’re doing, it gives them time to try either pulling out our POWs in sections we haven’t occupied yet or digging in among those POWs and using them as hostages. I don’t recommend this option.”
She faced the next map. “The other alternative is to drop the Marines along the perimeter of the camp, along with a force in the center of the camp to secure the main landing field. There aren’t enough Marines to secure the entire perimeter of the camp and the whole interior, but we can block all of the best angles of approach on the perimeter. Then the Marines on the perimeter will proceed inward, sweeping any resistance before them or bypassing strong points, and picking up POWs as they go, concentrating everything toward the center of the camp. We’d be lifting people out of the middle of the camp as fast as possible. This has the advantage of not allowing the enemy time to concentrate or pull out some of our POWs, and as time passes our own forces will concentrate and be able to respond better to attacks. The disadvantages are that our forces, especially initially, will be widely dispersed and unable to support each other. Many of the initial drops will also be more perilous for the shuttles since they’ll be spread out along the perimeter.”
Geary studied the maps and the colonel. He’d had some training on Marine operations a hundred years ago, but his actual experience with ground actions was limited to what he’d seen since assuming command of this fleet. That hadn’t included any operations on this scale, yet as fleet commander he was required to oversee the Marines and make the final decisions on their plans. Fortunately, he’d seen enough of Carabali to have a high degree of trust in her competence. “Despite the higher risks, the second plan is your recommended option?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What do you consider to be the odds of success using the first option?”
Carabali frowned slightly as she looked at that map. “If success is defined as rescuing all of the POWs, then my assessment is that option one would offer a maximum of fifty percent odds of success and probably substantially less depending on the Syndic reaction. That option leaves us very vulnerable to whatever response the Syndics choose.”
“And the second option?”
Carabali frowned again. “Ninety percent chance of success.”
“But the second option has higher chances of casualties for the Marines and damage to the shuttles.”
“Yes, sir.” Carabali faced him, her expression impassive. “The mission is to rescue the POWs, sir.”
That laid it out as plainly as possible. Geary looked at the maps again. To be certain of rescuing the POWs, to carry out the mission, he had to increase the risks to the Marines. Carabali knew that, and he suspected every other Marine knew it, too, on one level or another. And all of them accepted that, because that was what being a Marine meant. “All right, Colonel. I accept your recommendation. We will proceed with the second option. The fleet will provide the maximum level of fire support of which it is capable.”
Carabali flicked a tight smile at Geary. “There’s a lot of permanent buildings inside that camp. In an urban environment like that, there’s likely to be very small gaps between enemy and friendly forces.”
“How big a safety zone do you want?”
“One hundred meters, sir, but I don’t want that written in stone. We may have to ask for supporting fire a lot closer than that to friendly forces.”
“Very well, Colonel.” Geary stood up. “You may proceed with detailed planning and execution of the mission. Let me know if anything you need isn’t instantly forthcoming.”
“Yes, sir.” Carabali saluted, then her image disappeared.
The images of the maps lingered for a moment. Geary looked at them, knowing his choice had meant life or death for some of the Marines he was sending down onto that planet, and knowing, like Carabali, that he hadn’t had any other real option.
“THE fighting seems to have spread substantially on the third and fourth planets,” Lieutenant Iger was reporting as the Alliance fleet settled into position above the third planet. An orbital fortress that had tried pumping out shots at the oncoming Alliance fleet had been blown apart by several kinetic-energy projectiles, and since then nothing had attempted engaging the Alliance ships.
All of the Syndic heavy cruisers left in the star system had jumped out, and the remaining light cruisers and HuKs
were sticking close to the jump points for other stars. None had made any moves toward the region of the engagement where Geary had left his most badly damaged ships being repaired along with the auxiliaries and a strong escort. “There’s still no faction that seems to be gaining control on the ground?”
“No, sir,” Iger replied. “There are plenty of claims being made, but we’re not seeing evidence on the planetary surface to back up those claims.”
“The guard force in the camp has stopped responding to our transmissions,” Rione added. “They either can’t or won’t negotiate any further.”
Geary took a look at the display for the camp, imagery overlaid with symbology. In a few places concentrations of Syndic guards had been identified, but for the most part the guards seemed to have vanished. “We haven’t spotted any guards leaving the camp?” he asked Iger.
“No, sir. They’re all still in there, somewhere.”
“What about the POWs?”
“They all seem to be in their barracks, possibly locked down.”
Rione eyed the display suspiciously. “If they’re going to fight, why haven’t the guards taken our prisoners as hostages?”
“Good question.” As much as he hated bothering subordinates preparing for action, Geary figured this was something Carabali would want to talk about.
The Marine colonel nodded as if unsurprised by the report. “The guards are getting ready to fight. If you compare the estimated number of prisoners to the estimated size of the guard force, sir, you’ll see that the prisoners outnumber the guards. Just as we don’t have the numbers to occupy the entire camp in force, they don’t have the numbers to guard all of their prisoners and fight us. They’re choosing to keep the prisoners locked down. That keeps the prisoners available as future hostages but also ensures the prisoners aren’t running around threatening the guards. Our assault plan should forestall any last-ditch plans they have to make use of the prisoners, though.”
“I don’t understand, Colonel. It sounds like the Syndic guards know they can’t win. If they can’t fight us and guard all the prisoners at the same time, why the hell aren’t they surrendering?” Geary asked.
“Probably because they’ve been ordered to hold on to the prisoners and resist any attempt to liberate them, sir.”
Just as Rione had also guessed. Put up a good fight and maybe die trying to defend the prison camp, or let the Alliance have its personnel and certainly die at the hands of the Syndic authorities. “Looks like we’ll be doing this the hard way, Colonel.”
“Yes, sir. Request that the fleet carry out the preassault bombardment as laid out in the battle plan.”
“Consider it done. Good luck, Colonel.”
“They’re not asking for much in that bombardment,” Desjani observed after Carabali’s image vanished.
“There aren’t many targets identified yet.” Geary indicated the real-time imagery of the camp far below Dauntless as the battle cruiser and the rest of the Alliance fleet orbited Heradao’s third planet. “We can’t just hit the whole camp because it’s full of prisoners, and we don’t know every building that holds them. The preassault bombardment is mostly aimed at eliminating fixed defensive sites, trying to overawe the defenders, and suppressing their response to the assault.” He glanced at the time lines scrolling down one side of the display. Time to launch of Marine shuttles. Time to launch of evacuation shuttles. Time to launch of bombardment.
The aerodynamic chunks of metal formally known as kinetic bombardment projectiles harkened back to the earliest weapons known to humanity. Aside from their streamlined shapes, they worked like rocks, and fleet slang referred to them that way. Unlike rocks hurled with only the force of human muscles, however, these kinetic bombardment rounds were launched from orbit high above the planet, gaining energy every meter of the way as they dropped. When they hit, the results were as devastating as if large bombs had struck. Simple, cheap, and deadly, the rocks were almost impossible to stop once they were fired.
“Marine shuttles launching,” the operations watch reported.
On his display, Geary called up an image of the launches, the shapes of the shuttles enhanced for visibility. “I’ve never seen this many launch at once,” he commented to Desjani.
“Sir, you should have been at Urda. Thousands of shuttles coming down. Absolutely amazing.” Desjani’s eyes shaded for a moment in memory. “Then the Syndics opened fire.”
“Bad losses?”
“Horrible.” She forced a smile at him. “This won’t be like that.”
He managed to force a smile back, wishing that Desjani hadn’t mentioned Urda.
“First wave of evacuation shuttles launching.”
“We have enemy movement on the surface. Armored column heading for the prison camp.”
Geary’s display illuminated the line of armored vehicles crawling along the surface toward the POW camp. He reached and with careful deliberation tagged the column as a target, asked the combat system for an engagement solution, got it an instant later, then tapped approval. Rocks punched out of three Alliance warships, hurtling downward into the planet’s atmosphere. The entire process to firing had taken less than ten seconds.
“Preassault bombardment launching.”
A wave of rocks burst from Alliance warships, each projectile aimed at a specific point within the POW camp. With the shuttles coming down slower than the rocks would drop, the bombardment would clear the airspace over the camp before the shuttles reached it.
“Boom,” Desjani muttered, as the armored column disappeared under a cloud of fragments and dust tossed into the air by the impacts of the bombardment aimed at it.
“Maybe they’ll figure out that resisting us is a bad idea,” Geary observed.
“I wouldn’t count on it, sir.”
“We have surface-based particle-beam batteries opening fire at five locations!” the operations watch called. “Near misses on Splendid and Bartizan.”
Geary faced his display, tagged the batteries, got a firing solution, and launched another bombardment. “Good thing I already had the fleet doing evasive maneuvers.”
The preassault bombardment slammed into the surface, some of the rocks aimed simply at trying to suppress unseen defenses but many smashing into identified enemy locations and every guard post or tower. Within moments, craters of rubble had replaced the guard installations, and the formerly solid wall between them had collapsed in many places.
“Do you think there were any of them inside those guard posts?” Desjani asked.
“I doubt it. Colonel Carabali figured they were planning on firing the weapons on the guard posts by remote if we left them standing. So we didn’t.”
The operations watch called out another report. “Marine shuttles are two minutes from drops.”
The locations of the five particle-beam batteries went up in clouds of debris.
“Shuttles on final. Marines on the ground.” The operation had a sort of beauty when seen from this high, the shuttles swooping down toward their objectives around the perimeter of the camp and at its center, Marines leaping out as the shuttles hovered, the tracks of fire from enemy troops painting flashing lines as they fired on the Marines or the shuttles. Unlike regular fleet shuttles, the Marine shuttles carried defensive combat systems, which started pumping out grenades and automatic fire at wherever the Syndics were firing from. As the Marines deployed and went to ground, they joined in the barrages, the firepower blowing apart any location holding enemy resistance. The battle sites formed small eruptions of violence at locations all around the perimeter of the camp and at a few places near the landing field in the center.
“We don’t know where all of the POWs are,” Rione protested, “and the Marines are blowing that camp apart!”
Geary shook his head. “Their battle armor has every known POW location painted. Other than that we have to trust that they’ll ID targets before they fire.” He pulled up the feed from the Marines.
“The enemy is du
g in,” a Marine officer was reporting. “Strong resistance around landing zone.”
“This isn’t going to be pretty,” Desjani muttered.
FIVE
“CONVENTIONAL ground artillery firing upon the camp from locations thirty kilometers to the east and twenty kilometers to the south.”
Geary tagged more targets and launched rocks at them. His main display floated to one side, showing the situation on a wide portion of the planet’s surface below and orbital locations that could threaten the fleet. To the other side hung an overhead view of the POW camp, symbols crawling along it to mark the movements of friendly and enemy troops on the ground. Directly in front of him, Geary had positioned a string of windows for calling up views from the battle armor of Marines. He had to avoid using those too much, had to avoid getting sucked into the action on one tiny part of the battlefield when he was supposed to be overseeing the entire fleet, but sometimes those personal views from the Marines could provide a very good feel for how things were going for them.
At the moment, that was hard to figure out no matter how he viewed it. On the overall view, some of the Marine platoons and companies were pushing steadily inward toward the center of the camp, symbols for liberated POWs multiplying rapidly around them as they blew open prisoner barracks and collected the occupants. In other areas, the Marines were moving slowly, under fire from Syndic guards entrenched in the buildings on all sides. Evacuation shuttles were dropping down into the center of the camp despite occasional shots fired at them as they descended. On the landing field, a growing number of dazed, liberated prisoners were being hustled toward the first shuttles. The command and control feed from the Marines was filled with reports and warnings.
“Shuttles Victor One and Victor Seven badly damaged by ground fire. Returning to base ships.”
“Target building desig five one one! Hit it!”
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