Peacemaker (The Revelations Cycle Book 6)
Page 27
WHAMM!
Artillery rounds exploded around her and knocked the CASPer off its tenuous legs. “Lucille!”
<
“Hold up here, Lucille.” She pulled up on the arms and the twin cannons rose. The charged icons clicked from red to green as the safety disengaged. There were more than a dozen icons just on the other side of the wall. Tara took a deep breath and got ready to step around the corner. “Get ready to fire, Lucille. If there’s something I can’t hit, but you can—take the shot.”
<
“Every time.”
* * *
As she stood in the hatch to clear a jammed weapon, Qamm looked over the battlefield and saw the mechanized portion of Leeto’s forces were precisely where they should have been. The 200 collected skiffs and wheeled vehicles laid down an impressive rate of direct fire on the southern wall of the Altar colony. Yet, something was wrong. It took Qamm a few seconds to put it together. The infantry had moved to the north and flanked the colony. Given the position of both the Altar defensive weapons and the Peacemaker’s tank forces, it was suicide.
Unless it wasn’t. She cleared the mechanism, reloaded the old, reliable machine gun and dropped into her hatch, reaching for the radio before her haunches came to rest in her command chair. “Leeto, you’ve deviated from the plan.”
“Kenos is dead, Qamm. Our unofficial arrangement is off, and my forces will secure the mines and eradicate the colony while your forces attrit the enemy for us. Pleasure doing business with you!”
The line terminated, and she slapped the side of the console in anger. Kenos dying had been part of the plan in the first place. Something had happened at the colony to give Leeto an advantage for flanking the infantry. She reached over and fired a ballistic drone on a maximum arc trajectory. As it leapt from its tube and accelerated to several hundred miles per hour and an altitude of 3,000 feet, she mashed the transmit button. “All forces, guns to maximum and charge on plan bravo. I repeat, charge on plan bravo. Make those bastards pay!”
Half of her combat forces broke for the Altar compound walls at full speed with their cannons blazing. Altar defenses sprang to life but quickly fell silent under withering fire. The other half of her forces charged directly across the open plain at Leeto’s mechanized vehicles and the Selroth’s deployed artillery pieces. Immediate results were similar. The mercenary units returned fire and attempted to maneuver to attack or withdraw before Qamm’s vehicles overwhelmed them. The Selroth moved like fish out of water in a blind panic to the north. Her claw hovered over the transmit button for a lingering second as she considered the carnage her soldiers would expend on the hapless Selroth. They, like Leeto, would be taught a lesson. Her forces continued their bloody pursuit as she swung the vehicle back to the Altar colony and centered her weapons on what she believed to be the command complex. “Match my target and fire—all available cannons!”
She fired a stream of guided missiles at the structure and saw similar streaks erupt from different cannons across the battlefield. Without a commander, the Altar would panic. All defenses along the walls would cease, and she would be able to better direct her forces to both undercut Leeto’s infantry and see what resources she could acquire. The ballistic drone reached its peak altitude and deployed wings and sensor packages. Immediately, a clear picture of the Altar colony came into view. Three of the four human tanks were gone. The one remaining was badly damaged and firing only from its secondary loader’s machine-gun. As she watched, two of her vehicles dispatched it in a dual cannon crossfire.
Leeto’s infantry streamed toward the mine entrance, but the Altar defenses were impressively coordinated and holding them mostly at bay. A command vehicle and two platoons of mercenaries appeared to have breached the colony walls and worked their way through the complex toward the entrance. The Altar defensive ring appeared decidedly soft with their backs toward the colony complex. The other side of the ring was six or eight soldiers deep compared to a line of troops three deep securing the colony exits and logistics area. Soft targets were Leeto’s speciality. There was no doubt that he, personally, led the attack.
Qamm pushed the vehicle to its maximum speed and jostled inside the cockpit as it bounced over the roughening terrain near the quiet colony walls. A look back at the drone’s display showed a single human CASPer still moving toward the mine entrance. One vehicle against that many soldiers and a command vehicle wasn’t very good odds. As she studied the screen, something appeared near the fallen Raknar. She zoomed the camera in and released the accelerator controls.
The Raknar’s cockpit section sat ajar, held open by the frozen arms of an unmanned CASPer. Inside the cockpit were two figures. One was the human Peacemaker. The other appeared to be a Caroon wearing long robes despite the rising heat. Interestingly, the Caroon held a pistol on the Peacemaker.
Qamm slammed the brakes on her vehicle and cut back across the colony walls, making for the Raknar at all possible speed. Kenos was dead. The Peacemaker and her forces had been effectively neutralized. Leeto charged the mines against significant resistance and carelessly left a loose end. Whoever the Caroon holding a weapon on the Peacemaker was, he was more important to the situation than Kenos had ever been.
And someone with whom she could discuss terms.
* * *
Klatk turned back to look at the destroyed command post, as more weapons slammed into the collapsed roof and flattened it into the rock from which it came. Her antennae twitched with thousands of pheromone-carried messages. The injured called for assistance. Commanders rallied their troops. Damage control teams reported the loss of the colony walls and defenses. Markers for the dead, both human and Altar, also filled the air. She caught the scent of the Peacemaker, alive and well, on the wind from the river, along with the dead-fish stink of the Selroth as they came up from the water and surrounded the Raknar but kept their distance from shore. There weren’t more than 100 of them, which meant they were waiting to come ashore until their infantry pushed through the mines from below.
Klatk sifted through the data in the air. There was nothing from Plec or any of the teams below ground. She’d have to send a runner to establish contact. It was time to consolidate the defenses and protect the brood.
She rushed into the wide circle around the mine entrance and screeched for her commanders. “On me! Consolidate the defenses on Levels One and Two. Protect the brood!”
Bukk rushed past with his squad, and she grabbed him by the arm. “My Queen?”
“Get a message below, as far as you can. Protect the brood and consolidate all defensive positions. We fight to the last Altar.”
Bukk met her eyes. She could see and taste his fear. “I understand. Protect the brood.”
“It’s the only chance we have, Bukk.” She tapped his shoulder with a claw and noticed his wounds. He’d been injured several times, many of the ragged holes in his carapace slowly leaking thick, dark blood. The young warrior hadn’t quit, though. She knew he would get the message to Plec. “Do it well.”
“I am honored,” he said and jogged away to the mine entrance. She watched him go for a moment as the circle tightened inward, and more of her troops flowed to the mouth of the cavern to take their final defensive positions. Klatk reached down to the ground, collected a laser rifle and slung it over her shoulder. A few meters away, she picked up a second, and then a third. One she placed over her other shoulder, the other she loaded and carried to the edge of the circle.
The commander there, a young female soldier named Chart glanced over her shoulder and stiffened in recognition. “Queen Klatk! How can we—”
“Let me pass,” Klatk said. She nodded down the embankment toward the river. “The Peacemaker is in trouble and as long as she lives, there is a chance we succe
ed.”
Chart stammered. “Let-let us come with you. You will need our protection.”
Klatk snorted. “Their approaching guns are silent. They believe they’ve won, save for the final battle they expect here. You must give them that battle, Chart.”
The young warrior’s mandibles quivered in fear, but she bowed her head. “We will not let you down, Klatk.”
“Nor I you,” Klatk said. “Covering fire on my mark. Keep the infantry to our right pinned down, and let me get to the top of the containers there. I will vault to the colony roof and get out of their sights.”
Chart’s antenna waggled. “We will give you a clear path to the Peacemaker, Klatk.”
Klatk nodded. She didn’t need to go that far, but once she got down to the colony, she could move to the Raknar without being seen. “Our enemies on the plains are more concerned about each other, Chart. Stop these infiltrators and give the Peacemaker time to deal with their leaders, and we will see another day.”
Chart’s mandibles stiffened, and she turned to her soldiers. “Covering fire!”
Twenty laser rifles came to life in a pulsating wave of fire. Klatk hesitated barely a second before she ran toward the containers, effortlessly climbed them, and sprang into the open air across a wide passageway. She glanced down and saw mercenaries moving toward the security perimeter and heard a vehicle approaching behind the near corner. Landing on the roof of the far structure, she turned back and caught a different scent in the breeze.
Tara was still alive and in a CASPer, moving to stop the clandestine attack. She looked at the Raknar in the distance and ran. Tara could hold her own in a fight, much like the Altar soldiers at the mines. They knew their task and what must be done, and they didn’t need her to command them.
Klatk, like most Altar, didn’t believe in a higher power or presence like God. Nor did she believe that things in the universe were random occurrences. Fate and karma were familiar concepts, but outside of the Altar lexicon. What mattered to them was action. Rather than wait for Tara to stop the mercenaries, or for Hex and his team to detonate the lower mine levels, or sit and watch the enemy get closer and her own soldiers die, there was something she could do for a young human that needed her help. Klatk moved across the colony as fast as her legs would carry her. Jessica Francis could still end the conflict if the mercenaries didn’t get to the brood first.
If Hex and Plec failed in their quest to detonate the lower levels, and the Selroth and mercenaries reached Level Two, the slaughter would not stop. Committed to the last soldier, Klatk wished for another result but knew that, ultimately, action was the only way forward. Her eyes on the Raknar and Jessica standing in the open cockpit door, Klatk ran.
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-Four
On the edge of the Raknar cockpit’s tilted view of the world, Jessica crossed her arms and spoke over her shoulder. “You must be pretty proud of yourself, Taemin. Most mediators never amount to much more than overpaid, self-indulgent barristers in the Union courts. You’ve managed murder, proxy aggression, and undermining a civilian government within, what, two years of graduation from the legal academy?” She snorted and let it become a throaty laugh. “That must be some kind of record.”
Taemin said nothing. His silence surprised her as much as his inaction did. He obviously wasn’t going to kill her, at least not yet. He wasn’t capable of it, and she was sure he wanted someone else to do the job. Whether it was a mercenary or a different colonist, he would have someone else do the deed. Deep down, he was a fucking coward who didn’t have the balls to own up to his plan in the end. She shook her head silently. Taemin would have been a perfect fit for the planetary military units—all pomp and circumstance without the ability to fight their way out of a wet paper sack. His bravado and cunning, she had to admit, were stellar qualities, but he lacked the follow-through to really get anything done. This whole colony versus colony business was simple proxy aggression. He’d made promises to all sides to facilitate his own endgame, and he needed Jessica alive in case it all went south. If the battle ended the way he intended, then he could easily have one of his paid associates pull the trigger. As long as the Altar fought off their attackers, Jessica was fine. She knew the defensive structure Klatk would use, and it kept anxiety from rearing its ugly head and panic from overtaking her thoughts.
She listened for several heartbeats and could hear a steady thumping of weapons fire from the area near the mine entrance. The fight continued, and that gave her the most precious resource possible: time.
Think, Jess.
Taemin spoke softly. “How does it feel to see it all slip away? You could have had the easiest mission any Peacemaker ever undertook, but your sense of duty got in the way. The Altar have been defeated. All you gave them were a few extra hours, at best.”
“They’re still fighting, Taemin. As long as there is one Altar with a weapon, it won’t end.” She walked closer to the edge of the cockpit and looked outside. Fewer attackers than she imagined surrounded the two colony walls that she could see. “Your forces took a beating. There’s barely a regiment at the walls.”
“They couldn’t keep from fighting each other.” Taemin laughed. “Given that they think there’s something of value to their home worlds buried in that mine, you could almost say it was destiny for one of them to try and take it. What is it you humans say? To the winner goes the prize? Something like that?”
“To the victor go the spoils.” Jessica relaxed her arms, placed her hands on her hips, and glanced down. The sandy shoreline was no more than three meters away; she could make the jump easily. Both of her weapons were close enough to grab once she hit the sand. The fall would be simple. She’d learned enough in basic parachutist school to handle the fall and the landing. Technique wouldn’t be a problem. Her footing would be the issue. Snap or roll an ankle, and any escape would be impossible. She’d be enough of a stricken target that even Taemin could finish her.
“Don’t think about jumping, Peacemaker.”
“I’m thinking about the landing and wondering if it’s worth the chance.” She looked over her shoulder. Taemin stood up and kept the pistol leveled at her.
“There’s nothing stopping me from shooting you right now.”
She half-whirled on him. “Then do it, Taemin. You’ve orchestrated this whole thing. You killed Kenos in cold blood and set three peaceful colonies to war. Killing me should be the easiest thing you have to do.”
He raised the pistol. Her mind flashed that he was really going to do it. She dropped her arms to her sides and brought the palms up quickly. She staggered backward once, then again, her feet searching for purchase along the cockpit’s railing system. “You don’t want to do that, Taemin. My neural recorders are active and—”
Taemin barked laughter in a staccato measure that made her queasy. “You don’t have pinplants, much less a neural network, Peacemaker.”
Look away, even for half a second you piece of shit. Just look away and—
Inside the cockpit, a click reverberated through the floor and an immediate, deep thrum came up through the floor/wall. Taemin flinched and looked up at the systems console. Jessica jumped feet first through the open cockpit hatch. As she fell to the sand, she heard Taemin gasp.
“What have you done?”
Jessica hit the sand in a textbook parachute landing—feet and knees together—rolled to one side and kept moving under the protective curve of the Raknar’s Control section. As she scrambled to safety, she grabbed the laser rifle and decided in a split second that the pistol was too far away to sensibly reach. Under cover, she cleared and function-checked the rifle, and selected burst. There were 40 rounds available in the battery. It wasn’t going to take that many.
She tapped her earpiece. “Lucille? Report.”
There was no response.
Jessica watched the motionless CASPer’s legs looking for Taemin to climb down. Nothing happened. After 90 more seconds of watching, she moved along
the curvature of the Raknar’s helm section to find a better vantage point. Fresh explosions rippled down from the colony. A large secondary explosion detonated into a sweeping, high rolling cloud tinged with blue flames.
More gunfire rippled along the higher ridgeline. Klatk’s forces were almost in their final defensive positions. As long as they could get to the mine entrance and seal it, they would be okay. A piece of the Raknar’s fuselage hooked the leg of her coveralls and she knelt to remove the snag, watching the CASPer for any sign of Taemin. The ragged tear in the Raknar’s armor looked just large enough to hold her. She shimmied into the space and managed to keep a clear vision of the field in front of her. If Taemin came down to find her, there was just enough room for her to sight and fire the rifle.
It only takes one, Bulldog. Her father’s voice was calm and little more than a whisper. They’d been hunting ducks on the family’s property with her first rifle. There was no way she was going to hit anything with a .22 rifle, but hunting wasn’t always about hitting targets. She’d fired until her bony shoulder was tired and sore, each time learning a little more from her father’s whispers and corrections. Every time she looked at the sight picture of a weapon, she could hear him in her head as clearly as if he were there.
From her VOWs right through the Peacemaker Academy, she’d qualified as an expert on every weapon system she trained on. Shooting was as easy as breathing, but it was not something cavalierly done. By edict, a Peacemaker only used a weapon when all diplomacy and decency failed. As a cadet, she’d argued with her instructors about the use of force, suggesting that common practices like rules of engagement only served to escalate conflict. They refused to budge on her assertion that a weapon in a holster or on a sling was just as powerful as a weapon at the ready in the face of an enemy. Honoring the threat went beyond believing the enemy should only see a weapon in the worst situations. When a Peacemaker’s weapon was drawn, it was the end of diplomacy and the beginning of the end for their opponents. With nothing to lose, and colonists needing what protection she could deliver, she had more than enough reason to fight back.