Wolf's Bane (The Empire's Corps Book 14)

by Christopher Nuttall

  Not that they care about the worst atrocities, she thought. They’re more upset that I raided their tower.

  The console bleeped an alert. “Admiral,” Bradbury said. “The enemy has ...” - there was a short pause - “the enemy has redirected every aircar in the city into our airspace.”

  Rani gritted her teeth. The aircars would be unmanned, of course. The rebels had probably captured the ATC system, then subverted it. They wouldn't have any trouble taking remote control of the entire fleet and pointing them at her fortress. She doubted they’d do any damage if they were rammed into the hullmetal, but they might distract her guards or weaken her point defence. It could not be allowed.

  “Order the point defence to engage,” she said.

  “Aye, Admiral.”

  ***

  “The aircars are on their way,” Meade’s voice said, through the earpiece. “They’ll be entering engagement range in one minute.”

  “Understood,” Jasmine said. She crouched behind a makeshift barricade, only a dozen metres from the police line. The remainder of Platoon One was behind her. “Order the gunners to engage the moment the point defence crews reveal their locations.”

  “Will do,” Meade said. “Good luck.”

  Jasmine glanced up, just in time to see the first aircar screaming overhead. Meade had assured her that there were no passengers - the ATC had locked down every aircar in the city, as soon as the crisis began - but she still felt cold as she watched a bolt of plasma blowing the aircar into flaming debris. Others followed, pieces of debris falling from the skies as they died, one by one. Compared to missiles - or even mortar shells - the aircars were slow and stupid, a problem made worse by flying predicable courses. But they were doing their job.

  “I have a lock on their point defence guns,” Meade reported. “Firing ... now!”

  “We move in five,” Jasmine told the platoon. Her armour hummed around her, ready to engage. “Be ready.”

  ***

  “Admiral, they’re firing shells,” Bradbury reported. “They’re taking out our point defence clusters!”

  Rani swore, realising her mistake. Perhaps she should have simply ignored the aircars. The enemy had probably located some of her point defence blisters, but not all of them. Not that it mattered now, did it? The mistake had already been made.

  “Switch to countering the incoming fire,” she ordered. The enemy targets doubled, then doubled again. Drones projecting false images or ... or what? Real threats? “And engage with counterbattery fire!”

  “Aye, Admiral.”

  I still have my fortress, Rani thought. It isn't over yet.

  ***

  Joshua ducked low as another aircar exploded, pieces of debris showering down on the police lines. The skies seemed to be ablaze with fire, hundreds of explosions flashing high over their heads. The noise was deafening. He clutched his rifle, hoping - praying - that none of the debris fell on his head. The battle had barely begun and the police lines were already in tatters.

  He saw Lieutenant Glomma running towards him, then fall as something fell on him from overhead. Joshua stared, shocked into motionless. The buzzing in his head was growing louder - in truth, he was no longer sure what was real and what wasn’t. Perhaps the fireworks overhead weren't real too. The ground shook and shook again, but he had no idea if it was real or something his mind had made up. He took a breath and regretted it instantly as the stench of the dead and dying washed through his nose. His stomach heaved. His legs trembled and he found himself on the ground, with no clear memory of how he’d fallen - or even if he’d fallen.

  Black figures were running forward. Rebels, they had to be rebels. And yet, they didn't look like rebels. Armour meant soldiers, didn't it? Joshua gripped his rifle and tried to rise, praying he was aiming the right end at his target. His head was so confused he wasn't sure if he was coming or going. And then, someone kicked the rifle out of his hand and knocked him back to the ground. He cracked his head against the ground and everything went black ...

  ***

  Jasmine barely noticed the policeman as she led the charge into their lines. The barricades hadn't held up at all, not to the artillery and not to the handful of rockets the corporate security officers had fired from the towers. Dozens of policemen lay everywhere, their broken bodies oddly pathetic on the ground. They’d been lucky, she reflected as she hurried onwards. The rebels had openly talked about torturing the policemen to death.

  “The drones are starting their charge now,” Meade informed her. She was watching through a hundred stealth drones, which were currently taking up positions over the fortress. “Launch and impact in ten seconds.”

  “Understood,” Jasmine said. A pair of policemen were crouched in a foxhole, firing madly in all directions. She shot them both, grimly aware that their true role was to soak up bullets while the real defenders got ready to fight to the death. “We’re ready ...”

  She glanced at the entrance. It looked professional: a pair of guardhouses, an inspection zone and a whole set of barricades designed to deflect the force of any explosion up into the air. Admiral Singh’s designer had lined the whole thing with hullmetal, leaving only a tiny number of murder holes. And yet, it was a fixed defence. It had its weaknesses.

  “Incoming,” Stewart snapped.

  Jasmine ducked as the HVM screamed down from high overhead and slammed into the gatehouse. There was a colossal explosion, followed by a thunderous roar. The hullmetal had stood up to the blast, but she’d bet half her salary that the inhabitants were stunned by the impact. A handful of smaller missiles followed, each one targeted on one of the murder holes. Some didn't make it into the guardhouses before detonating, but enough did to wipe out the defenders. Jasmine ran forward as soon as the last missile exploded, clutching a pair of grenades in one hand. If there were any defenders left ...

  No one fired at her as she ran through the inspection zone, then around the back and into the door. The interior was a blackened ruin, everything save for the hullmetal reduced to charred ash. She felt a flicker of sympathy for the defenders - pinned down, they hadn't stood a chance - and then keyed her mouthpiece. They needed to secure the entrance, then break into the fortress itself before it was too late.

  “Gatehouse is secured,” she said. The enemy were mounting a counterattack, but it had come too late to do any good. “Send the reinforcements.”

  “Gotcha,” Meade said. “They’re on the way.”

  Jasmine nodded as she took up a defensive position, the rest of the platoon taking up positions behind her. Push back the counterattack, then resume the offensive ... it sounded simple, didn't it?

  And the second wave is already on the way, she thought. The air was growing thick with smog, but she could hear engines moving through the air. Admiral Singh will be looking at us while the real threat moves into place.

  ***

  “The enemy has captured one of the gatehouses,” Colonel Higgs reported. He sounded calm, very calm. Rani appreciated it more than she cared to admit. The others were on the verge of outright panic. “They’re moving up reinforcements now.”

  “Move our own troops to counter them,” Rani ordered. Her fortress was still holding out, but she’d lost most of her point defence and counterbattery weapons. Thankfully, the enemy seemed reluctant to continue shelling the installation now their troops were storming the walls. “And ready our shuttles for departure.”

  “I wouldn't advise that,” Colonel Highs said. His voice was still calm. “The enemy troops have MANPADs. They’ve already shot down a number of drones. Launching shuttles would be suicide.”

  Rani cursed, lightly. She was starting to feel cornered. There had to be a way out, but how?

  The display flickered, then updated again. A hundred aircraft - no, a thousand - were heading directly towards the fortress. Some of them, perhaps almost all of them, had to be false sensor images, but a handful would be real. Which ones? She couldn't tell. Her sensors had been badly damaged by the
earlier strikes. She didn't even have enough weapons left to fire at all of them.

  She glanced at Higgs. “What are they doing?”

  “Forcing us to keep revealing our point defence,” Higgs said, slowly. He paused, just long enough for Rani to start worrying. “Or they’re planning a combat drop ...”

  He swore. “Move the reserve troops to the upper levels,” he snapped. “We’re about to have visitors!”

  ***

  Ed watched through the Raptor’s sensors as the assault aircraft roared over Tryon City. It wasn't the first city he’d seen that had been turned into a war zone, but there was something uniquely horrific about the plumes of smoke rising from all over the district. Perhaps it was the brooding presence of twelve giant towers and the fortress itself, wrapped in smoke and spluttering green flashes of plasma fire in all directions. Or perhaps it was the grim knowledge that the smoke hid scenes of horror. The civilians down below had had their lives torn apart, now the war had come home.

  And none of them did anything to deserve it, he thought. Wolfbane wasn't a democracy, not in any sense of the word. They didn't even pretend to be democratic. They were never asked if they wanted to start a war.

  “Ten seconds,” the jumpmaster said. “Nine ... eight ...”

  The fortress was a brooding mass, a giant obscenity that looked to have come from a bygone era. Ed couldn't help comparing it to a wet-navy battleship, bristling with weapons and mistress of all it surveyed. Governor Brown hadn't known about the force shields when he’d started work on his headquarters, but he’d somehow crafted a building that was ideal for the new face of war. It was sheer dumb luck that Admiral Singh hadn't managed to design and mass-produce her own planetary force shields before the war had reached Wolfbane. Ed dreaded to think of the cost of trying to fight through an entire modern city. Storming a single CityBlock had been expensive enough.

  He gritted his teeth as the harness snapped free, sending him plummeting down towards the squat mass. The rest of the platoons fanned out behind him as the enemy, suddenly aware of the threat, opened fire. Ed watched calmly as the ground rose towards him, knowing that he’d have no hope of survival if the enemy scored a direct hit. The swarm of ECM drones would make it harder for the enemy to pick out the real marines amongst the decoys, but he knew they might get lucky. Or get manual gun crews into place to steer the weapons.

  His suit flipped, the antigrav field cancelling his fall a split-second before he slammed into the rooftop. A handful of enemy soldiers were swinging around, raising their weapons: the marines killed them before they could fire a single shot. Ed ducked as a plasma blast tore through the air an inch above his head, then fired a rocket back towards the enemy plasma cannon. It exploded into a ball of white fire, vaporising the crew. They hadn't stood a chance.

  “The roof is clear,” Gwendolyn reported. “Colonel?”

  Call me Captain, Ed thought. Colonels did not lead missions. He squashed the thought, hard. There wasn't time.

  “Find the hatch,” he ordered. The enemy would probably have it codelocked. Given time, his hackers could break the lock, but he doubted they had the time. The enemy might even have destroyed the control node, rendering it completely unusable. They’d have to use brute force. “And ready the cracker.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Ed nodded, then checked the network. Two marines had been killed in the drop, but the remainder of all four platoons were on the roof, save for one marine who’d missed the roof and dropped all the way to the ground. Ed hastily ordered him to link up with Platoon One, then contacted the rebel commander. They’d have to send reinforcements of their own, just in case the marines were repulsed.

  “We found the hatch,” Gwen said, curtly. Her voice sounded as if she’d bitten into something sour. “It's sealed.”

  “Set the cracker,” Ed ordered. He couldn't help feeling a flicker of anticipation. He’d never needed to use a cracker before, not even on Earth. They’d been designed to punch through starship hulls, but he’d never encountered a ship that couldn't be boarded through the standard hatches. “Everyone else, take cover!”

  ***

  “The colonel is on the roof,” Meade’s voice said. “They’re deploying a cracker.”

  Jasmine nodded as the last enemy counterattack failed, the enemy troops falling back in disarray. Her reinforcements arrived shortly afterwards, occupying the gatehouse and summoning more men to push against the fortress itself. She checked with her men, then nodded to herself. It was time to retake the offensive.

  “We’re moving onwards,” she said. They didn't dare give the enemy more time to think and plan. “Alert me when they detonate the cracker.”

  “I’m sure you’ll see the flash,” Meade said. “Just be careful when you detonate yours.”

  Jasmine nodded as she led the rush towards the main doors, her reinforcements providing covering fire. The enemy had built more murder holes into the fortress itself, but they slammed them closed as the marines approached. Jasmine smirked, despite the situation. It was clear the enemy were reluctant to open the murder holes while the marines were close enough to hurl grenades into the fortress.

  “The main doors are sealed,” Stewart reported. A string of reports flashed up in Jasmine’s HUD. The enemy soldiers had been driven all the way into the fortress. Her reinforcements were fanning out, trying to secure the grounds while the marines worked on finding a way into the building. “Cracker?”

  “See if you can beat the colonel,” Jasmine said. It wasn't a race, but she wanted bragging rights. “Hurry!”

  “Cracker alert,” Meade snapped. “Detonation in five ... four ... three ...”

  Jasmine’s visor darkened automatically as, just for a handful of seconds, the world went a brilliant white. The cracker wasn't quite a backpack nuke, but it was certainly powerful enough to pass for one. If it hadn’t been designed to funnel the blast into its target, the explosion would have scorched the roof and wiped out the entire platoon. As it was ...

  “The rooftop has melted,” Colonel Stalker said. He sounded pleased. “We’re going in ... now.”

  Jasmine nodded. It was time to trigger their cracker. “Thomas?”

  “We’re ready,” Stewart said. “Cracker alert ... twenty seconds.”

  Jasmine took cover, rolling over to protect her eyes. Her suit screamed warnings as the cracker detonated ... she hoped - prayed - that the rebel troops had followed orders and hit the deck as soon as they heard the alert. Blindness could be cured, given time, but it might be months before the victims received any medical treatment. She dreaded to think how many people might have been wounded in the last twenty-four hours. Gritting her teeth, she rolled back over to look at the doorway. It was gone.

  She stared, shocked into silence. Hullmetal was the strongest metal known to man, yet it was now a molten mass. The interior looked like a melted honeycomb, everything twisted out of shape. Anyone on the far side hadn't stood a chance. They'd been vaporised before they even knew they were under attack. The remainder of the fortress was still intact, but it had lost its first line of defence. God alone knew how long it would take the defenders to muster yet another counterattack.

  “Fuck,” Stewart breathed.

  Jasmine keyed her mouthpiece. There was no more time to waste. Admiral Singh was somewhere within the fortress, no doubt planning her final roll of the dice. She had to be stopped before it was too late.

  “This is Platoon One,” she said. “We’re going in.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  “They burned through the hullmetal,” Rani said. “How?”

  She stared at the wretched display, unable to believe her eyes. She was an experienced naval officer. She knew that hullmetal wasn't completely invulnerable. Hell, she knew that not all of the hull - or the fortress walls - could be wrapped in hullmetal. And yet, she’d believed the fortress invulnerable. She’d clearly been wrong.

  “A baby nuke, perhaps, or a shaped plasma charge,” Higgs said.
He held his wristcom to his lips and spoke briefly into it, then looked at Rani. “The defenders have been hit hard. I’m rallying a counterattack, but it’s only a matter of time.”

  Rani swallowed, hard. “We need to get out of here.”

  Higgs nodded. “Yes, Admiral,” he said, gravely. “An escape tunnel would be very useful right now.”

  He keyed a command into the console, then passed Rani a jacket. Rani rose and donned it, thinking hard. Governor Brown, for better or worse, had designed the fortress as a completely self-contained unit. There were no hidden tunnels that could be used to escape, no way out save for the upper doors or the shuttlepad. And the enemy were already swarming through the chinks in the defences. She had no doubt it was only a matter of time before they had the fortress under control.

  “The rest of you, stay here,” Higgs said. “Surrender when the time comes.”

  Paula gasped. “Admiral, you can't leave us here,” she said. “I ...”