Crusade

by Weber, David

  Now he watched the shifting patterns in the sphere and shivered. It seemed whatever had caused them to delay obtained no longer. Formations of infidel starships were sweeping into position, close to the edge of the capital missile envelope yet tauntingly beyond it, and Sekah's mind heard sirens howling in every city across the planet. Not that it would do any good.

  "Summon the Prophet," he said quietly to an aide.

  "All units in preliminary positions, Admiral," Tsuchev-sky reported, and Antonov nodded his massive head.

  "Get me Mangus Coloradas." Aram Shahinian looked out of the com screen at him, and Antonov gave him a thin, cold smile. "The Fleet is at your disposal, General," he said simply.

  "Aye, aye, sir." Shahinian saluted, the screen blanked, and Antonov leaned back in his command chair and crossed his legs. He'd just become a passenger in his own fleet.

  "Firing sequence locked in." TFNS Dhaulagiri's gunnery officer acknowledged the report and watched her chronometer tick steadily down. Somebody down there was about to take an awful pasting--if not quite as bad as the one he probably expected.

  Lantu looked up as a towering zoot paused beside him, then smiled in faint surprise as Angus MacRory grinned.

  "I hadn't realized you were coming, Colonel.'

  "An' where else should I be? Ye're still my prisoner, in a manner o' speakin'."

  "And you're coming along to make certain I don't escape. I see."

  'Actually, First Admiral," Major M"boto said from Lantu's other side, "Colonel MacRory's in command. He'll be leading the element which accompanies you."

  "Indeed? And why wasn't that mentioned to me sooner?"

  "We weren't certain the colonel would complete his zoot training in time." MTxrto's teeth flashed in his ebon face. "That was before he shaved almost two weeks off the old record."

  First Marshal Sekah folded his arms behind him as the first infidel missiles launched, then looked up as the Prophet and his entourage arrived.

  "Your Holiness." He unlocked his arms and genuflected, but something about the Prophet's eyes--a bright, hard glitter too deep in their depths--bothered him. He brushed the thought aside. Even Holy Terra's Prophet might be excused a bit of tension at a moment like this.

  The First Marshal returned his attention to the sphere and frowned. The infidels still appeared to be trying to limit collateral damage--perhaps they hoped despair might yet seduce the People into apostasy ana surrender? No matter. What mattered was that they were flinging their missiles at the isolated PDCs crowning the northern ice cap. Well, that suited Sekah. He was in no hurry to see the People's women and children die, and those fortresses were eminently well equipped to look after themselves.

  Immensely armored PDC silo covers flicked open and then closed, and the atmosphere above Thebes' pole blazed with kilotonne-range counter-missiles. The SBMs were intercepted in scores, but statistically a few had to get through, and fireballs marched across the sullen PDCs, vaporizing rock and ice, shaking the ice-crusted continental mass with their fury.

  Shock waves quivered through flesh and bone, but the grim-faced Theban defenders watched their read-outs with slowly mounting hope. They were stopping more missiles than the most optimistic had projected, and those that got through were doing less damage than they'd feared. The megatonnes of concrete, rock, and steel armoring their weapons glowed and fused, yet die infidels seemed to have no deep-earth penetrators, and surface bursts lacked the power to punch through and disembowel the forts.

  The atmospheric radiation count mounted ominously, yet it, too, was lower than they'd feared. The infidels were employing only nuclear warheads, without the antimatter explosions the defenders had dreaded.

  First Marshal Sekah scanned the PDCs' reports and bared his teeth. They were hurting him, and even these lower radiation levels meant terrible contamination, but no fleet could match a planet's magazine capacity. Even if Theban missiles were too short-ranged to strike back, the infidels would have to do far better than they were to breach those defenses before they exhausted their ammunition.

  General Aram Shahinian watched his own read-outs, glancing occasionally at the visual display and the glaring inferno blasting ice into hellish steam. His eyes were calm, his expression set. His worst fear was that someone down there would run an analysis and realize Second Fleet was deliberately throwing lighter salvos than it might have for the express purpose of helping their point defense, but there was nothing he could do about it if they did.

  He glanced at his chronometer and keyed his com button.

  "Execute phase two," he said.

  "They're moving, First Marshal."

  Sekan grunted and rubbed his cranial carapace. The infidels' fire had slackened, suggesting exhaustion of their longer-ranged missiles, and their ships were closing to the edge of the capital missile zone to maintain the engagement. Their ECM was far better than his, and they could dodge; his PDCs couldn't, but he would take any shot he could get. His weapons might be less accurate, but he had far more launchers than they.

  "Infidel fighters launching," Tracking reported, and he chuckled mirthlessly.

  "First Marshal?" He looked up at the Prophet's quiet voice.

  "Strikefighters don't worry me, Your Holiness," he explained. "Their missile loads are meaningless beside what the infidels are already firing, and fighters themselves are useless in atmosphere. The infidels can't be certain we're not hoarding fighters they don't know about, so they're deploying a combat patrol to cover their ships." He bared his teeth again. "It won't help against what they should be worried about."

  A huge, soft hand squeezed Lantu as Black Kettle launched her assault shuttles. He sealed his helmet, then realized just how pointless that reflex was. If anything hit a vessel as small as this one, its occupants would never know a thing about it.

  He smothered a half-hysterical giggle at the thought. What in the name of whatever was truly holy was he doing here? He was an admiral, not a Marine! He glanced up at the face behind Angus MacRory's command zoot's armored visor, and Angus's set, tense expression made him feel oddly better.

  Ivan Antonov's eyes gleamed coldly as he wondered what the Thebans made of the numbers. Over twelve hundred small spacecraft were jockeying into the positions Kthaara and Shahinian's staff had worked out with agonizing precision over the past two weeks, but only three hundred were truly fighters. The other nine hundred were the slightly modified assault shuttles of three Marine Raider divisions, each fitted with a fighter's transponder. Now if the enemy would only concentrate on killing starships and ignore any little anomalies their scanners might detect...

  Sekah felt an edge of surprise. That was several times the People's best estimate of their fighter strength. Why hadn't they used more in their warp point attack, if they had so many? He shrugged the thought away. It scarcely mattered now, and he had more urgent concerns. The first infidel ships entered the range of the polar PDCs, and he nodded to his exec.

  Stomachs clenched aboard the capital units of Second Fleet as hundreds of capital missiles lunged at them.

  XO-mounted EDMs sped out to interpose their false drive fields between the enemy and their mother ships. Point defense crews tracked incoming warheads with professional calm while heat-lightning tension crackled through their nerves. Counter missiles raced outward. Laser clusters and auto-cannon slewed rapidly, and brilliant balls of flame began to pock the vacuum, reaching across the light-seconds towards the ships of Terra.

  Gosainthan lurched as the first Theban missile eluded her defenses. Another got through. And another. But it was only a handful, Antonov toW himself. A tiny fraction of that incredible storm of fire. His flagships shields shrugged the damage aside--for, now--and he tightened his shockframe.

  Sekah smiled as the first infidel shields began to fail. It wasn't much--yet. But if the fools would only stay there a little longer...

  "You will observe, Your Holiness," he said, "that we are spreading our fire widely at the moment. This confronts the infidel
s with smaller salvos and enhances the effectiveness of their point defense, but it also allows us time to further refine our tracking data while forcing them to expend their EDMs. After a few more salvos, we will have reduced their ability to deceive our missiles and greatly improved our fire control solutions." He smiled wickedly. "Which is when our PDCs will suddenly switch their firing patterns to concentrate on a handful of targets with everything they have."

  The Prophet smiled in understanding, and Sekah glanced at the holo sphere once more. The infidel fighters were spreading out, clumping on the sunward side.

  They were almost directly overhead, and Saint-Just's fire control officer asked for permission to engage with AFHAWKs.

  "A little longer, Colonel. They're still closing; let them get all the way to the edge of atmosphere if they want to, then go to rapid fire."

  Aram Shahinian checked his read-outs once more, and a drop of sweat trickled down his forehead. The Shell-heads were playing it smart, whittling away Second Fleet's EDMs. If someone down there was keeping count, they'd know the capital ships were running dangerously low. Any minute now, they were going to change their targeting, and his brain screamed to rush the attack wave so he could get the fleet the hell out of it.

  He made himself wait. Every second they didn't open up with AFHAWKs let his shuttles creep a little closer and meant a fraction of a percent more were going to get through. If the Shellies ran him out of EDMs first, the fleet was just going to have to take it.

  He punched another com stud. "General Manning?"

  "Aye, sir." Sharon Manning's taut voice was barely a shade higher than usual. There was, Shahinian reflected, a hefty pool awaiting someone the first time Sharon's voice actually broke.

  "I doubt they're going to ignore you much longer, General. You are cleared to go when the first AFHAWK launches."

  "Now, Your Holiness," Sekah murmured.

  TFNS Viper bucked in agony as the first massed salvo saturated her point defense. The battleship writhed as brutal explosions killed her shields, ripped at her drive field, and gouged deep into her hull. Atmosphere gushed out despite slamming blast doors, and another salvo pounded her weakening defenses. A direct hit wiped away her bridge. Another smashed main missile defense, and her point defense faltered as it dropped into local control.

  Vipers exec wiped blood from his forehead and cursed as he stared at the displays in after control.

  "Condition Omega!' he snapped. "Abandon ship! All hands, abandon ship!"

  His command crew jerked their feet in close to their chairs as escape pods slammed closed about them. Explosive charges blasted them out of their ship, but the exec clung to his console just a moment longer, repeating his bail-out command until he was certain everyone had heard.

  He waited one moment too long.

  Ivan Antonov's jaw tightened as Viper blew apart. It was the only change in his rock-hard expression.

  Sharon Manning's dark face was expressionless, but she couldn't believe they'd gotten this close. Of course, no one had ever been insane enough to try such a maneuver before. Guile and deception were all very well, but a good, heavy bombardment beat hell out of either of them.

  She checked her systems again. Dear God, they were less than two hundred klicks out of atmosphere! Didn't anybody down there have a brain? Even a Marine knew fighters avoided atmospheres like the plague!

  She fought her impatience, trying to ignore the capital ships blazing behind her, and almost prayed someone would open fire on her.

  'Very well, Colonel," Sekah said, smiling as Saint-Just's tactical officer almost danced with impatience. He could hardly believe the targets the infidel strikefighters were giving them, either, but it passed belief they would come still closer. "You may engage."

  * * *

  Another battleship exploded. The superdreadnoughts, with their greater external ordnance capacity, still had EDMs; the battlewagons did not.

  "Order the battleships to open the range," Shahinian said. He hated to do it--but not as much as he hated watching them die.

  "Aye, aye, sir." Janet Toomepuu passed his order, then stiffened. She started to speak, out Shahinian already saw it in his own display.

  "Assault wave--go!" General Manning barked as the first AFHAWK exploded. More followed it, hundreds more, and the real fighters on the edges of her formation took the brunt. The Shellheads were firing clusters of the damned things at each target, bracketing its potential evasion maneuvers with merciless precision. A pilot might evade the first, even the second, but number three or number four was waiting for him when he did.

  Yet they didn't have to take it for long. Nine hundred assault shuttles suddenly screamed forward--not away from the planet, but towards it--even as Kthaara'zar-than's fighters played his final trick. A thousand close attack missiles punched out, aimed not at the planet but at a point just beyond its atmosphere. The heavy warheads exploded as one in an intolerable flash of plasma...and an incredible pulse of radiation.

  Three divisions of Terran Marine assault craft attacked out of the blinding fury of an artificial "sun."

  First Marshal Sekah whipped around to the holo sphere in disbelief. What in the name of Holy Terra--PI No amount of EMP could burn out his hardened sensors, but they'd never been intended to confront that massive a dose! For one priceless moment they were blind, and in that moment nine hundred assault shuttles slammed into atmosphere at reckless speed, shrieking downward like homesick meteors to close on a single island in the sunlit Sea of Arawk.

  * * *

  "It worked, by God!"

  Aram Shahinian actually flinched from the high-pitched soprano scream, and then, despite everything, his face creased in an enormous grin. Sharon must have forgotten her mike was open--and someone had just come into a tidy little sum, indeed.

  Lantu tried to tell himself this was a foolish moment to worry about his dignity, but he felt like an utter idiot as Angus snatched him up bodily. The admiral's armored vac suit didn't have a repulsor unit, and that meant--

  He gasped as the shuttle rolled and its entire side opened A corona of superheated air ripped past, lethally beautiful on the far side of a mono-permeable field of force. He stared at it in fascination, then closed his eyes in terror as MacRory gathered him to his chest in massively armored arms and hit his jump gear. A savage foot kicked Lantu in the belly, a fierce stab of heat clawed at him through the protection of MacRory's repulsor field, and then the two of them were falling through ten thousand meters of empty air.

  "Sweet Terra, it was a trick." Sekah whispered as his scanners came back up. "They're not after the polar PDCs--they're after Saint."

  The Prophet eyed him blankly, clearly not understanding, and Sekah seized his arm. He almost shook him before his staggering brain realized who he'd grabbed, but he tumea the Prophet towards the sphere and pointed.

  "Those aren't fighters, Your Holiness! They're assault shuttles! The infidels are landing Marines right on top of Saint-lust--and they're already inside our engagement rangef"

  The Prophet paled in understanding, staggering back a half pace as the first marshal released him and whirled to his staff. He began barking orders, and alarms screamed throughout the vast subterranean base.

  * * *

  Marine Raiders plummeted like lethal, ungainly hawks, and the totally surprised defenses of PDC Saint-Just roused to meet them. Stunned crews flung themselves at their targeting scopes as close-range missile launchers and cannon muzzles slewed crazify, but there wasn't enough time. Not enough to sort out target signatures as small as single repulsor fields. Not enough to track and lock. A few defensive emplacements got lucky, and almost a thousand Marines died before they grounded, but they came in fast and dirty. Getting down quickly was more important than a precise landing pattern, and they overrode their automatics ruthlessly, screaming down at velocities which would have seen any one of them busted back to doolie if they'd tried it in training.

  Another few hundred died or broke limbs, despite their
zoots, at the speed they hit, but three Raider divisions were down, and their total casualties were barely five percent of what a conventional assault into those defenses would have cost them.

  Sharon Manning slammed into the ground, cursing as two bones broke in her right foot, but her zoot was in one piece and she hit her rally signal even as she reached for her own heavy flechette launcher.

  This ain't no place for a general, she told herself as a totally astonished Shellhead sentry emptied his magazine at her and she blew him into bloody rags, but it beats hell out of being dead!

  "Get them back--now!" Aram Shahinian snapped, and Second Fleet's capital ships hurled themselves towards the limits of capital missile range.

  First Marshal Sekah cursed horribly, despite the Prophet's presence, as the infidel fleet retreated. It was all a trick--and he'd fallen for it!

  More and more surface defense positions went into action, but the infidel assault shuttles had already made their drops. Heavy weapons and ammunition canisters still plummeted behind the Raiders, but the shuttles were streaking away, hugging the sea to stay below his heavy weapons, and he snarled in frustration at their speed. The cursed things were too fast for his aircraft to catch-- and they were armed. One squadron of high performance jets managed to cut the angle and intercept, but it took everything they had in full afterburner, and they got one shuttle--one/---before the rest of the infidel formation blotted them from the heavens.

  But those shuttles were still dead if Saint-Just held. They might run rings around atmospheric craft, but they couldn't get out of atmosphere without braving his defensive umbrella. Yet if they did manage to take Saint-Just, they'd have a gap. A narrow one, but wide enough for more assaults to break through and nibble away at his ground bases...

  But why? Why run the insane risk of coming in on the ground? They could have opened the same hole from space without putting thousands of people on the planet, cut off with no retreat if their assault tailed! It made no sense, unless...