by Jay Allan
The gift I possess for tactical operations never extended to strategy, or at least I was never placed in a situation where strategy was in my control. Large-scale logistics, planetary allocations of resources…I always felt such things were beyond my understanding. For years I didn’t question any strategic directives. I just did my best to execute the orders given to me. I considered anything outside my immediate area of operations to be a waste of time. But recently I’ve begun to think about the bigger picture, and I don’t like what I see. Things don’t add up. There’s more to UN Central’s strategies than it appears at first glance…I’ve become certain of that. I’m starting to think we’ve all been lied to far more than we ever imagined.
Taylor stared at the enemy positions on his visor. He squinted, trying to get a good look at the flickering projection. He hit the controls and darkened the visor, trying to keep out the light so he could get a better view of the images. Both suns were up, and it was bright out, even for Erastus.
The drone feed could provide direct neural input to his NIS, but that was one of the mods that didn’t work quite the way it was supposed to. He’d be able to see the images in his mind, but there were side effects, ones he didn’t want to deal with in battle. He had 2 reinforced battalions to handle, and a battle to fight on difficult terrain. Now wasn’t the time to risk dizziness, nausea, and disorientation. The visor projection would be just fine.
The terrain was worse even than he’d expected. The walls of the gorge rose almost 500 meters on both sides of the dry riverbed running along the bottom. The waterway that had cut its way hundreds of meters through the rocky ground had been dry for at least 50 million years according to the geologists. But its handiwork remained…a deep gash in the ground, running for over 20 kilometers. The whole stretch was difficult to traverse, with sheer cliffs in some spots dropping 350 meters or more.
It was called Devil’s Claw Canyon. He thought, as he often did, about how this place got its name. Stupid, he thought…how do these spots end up getting such silly monikers? He didn’t come up with a good answer; he never did. Men liked to name things…that was the most he ever deduced. The canyon didn’t look anything like a claw…not from the ground, certainly, and not on the drone feeds from the air either. He could only assume some grunt had imagined it looked like something the devil might have scraped into the ground with his claw. That wasn’t a very good explanation either, but it was the best he could come up with. The devil and other hellish images were always popular for naming conventions on Erastus. That never surprised Taylor…the place was as close to a vision of hell as his mind had ever conjured.
In ten years, Taylor had never been sent anywhere on Erastus that didn’t already have a name. He wondered how many more years he’d have to fight before he got to give someplace its title. Probably never. Maybe it was the prerogative of those first waves coming through a Portal into the teeth of an entrenched enemy. If so, he thought, it’s the least those poor bastards deserve. Taylor knew it was rough when UN Central first invaded a new Portal world. He didn’t know just how bad, but he’d heard a few rumors he wished he could forget. Though UNFE denied it, Jake had been told more than once that the life expectancy for newbs during the first month of the war on Erastus had been 31 hours.
He shook himself out of his daydream and focused again on the data feed from the drones. It wouldn’t last much longer…they’d put up a dozen of the sophisticated aircraft, but there were only two left. As soon as the enemy targeted that last pair, he’d be blind again. He could launch another spread, but his supply was limited, and he wasn’t planning to burn them all this early.
His objective was the bottom of the canyon. It was the only route within 3,000 klicks that offered terrain passable for a large force…and it led directly toward the largest Machine factory yet discovered on the planet. The ground closer to the enemy base was rugged, too broken for transports to land. The only practical avenue of attack was a march right through the canyon.
But the riverbed was perfect ambush country too, and the enemy was dug in all along both sides of the canyon. Taylor and his people had to clear them out completely and take undisputed control of the heights, or any force moving through would be hit from both flanks and destroyed.
“They’re really dug in there, Blackie.” Taylor’s voice was grim. A lot of his boys were going to die in the next few hours.
He stood quietly for a minute, maybe two, then he let out a loud sigh. “Alright, Blackie…sitting around here’s not going to accomplish anything. Let’s kick off this dance. Send in the Dragonfires.” Taylor’s people were only getting one pass from the gunships. The canyon was a deathtrap for antigravs making low-level attacks…and the battlefield was too constricted for effective higher altitude support. Long-range fire would hit as many friendlies as enemies once the battle was underway.
Black switched on his com. “Raptor, Condor squadrons…commence attack run. Blackhawk squadron, assume covering position.” That was 12 gunships inbound, weapons blazing…and six more protecting them from enemy air units.
“Frantic’s strike forces will move out under cover of the bombardment.” Lieutenant “Frantic” Young was leading two reinforced strikeforces set to move up the north side of the canyon. The ground was less steep there, and his people were going to climb up and hit the enemy flank. Taylor paused, waiting while Black relayed that order as well.
“When do we grab the heights?” Black turned and looked right at Taylor. The 213th was dropping onto the edge of the canyon. Taylor and Black had a special affection for their old unit, though there weren’t many guys left there from the old days.
Taylor hesitated. He was worried about the drop. The personal antigravs were a new system, never before tested in combat. If everything went according to plan, the strikeforce would jump from hovering transports, dropping slowly – and safely – to the ground as the antigrav harnesses slowed their descent. Tested or not, the drop was the only way he could get men up there quickly, so the 213th was going in no matter what.
“As soon as Frantic’s boys are in place.” He paused. “Then we drop onto the heights.” He looked out over the field…in the direction of the main enemy position. “Then it’s a fight to the death.”
The Dragonfires streaked along the top of the canyon, moving at 800 mps. “Prepare for attack run.” Captain MacArthur was edgy, more so than usual. This was a rough gauntlet for his gunships to run. They were going in low, flying below the edge of the canyon when they attacked. Their firepower at such close range would be enormous, but they’d be tightly packed, with no room to maneuver. They’d be easy targets to AA fire from the ground.
“Arm all weapons.” They were only making one run, and MacArthur was going to make it count. Taylor’s troops were coming in right after the air assault, and they needed his people to do as much damage as possible. He didn’t envy the ground pounders this one. This was some of the worst terrain he’d ever seen.
MacArthur still didn’t like Taylor, but he was finding it difficult not to at least respect the hardassed cyborg-soldier. Besides, he wouldn’t put it past Taylor to track him down and settle things if his birds didn’t give 100%. He’d almost certainly blame MacArthur for any extra casualties he suffered because the gunships did a half-assed job. And MacArthur didn’t want any piece of that kind of grief.
He stared at the command console. All 12 ships confirmed readiness. The drones had fed him the enemy positions, and the coordinates had been downloaded into the attack computers. Target visibility was terrible. It was almost impossible to pick out the Machine forces hidden among the rocks, so he was going to let the AIs handle the targeting.
“Squadrons, follow my mark.” He grabbed the controls, easing off on the antigrav, dropping into the canyon. “Here we go.” He was muttering softly, mostly to himself. He pulled back on the throttle, dropping to 400 mps. “Commence firing.”
The autoguns opened up, raking the steep hillsides below with hyper-velocity fire.
It wasn’t like the last fight…that had been shooting fish in a barrel. But the enemy troops were saturated with fire nevertheless…even with their cover, they had to be taking heavy losses. It was hard to assess the damage, but MacArthur knew his people were hurting the enemy.
An alarm sounded in the cockpit. Incoming fire. MacArthur could see the missiles tracking on the scanning display. He banked the Dragonfire hard, angling its path away from the approaching ordnance. “We’ve got interdictive fire coming in,” he shouted into the com. The missile zipped past, and MacArthur turned his ship back, moving toward his original course. “Keep your eyes open. And target launch sites for return fire.”
He turned to his own gunner. “Take out those launchers, Sergeant.” He angled the ship again, swerving to avoid another pair of incoming rockets. “Now.”
“Yes, sir.” Sergeant Toomey was a solid gunner…one of the best in the force. He was already targeting the enemy rocket batteries when MacArthur issued the order, and it wasn’t more than a few seconds before the ship lurched hard…half a dozen sprint missiles launching, homing in on the ground batteries.
MacArthur turned his body 90 degrees, flipping the switches that armed the EFAs. He wanted Toomey focused on taking out missile sites, not dealing with the fuel air bombs. “All units, prepare to drop EFA’s on my mark.” He flipped the last switch, slaving all the drop controls to a single button. “Three…two…one…mark.” He flipped the last control, and the ship pitched side to side as it dropped the full weight of its EFA complement.
The gunship raced along and slowly rose as MacArthur gunned the engines and started feeding power to the antigrav. He’d made it through. He looked at the scanner. There was nothing on the screen but a series of large white blooms, the massive heat signature of the inferno below. It was a straight line…all his people had dropped right on target, blanketing the entire enemy position with fiery death.
He fed more power to the antigrav, arcing his ship up and away from the gorge. One after another followed…eight…nine…ten. Ten. And then nothing.
“Raptor 05, report.” There was nothing but staticky silence on the com. “Condor 03, report.” Still nothing. “Raptor 5, Condor 3…report immediately.” MacArthur was yelling, but there was still no answer.
Finally, a voice responded. “Raptor 01, this is Condor 04. I saw Condor 03 go down, sir.” His voice was tentative, cracking. They crashed right into the firestorm, Captain.”
MacArthur was silent for a few seconds. “Acknowledged, Condor 04.” He was staring straight ahead, his right hand on the stick, his left balled hard into a fist. He’d never lost two birds in one battle. The Dragonfires were state of the art both offensively and defensively, and they outclassed anything the Machines had to throw at them. But the battles on Erastus were getting more intense. Taylor and the rest of the Supersoldiers had won a series of big victories, and the enemy was getting more and more desperate.
MacArthur took a deep breath. “Raptor and Condor squadrons, assume pre-programmed covering positions.” His people had done their part to hit the Machine ground forces. Now they had to make sure no enemy air got through to Taylor’s people.
“Alright, boys…on my mark…” Lieutenant Riley Bergen was leaning out of the transport, looking down 200 meters to the jagged edge of the canyon below. “…three, two, one…mark.”
Bergen jumped through the open hatch of the transport. His body expected a gut-wrenching drop but, instead, he drifted slowly down. The antigrav was working. He turned and tried to look up, to confirm his people were dropping behind him. He caught a glimpse of a few of them, but he couldn’t bend his head back far enough to get a good look.
His stomach jumped…the antigrav would keep him from smashing into the ground, but it was giving him a touch of motion sickness. It was an odd way to fall…unnatural. He looked down. The ground was still a good 150 meters below. His LZ was right along the rim of the canyon, but he was drifting south. Any farther and he’d come down in the gorge itself, and his antigrav didn’t have enough power to get him safely to the bottom. He pressed one of the small buttons on the harness, firing one of the small airjets…maneuvering himself back from the canyon edge. They hadn’t had a lot of time to practice the drop, and he hoped the limited training his people had on the maneuvering jets would be enough.
The enemy wasn’t positioned to oppose their drop. Taylor’s entire force was approaching from the bottom of the canyon. All except for the 213th, which was doing the antigrav drop up on top. It was a surprise move, one Taylor had devised to insert forces where the enemy wasn’t prepared to face them.
Riley gritted his teeth for landing. He was coming in a lot slower than he would have in freefall, but it was still hard enough to be unpleasant. His feet slapped down on the gravelly sand, and he felt the enhanced muscles in his legs tense, his knees bending to absorb the shock.
He slapped the release button, ejecting the antigrav harness from his exos. His head snapped around, getting a bearing on his troops coming down. Most of them looked good, but he could see a few that were struggling…drifting out over the gorge. He tensed when he saw the stragglers, but there was nothing he could do. He didn’t have time to worry about it anyway…he had to get the unit organized. He reached around, pulling his assault rifle off his back. “Section leaders, form your units.” He could see that 2 of his 3 section chiefs were already down, climbing out of their harnesses.
He walked slowly to the edge of the canyon and looked over. The terrain was as brutal as Taylor promised him it would be. There were large stretches where it was sheer cliff, but there were three or four functional paths down. They were narrow, often with deep drops on one or both sides, but they were passable. It didn’t look like there were any Machines this far up. The enemy wasn’t expecting an attack from this direction.
The air was pungent with smoke. The Dragonfires had incinerated the enemy positions below with their fuel air bombs. There was no way to do a reliable damage assessment in terrain like this, but Riley could tell that the bombardment had been effective.
He saw one of his men slip down below the top of the canyon, missing the LZ. There was no place near him to try and land, and the antigrav power wouldn’t last much longer. Riley was watching a KIA…he knew it, but there was no way he could stop it. He stared, paralyzed, trying to think of something…anything he could do. Then he caught another one in the corner of his eye. Then a third.
He knew intellectually that three fatalities on a drop like this was a pretty good result, but those were his men he was watching. He was watching them die, and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it.
He spun around and looked behind him. Most of his troops were down now, and the section and team leaders were trying to get them organized. The personal antigravs had worked as advertised…more or less, but the strikeforce was scattered and disorganized.
Riley had been told that soldiers from some of the nation states had conducted similar operations before the Consolidation, using only cloth chutes to slow their descent. He couldn’t imagine keeping any semblance of order during a drop like that. Such tactics hadn’t been practiced by any armed forces for almost half a century, and even if they had been, the atmosphere on Erastus was too sparse for it to work anyway.
“Section leaders, confirm readiness to advance.” He had to hold back a bitter laugh, glancing at the tactical display on his visor. There wasn’t a team in the 213th that was really ready. But there wasn’t time to waste. Organized or not, they were moving out in two minutes.
“First Section…ready.” The answer was wobbly. Sergeant James’ section was less of a mess than it had been a few minutes before, but Riley knew James needed another ten minutes minimum. But it was time they didn’t have to spare. The enemy had almost certainly detected the drop. If the 213th didn’t hit them before they could reposition, the whole operation would be wasted.
The leaders of 2nd and 3rd Sections sounded off in turn, each bullshitting Riley, tel
ling him they were ready, though neither one was any better a liar than James.
“All sections, advance.” Riley started walking toward James’ position. He was going to follow 1st Section with the support elements. “You’ve all got your assigned paths on your tac displays. Make sure you stay on them.” The terrain was worse than rugged, but the recon drones had spotted the best routes down the cliff. It was still going to be a hard time, but it would be much worse if the troops strayed from their assigned positions.
Riley watched as James’ men started on the winding trail, following along as the last of the 1st Section headed down. It was a narrow path, barely wide enough for two men abreast and descending at a 30% slope, at least. It was hard to get a good footing on the loose gravelly surface, though Riley’s enhanced legs increased his stability. The rookies, he thought, the ones who hadn’t gotten their mods yet…they were going to have a hell of a time getting down the path.
“Lieutenant, are we sure this is the right way?” It was James, sounding nervous. “I thought those drones were supposed to find us the best ways down.”
Riley sighed softly. “This is the best way, Sergeant.” They might manage to surprise the enemy, he thought, but they weren’t getting it for free. “What did you expect, a stroll on the beach?” He felt bad mocking the veteran sergeant, but the last thing he could do was lend credence to any doubts. His people were going down this cliff. Whether they did it in an orderly fashion or approaching terminal velocity was going to depend largely on keeping their cool.
Riley shot a thought to his com, cutting the line. There was nothing more to talk about. He stumbled a little himself, sliding down about a meter on the loose stones before he caught himself. The path was getting worse…and from the sound of James’ voice, he assumed that was going to continue as they moved forward. There had been a fairly steep drop to one side when they started, but now the right was a sheer cliff of at least 100 meters, and the path itself was narrowing further.