The Cost of Victory (Crimson Worlds)

by Jay Allan

  Marek climbed up to the top of the outcropping he was using for cover and found a good vantage point for firing. The auto-cannons were still raking the position, so he hunched behind, waiting. They'd have to stop the supporting fire when their assaulting troops got close enough. He'd kept his com open with the two snipers. They would count off their kills, and he wanted to track how they were doing. They were both already at three, having dropped targets that were 2,000 meters away, partially obscured on broken ground.

  The Imperial troops advanced across the field, using gullies and low spots for cover. They were well-trained, but not combat veterans, and they were more careless than experienced troops would have been. Marek's Marines made them pay for every sloppy step. The attackers had about 30 casualties when they hit the 500 meter mark, but they'd drawn blood as well, and four of the defenders were down. Marek was about to give his troops the order to fire full, but just as he swung over the top of the ridge to take aim, he saw something in the distance. Just a dot at first, but moving rapidly toward them, growing larger as it did.

  The fighter was sleek and aerodynamic, designed for flight in an atmosphere rather than space. To the ground pounders it seemed to be moving at a tremendous velocity, but it was actually traveling at less than a fifth of its maximum speed. It had slowed and dived to provide close support to Marek's Marines, and it streaked across the field, parallel to their position, strafing the attacking troops. It was taking a terrible risk, exposing itself to close range ground fire, but its heavy auto-cannons ripped into the Imperial forces. The huge hyper-velocity rounds tore right through powered armor, obliterating at least thirty of the advancing troops.

  Even as it finished its run, half a dozen missiles were fired from the enemy lines. The fighter banked and angled high, climbing with the maximum thrust its atomic engines could generate. It streaked quickly into the sky, faster than the eye could follow, but it wasn't fast enough; two of the missiles exploded right next to it, shredding the wings and blowing holes in the fuselage. It tumbled down, spinning wildly out of control and crashed north of the battlefield in a massive fireball.

  Still, it had done its damage, and the attacking force was staggered. Marek closed his eyes for an instant in empathy and appreciation for the pilot's sacrifice. Then he ordered his troops to open up, and they poured fire into the disordered enemy; the shaken attackers hesitated, broke and ran. The Marines were cheering wildly over the comlink, shooting indiscriminately at the fleeing enemy. As much as Marek shared their desire to shoot down the routers, he ordered them to stop. They just didn't have the ammunition to waste on enemies who were no longer a pressing threat.

  "Everybody get back down!" He knew the enemy would resume firing with their heavy weapons now that their own troops were out of the field of fire. His people had their blood up, and he didn't want to lose anyone for being too excited to remember to get his head down.

  He felt his own adrenalin start to drain away, as the immediate threat faded. Of course, they were so strung out on stimulants by now it was hard to tell what was a natural reaction and what was artificial. Ok, he thought, that's six attacks we beat back. He felt a rush of elation, quickly tempered by his next duty. Counting the cost.

  "Squad leaders. Casualty reports." He listened quietly as his four squad commanders, only one of whom had held that position three days before, rattled off their counts. Another ten casualties; he was down to thirteen fit for duty, and along the northern flank only Sergeant Anton and one trooper were still standing. Both snipers made it, though, for which he was grateful.

  Things improved slightly when the two fire teams sent by Colonel Jax arrived. Marek sent one team north to Sergeant Anton, deploying the other right into his own line. He would have loved to have something in reserve, but he just didn't have the force to spare.

  The enemy hadn't resumed the auto-cannon fire. Maybe they're running low on ordnance too, he thought doubtfully. He took advantage of the lull to get the wounded moved down into the gully between the two ridges. It was the safest place for them until he could get them evac'd...and it didn't seem like that was going to be anytime soon.

  Marek used the time to review his positions, and he shifted his squads around. He wasn't sure if he was really improving things or just making himself feel useful. He was just about to order one on of his snipers to readjust his position when the comlink came to life. "All personnel...Code Orange. Repeat Code Orange."

  Marek dove low behind the rock. "Platoon, take cover. Everyone down, now. Repeat, every..." Marek's visor shut down to protect his eyes from the blinding flash. An instant later, the shockwave smashed into the rocky outcropping, shattering the top half of it and covering him under a landslide of obliterated rock. The nuke had detonated in front of the line, south of Marek's position. The squad on the southern flank, less than 200 meters from ground zero, was wiped out. To the north there were survivors, though most of them were wounded and buried under the debris from the collapsed rock wall.

  Anton's people came through it better. Farther north, they were outside the immediate blast zone. Anton's armor suffered some minor damage, but nothing serious. He looked south, seeing the mushroom cloud rising behind the blasted position occupied by the rest of the platoon. And behind that he saw enemy troops advancing.

  "Lieutenant Marek, they're coming again." He called into the comlink, not knowing what to expect. No response. "Lieutenant? Are you there, sir?" If Marek was down, Anton was in command of the whole platoon. Or whatever was left of it. "Lieutenant?"

  Marek lay pinned under a pile of smashed rock. He was wounded, badly he thought hazily, though there was no pain. That much he owed to the suit, to the cocktail of drugs it had injected into his battered body. His reactor had shut down, and his heavily damaged armor was operating on battery power. He couldn't move, though whether that was due to his injuries or simply the loss of reactor power he didn't know. His vision was blurry; he could feel himself slipping further away, into unconsciousness. He thought he heard a voice calling to him, but it was faint and far away...and then it was gone.

  Chapter 17

  Alliance-PRC Combined Fleet

  Epsilon Eridani System

  Deployed around Epsilon Eridani IV

  "Admiral Compton!" Commander Simmons' voice was uncharacteristically high pitched. "I am receiving a laser transmission relay from Cambrai. Priority Alpha One." That was Alliance code for an extreme emergency. "Coming through now, sir." He paused while the computer decrypted and fed him the message. "Admiral, Captain Arlington is reporting that Captain Johan's attack ships have detected large enemy forces in the outer system."

  Compton sat in his command chair, outwardly calm though he could feel his stomach clench. "Relay me any information immediately as it comes in." After a short pause: "Put the fleet on yellow alert."

  "Yes, sir. Fleet alert status yellow." Simmons looked down at his board. "New transmission, sir. Captain Johan has identified at least six battlegroups." He hesitated, staring at the screen. "Enemy formation includes Imperial South American and Europan units, sir." He turned his head and looked at the admiral, a shocked expression on his face. Most of the rest of the flag bridge crew were doing the same. The compartment was almost silent.

  Compton wasn't all that surprised at the South Americans. Not really. It was no secret they were coming into the war. Alliance Intelligence had assured him the empire wouldn't be ready to mount any offensive operations for several months, but they'd screwed up before. They'd lied before too. But Europa Federalis was a shock. The CAC had two new allies? Both with forces already deployed? His thoughts were grim...this was not good. Not good at all.

  Simmons looked back to his screen. "Sir, Captain Johan reports that the enemy was sitting dark in the outer system, beyond the orbit of planet seven." The seventh planet was the system's outermost; beyond that there was a relatively dense belt of sub-planetary objects - perfect for hiding a fleet. "She detected them when they fired their thrusters." Another pause.
"Their present plotting suggests they are now moving to intercept us."

  "Commander, order Captain Arlington to make a course back to the fleet at once." Cambrai had been detached to support Johan's squadron, but Compton was outnumbered enough without leaving a battleship exposed to being picked off. "I want a conference with the battlegroup commanders in twenty minutes." Arlington would still be too far out to participate in real time, but he'd catch up with her later. "Joker?"

  "Yes, Admiral Compton?"

  "Please put together a proposed thrust plan to intercept the projected enemy course at..." He slid his fingers along the touchscreen, scrolling through the map of local space as he did. "Here." He'd stopped right at the orbit of planet five, which was on the same side of the primary as Carson's World, not too distant from where he proposed to meet the enemy. He didn't want to get too far away from Carson's World, but he wanted some velocity too. Plus, there was an asteroid belt just beyond planet five, and he thought he might find that useful tactically, especially if he got the worst of the initial exchange.

  "Yes, Admiral Compton. Working now. I will have proposed thrust instructions for all ships in approximately three minutes."

  "Commander Simmons, get me a link to General Holm. I've got to warn the ground forces."

  "Yes, sir." His hands danced over the control boards. A few seconds later he looked up. "Sir, General Holm is in the field. His aide is trying to reach him now." The Marine comlinks could transmit to ships in orbit, but Saratoga was 400,000 kilometers out, just beyond the planet's second moon. Holm would have to use the communications setup in his HQ to reach Compton.

  "Sir, Captain Arlington confirms receipt of your orders, sir." Simmons paused, still listening to his earpiece. He looked back at Compton. "She requests permission to remain on station until Captain Johan's ships are able to reverse course and build velocity back toward the fleet."

  "Denied." Compton didn't like deserting the scouts either, but he simply could not risk one of his capital ships. "Tell her to get back here as quickly as possible." He took a deep breath. "I'm afraid we may have to ask a great deal from Captain Johan and her people before this engagement is decided. But difficult choices are the province of war."

  "Joker, where's that thrust plan?" Compton could feel the adrenalin. He hoped it would last, because he wasn't going to get much sleep for the next week or so.

  "Downloading now, Admiral Compton." The AI's voice was calm and unflappable. "Projected time for the fleet to adopt the target formation, six hours, eighteen minutes."

  "Estimated time to enemy fleet arrival?" Compton knew he was asking the computer for a wild guess.

  "Too many variables to create a meaningful estimate. Based on maximum documented thrust potential for known vessels, the minimum time is two days, three hours, and twenty minutes. However, that would require sustained full thrust with no periods for maintenance or crew recovery." No fleet could blast full for two days straight without stopping. Not if they wanted their crews functional afterwards. Not to mention the risks inherent in running their propulsion systems and reactors all out with no breaks or maintenance checks.

  "Your best guess, Joker." Compton tended toward being a little impatient, and the present circumstances did nothing to temper it.

  "Factoring known Imperial and CAC naval doctrine and my assessment of the tactical situation, a reasonable estimate would be three and one-half to four and one-half days." The quasi-sentient machine paused, obviously for effect, since it didn't need the time to think. "Any greater specificity would require almost random assignment of variables, rendering the resulting projection tactically useless." Even the straitlaced naval AIs came off as a bit obnoxious at times.

  "Sir, I have General Holm on the line."

  "Pipe it to my headset, commander." Compton closed his visor. He thought he might want some privacy with the general. "Elias?" It took about two seconds for his message to reach Carson's World, and the same for the general's reply to make it back to Saratoga. It was an annoying way to communicate, but both he and Holm were used to it.

  "Yes, Terrance...what is it?" Holm sounded tired and distracted.

  "I've got an enemy fleet up here." Right to the point.

  "I assume we wouldn't be having this discussion if it wasn't a substantial force. Am I right? Did they follow us through the warp gate? Why didn't the pickets warn you?"

  "Bigger than my fleet, to answer your first question." Compton sighed. "No, they didn't come through the gate; they were here already. Lying dark in the outer system." There was growing anger in the admiral's voice. "If those damned orders hadn't pushed us to move so quickly, I'd have never let your people transit before I'd scoured this system. I knew there was something going on. I could feel it. I wish the politicians would leave tactics to the professionals."

  "You know I agree, but we should probably stay on more productive subject matter for now." Holm sounded more disgusted than angry...and more fatigued than either. "I'm in a shitstorm down here too. I'm getting reports and requests for reinforcements from everywhere. I don't know how the enemy managed to get this big a force here, but they've got units pouring out everywhere."

  Compton swore under his breath. "This whole fucking thing has been one giant ambush. And our vaunted intelligence service not only failed to warn us, they pushed us right into the trap." He took a deep breath and exhaled. "We have to figure we're both heavily outnumbered. The enemy wouldn't have planned this if they didn't think they had the force to pull it off."

  "Agreed. It certainly feels like I'm outnumbered down here, though I can't seem to get a reliable count on enemy strength. We're just going to have to deal with the hands we've been dealt...both of us."

  "Our orders don't give any latitude for pulling your people out of there." Compton was speaking more or less rhetorically. He knew they didn't have enough time to upload I Corps and accelerate quickly enough to escape the enemy battlefleet, even if they'd had the authority to withdraw. Holm knew it just as well.

  "I couldn't break off now without it turning into a rout, anyway. My line runs 300 klicks east to west, and it’s under attack at every point. And one of my brigades is totally cut off." He hesitated then said, "Maybe you should think about withdrawing the fleet. Especially if the enemy has too big an edge. You could come back when the odds are more even."

  Compton snorted. "When will that be? We took everything in Gliese that wasn't streaming atmosphere or running on half-power." He paused for a second. "Besides, there's no way I'm leaving your people stranded here. Even if my orders allowed it, which you know perfectly well they don't."

  Holm let out a half-hearted laugh. "Well, thank you for that show of support, but the truth is there isn't much you can do for us down here anyway. So if getting the hell out of here is the right choice, do it. Either way, if we both live through this I'll buy you dinner. Anywhere in occupied space. Your choice." He paused, then said with a soft chuckle, "The Basilone Club at the Academy is good. I think they'll let a navy officer in." He paused again. "As long as we don't make a habit of it."

  Compton returned the laugh. "Sounds good. I suppose Marine food won't kill a navy man. As long as he doesn’t make a habit of it." After a few seconds he added, "I need to get your transport fleet out of there, though. They're sitting ducks if any warships get past me. If there's anything you need in those supply ships, we need to get it to the surface now."

  "That may be a problem." Holm let out a labored breath. "We've got a considerable fight for airspace down here. My people don't have air superiority yet. I'm not even sure they will. Anything trying to land now could take it hard."

  "Damn, this just keeps getting worse." Compton thought for a few seconds. "What do you need most?"

  "Ammunition. And medical supplies. I'd also evac some wounded and non-essential personnel if I could get them safely into orbit."

  "Ok, can you hold on for a few minutes?" Compton didn't wait for an answer; he switched off the line with Holm. He was back abo
ut three minutes later. "Ok, Elias. I spoke with Admiral Wells." Wells was the commander of the transport and supply fleet. "He's pretty sure he has enough volunteers to bring down whatever you need. His pilots know the risks they'll be running. Contact him directly - he's under instructions to follow your orders. Get whatever you need, but get it done in twelve hours, because that's all I can give you. In twelve hours and one minute, that fleet has to be thrusting out of orbit." He paused for a second. "Good enough?"

  "Good enough." Holm was distracted, already thinking of the bare minimum he needed to transport down. "I'll try to finish in eight. And, Terrance...thanks." After a brief hesitation he added, "Good luck up there."

  Compton smiled weakly. "Yeah, you too."

  Admiral Wells had said he could get volunteers, but he didn't mention they'd all be crazy sons of bitches. Holm stared in disbelief as he watched the scanners. Shuttles weren't supposed to fly like that - especially not when they were full of weapons and ammo. He'd ordered every atmospheric fighter he had left in the air to run interference for the transport craft landing the supplies. That was going to leave his troops exposed for a while, but it was better than having them run out of ammunition.

  He'd never seen shuttles descend so quickly, zigzagging wildly and diving right through the atmosphere. They were wrecking their heat shields...and condemning themselves to a one-way trip. There was no way these ships were making it back to orbit, at least not without major repair jobs. So the volunteer pilots threw in their lot with the ground forces; none of them were leaving Carson's World unless the planetside battle was won. Almost a quarter of them never even made it to the surface alive, their shuttles hit by SAMs or shot down by enemy fighters.