Pathetic, he thought. Where they brave, deluded, or were they so terrified of failing their leaders they were willing to commit suicide by combat? Or was it just the biotech making them into raving animals?
The whole situation made him sick. This kind of war—one enormous biological error twenty years ago, its consequences echoing down through time—was a pitiable waste.
Straker felt much better once the Guard was back on its way. The Rhinos were still holding off on dropping nukes, but that might change at any time.
It particularly might change if Colonel Winter used his own nukes.
Chapter 18
Premdor-2
Colonel Winter expected resistance at the mountain pass. According to his map the road climbed the mountainside to over 3000 meters altitude before descending through a narrow valley and debouching to the sheltered chemical factory below. His two-company combat team was going to have to slug its way through.
The dense overcast common to this planet and season made the night even darker, but to the sophisticated sensors in the suits it might as well be day. It was one more reason to attack at night, as the Rhino sensors weren’t as advanced. Winter’s HUD showed heat, faint light, and activity at the pass.
“Battlesuits forward to scout,” he ordered.
The Rippers dismounted and spread out, loping up the mountainside like wolverines. Unlike an armored vehicle, tracked or wheeled or hover, battlesuits cared little for slopes. Powered armor and jump jets allowed them to cross the roughest terrain without regard to roads or chokepoints… as the Rhinos would soon find out.
Mechsuits were a little more limited because of their weight and size. Where a battlesuit could scramble up a scree slope or race across shifting soil, a mechsuit might slip, slide and cause an avalanche. In this steep area, the road would be his best route, so the battlesuits would have to clear the way.
“Hotel Company, secure your own perimeter,” he ordered. “Advance slowly, maintaining covering fire. Use your particle beams.”
The Sledgehammers spread out and rotated their upper bodies, twisting in directions impossible to a human being. The pilots within, of course, remained comfortable. This odd disconnect between body and suit was alien to the human mind, and took special practice. Because of that, Sledgehammer pilots considered themselves a breed apart, individuals with special skills.
The first Sledgehammer fired a charged particle beam up the mountainside, aimed precisely at the lip of the pass. The beam superheated and ionized the ground, causing a blast indistinguishable from a true explosion. The blast also caused an EMP surge at the point of impact, which should disrupt electronics nearby.
As Winter jogged his Jackhammer up the road along with the rest of Golf Company, the battlesuits flanked left and right, climbing to positions overlooking the pass. Their sensors relayed data to the network, and Winter’s HUD showed him a company-sized element of light armor in the process of digging in, hoping to hold or slow down the Breakers.
Not likely.
“We can take them, sir,” First Sergeant Goulard said. He was Winter’s most senior battlesuiter. “I don’t think they know we’re here above them.”
Another blast from a particle beam punctuated the night, but it hit nothing.
“Roger that. You are go in ten seconds. H Company, cease-fire and advance to support.”
Ten seconds later, the pass erupted with fire from the hillsides above the saddle. By the time Winter reached the summit, the battlesuiters had disabled or destroyed all the armored vehicles by attacking their lightly armored tops.
“Had to kill all their crews,” Goulard told him as he bounced over to stand beside Winter’s Jackhammer. “They’re crazy, juiced on stims or something, charging us with sidearms and even blades.” He kicked a knife out of the hand of one of the dead Rhinos.
“They’re overpopulated with young males, Top. Their leaders don’t care about casualties. We don’t have that luxury.” To emphasize his words, he stepped on an armored personnel carrier and crushed it like a beer can with his sixty tons. “We lose anyone?”
“Private Coyle got his dick-hand blown off because he was fucking around with a tank cannon, trying to show off, but he can still hold a blaster. The biotech’s got it under control, but I’m sure it hurts like a bitch. Serves him right as far as I’m concerned, sir.”
Winter chuckled. “Let’s hope that’s all the hurt we take. Mount up.”
Their advance down the steep twisting valley was eerily lacking in resistance, and Winter increase speed now that the target was less than ten kilometers away. When they approached the last steep hillside, he sent battlesuits up and over. They showed nothing in the way, and a well-lit industrial target laid out on the valley floor.
“Almost too easy,” he muttered. “Too big, too bright.”
He commanded his HUD to filter out the factory illumination and search for anomalies around and beyond it.
Ah-ha. On the other side of the factory a line of tanker trucks snaked away, hurrying northward. At the same time, a few lightweight autocannon fired tracer rounds toward his troops with no great accuracy.
Tracers? More distractions, buying time.
Winter pushed his annotated HUD picture to all suits. “They’re getting away with the Tango, heading for the weaponization depot,” he said. “Hotel Company and battlesuits, dismantle this factory complex, minimum power and ammo expenditure. Remember, we still have to make it home. Golf Company, we’re going after those tanker trucks.” He switched to his FTL comlink. “Indy, pass the word to my other companies: expect the Rhinos to be bugging out with the goods at each factory.”
“Aye aye, Colonel.”
Ignoring fuel concerns, Winter charged to his left, skirting the Tango factory while running flat-out like a footballer accelerating for a tackle. The sixteen Jackhammers of Golf Company followed him—the best combination of speed and punch in the battalion.
Would the Rhinos have enough armor for an escort for the tanker trucks? If he were the enemy commander, he’d have sent off each tanker as it filled, trusting to speed and dispersion to get the vital Tango chemical away. Instead, this looked like a convoy—which would imply some kind of guarding force.
There. Between the trucks and him he could see at least twenty heavy tanks, their thick guns aimed his way as they traveled in reverse, a rearguard.
“Flank them!” he barked as the first enemy fired. The round blazed through the space he occupied half a second before. He turned his predictive dodge leftward into a shoulder roll, firing his right-arm force-cannon unerringly at the offending tank. The bolt of plasma wrecked the enemy’s gun, but apparently didn’t penetrate the glacis, as the autocannon turret above and behind continued firing.
Winter rolled to his feet, accelerating to high speed as he flanked left. Around him the night erupted with deadly energies, force-cannon bolts dueling with tank shells. A glancing blow from one knocked him to the dirt, and he remained down while scrambling into a drainage canal. His HUD told him he now had a weak spot under his arm, but otherwise all systems remained intact.
He jogged along the canal floor in order to break any locks the enemy might have on him. Gold Company was dealing with the heavy tanks. He had to get beyond the escort and make sure the tankers didn’t get away.
Skirting the battle, he raced ahead, parallel with the highway that carried the trucks. Their drivers clearly knew the hounds of hell were at their heels, for they were rolling fast and getting faster, pushing their machines well beyond sensible safety limits. The lead tanker must be hitting 160 KPH.
Just as he lifted his gauntlet to put a gatling burst into the tanker from long range, his HUD lit up with bogies above the surface. Combat drones, at least a dozen.
His LADA immediately engaged with blinding lasers and cued him with targeting reticles. Training took over—mechsuiters were drilled in the art of instant response to threat—and both his gatlings blazed out with short bursts, taking down the drones wi
th machinelike precision.
At the same time, the drones fired at him—more hypervelocity missiles. He spun rightward to evade the volley, but three struck him. One destroyed his lightly armored LADA cluster, where the head of a man would be. The other two smashed into his torso, knocking his armor density down by more than fifty percent. He couldn’t take much more of that kind of pounding.
The drones, though now all destroyed, had done their job in delaying him. The lead tanker truck disappeared over a rise in the roadway several kilometers away…but the second truck was still just in range. He lined up both arms and triggered his gatlings.
The stream of penetrators, foreshortened by perspective, seemed to float toward their target like a swarm of bees before touching it lightly, a caress of crysteel that shattered the vehicle and ignited its hydrogen fuel. He shifted fire to the next truck in line, and the next, each closer target becoming meat for his grinder.
The tankers slewed left and right, running off the blocked roadway, still attempting to get away, but Winter pushed to closed the range, making sure of his kills. It only took five or six rounds to shatter each container and spill the liquid gushing over the roadway and onto the verge.
Pity it isn’t flammable, he thought.
His gatling ammo dropped below fifty percent, so he finished off the trucks with force-cannon bolts and returned to the Tango plant. Golf Company had mopped up the heavy tanks and were now methodically demolishing the facility. Winter took the opportunity to check on his other combat teams.
His HUD gave him minimal info. The usual high-quality datalinks were absent, and the FTL datalink, relayed through Indy, provided only a bare-bones picture. It showed the next closest team, Echo and Foxtrot companies, assaulting their target, a chemical plant on the shores of a long lake about 70 kilometers from his position.
Charlie-Delta was on approach to their target, and Alpha-Bravo, on route to the most distant Tango factory, was still forty kilometers away from it.
Winter’s plan had been to strike the closest factory—his own—first, drawing the reaction toward himself and thinning out the response against his most vulnerable strike team, Alpha-Bravo. He hadn’t expected the Rhinos to get the Tango loaded up and moving so fast. In fact, he had no info about the other Tango plants, but he had to assume they were also getting convoys moving—well before two of his teams could reach them.
And he couldn’t imagine trying to fight onward, another hundred kilometers or more, to attack a heavily defended complex, and then to extract under fire. The Rhinos were getting over their surprise. The missiles were already falling heavier on his units. Every Rhino ground formation on the continent would be mobilizing—and soon, too soon, the night would end, and with it much of the Breakers’ tech advantage.
Some Tango would get through. There was no way he could order his troops to continue. His rough sims told him he’d lose half his people if he tried.
That meant the mission had failed, at least partially.
Unless he escalated.
His mouth went dry. He had no choice. “Indy, put me through to General Straker.”
* * *
“Straker here,” he said to Indy’s comlink relay from Colonel Winter.
“Winter here, sir. One plant down, one more being destroyed, but they loaded a lot of Tango onto tanker trucks, so I have to believe they’ll get about half of their current production to the weaponization plant.”
“How many tankers of what size?”
“The convoy we destroyed had about one million liters, estimated fifty thousand per tanker, and one got away—but I doubt we’ll be able to intercept much more Tango. So, at a guess, they’ll have more than two million liters to process.”
“Indy?”
“That will allow them to make approximately twenty percent of what the Eprem feared,” Indy said.
“My sims say I’ll lose half my troops if we continue the attack conventionally,” Winter said. “The Rhino resistance curve is too steep. We have to go nuclear.”
Straker had already made his decision. “I agree.”
“I suggest we consult our clients, if we can get a quick answer,” Indy said.
“Do it,” Straker said. The contract gave the final decision to the Salamanders. “A quick answer!”
Four minutes crawled by while Straker jogged along his route of march with the Guard, still extending deeper into enemy territory, anticipating Winter’s withdrawal.
Then Indy comlinked. “The Eprem have authorized nuclear employment.”
“Creator help us all,” Straker replied with a touch of fatalistic bitterness. “The Rhinos will get the worst of it, but they don’t seem to care much. We knew this might happen, and we have to complete the mission. Indy, pass the warning to all units: nuclear battle protocols. Colonel Winter, you have nuclear release at your discretion.”
“Roger, sir. Hope it’s worth it.”
“You and me both, Martin. Good luck, and good hunting.”
“Thank you, sir. Winter out.”
Straker keyed for the Guard channel. “Listen up. We’re going nuclear. The Rhinos might do the same, so nuke protocols are now in effect. Battlesuits will dismount. Max dispersion, keep up your speed, keep your eyes open for bolt-holes. Duck and cover on warning.”
Following his own orders, Straker raced for the left-side point position, comlinking on the way. “Loco, you take right-point. We’ll lead the way.”
“Roger wilco, boss.”
“Shift line of march ten degrees east. We’ll keep changing course every few klicks.”
“Got it. I’ll key off you.” Taking point wasn’t as dangerous as it might seem. The risk of running into a surprise was counterbalanced by their distance from the center of the unit—which would usually be the target of any deliberate nuke. Also, if there were an ambush, it was standard practice to let the point go by and engage the main body.
“Indy, do you have any comms at all with the enemy?” Straker said.
“They’ve never responded to any of our attempts to speak with them.”
“Then we’ll have to communicate in sign language.”
“Sir?”
“Pass to Commodore Gray. Soft-launch all our shipkiller missiles. Every single one. I want a thousand nukes in high orbit hanging above the Rhinos’ heads.”
“We only have 252 nuclear warheads, and many would be intercepted.”
“But they don’t know that. Put the missiles into profiles to hit their major cities, their capital, their command centers, everything, and make it look like our ships are getting ready to do another low pass. I want the Rhinos to believe we can depopulate their continent if we want to,” Straker said.
“A general nuclear exchange will result in them striking the Eprem as well. They will suspect a bluff—that our clients won’t be willing to risk mutually assured devastation.”
“They have to know the chemical weapons represent catastrophe for the Salamanders. The Salamanders have nothing to lose. And, it’s one thing for the Rhinos to think themselves willing to die for their goals. It’s another for their leaders to actually stare down the barrel of the gun.”
“Understood.” Indy paused. “Colonel Winter has asked me to pass the nuclear strike order to his combat team closest to the weaponization plant. They will launch in approximately nineteen minutes. I’ve initiated de-orbiting of another asteroid, targeted on the plant. The Rhinos will probably destroy it and its debris, but it’ll keep them occupied.”
Straker’s sigh was audible over the sound of his moving mechsuit. “It all comes down to this—what will the Rhinos do?”
“Historically, that’s always been the question with potential nuclear exchanges on a planet’s surface—with any weapons of mass destruction. How does anyone employ nuclear force without initiating mutual suicide? Old Earth managed to avoid destroying itself, but there have been other planets that were not so fortunate.”
“Let’s hope we don’t add Premdor to the list. S
traker out.” He switched to the Guard channel. “Course change, ten degrees west.” His body and brainlinked mechsuit moved without conscious thought, as a civilian might automatically drive a groundcar while pondering something else entirely.
Was he crazy for leading the Breakers into this situation? It had all seemed so rational, step by step, with the best of intentions—which paved the road to Hell, according to the saying. He’d authorized laying a nuclear weapon onto a living planet’s surface, a taboo as old as Einstein, made more horrible because of its occasional violation.
And while it was the will of the Salamanders—his clients, his lawful paymasters, to whom he had a mercenary’s loyalty—he still wondered whether he was doing the right thing.
Perhaps the least-wrong thing.
When he was a kid, even when he was a young man growing into his role as Liberator, he’d truly believed he’d always stick to his principles—that every choice had one proper, moral answer. Make the right choice and damn the consequences.
Now, things were murkier. His first responsibility was to the Breakers, which led him to fight for the Salamanders, whose cause was righteous: self-defense against a genocidal enemy. So far, so good. But, to save the Salamanders, he might be lighting a powder keg that would destroy both sides, and the best of the Breakers in the process.
Yes, the Breakers could go on without him and the suit battalions, but was the risk worth it?
He could see no other choice, despite his doubts.
“Indy?” he said.
“Yes, General?”
Straker stopped talking, and the silence stretched.
In the night sky to the north, a tremendous fireball descended toward the ground as if in slow motion. The de-orbiting asteroid. Streaks reached up from the ground to tear it apart. It grew brighter as it shattered and scattered. Time itself seemed to freeze for a long, gelatinous moment.
“Nothing,” he eventually said, breaking the spell as the nineteen minutes elapsed. No more time to think, or to abort.
“Combat team Alpha-Bravo has launched missiles in nap-of-the-ground mode. Two will be nuclear. Ground-zero range to your position is 241 kilometers.”
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