“There’ll be no criticism, but there’ll be plenty of disappointment,” she said.
“That there will,” Duggan admitted. “Do what you feel is right, Commander.”
“You know we’ll stay.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Don’t die,” she whispered.
“I’ll do my best. You do the same.”
The hour was running out, so Duggan and Chainer dashed to one of the lockers closest to the front boarding ramp. They fought their way into their spacesuits in the confines of a tiny alcove. Duggan snapped out a gauss rifle for each of them and fastened a bandolier of cylindrical plasma grenades across his chest.
“Want some grenades?” he asked Chainer.
“No, sir. I’m taking a beacon.”
Duggan reached into the locker and pulled out a backpack containing portable comms equipment. “Byers and Durham are carrying these. It weighs about twenty-five pounds – are you sure you want one?”
Chainer took the pack and grunted as he pushed his arms through the straps. “I’ve carried one before, sir.”
“What I’m trying to say politely is that I don’t want you to slow us down.”
“I know exactly what you’re saying. I’ll keep up.”
“Good,” said Duggan. “Grab your helmet and let’s go see what these Ghasts are wearing for the occasion. We’ve got less than ten minutes until Commander McGlashan sets us down.”
“There’s not been much chance to check our inventory, has there?” said Chainer, breathing heavily as he followed. “Mech suits might be a bit unwieldy where we’re going.”
Right on schedule, McGlashan set the Crimson onto the ground, a few kilometres away from the perimeter of the base. Duggan and Chainer were running late and they reached the forward airlock five minutes after the agreed time. There were a few witty observations on the virtues of good timekeeping from the troops and Duggan acknowledged them ruefully.
“Sorry we’re late, folks,” he said, knowing his tardiness could have presented a genuine risk to the mission.
“No problem, sir,” responded Ortiz politely, though he knew she was only trying to make him feel better.
The airlock was compact - a few square metres filled to overflowing with human soldiers, each fully suited and with their helmets ready to fix in place. To the front, the Ghasts loomed large over the others. Duggan could see enough to tell they weren’t dressed in their full mech suits, though he couldn’t identify exactly what they wore. They had dull metal encasing their heads and shoulders, giving the impression they were ancient gladiators. The rest was hidden from sight.
With no time to delay, Duggan put his suit helmet in place, ignoring the disconcerting feeling as it tightened about his neck. The others followed his lead, until everyone was ready to face the sub-zero temperatures outside the airlock.
He created an open comms channel for the human soldiers. There were ten other receptors close by and he brought those into the channel as well, pleased to note that the tech labs had been working hard on the interfaces between the human and Ghast technologies. There was no need to confirm with each man or woman that they could hear him. Instead, he spoke to the ship’s bridge.
“We were late, Commander. We’re lowering the ramp. Get away as soon as we’re clear.”
“Yes, sir.”
It was a tight squeeze to get everyone into the airlock. The alternative was to go through two cycles of opening and closing, which was something Duggan was keen to avoid. With some pushing and shoving, they managed it and the ramp dropped away with a clunk of gears.
“Everybody off!” shouted Duggan.
Moments later, they were clear and standing in the dim light of Frades-2’s dusk, the sky above visible through the cloaked outline of the spaceship. The boarding ramp rose until it joined seamlessly with the rest of the spaceship’s hull. McGlashan didn’t wait until they’d made any distance and she lifted off at once, the landing gear creaking as the thick legs were relieved from the unimaginable stresses of the Crimson’s weight. There was scant turbulence on the ground – the planet had little in the way of air for the spaceship’s passage to disturb.
After a short time, the Crimson was high above them in the dark sky. Duggan watched for a moment longer, trying in vain to catch sight of the vessel using his spacesuit sensor. Then, the craft was gone, leaving only a pattern of deep, rectangular indentations in the surface to mark the place it had landed. Its cargo of former passengers was left behind, waiting in a low shallow-walled valley out of sight from their intended destination.
Duggan stared around him. The terrain was bleak and inhospitable by most standards, though it was nothing worse than many other places he’d been. Now he was standing on it, Duggan saw how dirty the ice was. There was nothing clean and pure about it. This ice was riven through with grit and surface dust. It crunched beneath his feet and provided a surprising amount of grip.
Duggan turned left and right, ensuring the suit’s direction-finder was properly calibrated with those of the squad. When his face was pointed towards the enemy emplacement, he spent a few seconds studying the lay of the land ahead. They’d landed six kilometres from the target. The terrain was rougher than he wanted, though this had been the most favourable place to begin. Once they emerged from the valley, there was a series of gullies, wending across rocky ground and leading to a final slope which would take them to the emplacement. The troops would be visible for a time, but there’d been no satisfactory alternative.
He took a few paces, passing through the men and women who clustered around him. One of the Ghasts – Rastol – was before him and Duggan got his first glimpse of what he wore. The aliens had evidently put some work in to modify the clumsy mech suits which Duggan remembered from his last encounter, and Rastol wore an evolution of the old kit.
The Ghast’s helmet was a metal alloy trapezoid at the front, with a clear visor to the face inside. To the back, the helmet became more intricate and multi-faceted, giving an overall shape for which there was no precise word. Wide, angular plates of metal covered Rastol’s shoulders, with several joints to allow him to move freely. His torso, arms and legs were covered in a heavy grey polymer, which closely resembled a human spacesuit, though it appeared to be less flexible. The Ghast’s hands were clad in metal gauntlets which grasped the thick barrel of a repeater, and he wore heavy grey boots of an unknown material on his feet. All-in-all, the alien was a bizarre sight, though one which was filled with great menace. The suit must have weighed over a hundred pounds and Duggan was glad he wasn’t wearing it himself.
“I’ve divided us into four squads of eight,” he said, getting on with business. “Four mixed squads of eight. You know what we’ve got to do. Stick together until we get close. Let’s move out.”
Duggan set off and the others fell in behind, staying in their assigned squads. The slope stretched upwards for a few hundred metres. It was more difficult to climb than it appeared from below. The sides were treacherous with loose stones and gravel, held in place by the ice until an unwary foot pressed down upon it too hard. There was little risk of serious injury, but plenty of opportunity to snap an ankle. Duggan looked upwards into the never-ending sky. Even in Confederation space, there were too many stars to memorise their patterns. Here on Frades-2, the scattering of white dots was as different as anywhere else, but Duggan had never felt further from home.
Chapter Fifteen
At the top of the rise, the terrain flattened somewhat, yet it remained challenging to walk. One or two of the soldiers slipped, cursing onto the ice. Only their pride was hurt, though eventually something more severe would result from such accidents.
The Crimson’s scans of the surface had highlighted a series of channels through the rock, possibly resulting from the movement of ice. The squad picked their way across to the closest one. It was deeper and wider than Duggan had expected and he had to scramble down a short, steep slope until he was within. The channel was v-shaped and it wended on
wards, not affording him a view more than a couple of hundred metres ahead. It was darker here and his sensor feed took on edges of intensified greens and the sharpness of the focus was replaced by grainy edges.
At the bottom, he carefully made his way another fifty metres and turned to watch the others join him in the gully. One figure came up to him, stepping carefully around the patches of ice.
“I don’t like this,” said Lieutenant Ortiz, through a private channel.
Duggan took her input seriously. “You think there’s danger?”
“Not from the enemy, sir,” she said firmly. “It’s going to take us half the night to get along here.” She kicked at the ground, knocking a hole through a nearby covering of ice which had looked solid at first glance. Duggan saw that the ice concealed a narrow, deep hole, which could easily have broken the leg of anyone who stepped into it.
“I’ve seen this shit before,” Ortiz continued. “We could end up with four broken bones and half a dozen sprains before we get to where we’re going. Corporal Weiss is good, but she can’t fix injuries like that without getting back to the ship.”
“You think we’re better off climbing out of this channel?” he asked, indicating upwards with his hand.
“No, sir. If there’s anything in those corner towers, they’ll be able to pick us off easily when we advance. We need to remain hidden for as long as possible and that means we need to stay here. I just don’t like it.”
Duggan passed on the warning to the others. If this had been a rookie group, he’d have had real concerns after his conversation with Ortiz. As it was, he put the fears from his mind. If this team really was the best from its respective navies, they should be able to manage.
It took three hours careful march until the channel tapered off, forcing them towards the surface. The four towers were clearly visible from here, even without using magnification. Before leaving the protection of the gully walls Duggan spent some time with Ortiz and Red-Gulos, watching for anything that might indicate lookout posts at the top of the two-kilometre structures.
“They’re featureless as far as I can tell,” said Ortiz.
“That’s what I gathered from the Crimson’s sensors when we flew overhead,” said Chainer. “Sometimes you can miss things on a fast reconnaissance flight.”
“What do you think?” Duggan asked, speaking directly to Red-Gulos. He didn’t know if the Ghast’s suit carried a more effective sensor than the ones in the Space Corps suits.
“It’s clear,” was all he said.
“In that case, we can go,” said Duggan.
He pulled himself out of the gully and rolled smoothly to his feet. Instinct made him remain in a crouch to keep his profile low. The area around him contained good cover – there were large, loose stones, along with dips and crevices in the ground. Ultimately, it made little difference – if there were sophisticated early warning systems on the towers, there was scant chance they could arrive without being spotted. There was no indication the base was fortified and Duggan kept his hopes pinned on that.
The squad crossed a few hundred metres of ice-crusted stone. They were laden with weapons and encumbered by their spacesuits, yet they managed to keep the noise to a minimum. Duggan heard the occasional contact of metal on metal and there were a few scuffs and scrapes as the troops fought to keep their footing. The Ghasts were unusually silent – Duggan had seen their protective clothing and worried they would sound like a hundred tin cans rattling when they walked. The aliens proved themselves better than expected and made no more noise than the others.
The ground levelled off, reaching a long summit that could almost be called a ridge. The towers and central pyramid reached into the night sky, their outlines so dark they could hardly be seen against the background by the naked eye. Only the glistening of distant ice provided a counterpart to the unending greys of unlit alloy.
Duggan lay flat on the ground and watched for a time, using the helmet sensor to look for anything which might be a threat.
“Two klicks to the perimeter,” said Ortiz.
“No sign of movement,” muttered Duggan.
“They are in there,” said Red-Gulos. “This place is too big to be unguarded.”
“I agree,” said Ortiz.
“The target building is nine hundred metres past the perimeter,” said Duggan. “We’re going to get in and out as quickly as we can. As soon as our beacon has calibrated successfully with the enemy signal, the Crimson can use the data to locate the source transmitter. We won’t need the emergency beacon to remain active for long.”
He studied the place where the transmission was coming from. It was a long, rectangular building made from the same alloys as every other structure here. From a human perspective, it was four or five storeys in height. The squad needed to pass numerous other structures to reach this one – they varied in shape and size, none of them possessing any beauty or appeal.
“These were made off-world and dropped here,” Duggan said, feeling compelled to speak the obvious.
“They didn’t bother to fortify,” said Ortiz. “There’s not even a wall.”
Duggan didn’t need to warn against complacency - Ortiz was anything but lax. “We need to find better cover to get closer,” he said. “The Crimson’s scans showed we’ll need to run the last part to the perimeter, but I’d prefer to stay under cover until then.”
The spacesuit computer contained a topographical map of the area, downloaded from the Crimson’s databanks. Duggan checked it to see what their options where. He’d plotted a route before they landed, but once on the surface, the terrain wasn’t quite how it appeared from the fast scan they’d done.
“Over there,” said Red-Gulos. “There is a channel which leads to the end of the downward slope.”
“I think that’s our best option,” said Ortiz.
That was enough for Duggan. “Let’s move. Single file,” he said.
With his rifle held firmly in one hand, Duggan advanced down the bank. He struggled for grip on the gritty, icy surface and had to put out his other hand to steady himself. The air was crystal clear and his suit told him it was touching minus two hundred degrees Fahrenheit. He suddenly felt exposed and he fought the urge to hurry.
No enemy gauss projectiles struck him and he reached the channel without injury, whereupon he clambered inside. A line of his soldiers followed, one or two of them swearing loudly into the open channel when they stumbled or slipped.
“Quiet in the channel!” barked Ortiz. “If you’re not critically wounded, keep your mouths shut!”
The Ghasts made no sound. They found the terrain similarly challenging, yet when they lost their footing, they didn’t speak of it and simply continued without complaint. Different, not better, Duggan reminded himself.
It took another forty minutes until they reached the end of this second channel. Vaughan was limping after twisting his knee between two rocks. Corporal Weiss gave him a shot of something in addition to whatever medication Vaughan took from his spacesuit. Duggan checked the man was able to continue.
“It’ll hurt like hell when all this crap wears off, sir,” the soldier said. “Until then, you could stick a knife in me and I wouldn’t know about it.”
“Fine,” said Duggan. “Shout out if you can’t keep up.”
“I’ll keep up, sir.”
Duggan left it at that. He’d already taken the measure of the squad and could tell there’d be no false bravado. These were men and women who’d seen it before and who would rather die than be remembered as the one who put their fellows in danger.
He conferred briefly with his officers.
“That’s a five hundred metre run across open ground to the closest building,” he said. “There’s cover close to where the channel ends. Squad Four will stay here and provide sniper support. The other three squads will run for the perimeter and wait until Squad Four joins us.”
“Will Squad Four be more effective if we leave them here while we do the busine
ss?” asked Ortiz. “We might need the cover.”
“No,” said Red-Gulos, crouched a few feet away. “Once we are amongst the buildings, snipers will become ineffective.”
“I agree,” said Duggan. “There are two main paths to our target. Squads One and Two will go to the left of this structure, Three and Four will go to the right. We’ll move quickly and quietly. Shoot without asking questions and if the shit hits the fan, I’ll make the decision on whether or not we withdraw. The Crimson can destroy this place from above if necessary. We don’t need to take unnecessary risks. Is that understood?”
“We’ll not throw our lives away, Captain Duggan,” said the Ghast. “Not unless you order it.”
“I look after my troops, Red-Gulos,” Duggan replied, wondering if Ghast officers commonly gave orders for suicidal attacks. He’d seen the aliens act recklessly on many occasions and assumed it was part of their nature. Perhaps it was time to reconsider what he thought he knew.
The approach went smoothly at first. As silently as ghosts, Squad Four established positions that overlooked the lower buildings of the base – there wasn’t much of a height advantage, but there was some. When Duggan gave the signal, the remaining three squads crept out from the gully. They kept fifty metres apart and dashed as quickly as they were able down the gentle slope towards their destination. The towers and central pyramid appeared brooding and threatening from such a close range. Duggan was accustomed to the enormity of what could be contrived by living hands, but there were still occasions when he was left in wonderment.
Terminus Gate (Survival Wars Book 5) Page 10