by Rick Partlow
“Not to mention the fact that we have less than a full battalion down there against a whole Jeuta colony,” Kammy added, frowning. “The assault shuttles can’t even get low enough to give air support with all the ash and smoke. If we pull out, they’re going to get overrun.”
“We have multiple ship-killers inbound, less than one minute to intercept.” The voice of the Salaminia’s Tactical officer carried over the transmission.
Captain Hadfield sighed, as if the multi-megaton warheads were an annoyance.
“All ahead full for thirty seconds at a forty-five-degree angle to their line of acceleration, then turn us around and take us back in.”
The image seemed to shudder and filled with static for a moment, and Terrin grabbed at the back of Hadfield’s chair, earning a dirty look.
“We got tagged by their laser,” Hadfield told Kammy. “It’s heavily shielded and we haven’t blown off the right part of the asteroid yet.”
“We’re not going to be blowing anything off for the next couple minutes, either,” Terrin added. “Drive field is down nearly fifty percent.”
“Right,” Kammy grunted. “Keep on the weapons platforms, Rose. We’ll figure something out.”
The image faded to the Wholesale Slaughter seal and Kammy motioned toward Braham.
“Get me Perez on the Concepcion.”
He was loath to be a buzzing in Perez’s ear at this moment, given the telemetry pouring into the tactical display from the cruiser. The Shakak and the Paralos were doing everything they could to cover the conventional cruiser, but she was taking a beating just the same and Perez already had her boosting at three gravities.
Strain and stress etched lines in the man’s face, the boost gravity stretching his skin back, peeling his lips away from his teeth as if he were furious with Kammy for the interruption. In the background of the video stream, a faint wisp of white smoke drifted, something Kammy recognized from his own experience as the evidence of shorted out connections from energy surges.
“Go,” Perez grunted, as much of a greeting as he had the breath to give, apparently.
“George, it’s Kammy.” Which usually wasn’t necessary to say, since they were sharing a video stream, but given the tunnel vision and such that were the side-effects of long-term high-g boosts, which Kammy still remembered if not fondly, he thought he shouldn’t leave anything to chance. “I need a no-bullshit status report from you. Bottom line, what’s your survivability?”
Perez didn’t speak for a moment and Kammy wondered if he was gathering strength to speak against the boost or if the words were simply painful on their own and he was hesitant to give them voice.
“We have hull breaches on decks three and seven,” he said, finally, blowing the sentence out as if it was a bad taste in his mouth. “Multiple casualties that we can’t even evaluate while we’re under boost, and we can’t let off acceleration with about ten thousand railgun rounds heading our way. One more solid hit and we’ll lose the deflectors and where the hell can I get one of those fancy fucking Imperial tech ships you guys have?”
Kammy snorted a laugh at the man’s chutzpah.
“I’ll put in a good word for you once this is all over,” he promised. “George, I need you to set a course for the outsystem jump-point and get your ass out of here. The Salamania and the Paralos will cover your withdrawal, but you’re going to need to hit emergency high-g burns and keep it up until the enemy cruisers give up the pursuit.”
“You can’t afford to pull both ships away from the planet,” Perez insisted, the stricken look on his face definitely more from Kammy’s decision than the acceleration. “There’re still eight cruisers left…they’ll eat the Shakak alive if you stay. And if you boost outward for sea room, they’ll start putting down shuttles to take out the landing force.”
“Some of them will chase after you,” Kammy said, though the argument sounded weak even in his own ears. “We’ll keep them busy.”
“Got a better idea,” Perez said, something that might have been a smile or possibly a grimace passing across his face. “We’ll take off, draw a couple of the cruisers away, and you guys lay a hurting on the ones who stick around. Worst-case scenario, we evacuate the ship in life-pods and shuttles and you come get us after you win.”
Kammy bit back an instinctive negation, knowing he had more to consider than just one ship, and knowing Perez was right.
“Kammy,” Tara snapped, interrupting his clouded thoughts. “I’m picking up some…”
She didn’t finish the sentence. When Kammy had been a boy, a water moccasin had crawled up out of the rushes and headed for one of his little sisters. She’d been a baby, no more than a year old, playing in the mud as babies did, helpless and vulnerable, and he’d seen the snake far too late. Dobie, one of the family dogs, had been more observant. He’d grabbed the snake in his massive jaws and shook it until it was dead, then tossed it aside contemptuously.
Kammy knew exactly how that snake had felt. Something grabbed the Shakak and shook her until she broke…well, until he broke. Kammy felt the snap in his shoulder when he came up against the seat restraints harder than their designers had ever intended, and the breath went out of him in an agonized moan, the pain so great he couldn’t speak, could barely think.
Then the pain let up, just slightly, as the pressure of his own not-inconsiderable mass disappeared along with the ship’s artificial gravity. Everything was silent for just a moment before someone cried out in pain. He hoped it wasn’t him. The bridge was pitch black for just an instant before emergency batteries kicked in and the lights flickered on again.
“What the fuck?” That was Braham. He heard her voice so often he wouldn’t have mistaken it for anyone else.
“Mines,” Tara snapped. Kammy tried to turn to look at her, but agony screamed through his body at the motion and he gave up on it. “They dropped stealth mines…proximity fused. Nothing else would have worked.”
Shit. No Dominion would have risked it, dropping mines in their own shipping lanes. But these weren’t humans.
“What’s….” He trailed off, his voice barely a whisper and he swallowed and tried again, afraid to cough the congestion away for the pain it would cause. “What’s our status?”
Engineering didn’t answer and he could see Lt. Sharma lolling against her restraints in his peripheral vision.
“Engineering!” Kammy slapped at the intercom control on his seat’s arm rest. “Dammit, is anyone conscious back there?”
“It’s Chief Morton, Captain.” Morton was a solid NCO, but she sounded shaken. “We’re a bit tossed about back here. Riggins has a broken leg, I think, and Hellwig is out cold.”
“I’ll get medics to you as soon as possible,” he told her. “What about the ship?”
“Power surge knocked our field out entirely, Skipper. The field shunted the blast, but just barely. The reactor flushed and we have to do a cold restart. Gonna take a few minutes, and then another few for the drive field to propagate once power’s back up. Hope you ain’t planning on getting anywhere in a hurry before then.”
“Keep me appraised, Chief.” He let his head drift backward, closing his eyes, trying to compartmentalize the pain. “Tara, we got any sensors up?”
“Passive,” she said. She was hurting, he could tell but she wasn’t complaining about it. She would, later, if there was a later. “That last boost took us clear of the missiles and we got a few minutes until the Bravo is back in laser range. Should give us enough time for a reactor restart, but…”
“But we aren’t going to be able to help the Concepcion,” he said, his voice half a moan. He was having trouble getting his eyes to focus and he wondered if it was just the pain or if he had a concussion as well. “Braham,” he said, “you with me?” He couldn’t look aside to see. His field of view was limited to the top half of the front view screen unless someone came over and turned him physically because he wasn’t about to try moving again.
“I’m here, sir,” s
he told him. She didn’t sound too happy about it.
“Get medical up here and tell them I think my shoulder is broken. And get me a line to the Concepcion, if we have enough power for it.”
“Aye, sir.” A hesitation, far too long. The lightspeed delay wasn’t that long. “They’re not responding, sir.”
“They might not be able to,” Tara said. “From the thermal readings, I think they just took a nasty hit from something. They’re venting atmosphere.”
“Shit.”
“Sir!” Braham interjected. “I have the Salaminia on the line.”
“Audio only, Braham.”
“Captain Johansen!” Hadfield sounded flustered and he wondered what the hell else could be wrong. “We have multiple insertions at the insystem jump-point! Six…no, eight…ten sensor signatures. They’re big, sir, cruisers.”
“Whose are they?” he demanded, hope warring with trepidation inside his chest. “Spartan?”
“It was all I could do to get General Anders to let me take these ships out,” Terrin responded, probably nudging Captain Hadfield’s elbow again. “There’s no way the Council would let him send that big of a chunk of the Spartan fleet after us…and they wouldn’t have had time to catch up.”
Kammy swallowed bile and he wasn’t sure if it was the pain, the microgravity or the very unwelcome thought that this might be ten Jeuta cruisers coming to reinforce their colony. In which case, they and every human down on Tarpeia were as good as dead.
“Captain, we have an incoming message from one of the ships that just jumped in,” Braham said, and there was something between confusion and awe in her voice. “And sir, the signature…it’s Starkad.”
Now Kammy moved. He paid for it with a lance of agony through his shoulder and from there all the way through his body, but at least he could see the front view screen now. He took a moment to catch his breath, clenching his teeth against the sickening feeling of bones grinding together.
“On screen, Braham.”
He recognized the woman’s face. He’d never had the chance to talk to her in person, but he’d seen her in intelligence briefings. It was an almost pleasant face, if a bit officious, like one of the customs clerks he’d used to encounter when they were trying to smuggle something past one of the Dominion check stations on the old Shakak.
“Greeting, Captain Johansen,” Colonel Ruth Laurent said, nodding. “I certainly hope I haven’t arrived too late to join in the festivities.”
“I knew Logan had asked you guys for help,” Kammy said, knowing he was gaping at her like a yokel but unable to keep the shock off his face, “but I didn’t think you were going to come.”
“When Starkad makes an agreement, we stick to it,” Laurent said, turning her nose up slightly as if offended, but then smiling thinly to take the edge off of it. “As long as it’s in our long-term advantage, of course.”
30
Distant thunder rolled across the plains in counterpoint to the rhythmic crash of the mech company’s footpads, and lightning forked through the western sky, turning the roiling, red clouds an incandescent white where it touched. Somewhere behind those clouds, the fury of the moon’s core clawed upward, seeking revenge against the foolish mortals who had disturbed it.
That would be us.
Logan had never been this close to an erupting volcano, and hadn’t ever expected to.
“Tell me again why we’re heading back into the city?” Valentine Kurtz asked. “Not that I’m doubting you or anything, boss, but wouldn’t it make more sense to hang out on the road approaches and guard the drop-ship?”
Even trudging through ash-covered volcanic dirt on this Jeuta hell-hole, Logan had to grin at Kurtz’s cautious drawl. Kurtz had been one of the first mech-jocks he and Lyta had recruited for Wholesale Slaughter in that bar in downtown Argos. It was less than three years ago, but it felt like forever, felt like the man had been his good right hand his whole life.
Logan’s grin faded at the thought Kurtz was the last of them left alive. They’d all followed him to their deaths, and Kurtz might yet, as well.
“I didn’t come down here to play defense, Val,” Logan told him, after checking to make sure they were on a private channel. “We keep them in town, keep them busy fighting us there and keep them away from Katy and our ride out of here until things clear up in orbit.”
“And if they don’t clear up?”
It was a good question, and there was only one answer for it.
“Then we do our best to kill every last one of these fuckers and give them nothing to come back to.” The worst part was, with the electrostatic interference thick in the volcanic clouds, they wouldn’t even know the outcome up there until someone bothered to come down and tell them in person.
Kurtz chuckled.
“Well, that’s definitely our kind of plan. But I wish to hell you’d let someone else walk point.”
“We can’t see shit out here. Point is the only place I can have a good idea what we’re facing.”
It was a good excuse, but if he was being honest with himself, it had more to do with the fact he’d brought them here to save Katy, and their lives were his responsibility. He might not be able to keep them all alive, but he was going to be in the lead. He was at the point of the leading wedge, while Kurtz trotted along a hundred meters behind him, occupying the same position for the second wedge. Four platoons, all assault mecha so they could keep up the pace. Kurtz had left the platoon of Arbalest missile launchers and another of strike mecha back with the drop-ships for security, a decision of which Logan heartily approved.
They were coming in around the east end of the town, a cluster of the taller buildings he’d decided must be some sort of housing blocks for the colonists because of the lack of freight doors or heavy equipment parked at them. Most of them seemed to be intact and they looked to be sealed tight, every door and window shut against the noxious gases and ashfall. A warbling siren was echoing between the monolithic buildings and Logan didn’t see any civilians left on the streets, which was an unexpected relief. He shouldn’t feel guilt for what was happening to them, but he did, despite the fact he’d heard from Kosti that each and every one of them were indoctrinated to hate humans with a passion from the time they were old enough to speak.
“What if they went around to the west?” Kurtz asked him.
“Then they’ll come back when we start blowing shit up over here in the east.” Logan switched from their private net to the company communications band. “Close ranks to a staggered column.”
The company had been stretched out on either side of the main road, fifty meters between each mech, but they were heading into the edges of the city, and leaving the mecha in a double-wedge would string out their formation too far. If they had available air cover and if the electromagnetic interference of the eruption wasn’t fouling up communications, he’d have chanced it and split them up into platoons to sweep westward. Instead, they took up alternate sides of the street, staggered in a zig-zag pattern, still maintaining a fifty-meter interval.
Out at the head of the column, it was easy for Logan to imagine he was still alone against a whole colony of Jeuta…except there weren’t any Jeuta. There was nothing, not so much as one of the stray chickens he’d seen earlier, the only movement the intermittent fall of ash and the occasional bird falling from the sky, dead from the noxious gasses of the eruption. They were on a broad avenue, one of the main thoroughfares through the city, stretching out over a kilometer before it faded into the drifting haze.
Something shifted in the haze, just a hint of motion, dark and nebulous. Logan’s eyes narrowed and he checked the mech’s sensors but nothing registered. He didn’t break stride, didn’t slow down, but he keyed the general net, speaking slowly and calmly.
“We got movement up the road about seven hundred meters. Keep advancing, don’t let on you see it. There’s a major intersection a hundred meters ahead. Val, I want you to take the rear platoon and head right. You should be a
ble to split off without them detecting you, as screwed up as radar, lidar and thermal are right now. Keep going right for about two hundred meters, then cut left and try to come in behind them. Clear?”
“Gotcha, boss,” Kurtz acknowledged. “Fourth platoon, you’re with me. Move smooth and quiet.”
As quiet as a forty-ton mech can be, anyway.
Logan kept focused on the area where he’d spotted the movement, but the haze had grown thicker, blown in by a blast of scalding wind. He couldn’t feel it inside his mech, but the exterior temperature sensors told the story. It was close to forty degrees already, and the temperature had been rising steadily since the eruption.
How long till it’s uninhabitable for us? How much longer for them?
They reached the intersection and he kept an eye on the rear screens, watching Kurtz drop away with the four assault mecha of Fourth platoon, curving gracefully from the company march like the teeth of a zipper parting. He tried to figure how far before the street they were following dead-ended in the crossroad leading to the Planning Center, but there was no mapping data on the city in the Vindicator’s computer. Picturing it in his head from his overflight, he guessed another two kilometers at most. That would be where Alvar set up the ambush, he guessed, because it was where he would have put it. It wasn’t perfect, but it offered the most open fields of fire and limited Logan’s avenues of escape.
If they were down there, if Kurtz hadn’t been right about them sneaking around the west side of town and trying to trace them back to the drop-ship.
There. There it was again, just a flash of movement, a mech being repositioned, someone getting nervous and sloppy. It was very human of them. Perhaps the least human thing about the Jeuta, Logan thought, was their ability to hold a grudge. It was the one thing that separated them from any human nation or tribe or people in all the histories he’d read. Even the worst enemies could at least be civil after enough time had passed.
But then, it’s not them that aren’t human, it’s the Purpose. It’s a sentient AI manipulating them after a thousand years, if Kosti wasn’t just full of shit. Now that’s a damned grudge only a machine could hold.