by Blaze Ward
Outside, the gunfire had given way to that same calm that had surrounded them five minutes ago.
On a desk, the comm chirped.
Moirrey walked over and checked the name. Security Force.
“Hiya,” she said as she keyed it live.
“Is everyone safe at your location, Centurion?” the woman asked with the kind of seriousness that was usually anathema to her day. “And how many people at your location?”
“We’re good,” she said. “Me, Digger, and Saana.”
“Very good, Centurion. Thank you. Please shelter in place for the next thirty minutes unless you need to come to the command post?”
“Nope. We’ll hang out here. Might order pizzas later.”
The line went dead without another word. Security had no sense of humor.
She missed having Jackson Tawfeek around to kid.
“Digger,” Moirrey turned back to the man and considered dragging him back under the desk. “What just happened?”
“I think, Moirrey,” he replied wryly. “Maybe we finally found the Imperials. Or rather, they found us.”
Chapter XXXVI
Date of the Republic July 1, 396 Ramsey Starport, Thuringwell
He was finally getting used to moving around like this, but nobody had told Vo how weird it would be.
Warships were deliberate things. You worked with care and planning, so that when the bad guys showed up, everyone calmly raced to their station and did exactly what they were supposed to do.
Nothing was done on the spur of the moment unless the bad guys dropped out of JumpSpace on top of you. And even then, there was a plan.
There was always a plan. Especially with Keller in charge.
Still, he was getting to be a pretty good rider. Not as good as the long–service veteran line troopers of Fourth Saxon, to say nothing of the lunatic Cossacks of Scout Patrol that he had spent the last several months with, but not bad.
Vo smiled. Even Shevi had come around. At least as far as the horse was going to.
They all clomped quickly down the ramp of Cayenne. Not quite a running–start dead gallop, but the sort of canter where the next trumpet call would normally be to draw sabers and charge.
Scout Patrol, First Cohort was the Legate’s fire team. When something went wrong, he sent Dash first. And these days that meant Vo was usually at the sharp end of things with them.
And at least they were at the new starport, even if it wasn’t quite done yet. Out in the middle of nowhere, instead of at the edge of Yonin. Cayenne sat in one quadrant, vomiting forth an avalanche of horses and troopers. Across the way, the DropShip Tamarin, one of LVIII Heavy’s regular taxis, squatted like a malevolent gray toad. After all, nobody but Gaucho would paint a DropShip bright red.
Overhead, the GunShip Necromancer hung low in the sky, all weapons unlocked and every jammer handy cranked up to stupid. Nobody was shooting now, but Vo had no doubt what kind of response someone would draw right now if they did. There were also a half–dozen fighters from the fleet overhead orbiting at a fairly high altitude, as well. Visible, but out of immediate reach of missiles.
Hawks prepared to drop on uppity mice. If Necromancer left them any scraps.
Vo smiled as they closed on the command tower. It had been just under three hours, and not a peep from whoever had fired on the base.
They were still going to get an entire augmented patrol coming after them.
Ξ
“And that’s about all we know, until you actually find them,” the man said.
Vo nodded. He had worked some with Senior Centurion Anton Wolanski of the Construction Ala, universally referred to as Digger, but the man was mostly coordinating fleet things through Moirrey. She was here as well, in the big conference room with mud tracked in on green plastic floors, along with about a half a dozen other folks from Digger’s team.
Vo was seated directly across from Digger. Somehow he had ended up between Dash and Cohort Centurion Kim of LVIII Heavy.
It wasn’t much to go on. Short range sensors had picked up three incoming mortar rounds in the air. Troops on the security perimeter had opened fire in return, but everyone had stayed inside the wire, waiting for reinforcements to get here from Yonin, aware that it might be a trap designed to draw them out of their safe place and into an ambush.
That was what Scout Patrol was for. And LVIII Heavy.
And who was supposed to be in charge for something like this was a little weird. Patrol Centurion Dash Mitja commanded, but could always be out–ranked by Vo in his job as Ground Coordinator for the Fleet Centurion, or Cohort Centurion Kim. They rarely did, but Dash looked over at him now all the same.
They had developed something of an unconscious language by now. Dash reminded him too much of his baby sister Sonja, the wild one. And it worked if they handled things that way.
Kim left him a little more disturbed. There were looks, and occasional comments, that could be interpreted in ways that left Vo a little off–center. If he wanted to think about them. Vo was happier just pretending to not notice.
He wasn’t sure how much longer that was going to protect him.
Kim was short and thick. Still curvy. Maybe if you took a regular–sized women, not a lanky pencil like Dash, and squished her down until she came up to the middle of his chest. Kim was abrasive and direct to most people, from all the stories he had heard, but she had always been friendly and a bit circumspect with him.
Almost flirtatious.
It made him nervous.
Vo wasn’t the least bit ready for a girlfriend. Not after Quinta.
He nodded at Dash and glanced over at the Cohort Centurion. Those were not the eyes of an angry armor commander looking for Imperial troops to run down with her tank.
She even smiled up at him.
Vo cleared his throat and turned back to Dash. Safer. Much safer.
“You brought your own lance, plus a Support Lance, Kim?” Dash asked.
Her words weren’t a direct challenge. Her tone might be.
Vo wondered if he had inherited another protective, baby sister.
“Keller wants them found, which is your job, Mitja,” Kim fired back. “She wants them crushed, which I do. These men are far too prepared to just be a group of drinking buddies on a camping weekend. They’re going to think they’re a tough nut. I brought a bigger hammer.”
Vo felt like he was on a beach, watching the waves roll in and out as his head rotated back and forth.
“And the Air Defense tank?” Dash asked. She was getting close to a sneer.
Kim just smiled serenely. If sharks were ever serene.
“Next time he tries that stunt, we’ll shoot the rounds out of the air.”
Vo leaned forward, just enough to put his elbows on the table. And, coincidently, break the rope of mad energy connecting the two women.
Dash backed off. A little. Enough. At least she took a breath.
“We have three options,” the Patrol Centurion said after a moment, leaning back and turning to talk to Digger, Moirrey, and all the others who had maintained a low profile during the exchange.
“First,” she continued. “They set everything up on a timer and ran like hell. Second, they fired and then started running. Third, we’re dealing with dead–enders who thought you would rush out and engage them. They’re looking to run like hell now.”
“Are they?” Kim challenged. It wasn’t blades at dawn, but Kim wasn’t going to just let it go.
“Would you stay, after Digger called in the cavalry?” Dash fired back. “Or would you reconsider and try to get out before you got crushed like a bug underneath tank treads?”
Kim actually smiled at that. Dash smiled back at her.
That almost made it worse.
Vo wondered if they were going to suddenly draw belt knives and swear a sisterhood blood–oath, or something.
It had that mad feel to it.
Somebody out in the brush was about to have a very bad day.
> Ξ
Vo had watched as Dash sent Second and Third Squadrons out to explore the flanks. The local security teams had managed to triangulate the launch point to within about forty meters, but it was on the back of a hill from the camp that was about to turn into a starport.
Dash had a solution that was both perfectly reasonable and completely insane. One of her heavy weapon teams, the ballistae, had lofted a simple diamond–shaped kite up into the wind and was looking through a camera mounted on it. Cheap, effective, safe.
They could see the clearing. There was even early–afternoon sun glinting off what looked like the tube of the weapon itself. Past that, Vo was completely lost as to what he was looking at, but Dash and her team seemed pleased.
He had left Shevi tethered with the rest of the mounts and wandered over to where the seven tanks sat hunkered down in a laager, bows and barrels pointed outwards like snouts sniffing the wind.
“Want to ride with LVIII Heavy for a while, Arlo?” Cohort Centurion Kim stepped around from out of sight behind the Air Defense tank known as Bloodhound. It had the same low profile and block appearance as the rest, but instead of the single 66mm particle cannon, it had a pair of over–sized autocannons barrels on the sides of a blocky turret, one on each side of an oversized sensor bulb of a nose.
It even looked like it could shoot down an incoming round.
It wouldn’t do much against a DropShip or a GunShip, even if their shields weren’t all that great this deep in an atmosphere, but those kinds of ships had been built to take a tremendous amount of abuse anyway and keep flying. The Fleet Centurion had proved that when Petron got singed over Yonin.
“Next patrol sweep, maybe,” he replied, only a little evasively. “Got a horse that needs taking care of. Wouldn’t do to leave him here with folks that don’t know how to curry him right.”
She smiled up at him, like he had said a particularly funny joke.
“So what can I help you with?” she asked lightly, almost warmly.
Seriously, was this woman flirting with him?
The way she stood was completely at odds with every story he had heard about this hard–charging, pain–in–the–ass, tank jockey.
Vo decided to stay as safe and professional as he could.
That he could do.
“So the Construction Ala has armored scout cars on repulsors, and they seem to work just fine,” he said, carefully, evasively. “Why do tanks have treads? I would think you could be much faster and more maneuverable that way.”
Kim laughed. It was a hard laugh.
She reached back and tapped on the side of Bloodhound with a clenched fist, like knocking on the front door. It still sounded like she was tapping on stone.
“Because those things are egg shells, Arlo,” she said merrily. “Fragile little birds in the afternoon breeze. The big gun on Freefall can kill one of those from as far away as I can track it.”
“Seriously?” he blurted in surprise.
“Calm weather, cold air, low humidity, Vo, I can tag you at forty kilometers away. Hard enough to stomp on one of those little scouts like a bug.”
Her face had transformed.
Get an expert on a topic they love and you can see what someone is really like. Kim was very obviously a tanker. Her face even turned from average into something attractive as she forgot to scowl.
“Tanks need a lot of armor to resist something like the 66mm particle cannon,” she continued. “That’s weight. The kind of repulsors you need to lift that amount of mass becomes counter–productive. Plus, every centimeter higher you get is another hundred meters away someone can see you. Tanks stay low, down in the mud where the ground itself hides you.”
She leaned back against the armoured hide of the Air Defense tank now, as if she could draw sustenance from the metal itself. Vo wasn’t entirely sure she didn’t.
“Fourth Saxon’s fine for finding the bad guy,” she said. “But he’s going to be too well dug in for them to dislodge. And you just know Haussmann’s prepared for orbital strikes.”
“Why?” Vo countered.
“I have money down with one of my crew that Dash will find a three–shot automated mortar with a timer when they get over there,” Kim said confidently. “Line it up, account for wind, temperature, and humidity forecast right after breakfast the next morning, then disappear into the trees. Her job will be to find his trail. Then I get to play.”
Her face was almost flushed as she spoke, even if her eyes weren’t really focused on him.
Then she came back to herself and smiled warmly up at him.
That left Vo even more confused, but it wasn’t like he had ever figured out how women worked, especially not after what happened on Quinta.
When had women started finding him attractive?
And what could he do about it?
Chapter XXXVII
Imperial Founding: 174/06/18. Thuringwell Wilderness
All in all, Dieter found himself pleased. The Aquitaine response had been textbook in many ways, and off–kilter in others.
The mark of a truly professional military force.
Dieter even smiled.
He knew he wasn’t going to get to duel with Keller herself. That woman was an Admiral of the Fleet. She would stay in high orbit, well beyond the reach of anything he had access to on the ground.
No, instead, he would have to contend himself with her minions, and use them as an allegory for the woman herself.
Deep in his heart, he knew that no woman could be his match. However, she was obviously very good, to be given this level of power by Aquitaine.
But they were run by women.
What did they know about the true order of things?
He rewound the image on his screen and watched it again in fast motion, safe in his little hideout three valleys away.
It had taken some time to arrange things properly. Secretly tracking the new railroad being built. A whole series of laser links to a set of cameras covering large swaths of the valley where Aquitaine was building a new starport that nobody else knew about.
Dieter had briefly wondered if this would become a new military base as well, until he realized that this particular valley was centrally located to five of the major mines producing the ores that were Thuringwell’s economy.
She wouldn’t dare…
But she had. Just as she dared other impossible things.
Dieter was torn between giving his life to stop this woman, and abandoning his post in order to escape with the knowledge and insight that his Imperial masters might discount if he sent an underling. He might have the future of the very Fribourg Empire at his fingertips, if those people wouldn’t ignore his warnings until it was too late.
Again.
Slowly, he breathed in and out and pressed play on the time–lapse video.
Two titanic Republic DropShips, one of them bright red, slipped over a nearby ridge at high speed, followed closely by a GunShip. Half a squadron of fighter craft well overhead, circling.
No familiarization run to downwind the port, just race in hard, barely over the wire, and slam the brakes on, drop to the ground, and drop the launch ramp. Tanks from the gray ship. Cavalry from the red one.
CAVALRY? Was there no limit to this woman’s audacity? Who fought wars in an interstellar age from horseback?
And yet, it worked.
The horses had proven themselves faster than infantry and far more agile and devious than mechanized scouts or air cav.
More time lapse.
Most of the horses pouring out of the various gates, spreading out and seeking his troops, the first moves on the gigantic chessboard called Thuringwell. Those forces went to the corners and pressed in, bishops on the flanks.
Dieter made a mental note to locate a cache of spider–mines from his stockpiles and issue them to his pioneer troops. Men on horseback would not be as cognizant of mines with tripwires in the heavy brush, compared to simple infantry.
While spider–m
ines were designed to discourage pursuit in heavy terrain, they would also make a lovely surprise to terrorize and kill horses.
Dieter came to the end of the footage and powered the device down.
He came back to the present and stretched his back, seated too long in his chair, hunched over inside his little cave bolthole. It was dark, dank, and smelled of earth and death in here. It was crowded, even when he was alone, with a small desk, trunk, and a gray, fold–up cot.
But it protected him.
There were many ways to locate men in heavy terrain. Powerpacks could be detected on the right frequency. Sound itself could be used, if enough men were moving. From overhead, a passing listener could map things on the ground for experts to identify.
But even a few decimeters of soil and rock covering a sheet of plywood was proof against nearly anything. There were no square shapes to give him away. His equipment was fully shielded against leakage. He had no thermal signature, even as the earth above him kept him warm on cold nights.
If the stakes weren’t so damnably high, this might be a game worth playing for years, just to see who could escalate the arms race of their skill to the highest levels fastest.
He had dreamed of having a worthy opponent. Fate had finally rewarded him with one.
First he would beat her. And then he would humiliate her.
Win.
Dieter smiled and stood.
The patrols coming from the Aquitaine base would go the wrong way. Misdirection had been built into their original approach, taking an extra three days to circle around, and giving his pioneer teams time to establish the lasers that let him watch his foe work.
He could watch them now as they blundered into the woods. Track them as they moved and learn how they fought. Lure them into ambush after ambush and grind them down.
Win.
Chapter XXXVIII
Imperial Founding: 174/05/27. Yonin, Thuringwell
Merryn looked around the restaurant, conscious of being out of place in the amount of money, the absolute piles of it, that the rest of the people here embodied.
She was running late, and had messaged Ulaffson, but still she had expected to find him waiting for her in the bar. Instead, he was already seated at a cozy table in the corner, dabbling at an antipasti plate and sipping from a glass of something burgundy.