Iron & Blood: Book Two of The Expansion Wars Trilogy

by Joshua Dalzelle

  “Aye, sir,” the coms officer said, fumbling with her headset to send the message.

  “Report!” Celesta Wright demanded as she stormed onto the bridge. Barrett was a little taken aback by her demeanor and it must have showed.

  “Sorry, XO,” she said more calmly. “Too much coffee this morning. What do we have?”

  “Single cruiser-class vessel, transition flash consistent with Ushin make and right on schedule according to the timetable they provided us,” Barrett said while vacating the big chair and logging in to the terminal at his own station.

  “Coms! Please have our VIP escorted to the bridge,” she said before turning back to Barrett. “We don’t know if they’ll try to send any radio communications first before we all meet over that planet.” Barrett just nodded.

  “Permission to come on the bridge, Captain,” an impeccably dressed Ambassador Cole said respectfully from the hatchway not even five minutes later, trailed by his Marine escort. Barrett appreciated the show of respect for his captain from the civilian official. His estimation of the man ticked up a notch from that simple act, although the cynic in him had to admit that as a trained diplomat it could have been a calculated move by Cole to elicit just that sort of reaction from the bridge crew.

  “Granted, Mr. Ambassador,” Celesta said. “We have initial confirmation that the Ushin delegation has arrived on time and alone, or at least that some Ushin cruiser is here with us. Recommendations?”

  Cole froze for a moment, clearly not expecting that last part. “I believe caution is in order, Captain Wright,” he said after a moment. “As you say, we only know that a ship has arrived, not necessarily the ship we’re waiting for. Perhaps it would be prudent to wait and see if they attempt to contact us first before exposing the Icarus. I of course defer to you in all matters regarding this phase of the mission, however.”

  “You and I happen to be in complete agreement this time, Ambassador,” Celesta said and gestured to a seat that was to the left of the command chair and slightly behind the OPS station. Cole nodded and sat down in the seat, looking relaxed and confident.

  “Mr. Accari, please ensure that we’re maintaining strict emission security protocols including visible wavelength light emissions,” Barrett said. “Coms, have CIC begin sending up predictive courses for the ship assuming that they’re pushing towards the planet.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “What are your thoughts, XO?” Celesta asked.

  “Given our current course and speed we’ll likely intersect their flightpath before we’re inside the orbit of the sixth planet,” Barrett said, pointing to the two-dimensional map of the star system that was on the main display. “More specifically, we’ll be crossing where they’ve already been if they fly the nominal approach to the planet given what we know about their ships’ performance.”

  “How does this help us?” Celesta prodded, sounding a tad impatient.

  “The Ushin use plasma thrust main drives,” Barrett continued. “If we increase velocity we can swing around and come in behind them close enough for our passive sensors to pick up their exhaust trail. If we can pick their ship out of the clutter we can begin to actively track them. This is all assuming that we’ve not heard from them beforehand … if they begin broadcasting a greeting then all of this goes out the airlock.”

  Barrett paused as his captain tapped at her chin with a forefinger, staring at the tactical layouts on the main display, her eyes narrowed slightly.

  “While I think it could be construed as mildly aggressive to sneak around and position a destroyer behind their cruiser on a diplomatic mission, I also think they deserve no less,” she said finally. “Ambassador?”

  “As I said, Captain: I am merely an observer at this stage,” Cole said though he looked to be in some distress at the idea of rolling in behind the other ship without announcing their presence.

  “Nav! Calculate the velocity increase needed to execute Commander Barrett’s plan,” Celesta ordered. “I don’t want any drastic changes in acceleration, slow and steady.”

  “Aye aye, ma’am,” the specialist said. “I’ve been running the numbers already while the XO was talking … new acceleration profile going to the helm now.”

  “Execute at your discretion, helmsman,” Celesta sat in her seat and leaned back.

  “Engines ahead one-third, aye.” The helmsman pushed the throttles up. “Increasing relative velocity by twenty-eight percent, no change in course.”

  Barrett was happy that Captain Wright had decided to follow his suggestion, but he was also painfully aware that it was now a matter of record in the ship’s log that he’d been the one to recommend the change to their plan. Any failure would now lead right back to him. What surprised him was that he wasn’t nervous or scared of the consequences, but rather—what was it?—exhilarated? Maybe that was the best way to describe what he was feeling as, for a brief moment, he wasn’t a background player in such an important operation. He started to understand what it was Captain Wolfe had tried to tell him those years ago when he was serving on the Blue Jacket as a tactical officer and had hesitated at a critical moment. Wolfe had told him that command wasn’t for everyone, and there was no shame in that. Now, for the first time in his career, Michael Barrett began to seriously consider that he might have a ship of his own someday soon.

  7

  “What road is this?”

  “It might be Westfall Bypass Twenty-One, or it could be the James Weber Highway,” Emil said uncertainly. “I can’t be sure how far south we’ve come in the dark.” Sergeant Barton tried to contain his irritation with the young civilian as he scanned the area with a thermal sight.

  “You’re not much of a local area expert,” he said flatly.

  “I … don’t get around much,” Emil said, his voice a mixture of embarrassment and defensiveness. “Didn't you guys have current maps of Juwel provided when you land?”

  “Sure do,” Barton said. “They were loaded on the tile that was in my pack when our truck was blown up, but point to you … I should have loaded the local area onto my personal comlink before the patrol left. Can’t send a message since it can’t access the Mil-Net, but it still works as a mini tile.”

  The pair had been on the run since they escaped their vehicle being hit with what appeared to be a short-range mortar strike, but they hadn’t escaped unnoticed. The Darshik soldiers had descended onto the wreck so quickly that Barton knew they’d been surveying the road before his patrol happened down it. They’d been cutting across fields and down small, unmarked roads in the agricultural area but so far had been unable to completely shake the three Darshik troops that had been tracking them.

  He wasn’t willing to let them come within range of Emil’s sniper rifle since the kid wasn’t a trained soldier and they were outnumbered. It would be better to take their chances at escaping than to try and make a stand given that the Darshik likely could call in either reinforcements or a fire mission before they could kill them all. What he found more than a little curious was the effort the enemy was putting into running down two stragglers. So far during the Juwel campaign they’d showed no interest in individual Marines or militia; all their efforts had been focused on controlling major logistical arteries and keeping the populations of major urban centers in their cities.

  “How’s it look?” Emil asked nervously.

  “Looks clear,” Barton said, biting back on the retort that if he needed Emil to know something, he’d tell him. The kid was terrified and, honestly, so was he. He wasn’t NOVA or Marine SpecOps, he was a staff sergeant in 2nd Marine Expeditionary Battalion and being stranded behind enemy lines alone wasn’t something he’d trained for. But he swallowed down his fear and focused on the task at hand: getting back to HQ or finding a way to report in that the enemy was much closer to the rear than anyone had thought. The image of Darshik troops springing up in their hastily built forward operating base and slaughtering his friends and comrades drove him on.

  “There
’s a small homestead about one and half kilometers across that highway,” he went on. “It’s dark and I’m not seeing any thermal signatures, so I doubt anyone is there, but maybe the grid power is still up and there’s a way to send a message over your local com system.”

  Despite the best efforts of the old Terran Confederation there were no set standards for civilian com protocols, at least none that were adhered to. The frequency, modulation, and basic infrastructure usually varied significantly from planet to planet. Barton had a comlink that worked great when on a CENTCOM facility or a planet with a heavy Fleet presence, but on a planet like Juwel all it did was show the spinning antenna icon telling him that it couldn’t acquire a signal. He knew from his intel briefs that the planet still utilized a lot of ground-based coms with extensive fiber optic networks even all the way out to isolated farms like the one he was staring at through his scope.

  “Does it have its own water tower?” Emil asked suddenly.

  “What the hell is a water tower?” Barton asked.

  “It’s a water tank up on pylons,” Emil said. “Should be about twice the height of the barn.”

  “Why—never mind. Stand by,” Barton said as he flicked the zoom switch on his underpowered optics. He scanned around a bit and saw something that was unmistakably what his young charge was talking about: a giant water tank up in the air for some reason. The sergeant was a city boy from Columbiana so he had to assume the bizarre apparatus had something to do with rural agriculture.

  “I’ve got eyes on your tower,” he said. “Why is this important?”

  “I know what farm that is,” Emil said. “It’s a commune actually. Anyway … that’s James Weber Highway in front of us.”

  “Well done,” Barton nodded appreciatively. “Should we bother trying to see if there’s anything there we can use?”

  “They’ll have food and water,” Emil said quietly. “But I’m not sure about anything else. They’re a strange bunch, keep mostly to themselves.”

  “Okay, let’s move,” Barton said with one more look around through the thermal sight. “I’m not picking up any movement and we haven’t seen those Darshik trackers for a bit. It’s going to be dawn soon so we need to get our asses in gear.”

  They moved quickly from their place of concealment and jogged up to the paved, six-lane highway. There was something eerie about walking across the major roadway in the dead silence with no vehicles to be heard or seen like some sort of post-apocalyptic hell. Once they’d crossed the highway Barton gave up any pretense of stealth and broke into a light jog, anxious to get to the farm and check it for com equipment and find a place to sit for a moment and collect his thoughts.

  The “farm” ended up being a sort of compound that was fenced off and secured with a heavy gate that swung freely on its hinges, evidence the previous occupants had left in a hurry. What had Emil called it? A commune, that was it … although from some of the strange sculptures he was seeing in the gravel common area it was more likely a religious cult. Hopefully they weren’t the type that didn’t believe in communication with the outside world.

  As Barton was walking across the open area, his boots softly crunching the gravel, he heard a metallic click and froze. He scanned the area and cursed the loss of his night vision optics for the tenth time since the attack on his patrol. The small thermal monocular was decent but of little use for wide field of view situations. The noise had been distinctive and very familiar so he went out on a limb and assumed it wasn’t part of an elaborate Darshik ambush.

  “We’re human,” he called out softly. “Hold your fire … we’re with the Marine force trying to repel—”

  “Sergeant Barton?” a voice called out.

  “Yeah, it’s me, Castillo,” Barton said as the tension drained from his body. Being in someone’s sights was always unpleasant and his hands shook slightly from the sudden adrenaline dump. A murky silhouette separated itself from one of the smaller buildings and started towards him, soon resolving into the smiling form of Corporal Alejandro Castillo, his ST-22 carbine slung over his shoulder.

  “It’s good to see you, Sarge,” he said quietly. “Damn good.”

  “You too, Corporal,” Barton whispered as he continued to look around. “Did you get a chance to recon this place?”

  “Not much here,” Castillo said as Emil walked up to the pair. The kid had taken it upon himself to walk around the backs of the buildings on the west side of the compound to clear them. The initiative had impressed Barton so he hadn’t bothered to stop him from putting himself into unnecessary danger. This was Emil’s planet and he had every right to take up arms and defend it, not just follow the Marines around like a lost puppy.

  “Whoever lived here stripped the place bare when they evac’d,” Castillo continued. “Found some dried rations and some clothes but nothing useful. I’ve only had time to check these two buildings, though.” Barton followed Castillo’s pointed finger to the two larger buildings near the back of the lot.

  “What do you think, Emil?” he asked. “Is it worth searching the whole place?”

  “If Corporal Castillo didn’t find anything in either of the main dorms then I doubt we’ll have much luck in the other buildings,” Emil said. “I didn’t have much interaction with these people but any communication equipment they might have would have been in there. The other buildings are storage and a couple storefronts to sell the crap they made in that barn over there. If they ran I would almost guarantee that they took any mobile com with them.”

  “Fuck,” Barton swore softly, beginning to get antsy the longer they stood still. The Darshik troops were likely still trying to track them and had proved to be disturbingly good at it. “What are the chances they have a vehicle?”

  “I’d imagine they took them when they left,” Castillo said.

  “Doesn’t hurt to check.” Emil shrugged, turned and walked towards the barn he’d indicated before. The two Marines followed closely behind him, each covering a hemisphere with their rifles. Barton wanted to get moving, quickly, and try to warn HQ that the Darshik were operating well behind the lines and to be ready. The fact they couldn’t get in touch with them somehow showed a glaring oversight in their kit, antiquated as it was. If not given full com ability then each member of a patrol should at least have an emergency beacon or something that would alert Command that all was not well with their forward units.

  They found one of the smaller doors unlocked after unsuccessfully pulling on the larger, main door and slipped inside. It was near pitch black so Barton pulled his small tactical light and flicked on the switch.

  “Damnit!” Castillo yelled. “Give me a warning next time, you almost fried my retinas!”

  “I take it you still have your night vision optics?” Barton asked as he flicked the light off.

  “Yeah, for all the fucking good they’re doing me now,” Castillo snapped. “All I see is purple spots.”

  “Sorry,” Barton said. “Light coming back on.” He played the beam over the unfamiliar equipment and work benches in the barn, pausing on sets of heavy tread marks in the dirt that indicated at least two large vehicles had rolled out of the building recently.

  “Sergeant, over here,” Emil’s voice drifted over. When the two Marines reached him, he gestured to a pair of four-wheeled recreational off-road vehicles that were covered in what looked to be years of dust and grime.

  “They’re older than dirt, but this one still has half a charge and I think I can get that back-up generator over there running”—he pointed with his left hand to what looked like just another pile of junk—“and get the other one charged.”

  “How fast are these?” Castillo asked.

  “Maybe seventy KPH over flat ground or a road.” Emil shrugged. “Probably less since one will be carrying two people. That and they’re not really that stable when running wide open. But a single charge for the batteries, assuming they’re not degraded, will easily get us back to your HQ.”

  “How soon b
efore you can determine if these are salvageable or not?” Barton asked.

  “In twenty minutes I’ll know if I can get the generator going,” Emil said. “Say another ten after that before we know if these can take a charge.”

  “Get to it,” Barton said. “If we can get these running it’ll be worth the delay. Corporal Castillo and I will be outside standing watch; just give a quiet call if you need any help.”

  Emil nodded and peeled off his jacket, diving into the mess around the back-up generator that looked like it hadn’t been touched in quite some time.

  “We have them, Captain!”

  “Calm yourself, Mr. Accari,” Celesta said. “What do you have?”

  “CIC confirms light anomaly off our port bow is indeed an Ushin cruiser-class ship,” Accari said, looking chagrined at his outburst. “We’re quartering into them at a range of approximately sixty-two million kilometers, twelve degrees of declination.”

  “Thank you, OPS,” Celesta said. “Tactical! Begin tracking of confirmed Ushin bogey, maintain passive sensor posture but begin building a firing solution for the Shrikes so we’re not caught flat-footed.”

  “Aye, ma’am,” Adler said crisply.

  The bridge was quiet as her crew went about their tasks and she was left to think about how she wanted to handle things now that they’d made contact. The Ushin, in her mind, were no different than the Darshik: an enemy of humanity, at least in deed if not declaration. But, she’d been sent as a diplomatic envoy so what was the protocol when approaching a ship belonging to a species that had tried to lead most of their fleet into an ambush?

  She quickly put all considerations of the political ramifications of any course of action she might choose out of her mind. While her mission was to deliver the ambassador to the meeting point safely, her primary responsibility was still the safety of her ship and crew. There was nothing she’d been told so far from CENTCOM that made her any more inclined to trust the Ushin than she had when they’d led them into a Darshik trap.