Iron & Blood: Book Two of The Expansion Wars Trilogy

by Joshua Dalzelle

  “Command suspects the same thing,” the LT confirmed. “That’s what we’re out here trying to confirm. So far none of our patrols have been able to account for even a tenth of the enemy’s suspected strength while we remain bottled up near Westfall. So … where the fuck did they all go? We know they didn’t leave the planet so there has to be something we’re missing.”

  “Has Command sent scouts to check the Transcontinental Link?” Barton asked. “My local expert says that it’s a major artery that’s a direct shot to the capital.”

  “You can come with me when I make my report to the major. You know the drill, Sergeant … we’re told just enough to be a danger to ourselves,” the LT said before raising his voice. “Let’s get our asses in gear! I want to be Oscar Mike in two minutes! That means two, not two and half! Move it!”

  The three survivors of 2nd Platoon’s ill-fated patrol were given field rations and a seat in the back of the military transport. They tore through the food like men who hadn’t eaten in days, which was very close to the case, and were all soon asleep, rocking gently in the seats as the vehicle bounced down the access road towards the base.

  9

  “Stand by,” Ensign Dole said tensely. “Transition in less than sixty seconds.”

  “All crew in your restraints … now!” Jackson barked over the shipwide channel. The sounds of buckles being snapped could be heard over the soft chimes of terminals and the hiss of the environmental vents. He forewent chewing his OPS officer out for the lack of a timely warning and instead chastised himself for not having the damn countdown to such a delicate maneuver in huge numbers on the main display.

  “Three … two … one … trans—” the rest of Dole’s words were cut off as everyone was slammed into their restraints. Alarms began blaring and Jackson could barely make out the roar of the main engines in full reverse as his breath was forced out of his body and his vision tunneled down to a speck.

  Incredibly, the sound and force on his chest increased over the next few seconds and loud, sharp bangs could be heard and felt through the deck plates. After what felt like an eternity the pressure was abruptly gone as the artificial gravity system was able to reassert its dominion over inertia and nullify the crushing deceleration.

  “Report!” Jackson rasped.

  “Trying to get a position fix now, sir!” Dole said, his eyes bright red from the blood vessels that had burst during the violent maneuver. “Immediate area is clear, damage reports coming in but nothing significant and no casualties.”

  “Tactical, are the passive sensors up?” Jackson asked, still breathing hard and shaking from the beating he’d taken.

  “Passives are up and recording, Captain,” Commander Simmons reported from the tactical station where he’d been serving during combat operations. “The computer is still classifying everything but we have nothing close enough to be of concern. Shall I bring our weapons online?”

  “Go ahead,” Jackson said, countermanding his earlier order to keep the ship completely dark. “If we’re where we’re supposed to be I doubt the transition flash went unnoticed.”

  “Position confirmed, sir,” Dole said. “We missed by eighty-two thousand kilometers, but we’re well within the orbit of the fourth planet of the Juwel System. The planet itself is fifty-one-point-eight million kilometers ahead of us; sending course and bearing to the helm now.”

  “Excellent work everyone!” Jackson said loudly, startling a few of the bridge crew. “Helm, engage on your new course, all ahead full.”

  “All engines ahead full, aye,” the helmsman said. The Star groaned and shuddered a bit as the thrust suddenly changed directions and began accelerating her along their current flightpath.

  “Coms! Inform Flight OPS to begin launch prep,” Jackson said. “We’ll be coming in hot. OPS, any transmissions from the surface?”

  “Sensors are picking up sporadic low-power transmissions, sir,” Simmons answered instead. “No coms directed towards orbit that the computer can pick out and no beacons from the Marine expeditionary force that was deployed.”

  “We’ll be operating under the assumption that they’re not actively broadcasting Link or beacons to remain elusive to the Darshik forces that are undoubtedly down there,” Jackson said. “We’ll broadcast a challenge once we’re within five hours of launching our drop shuttles.”

  “Why so far out, sir?” Dole asked.

  “Because the ground commander may have a specific place where our shuttles need to go or, more importantly, where they absolutely should not go,” Jackson said. “The cushion will give us time to make any course and speed adjustments necessary for Commander Chambliss to safely get the shuttles out of the launch bays and on their way.”

  “Commander Chambliss says the shuttles all checked out fine but the launch system is kicking out faults after our decel maneuver, Captain,” Lieutenant Epsen reported from the com station. “Lieutenant Commander Sharpe is sending crews now to investigate.”

  “What are the nature of the faults?” Jackson asked.

  “Launch bay door controller won’t respond and twelve of the cradle actuators are reporting malfunctions,” Epsen said. “Commander Chambliss said that he’ll inform us ASAP if these are true faults or if the affected systems can be reset, sir.”

  “Lieutenant, I want you to actively stay on top of that and keep me apprised,” Jackson said. “OPS and Tactical will be too busy and I don’t expect we’ll have much outside com traffic to deal with in the near-future.”

  “Aye, sir,” Epsen said. “Tying into the maintenance net now.”

  Jackson appreciated that the young officer just did as he was asked without balking, unlike Ensign Dole whose favorite sayings were all just slightly different variations of, “But that’s not really my job.” The truth was that the Aludra Star was short of seasoned officers and he was leaning heavily on his veterans. His XO was serving as the tactical officer during critical operations since the lieutenant assigned to the ship, while enthusiastic, had so little experience at the station that Jackson had no choice but to bench him. He made a mental note to put an entry into the lieutenant’s service jacket explicitly explaining that the replacement had not been due to lack of performance or any mistakes made. It’d be a shame to stunt the young man’s career advancement due to the idiots at CENTCOM putting someone so green on a combat ship as the primary tactical operator.

  “Enemy contacts,” Simmons said calmly. “Sensors are picking up three distinct active sensor transmissions, all categorized as being from a Darshik cruiser, same class of ship that attacked the DeLonges System. Range puts them in the area of the DeLonges and Columbiana jump points.”

  “Begin active tracks,” Jackson said. “That’ll be layer one of their blockade. There should be at least two more ships as floaters further down in the system and I would expect at least one cruiser in orbit around Juwel itself to provide support for the ground forces and as a contingency in case any Terran ship was crazy enough to jump in so close to the primary star.”

  “Like us, sir?” Simmons said, his mouth turning up slightly at the corner in a lopsided smile.

  “We’re not crazy, Commander,” Jackson corrected him. “We’re just damned good.”

  “Yes, sir!” Simmons agreed enthusiastically. Jackson wasn’t lying, exactly, but the part of the equation he’d left out of his motivational platitude was that they’d been at least twice as lucky as “damned good.” There was no way to plan for the fact that there hadn’t been any enemy ships in the area to take advantage of the momentary disorientation after a transition.

  He knew there was no way the Darshik were going to give him unfettered access to the planet. They either had a ship or two down there already or their faster cruisers would break off and harass them the entire way, making it much more difficult to perform their decel and orbital insertion to safely launch the drop shuttles. Even though he would never tell the crew, getting safely into the system wasn’t likely to be their biggest challenge
and he still put the odds of successfully deploying the shuttles to the surface at fifty-fifty. He didn’t calculate the odds of the Star making it out of the system alive quite so favorably.

  “OPS, go ahead and retract the warp emitters and close the hatches,” Jackson said after another few seconds of watching the main threat board populate. “Let’s clean her up and be ready for anything that may pop out around the sunward side of the planet.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The Darshik and humanity, although employing different methodology, seemed to be operating on the same relative plane of technological advancement. This meant that a lot of their tactics were necessarily similar since their ships had many of the same limitations. The Darshik could accurately execute short intrasystem warp hops, but they seemed to have no answer for Terran missiles or kinetic weapons that could hit them beyond the range of their plasma lance. Their ships had comparable speed and maneuverability but seemed to lag in sensor capability based on the more basic radar signals they’d received.

  Unlike when he fought the Phage, having an enemy with similar technological limitations allowed Jackson to devise tactics with a higher degree of confidence. For example: He was certain there was at least one ship hiding behind Juwel. Any ship approaching the contested planet would likely come in from the outer system and no matter which side they came in at they would have to maneuver around and come down the well towards the primary star. The interference from the star made it easy for a ship to stay quiet and hidden on the far side of a planet, allowing one or two ships to cover their ground forces and give a nasty surprise to anyone that made it past the picket ships hanging out in the outer system.

  “Hmm,” Jackson mumbled, tapping his chin with his forefinger as he thought about it. The Star didn’t have a lot of weapons to spare just to satisfy one of his whims, but the more he thought about it the more confident he became that he was right about his hunch.

  “Captain?” Commander Simmons asked.

  “XO, prep two Shrikes for launch,” Jackson said. “I want them to spit out of the tubes on the launch booster only, don’t fire the first stage yet. Keep the remote link open to both and keep sending them real-time targeting updates; I will give you the target package momentarily.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Simmons said without hesitation. “Two Shrikes ready to fire from tubes two and three. Standing by for initial targeting data.”

  “He’s completely confused but he isn’t holding things up with needless questions,” Jackson thought appreciatively as he worked through the rest of his strategy.

  “Helm, zero thrust,” he ordered. “Tactical, launch both Shrikes with unassociated targeting … have them hold course towards the horizon of Juwel, no active sensors from either weapon.”

  “Left or right horizon, sir?” Simmons asked.

  “Right relative to our position,” Jackson said after a moment of thought.

  “Shrike targeting updated … launching,” Simmons said. “Both missiles have cleared the tubes, tubes two and three reloading.”

  “Helm, all reverse one-quarter,” Jackson ordered. “Just begin gently braking her and bear … half a degree to starboard off current course.”

  “All engines reverse one-quarter, aye!” the helmsman said. “Coming to starboard zero point five degrees.”

  “If I may, Captain, why have we set two of our missiles adrift into the flight path our drop shuttles will be taking?” Simmons asked. Jackson, having had a career defined by open disrespect and second-guessing by subordinates, swallowed down his indignation and biting retort as he saw that Simmons was earnestly asking.

  “When we begin our deceleration maneuver prior to launch we’ll be vulnerable,” Jackson said. “The Star doesn’t have the power to push away from the planet once she’s so close, so once we begin to brake we’re committed. The Shrikes are just a bit of insurance while we’re oriented for drop shuttle deployment and unable to defend ourselves.”

  “Yes, sir,” Simmons nodded. The commander turned back to his station and began reconfiguring one of the terminals to provide updates to the missiles that were quickly leaving the Star behind as she gently braked on approach.

  “Commander, let’s figure out how to split the bridge watch up,” Jackson said once his XO had finished. “We’re still nearly thirty hours from orbital insertion but deep enough in enemy-controlled space I want a qualified watch up here the entire time. I want the crew fresh and bright-eyed so let’s do split twelves on the bridge and Flight OPS, regular twelve hour watches for the backshops.”

  “I actually anticipated this, sir.” Simmons reached over and pulled a tile out of the bag he always carried up onto the bridge during his watch. He thumbed through the device until he found the document he wanted and handed the tile to Jackson. “This schedule meets your requirement, but I can make changes to it if you’d like.”

  “You’re well on top of things, Mr. Simmons,” Jackson said with a nod of approval after reading through the list of names attached to the modified watch schedule. “You are clear to inform all affected crew of the changes. As per your schedule, you have the bridge, Commander.” He handed the tile back to Simmons and grabbed his coffee mug from the holder near his seat.

  “I have the bridge, aye,” Simmons said, walking over to the coms officer with the tile so that she could begin calling up needed crewmembers.

  Sergeant Barton stood at ease in front of the field desk, watching Major Baer as he rubbed at his scalp and groaned in frustration. Barton had been whisked into the command shelter and been asked to give a full report on what he’d seen since his patrol had been ambushed and his suspicion that they were being pinned down by a minimal Darshik presence while their main force bypassed them for the capital.

  “Take a seat, Sergeant,” Baer said finally. “You look like you’ve been through hell.”

  “Just tired, sir,” Barton said. “I’m ready to get back at it though.”

  Baer smiled indulgently. “What I’m about to tell you isn’t for general dissemination, clear?”

  “Clear, sir.”

  “Intel has come up with much the same theory you have about why the Darshik haven’t just tried to use their superior numbers and overrun us,” Baer said after Barton had settled into his seat. “Colonel Rucker has sent out motorized patrols, including some light aircraft we scavenged from local farms, and checked out this cross-country highway your local expert mentioned.

  “At first we didn’t see anything. A smattering of squad- or platoon-size units here and there on the main road, but nothing of the sort or size that would indicate a larger movement. So we went further south, far past where we thought they would have time to advance, and found the trailing elements of their main body. They’ve already bypassed us, Sergeant. We’re still observing them, but as of last report they’re redeploying their forces to try and take one of the main entries into the city.”

  “Do we have any way to stop them, sir?” Barton asked, knowing the numbers weren’t on their side.

  “We can move out of here and begin harassing their rear guard, but we don’t have enough Marines to dig them out completely. Not to mention we don’t have the vehicles to get them there in time anyway,” Baer shook his head. “The colonel hasn’t decided what to do yet, but he’s sent word to the Marines and the civilian defense force in Neuberlin and told them to be ready.

  “The only reason I’m telling you this, Sergeant Barton, is that I’d prefer it if you didn’t spread this around base until we have some sort of answer. Being deployed without any vehicles or support equipment was bad enough, but to have another ground force that also deployed without any heavy equipment completely out-maneuver us is embarrassing.”

  “I won’t go spreading rumors, sir,” Barton said slowly, “but there is something else that I think might be important to keep in mind.”

  “What’s that?”

  “If this position has been circumvented, and the Darshik forces are no longer engaged closely, we mig
ht not have that much longer to live,” Barton said tightly. “They may have landed without heavy equipment like us, but they still have orbital superiority. Their starships may go ahead and eliminate us as a threat now that we know Westfall was never their ultimate goal.”

  “We’ve … discussed that as well,” Baer said slowly. “But there’s no way to evacuate the entire base right now.”

  “I see, sir,” Barton said, knowing he wasn’t likely to get anything else out of the major.

  “Go get something to eat and grab some sleep, Sergeant,” Baer said. “We’re not surrendering just yet and I’ll need you fresh and ready. Dismissed.”

  Barton stood and came to attention for a two-count before stepping back one step and turning to walk out of the soft shelter that was serving as Major Baer’s office and living quarters.

  “Anything new?” Castillo asked once he was back outside. The corporal and Emil were both waiting on him, having nowhere to report to for the moment.

  “Nothing we didn’t already know,” Barton shook his head. “They’re checking the Transcontinental Link, but that’s about all I heard.”

  “I wonder if they—” Castillo trailed off as Major Baer burst from the shelter and took off towards the command post at a full sprint followed closely by his aide. Two more officers went running by as well, none of them raising an alarm or even acknowledging anybody as they passed. On instinct, Barton and Castillo jogged in the general direction everyone was running, trying to see if there was something up ahead.

  “Yo! What’s going on?” Castillo shouted at another corporal that was sprinting by them hot on the trail of a second lieutenant.

  “The Aludra Star is approaching the planet!” the corporal shouted back.

  “What the fuck is an Aludra Star?” Castillo asked.

  “Wolfe, man! Captain Wolfe ran the blockade! Reinforcements have arrived!”

  “I’ll be damned,” Barton muttered and slowed to a walk now that he knew there wasn’t anything he needed to be involved in. “I would have lost that bet.”