by Jay Allan
I made it almost up to the gun, which I could make out by its residual heat signature, but I was slowed up because there were four or five bodies on the ground in front of it—victims of my fire. There were crackling and hissing sounds all around from burst pipes and shattered conduits. But no live enemies.
“Light, Hector,” I snapped, and my sometimes surly, but more or less obedient AI turned on my helmet light. The gun was a semi-portable particle accelerator, just as I’d thought. There was a heavy insulated cable at least 12cm in diameter connecting it to some sort of power hookup in the wall.
“Ten seconds to power restoration.” Frost’s voice on the link.
I grabbed the conduit and ripped it out before the power came back. I knocked the gun over and sprayed it with fire from my mag-rifle. At this range the projectiles ripped through the gun and the floor below. When I stopped firing, the thing was a pile of useless junk. It wouldn’t kill any more of my troops now.
Just then the double doors behind opened up and security personnel streamed through. In an instant they were on me. The lights came back on, and the system shook again, though not as hard as before. I managed to stay standing in my suit, but the station troops were all knocked off their feet.
“Hector, blade.”
My molecular blade snapped out of the sheath in my arm and I started slashing at the enemy, trying to take out as many as I could before they overwhelmed me. With the strength of my suit behind it, my blade sliced effortlessly through their armor and bodies alike.
But they kept coming through the doorway, and I was pushed back against the wall. Eventually one of them would get a blaster shoved into a weak spot in my armor. I knew my lead squad was on the way down the corridor, but that few seconds seemed to go on forever. I was just about to go down under the attackers when I saw my troops wading into the enemy from behind, blades slashing all around.
It was nasty business, and it went on for a while, because the narrow confines kept the frontage small. Finally, we finished them off in the corridor and pushed our way into the room. The data center was a huge open area, with a ceiling several levels high with catwalks around the edges.
Once we pushed into the center, the remaining enemy troops lost heart and broke. Some tried to run, but most of them were gunned down before they made it out. A couple got away, but it wasn’t important enough to detach a squad to chase them down. The rest surrendered, and since we were finally in a place where we could get a little more organized, I told the troops to take prisoners.
First things first. I detached a platoon to check the room thoroughly and find every way in and out, posting a team at each entrance. Then I ordered Lieutenant Sanchez to figure out how to operate station communications.
After I’d taken care of business, I commed Frost to see how things were going down there. Everything seemed under control. The enemy was still posted around his position, but they seemed to have given up on assaulting it, at least for the time being. They were exchanging light fire, but the situation was stable. I checked with the SEALs at the entry point too, and everything was quiet there. They would have advised me if anything had happened, of course, but I wanted to make sure.
“Hector, send the signal for the support company to prepare for launch.” Time to bring the garrison troops onboard.
“Acknowledged.”
I walked over to where Sanchez was sitting at a workstation. He looked up and said, “I think I can access the communications system and make a stationwide announcement. But it’s going to take a team of specialists to actually get control of this unit if you want to affect life support or other systems.
I didn’t expect anything different. Fortunately, we had just such a team waiting with the support company. Plan B was to send a force to seize a landing bay and get the reserves and tech support crew onboard. But first I was going to try Plan A.
There was a lot of fanaticism among Caliphate troops; their front line Janissaries almost never surrendered. But these were just routine security troops posted far back from what was thought to be the front line. They were just conscripts, and they’d been roughly handled so far. I had no idea about the command structure here—intel had been really weak in that department—but if their troops were ready to give up there, wasn’t much the command staff could do. If a Caliphate station commander and his officers wanted heroic deaths I was more than willing to oblige, and if their troops were ready to drop their weapons I was just as happy to let them do it.
“Hector, I want you to translate everything I say into Arabic and feed it into the communications system. Understood.”
“Yes captain. What part of that did you feel was beyond my computational capability?” He hadn’t been obnoxious for a while, so I guess he was due. They really needed to work the kinks out of this AI personality programming.
“Sanchez, I want you to plug my AI link into the com system, and put us on stationwide broadcast.”
“Yes sir.” He paused for a few seconds, looking briefly at the screen in front of him. “That will just take me a few minutes.”
While Sanchez set up the communication, I checked on our overall status. We had about 30 prisoners, and they’d been disarmed and stripped of their body armor. They were locked in a storage room, and there were two guards outside the room and another monitoring on video.
All of the entryways were guarded, with a picket placed down each corridor and a fire team at every entrance. The rest of the troops were formed into a reaction force to meet any threat that might develop. I checked again with Frost, and his situation was largely unchanged. The enemy had withdrawn from several of the approaches to his position, and there was only sporadic fire from the others.
“Ready, captain. You are on systemwide communication.”
I nodded to Sanchez, though gestures of that sort were pretty pointless in armor. “Attention Caliphate personnel. This is Captain Erik Cain, U.S. Marine Corps, Western Alliance Military Command. Presently, my forces are in control of both the power generation facilities and the main computer center. As you are aware from our recent demonstration, we can cut power to any areas of the station we wish.”
I paused for just a second. I was actually speaking to Hector, and he was transalting what I said on the com line. I was distracted briefly by the realization that he was using my voice and not his. Nice touch, Hector, but a little creepy too.
“We effectively control the station at this time. We have sufficient force to occupy the entire facility deck by deck if we need to.” Ok, that was a lie, but worth a try.
“Even in the event that, for some reason, we are unable to take possession of the entire station, local space is totally controlled by our warships. Your defense grid has been destroyed, and if we are unsuccessful in taking the station our orders are to destroy it. We have the firepower to do just that.” That much was true.
“You can fight on, but I have neither the time nor patience to allow this battle to go on any longer than necessary. If my troops are forced to take this station level by level there will be no quarter offered to any Caliphate personnel. If the station is surrendered immediately I will guarantee the safety of all inhabitants.” Ok, this was a gamble. If they surrendered, it paid off. But if they didn’t, I just gave them a reason to fight like banshees.
“If you surrender, all prisoners will be given the option of repatriation to the Caliphate at the soonest possible opportunity.” I didn’t really have the authority to offer repatriation to POWs, but I was pretty sure that central command would back me up. Especially if I captured the station with light casualties. If not, I was perfectly willing to lie to save the lives of my troopers.
“Alternatively, surrendered personnel will be given the opportunity to request asylum in the Western Alliance.” Caliphate personnel were “encouraged” not to yield, and things could be difficult for anyone, especially a commander, who surrendered. I wanted to give them a good option. They weren’t all religious fanatics.
“Y
ou are not frontline military personnel. I have no desire to have my fully-armored assault troops hunt down and kill everyone on this station, but I will. I will.” I paused to let that sink in. “I am prepared to accept a surrender within the next ten minutes. After that period there will be no quarter, no mercy, no cessation of the attack. You have ten minutes. After ten minutes we will accept no incoming communications.”
I made a motion for Sanchez to cut the broadcast. In a few minutes we’d know if it was going to be easy or difficult. Meanwhile, I signaled for the backup company to launch. If the station surrendered they could land in one of the bays almost immediately and assist in managing the surrender and taking control of the facility. Otherwise, I’d assemble a recon force to take the nearest bay so we could get them aboard. I’d need the numbers to fight my way through every section of the station, and I’d want the tech support crew to help us utilize control of the computer and power generation centers.
I suspected the commander’s inclination would be to fight on, and that’s why I broadcast my message live. His conscript troops were probably not as anxious to die, and the huge number of civilians on board even less so. As it turned out, I didn’t have to wait anywhere near the whole ten minutes.
“Incoming message, sir.” Sanchez on my comlink.
“Send it to me. Hector, translate, please.” But I didn’t need Hector’s help. The response was given in accented, but clear English.
“Captain Cain, this is Sub-Commander Ahmedi. The commander has elected to pass on to the afterlife. An honorable death. As acting commander I offer the immediate surrender of this station and its personnel subject to the terms offered. I await your further instructions.”
“Hector, translate my reply. Sub-Commander, I am pleased to accept your surrender, and I commend you on choosing to avoid a continuance of hostilities, which could not have altered the outcome of this engagement but only caused needless bloodshed. Please stand by for further instructions from my officers.” I just stood there for a few seconds, letting out a sigh of relief. War is always bad business, but I was grateful, for once, to have most of the troops I led in coming out with me.
“Sanchez, secure a landing bay so we can bring the support elements onboard. Closest one to here. Coordinate with the sub-commander, and send a squad down to secure the area. Tell the sub-commander to release all security on the computer system so you can pull up schematics. Once we have the reserves deployed, have the Caliphate troops report to a suitable assembly area and supervise the disarming.”
I barked out a number of additional orders, and having made the arrangements to secure the station and its personnel I took a few minutes to reflect. The surprise attack on the Caliphate Station Persaris was a complete success. We had six dead and seven seriously wounded, a casualty rate of less than ten percent, and a welcome change from the abattoirs of Achilles and Columbia. I’d completed my first mission in charge of a company, and, moreover, as the overall mission commander. Maybe I could do this after all.
We spent another week on the station, mostly helping to organize our skeleton operations crew and supervise the detention of the prisoners. There were only 157 surviving security personnel, but I wasn’t taking any chances, so all 2,000 or so occupants of the station were treated like combatant detainees. It was nothing but a rest for us. Our armor was shuttled back to the Wolverine, and we were fitted out in fatigues with light hand weapons.
Just before we left a new task force arrived, carrying a battalion of regular infantry and a full complement of technical and operations staff. Five cruisers joined the two we already had, forming a strong defense against an enemy attempt to take the station back. Freighters and repair ships also arrived to repair and upgrade the system’s defenses, and a large transport docked to collect the prisoners.
I had the company assembled in one of the large landing bays to prepare to shuttle to Wolverine. When I walked in, Sanchez and Frost had the men lined up on either side of the bay. As soon as they saw me they started clapping and chanting my name, all of them. I raised my hands and tried to gesture for them to stop, but they just kept it up. As I was looking around the room, I noticed the SEALs where there too, clapping and yelling with the rest.
CHAPTER 9
Space Station Tarawa
Gliese 250 system
Major Cain. It still sounded strange to me. I remember the first time I saw a major at Camp Puller. He seemed so imperious and so totally in command, I was in awe. Was that me now?
I outranked the officer who recruited me, or at least his rank at that time. Actually I’d found out that Captain Jack had ended up as Colonel Jack, and that he’d died during Achilles. I didn’t know at the time, but he was commanding the rearguard that covered us all as we escaped, and he was almost the last man hit.
I glanced at the organizational chart. A battalion. Over 500 troops, all under my command. We were going in as part of a brigade-sized attack, which would be the largest operation since Achilles. I was strangely calm, although the prospect of commanding so many troops in battle was daunting.
A look at the top of the org chart made me feel a bit better. Brigadier General Holm was commanding the operation. Holm had taken an interest in my career, and I didn’t doubt I owed my rapid advancement since the Academy to him, at least in part. I hadn’t served with him since Columbia. In fact, until a few days before, I hadn’t even seen him since that battle had started, though I’m pretty sure I owed my survival to his efforts to find me when anyone else would have given me up for dead.
Although smaller than Achilles, this was still a major operation, and it got me thinking about the evolution in battle tactics over the last 75 years. Early fighting in space was conducted mostly by local militias, with very small units of regulars attached for stiffening. Even during the First Frontier War, it was rare for more than a platoon of regulars to be involved in any one battle. This was true colonial warfare, not unlike what transpired in the early days of the European wars in the New World. It was just too expensive to move around large bodies of troops in space. The navies were small, and they simply did not have the capacity to transport major units. Certainly, all these early battles were fought without tanks, artillery, and other support elements.
The colonies were smaller then, too, and there were a lot fewer of them. The thin populations were generally spread around wherever there were resources to exploit, and true cities and towns were rare. Taking a planet usually required no more than attacking a few clusters of settlements.
The spheres of influence of the Powers were much more in a state of flux, and many worlds changed hands repeatedly. Hostile colonies were all mixed together, sometimes even in the same system, and there were no real borders or rational lines to defend. The treaty that ended the First Frontier War started the process of rationalization. The Powers were each more willing to concede systems they knew they’d have trouble holding anyway, and a natural trend toward consolidation began. The skirmishes in the years after the First Frontier War accelerated the process, as the Powers grabbed whatever exposed enemy worlds they could when the opportunity presented itself, and scaled back on defensive efforts for poorly located systems.
By the time full scale war broke out again, each belligerent had a more or less defensible cluster of interconnected colony worlds. The Second Frontier War was a definite progression from the first in scale and intensity. There were still plenty of small skirmishes over petty colonies, but by this time each side’s core worlds had begun to develop into significant populations. Although the battles were still small, and the militias who fought in them would continue to be important, this war was decided by regular troops fighting over key systems.
Larger populations, stronger planetary defenses, and militias leavened with retired veterans all necessitated a strengthening of attacking forces. Combined arms returned to warfare as strike forces began to be supported with tanks and field artillery. The complexity of war in space was increasing, and tactics and train
ing went along in lockstep. By the end of the Second Frontier War it was not uncommon for strikeforces to consist of an entire battalion supported by a couple tank platoons. Atmospheric fighters were also deployed in large battles, often launched from orbiting assault craft. The decisive battle of the war, at Persis, saw over 5,000 troops engaged on each side.
Nevertheless, the typical engagement involved fewer than 500 troops on a side, and heavy support units were still rare. Things were evolving, but war in space was still hellishly expensive, and resources were always stretched thin. The years leading up to the Third Frontier War saw a return to very small actions, but when things began to escalate toward outright war, the battles became bigger again. Our attack on Carson’s World involved an entire battalion where 40 years earlier a platoon or two would have sufficed. There was another reason why so much force was deployed to that seemingly insignificant planet, but I wouldn’t find out about it until years later.
As the Third Frontier War heated up, the battles continued to increase in size and complexity. Colonies, especially core worlds, had become large and wealthy enough to build some indigenous industry and upgrade their local defense capabilities. All of a sudden we were attacking planets that had tanks and artillery as part of their local forces, compelling us to respond in kind.
We were learning this new reality on the job, and paying in blood for our lessons. One reason that Operation Achilles was such a disaster is that no one had ever mounted so large and complex an assault in space. In fact, it had been more than a century since a battle this size had been fought on Earth. No one in the command structure had any experience in coordinating a combined arms assault at that level. Still, we came fairly close to pulling it off. Like everyone else who was on the ground, I’d come to regard Achilles as a display of command incompetence. It was only later, when I studied the whole operation at the Academy, that I realized just how close we had come to success. If we’d been able to maintain space superiority we probably would have just managed to take the planet, possibly ending the war right then. Our forces were devastated, but the defenders had been nearly wiped out.