by Peter Nealen
And it had been some time since Costigan had been the Hero of Tide’s Point Station. He was as much a tanker now as his men.
The structure around them shook with a heavy impact, or possibly an explosion. “Brother Legate, Soon,” the Centurion called. “We are under heavy fire at the gate, but it appears that another force might have penetrated the fortifications on the north side. I think they are trying to kill or capture the Regonese flock leaders, sir.”
“Agreed,” Maruks called. “Hold your position; we will deal with the second incursion. And Centurion? If it appears that the opposition is using clone troops, make sure that you record it.”
It was a testament to how similarly the veterans of Valdek were thinking that there was no hesitation or surprise in Soon’s voice. “Yes, Brother Legate.”
Scalas was already moving, jogging down the curving corridor that ran through the heart of the fortified ring. Squad Sergeant Kahane, nearly as short and squat as Brother Legate Maruks, was beside him, with the rest of his squad following, their powerguns ready. That blast had come from part of Century XXXII’s sector on the ring.
Ahead, around the bend, blue-white flashes flickered, and thunderous reports reverberated down the passageway, along with the rattle and snap of less-energetic gunfire. Scalas leaned forward, pounding down the passageway while he called out over the comm, “Friendlies coming in!”
The Caractacan Brothers had set in around the fortified ring before the meeting had begun, joined by small units of Regonese flock warriors who had come as honor guards with their leaders. It sounded like both Caractacans and Regonese were fighting hard where the enemy had breached the ring.
He came around the bend to a scene that was nightmarishly familiar.
Whatever the enemy had used to breach the wall, it had blown a hole four meters high and three meters wide in the steelcrete. Fragments had been blasted across the passageway, and several were actually embedded in the opposite wall.
Three motionless forms in crushed chameleonic armor were slumped against that wall, half-buried in the rubble. They were not alone, however. The breach was littered with Regonese bodies, most of them mangled, charred, and smoking, as Caractacan Brothers poured powergun fire through the hole, joined by the lighter small arms carried by the lightly-armored Regonese warriors.
Half a dozen armored forms hulked in front of him as Scalas came around the bend. Three were covered down in a recessed doorway on the inside of the ring, two were in another on the outside, and the last was down in the prone on the floor, behind a small mound of rubble, firing up into the breach. Even as Scalas came up next to him, that Brother knocked a nashai form tumbling off the pile with a well-placed bolt. Feathers flew, burning, and the thunderclap of the discharge drowned out the brief squawk of pain.
Scalas brought his own powergun to his shoulder and blasted the next shape. That one was a velk, readily identifiable by its wide, flat head. The bolt transfixed the velk through the upper torso and it dropped, its fatigues on fire.
The powergun fire suddenly went silent. The breach was empty; the surviving attackers having fallen back or gone to ground. The Regonese kept shooting for a few moments, before their commander clacked and squawked at them to cease fire.
“Squad Sergeant Volscius,” Scalas called. This was Volscius’s sector; he’d been sure to remember where each squad was deployed.
There was no reply. Scalas gritted his teeth behind his visor. Of all the times for Volscius to play his little ego games…
“Squad Sergeant Volscius is dead, Centurion,” Brother Cordova said as he levered himself up off the floor to take a knee. He laid his powergun over his thigh and pointed toward the crumpled forms lying in the passageway. “He was too close to the breach when the charges went off.”
Scalas looked at the smashed bodies, forcing the conflicting thoughts to the back of his mind. Volscius had been a thorn in his side since the man had been promoted to lead his own squad. And yet, he had still been one of his.
It was not the time for ruminations or recriminations. There was nothing that could have been done, anyway. Volscius was dead. He could be mourned as appropriate later. The concern now was for the living.
“Bruhnan!” he barked. The big, hulking form of the Odroshan stepped out of the shadows on the far side of the breach.
“Yes, Centurion?” he called. Bruhnan was an enormous bear of a man, wearing armor that any other man in the Century would rattle around in.
“You are Squad Sergeant now,” Scalas told him. “We’ll get the Brother Legate to make it official later. Get your MT-41s up on the breach and get ready to hold it. This attack was too sophisticated; I doubt they’re finished. Kahane, get your support gunners up there as well. Where’s the Regonese commander?” He’d been speaking Latin, the Brotherhood’s internal tongue, but switched to Trade Cant for the last, raising his voice further.
“I am, Centurion,” a blue-and-gray-feathered Regonese said, stepping out of the doorway where he had been taking cover along with several of the Caractacans. The Regonese spoke Trade Cant with an odd intonation; they could form a startlingly wide range of sounds, but the rigid edges of their beaks still meant they sounded different than a being with lips. “I am Dreygef of Flock Yeg.”
“Dreygef, do you have any heavy weapons—machineguns, autocannons, that sort of thing?” Scalas asked.
If the Regonese nashai gestured in the negative, his body language was impossible for a human like Scalas to read. “No,” he said. “We are honor guard. Rifles only.”
Scalas nodded, even though he suspected that the Regonese couldn’t understand that gesture any more than he could theirs. “Keep your men back, then,” he said. “We will hold the breach.”
“This is our planet, our place,” Dreygef protested.
“And you have asked us for help,” Scalas replied, looking up at the towering avian. “Allow us to help. We have better armor and heavier weapons than you do. I suspect that these attackers are attempting to murder your flock leaders. You will do them no good by getting killed when we can prevent it.”
Dreygef blinked at him slowly a few times, then said, “Very well. But if they make the breach again, we will fight.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Scalas assured him, moving away and toward the breach. He wanted to see.
Several of the squad support gunners, armed with the heavier MT-41 support powerguns, were already set up on the edges of the hole in the wall. Beyond lay the park that surrounded the Peace Plaza, covered in the pale green, moss-like growth that was Regone’s analog for grass.
A vehicle squatted just a few meters away, its engine still humming. Scalas almost ducked back from the hole when he saw it, before he realized it had no turret. It was a utility truck, nothing more. But there was some movement visible behind it, so he stayed cautious.
Courage was a necessity for a Caractacan Brother. But there is a difference between courage and foolhardiness. And no one had ever accused Erekan Scalas of being foolhardy.
The sun was starting to go down, though there were still at least two hours of light left. High in the sky, he could still see faint flashes; there was a fight going on up there. It hadn’t been all that long since the attack had started; the enemy starships probably weren’t within the Caractacan ships’ engagement range yet.
He did move back from the breach, however, when he saw two more six-wheeled gun trucks, identical to the one that had tried to force the gate, trundle into view. They didn’t advance, but turned in and aimed their turrets at the ring.
As they did so, they started to disgorge more fighters from their back doors. The Exiles and their allies were determined to kill the flock leaders.
They didn’t know what they were getting into. “The next wave is coming, gentlemen,” Scalas said. “MT-41 gunners, prioritize the gun trucks.”
A clawed hand touched his shoulder pauldron. He looked back to see Dreygef looming above him.
“There are react
forces on the way, Centurion,” the Regonese warrior said. “Many warriors, with heavy weapons. We have only to hold.”
Behind his visor, Scalas smiled tightly. “I daresay we will do more than hold, Dreygef,” he said. “Rest assured of that.”
He stepped up behind Geroges and lifted his BR-18. “Engage at will, gentlemen.”
Chapter Two
The last syllable had hardly left his lips when Geroges drowned him out with a long, roaring burst of 1.5cm powergun fire. Bolts like sheet lightning transfixed the truck just outside the breach, blasting glowing holes in the metal before reaching the power pack. The powerpack blew up, blasting the hood off. A moment later, the vehicle was burning fiercely, casting another bright, flickering glow over the wreckage.
More lines of blue-white destruction reached out for the gunmen hiding behind the truck, who started to scatter as powergun discharges punched right through the thin-skinned vehicle. A nashai took a bolt to the chest, blowing off a burning wing. A human was hit in the head, leaving very little of his skull behind.
The gun trucks opened fire, but the MT-41 gunners quickly shifted their aim in response. One of the trucks managed to get a full second-long burst off before Rehgon perforated his turret with a dozen bolts. The metal smoked and glowed where the hyper-velocity packs of ionized copper had blown through it, and the machinegun fell silent.
The second truck was already moving, the gunner spraying bullets wildly at the breach, when two huge shadows swooped by overhead, and a rocket arrowed down to strike the ground a few meters away, momentarily obscuring the truck with the cloud of dirt and debris kicked up by the sharp, tooth-rattling wham of the warhead’s explosion. The shockwave sent the truck lurching up on one set of wheels, almost flipping it over, but the driver got it back down with a jarring impact and started to make headway, even though two of the segmented wheels were clearly damaged.
Then, with a harsh buzzing roar, another Regonese ornithopter’s minigun cut the truck in half. One of the flock react forces had arrived.
More high-volume fire and rockets stitched across the park outside the Plaza, as predatory shapes swooped and circled overhead. Without clear targets, the Caractacan Brothers ceased fire.
Dreygef stepped forward to look out the breach. With the enemy apparently on the run, Scalas did not object, though he was prepared to throw the tall avian into cover if they came under fire again. Dreygef looked awkward inside the tunnel, despite its size; the nashai were not built for confined spaces or much in the way of ground fighting. In fact, he mused as he watched the ornithopters do their deadly work, hunting the encircling force through the scattered trees and rocks of the park, the presence of the gun trucks suggested even more strongly that someone else was behind the attack, not just the Exiles. There were few ground vehicles on Regone.
The ornithopters were emblematic of nashai design. A curious combination of lightweight construction, aerodynamics that only an avian race could have truly developed, and high-energy, high-tech propulsion, they were the backbone of any Regonese flock’s war machine. Their wings were variable geometry affairs, able to fold back for high-speed flight and spread out for a truly impressive glide path at slower speeds. Add in the articulated jets, and they were capable of maneuvers that would make a human pilot dizzy.
One stooped on a six-wheeled gun truck that was spitting heavy-caliber machinegun fire at it. Bullets stitched holes in the thin wings, but a rocket gouted from the under-chin launcher and hit the vehicle square. It blew apart in an ugly, black puff. A moment later, the crump of the explosion reached Scalas’s ears.
“Brother Legate, Scalas,” he called over the comms.
“I am here, Scalas,” Maruks said. Scalas turned to find the Brother Legate striding out of the tunnel. “You cleaned things up nicely before I could get the flock leaders all accounted for.”
“The Regonese air support had more to do with it, sir,” Scalas admitted. “But we appear to be secure for the moment.”
“Indeed,” Maruks replied, peering out the breach. “Keep your men on alert and come with me. Our interrupted meeting seems to be unfinished, after all.”
They were back outside, in the shadow of the central rock spire, even though the sun was setting. The Regonese were more comfortable that way, and there were now ornithopters openly orbiting the Peace Plaza, and Regonese snipers and heavy weapons crews were perched on the spire itself and the top of the fortified ring. Any renewed attack would be quickly dealt with.
The Centurions were standing with the flock leaders and the flock war chiefs, while Maruks stood off to one side, on his comms with the Herald of Justice, which was returning to Regonese orbit. The flock leaders were clearly agitated, but the war chiefs, if anything, seemed calmer. It was as if they were confident that they could get down to business, now that things had gotten serious.
Maruks finished his conference with Captain Titus and strode over to join the circle of Caractacan Centurions and Regonese leaders. “Interesting,” he said. “The three starships conducted a hit-and-run attack with lasers only, while inertialess, then turned about and headed back toward the third planet. They slipped inside the defensive constellation, so our ships returned. It is going to take a more concerted effort to get through that ring of fortresses than an ad hoc attack by four Brotherhood starships.”
“The Regonese ships didn’t pursue?” Soon asked. All four Centurions had finally doffed their helmets, and Soon’s irritated glance at the Regonese leaders didn’t go unnoticed.
“Things were apparently rather confused,” Maruks said dryly. He looked at Feygeil. “It seems that the Regonese were unprepared for any of this. Despite their fears of terrorist attacks and an interplanetary missile strike, they genuinely did not believe that the Exiles possessed starships.”
He turned to his Centurions. “There is another detail, however, that lends weight to your concerns. Captain Titus was able to identify all three ships as being old Sparatan Lykurgon-class cruisers.”
“Sparatan…” Costigan muttered.
The “Galactic Unity” that had brutally conquered Valdek with overwhelming force had originated in the Sparat system. Its leader was a Sparatan war hero from the Tyrus Cluster Campaign named Geretesk Vakolo. The coincidence was too much to dismiss.
“Were any of the humans who participated in the attack captured?” Rokoff asked. Rokoff was by far the junior Centurion of the group; he had been given a battlefield promotion when his superior, Centurion Dunstan, had disobeyed orders and gone glory-hunting on Valdek. That bad decision had gotten their ship, the Sword of the Brotherhood, destroyed, and most of the Century annihilated. He had acquitted himself well in the fighting that followed, and Maruks had kept him in command when he rolled the remains of Century XXXIV into the understrength Century XLIV that he had brought to the Avar Sector Keep aboard the Herald of Justice.
“Some attempted to surrender, but were killed by the Exiles before they could,” Feygeil replied. “We have no new information about them.”
“Did any of them appear identical to any of the others?” Scalas asked.
Feygeil blinked at him, and Scalas imagined that it was something of a foolish question. Aside from plumage, most nashai would look similar enough to a human that differentiating individuals might be difficult. Without those distinct plumage patterns, he could only expect that differentiating humans would be worse to a nashai.
“We can determine that once the immediate threat is past,” Maruks put in. “Whether they were clones or not is immaterial to the problem at hand.” He frowned. “It appears that a sizeable mercenary force is supporting the Exiles, and has presumably already given them Bergenholm technology. The Regonese strategy of containment can no longer be maintained.”
He looked at the flock leaders, who were moving from clawed foot to clawed foot and watching him. “Earlier, I said that we could not necessarily get directly involved, at least not to the extent that you asked. Under the circumstances as they stood then, I
would maintain that assertion. The Caractacan Brotherhood exists to protect the defenseless and keep the peace. We are not mercenaries to be hired to finish wars.
“However,” he continued, “this attack has changed things. An unprovoked orbital bombardment on civilian targets cannot go unanswered. And the terroristic nature of the attack moves it even further into our bailiwick. The Exiles and their supporters have earned the Brotherhood’s ire. And they will pay for it.”
“We are glad to hear it,” said Pluyges of Flock Verij, stepping forward. The blue-and-yellow-plumed Regonese flock leader was dressed in the usual short robe that was cut so as not to interfere with wings or other limbs. “The Exiles have plagued our system for far too long. Their ideology…”
But Maruks held up a hand. “This is hardly the time to rehash your political disputes, flock leader,” he said. “We are quite familiar with the Exiles’ political views. We are also familiar with your reasons for containing them on the third planet.”
The Exiles had come out of a century-old philosophical movement on Regone, dating back to first contact with offworlders. They had decided that the traditions of the flocks were holding the nashai back, and that they had to completely reshape their culture to be more like the velk who had first arrived in the system, in order to reach the stars and take their place among the interstellar races of the galaxy. This had resulted in disaster; the groups that had become the Exiles had begun attempting to radically reshape their people by force, with predictably unstable and horrific results. They had eventually been driven off the planet by the combined forces of the allied Regonese flocks. The rest of the Regonese considered the Exiles to be such disturbed deviants that considerable effort had been expended to keep them confined to Borogone. An effort that now seemed to have been nullified by outside intervention.