“Resistance,” Rzeminski said.
Jasmine started to undo the cuffs securing his hands. It was one hell of a chance, just as he’d said, but there was no alternative apart from executing him herself. Besides, she suspected that it wouldn't be long before the planet's population grew tired of Wolfbane’s presence and started plotting a second insurgency. Rzeminski would be able to train up new insurgents and give them a fighting chance.
“That feels much better,” Rzeminski said, as he rubbed his wrists. “Do you think whoever designed this chair was a bondage freak?”
Jasmine scowled as she released his legs, keeping a wary eye on him as she moved. “I remember breaking out of a prison cell when I had half a chance,” she countered. “We didn't want to lose you, did we?”
She straightened up, allowing him to pull himself free of the straps and stand. “And yet,” he said, “you’re letting me go now.”
“Yes,” Jasmine said. “I think you’ll cause as much trouble for Wolfbane as you caused for us, perhaps more. But I’d advise you to be careful with their weapons. You never know what they might have included in the software.”
She led him out of the building, then escorted him towards the gates. “Have a good one,” she said, as they stopped and waited for the guards to open the barricades. “And try not to get caught before the planet is occupied.”
“Thanks,” Rzeminski said, dryly. He smiled at her. “Can I tell you something?”
Jasmine nodded.
“You were promoted too far, too fast,” Rzeminski said. “I’d bet you’re at your best in small-unit actions – most Marines are. But large-scale operations are a little different. You let me lead you by the nose more than once.”
Jasmine gritted her teeth in frustration, but said nothing. He was right.
“Goodbye,” Rzeminski said.
Jasmine watched him walk away from the spaceport, then turned and strode back towards her office. Despite her glib words, she knew she might well have destroyed her career by letting him go. But she did have wide authority and besides, there were few other alternatives. Admiral Singh, she knew, wouldn't have shown him mercy when she occupied the planet, if he’d still been a prisoner.
Absently, she wondered just how Admiral Singh had linked up with Wolfbane and become a commander in their navy. Perhaps she’d escaped Corinthian with enough ships to make her a major player, despite her non-existent supply base. Or perhaps she was the best Governor Brown had been able to find. She had managed to take and hold a small empire of her own until Jasmine had taken it from her, through subversion and a careful plan to hit her at her weakest point. And it had worked.
And if she catches you now, she thought coldly, she will kill you.
Michael looked up as she entered the office. “I’ve got several units on the way back from the Zone,” he said, “but others are taking fire from enemy positions. They're having to cut their way through.
“Understood,” Jasmine said. “Keep me informed.”
She shook her head. There was nothing she could do, save wait and pray she managed to get enough men out before Admiral Singh entered orbit. After that ... she’d have to make a choice between going underground on a planet that largely hated the CEF or surrendering to Admiral Singh. And that wouldn't be a pleasant experience at all.
Let’s hope Mandy manages to deter her, she thought. Even a day’s delay would be enough to get everyone out of the trap.
***
“Sniper!”
“I see the bastard,” Thomas snapped, as he ducked behind an armoured car. The insurgents either hadn't realised the CEF was retreating or were intent on hounding them as much as possible. They’d been hit by snipers, IEDs and even a rush of fighters that had been swiftly wiped out. “I’ll get him.”
He took aim as the sniper revealed himself again and fired, once. The body fell from the rooftop and landed somewhere in the alleyway. He gritted his teeth as he swept the weapon over the rest of the houses, looking for targets, but found nothing. The local civilians, he hoped, were either keeping their heads down or had had the common sense to evacuate the entire area.
We should have moved them into the DP camps, he thought. But the last thing he’d heard from the camps had claimed that there were riots in three of them, along with one of the POW camps. The guards had had to seal the fences and then start their own trek towards the spaceport. Or maybe we should just have flattened the Zone from orbit.
He jumped back into the AFV as the driver gunned the engine, sending it rushing forward at high speed. The handheld drone he’d launched showed no sign of anything large enough to bar their way, as far as he could tell, but it hadn't spotted the sniper either. But at least they could rush through any other sniper attacks, rather than having to slow down to deal with them.
His communicator buzzed. “IED strike; AFV 34,” it said. “Vehicle disabled; I say again, vehicle disabled.”
Thomas swallowed the vilest curse he knew. The front line – what had once been an organised front line – was dissolving into absolute chaos. Some local units had maintained their discipline, others had fragmented into individuals or simply started firing into the Zone, as if they wanted to crush the insurgents before Wolfbane’s forces arrived. The shattered communications net didn't help; Thomas had tried to contact one unit, only to be told he didn't have the right communications codes and if he tried to contact them again he would be fired upon. Judging from the other comments on the radio, several units had ended up firing on other friendly units.
Friendly fire isn't, he reminded himself.
He keyed his communicator, then glanced at a map. “Abandon the vehicle,” he ordered. Normally, he would have preferred to recover the AFV – the vehicles were designed to be cannibalised, if they couldn't be repaired – but there was no time. “Get out of the area ASAP.”
He rubbed his forehead as he heard the acknowledgements from the vehicle’s crew. If there had been time to do some proper planning ... but there hadn't been any time, not really. Instead of an orderly withdrawal, they were heading out along roads that might well be mined, operating in scattered units rather than as a group. Hell, if they kept spreading out, they’d be completely isolated soon enough. And then they’d be overrun piece by piece.
The AFV lurched to a halt as a group of insurgents appeared ahead of them, firing rifles towards the armoured vehicle. Its gunners returned fire with machine guns, no longer bothering to conserve ammunition; the insurgents, caught by the bullets, were literally ripped apart into chunks of bloody flesh. Behind them, one of their fellows launched an RPG, which – thankfully – went wide of its intended target.
“Contact the spaceport,” Thomas ordered, grimly. They would be delayed ... and the delays would keep mounting up until it was too late. “Give them our revised ETA.”
***
Mustapha Wellington hadn't found it hard to blend into Thule’s society. Unlike the world of his birth, Thule prided itself on being cosmopolitan; as long as someone was prepared to work they were more than welcome. There were so many different faces – natural faces as well as the results of bioengineering – that it was quite hard to be actually noticed. He’d kept his head down, worked as a waiter in a criminal-run dive and kept himself in readiness for the moment the call arrived.
When it did, he walked out on his employer and returned to his apartment, where he recovered the HVM from the hidden compartment under the floorboards. Keeping it so close had been a risk, particularly since the local forces had begun random sweeps for weapons, but there hadn't been anywhere else he’d cared to hide it. A HVM in usable condition would be worth enough credits to his employers to encourage them to take it from him, perhaps putting a knife in his back if he dared to complain. But no one apart from him knew that it was there.
He took the weapon and walked up the stairs to the rooftop. The manager had padlocked it closed before leaving the building years ago, but a swift kick got rid of it in a hurry. Smiling at what some people considered secu
re, he stepped out onto the rooftop and looked towards the spaceport. The sound of gunfire in the distance – and the explosions from a handful of mortar shells – was almost drowned out by the sound of shuttles landing and taking off from the spaceport. Mustapha allowed his smile to widen as he watched another shuttle lift off, then took aim before activating the seeker head. As soon as it had locked on, he pulled the trigger, launched the missile and started to run.
Behind him, a shuttle staggered, then exploded in midair.
***
“Shuttle Twelve is gone,” Michael said. “They just blew her out of the sky.”
“Understood,” Jasmine said. Cold ice lodged itself in her heart. “Order the other shuttles to deploy decoys constantly, then contact the QRF and tell them to sweep the area.”
She looked down at the map, knowing it was a waste of time. The area was just too large to sweep without more men than she had, which meant that there was no way she could guarantee that there weren't more HVMs lurking nearby. And if they were ... each shuttle she lost not only killed a number of soldiers – she promised herself she’d mourn later – but crippled her ability to move more troops up to orbit.
“Keep moving the troops as fast as you can,” she ordered. “And then contact the counter-battery units. I want a maximum fire pattern on the source of any further missiles or shells.”
Michael looked shocked – a maximum fire pattern would almost certainly guarantee civilian causalities – but nodded and sent the message.
We’re going to need to rethink all of our procedures, she thought, grimly. We rarely had to land shuttles in a hot zone while we fought for the Empire.
She looked over at Michael and sighed. He’d been born on Avalon; he didn't have the assumptions she’d developed over her years of fighting for the Empire. And he'd done very well in his previous battles, even though he’d started young.
“Assign yourself to the next shuttle,” she said. Avalon would need him, perhaps, more than it needed her. “And get your ass out of here.”
Michael stared at her. “I should stay ...”
“That’s an order,” Jasmine said. “You’re going to be needed in the future.”
***
Gudrun kept her head down as she ran towards the edge of the Zone. The sheer level of devastation stunned her; buildings that had once housed dozens of family members had been shattered, bodies lay everywhere to mark where the movement and the invaders had fought for control of bare metres of ground. All the old landmarks had been utterly destroyed. The only way to tell she’d moved out of the Zone was when she started encountering intact buildings once again, even though they were all badly damaged.
She paused long enough to catch her breath, then resumed running. Marcy’s message had been far from encouraging, but it was all she had. If she made it to a specific location in time, she would be evacuated along with her family. But if she failed to reach it, she would be left behind. She’d heard, as she’d walked out of the hospital, that a powerful fleet had entered the star system. The Commonwealth was running and ... someone new had arrived.
“Hey,” a voice shouted. “Stop!”
Gudrun glanced back and cursed, out loud. A group of soldiers wearing local uniforms were waving to her, bottles of alcohol in their hands. Gudrun blanched as she saw their expressions, realising that they had rape on their minds. She turned and fled as fast as she could, drawing on reserves of strength she didn't know she had. The soldiers gave chase, catcalling as they followed her, promises of what they would do once they caught her. Somehow, Gudrun kept running, leaving them behind until she tripped over something on the road.
She hit the ground hard enough to stun her. Desperately, she tried to scramble to her feet, but it was too late. One of the soldiers landed on top of her, holding her down, as his comrade grabbed her arms and wrenched them forward. Moments later, they had her on her back and started to pull at her clothes. Gudrun kicked out, but missed them completely.
Two shots rang out. The soldiers fell on top of her. Gudrun managed, somehow, to push them aside and sit upright. A man – a very familiar man – was standing there, holding a pistol.
“Well,” Rzeminski said. “What are you doing here?”
Gudrun swallowed and tried to think of an answer. But what could she say? The movement wasn't much kinder to deserters than it was to traitors. And she was, technically speaking, both.
“Not that it matters,” the movement’s leader said. He helped her to her feet, then smiled. “I think it’s time we went into hiding, don’t you?”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Put simply, the aggressors were already armed to the teeth. They’d had years, prior to the start of their grand crusade, to secure all the weapons they needed. (They’d also shipped in various production machines, allowing them to keep pace with demand for both weapons and ammunition.) The net result of the embargo was to disarm the victims of aggression, while allowing the actual aggressors free reign. Also unsurprisingly, the aggressors managed to make vast gains in a relatively short space of time.
- Professor Leo Caesius. War in a time of ‘Peace:’ The Empire’s Forgotten Military History.
“The enemy fleet is leaving orbit, Admiral.”
Rani nodded, unsurprised. It was their smartest move, although she had yet to determine if the Commonwealth ships intended to try to delay her or simply cut and run. Either one would be defensible, although she had no idea what sort of commanding officer would deny himself a long-range engagement. It was their best chance of inflicting some kind of damage, without risking total disaster in a short-range battle.
“Monitor their course,” she ordered. “And launch an additional flight of drones.”
She watched as more data started to flow into her display. The Commonwealth’s new class of cruisers seemed to have an alarmingly high acceleration rate, higher than anything their size within the Empire. It was actually quite impressive, she decided, as the drones started to report back. They must have discovered some way to modify the drive chambers, perhaps even to produce newer and improved drive systems. It boded ill for the future.
Rani was a military officer. She had little time for theorists who promised revolutionary scientific developments, provided their pet projects were funded without intensive supervision. When she’d been the ruler of Corinthian, she’d insisted that development be concentrated on improving current technology. Had the Commonwealth done the same, she wondered, or had they come up with something completely new? There was no way to know.
“Special orders,” she said, softly. “If possible, I want one of those modern cruisers disabled for capture.”
“Understood,” the tactical officer said.
Rani had to smile at the enthusiasm in his voice. Disabling a starship wasn't easy – and the Commonwealth would presumably have installed a self-destruct system in their cruisers, one capable of vaporising the entire ship if it seemed likely she would fall into hostile hands. But there was no alternative. If they captured such a cruiser largely intact, they could start to unlock its secrets without having to begin from scratch.
She settled back to watch as the Commonwealth ships arced around, then started to advance towards her fleet. It was to be a long-range engagement then, rather than an attempt to block her way towards the planet. Somehow, she wasn't too surprised. Normally, the planet’s defences would have made her a tough customer. Now, with the chaos virus running through its systems, every defence station would be operating on its own.
You’d think they’d take precautions against their own tactics, she sneered, mentally. Who says you can't steal ideas from your enemies?
Thule wasn't a Commonwealth world at the time, her own thoughts answered her. They may not have realised the implications of Corinthian’s fall.
The tactical officer looked up from his display. “Admiral, they’re sweeping us with tactical sensors,” he said. “But they’re still out of engagement range.”
Known engagement rang
e, Rani knew. Had the Commonwealth designed a long-range missile as well as fast cruisers? It was possible ... but unless they’d developed a completely revolutionary form of drive technology, they’d only make it easier for her point defence crews to track and destroy the missiles before they reached her fleet. Or were they merely trying to make sure all of her ships had been detected? They were presumably wondering what had happened to the other two battleships. Or, for that matter, the rest of the fleet they’d seen at Titlark.
“Sweep them in return,” she ordered. There was no point in trying to hide anything, not now. “And bring up our point defence.”
She smiled, coldly. The first major space battle for nearly a thousand years ... and she was one of the commanders. Did her opponent think the same way, she wondered, or was she more focused on her mission? Or was she inexperienced enough to panic, when the shit hit the fan? Or ...
Smiling, she watched as the two fleets converged.
***
“Weapons range in two minutes,” the tactical officer said.
Mandy felt an odd little pit in her stomach as she watched Admiral Singh’s fleet. The message had confirmed the enemy commander’s identity beyond all doubt, worrying her more than she cared to admit. Like Jasmine, she’d researched Admiral Singh thoroughly after the first encounter and little of what they’d found had been good. Admiral Singh had been a skilled officer who’d once beaten a scripted exercise she’d been supposed to lose. It had taken Mandy some time to understand that Singh was competitive, competitive enough to risk damaging her career by not following the script.
And she won’t be dependent on the same basic tactics, Jasmine had said, dryly. She will innovate when necessary.
Mandy sighed, inwardly. There seemed little room for innovation now, as far as she could tell ... but could Admiral Singh see opportunities Mandy had missed? The equation was very simple; the fleet would enter orbit in less than an hour, unless Mandy managed to delay her for a few hours. But if she placed herself between the planet and the oncoming fleet, she’d be squashed flat and destroyed. The only way to win was to hope that Admiral Singh found them sufficiently irritating, enough to force her to change course and engage the fleet.
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