He keyed his wristcom once he was back in Officer Country. “Raise Governor Brown and inform him that he can pick up his new crewmember as soon as possible,” he said, curtly. “And then he can begin the landings when he’s ready to move.”
“Aye, sir,” Howard said.
“And inform me once the shuttle has departed,” John added. He needed to finish the report for his superiors, who would probably accept Lillian Turner’s exile, but ask him some very hard questions when he returned home. “I’ll be in my office.”
He stepped through the hatch, called for a cup of tea, then sat down at his desk. The first part of the mission was complete, but the second part was just about to begin. And, once the colonists were settled, Warspite could start probing the nearby tramlines. Who knew what they would find?
God, he thought. The survey ships had barely probed past Cromwell before the war began. Anything could be lurking out there, anything at all, from aliens to isolated independent human colonies.
John smiled. He couldn't wait.
Chapter Fourteen
“This is one very big step for the Royal Marines,” Percy said, as he stepped out of the shuttle and onto the planet’s surface. “And one even bigger step for me.”
He stopped, dead, as he took in the landscape. He’d seen Mars, a year ago, but Clarke III was very different. The skies were an eerie dark blue, glowing faintly with flickers of electrical discharges in the upper atmosphere, while the ground was covered in what looked like white snow. But he knew, from warning icons popping up in his suit’s HUD, that it was poisonous, rather than water ice. He took a step forward, staring towards the mountains in the distance, looming up against the dark sky. It was meant to be the middle of the day, as far as Clarke was concerned, but it might as well be twilight. He’d never stood anywhere so eerie, not even the remains of the Cardiff Reclamation Zone.
“Move along, Corporal,” Peerce said, dryly.
Percy flushed, then lowered his eyes and walked forward, away from the shuttle. It wasn't easy to compensate for the lowered gravity; every step he took seemed to threaten to throw him into the air, like he’d done on a school trip to the moon. Behind him, the rest of 2 Section filed out of the shuttle, their suits hastily adapting to the new world. Percy turned and looked towards the ocean, shaking his head in awe at the wonders of the universe. The ocean looked like a thin layer of slush, slowly rising and falling as the gas giant exerted its influence on the tides.
There could be life under there, he thought. There were some small creatures on Titan, he knew, although nothing larger than a small fish. Clinging to the volcanic vents, struggling to remain in the warm zone ...
He turned and looked towards the growing colony. A week of hard work had culminated in the establishment of a handful of tent-like buildings, each one prefabricated on Earth and crammed into the freighters for transhipment to Clarke. They didn't look very impressive, not compared to some of the structures he’d seen on Mars, but they were liveable. The crews no longer needed to return to the shuttles each night to rest, before going back to work the following morning. Beside them, a large drill bored its way into the ground, probing down towards a volcanic vent. Geothermal power would keep the system going if the fusion plant happened to fail.
“Shit!”
Percy spun around, weapon in hand, just in time to see Private Fisherman slip and fall to the ground. Several of the Marines snickered, not unkindly, as Fisherman’s suit tore into the icy ground, before its wearer regained control and clambered back to his feet. Percy wasn't too surprised someone had fallen; Royal Marines were meant to have hundreds of hours in the suits by the time they graduated, but suits had been in short supply since the war. The Tadpoles had destroyed far too many during Operation Nelson.
And it isn't as if we had a large supply anyway, he thought, ruefully. Each suit costs twice as much as a Falklands-class tank.
“Have a care, Fisherman,” Peerce said, tartly. “You don’t want to go ice-skating here, that's for sure.”
“No, Sergeant,” Fisherman said.
Percy cleared his throat. “All right,” he said. “It's time to start jogging. Follow me.”
He turned and started to jog away from the colony, heading towards the shore. The Marines followed him, keeping pace easily. Percy smiled to himself - it felt so good to be off the ship, even if they had to wear the suits - and led them on a long march around the shore, then up towards the nearest mountain. It looked like something out of a fairy tale, he decided, as they reached the lowermost slopes and paused for breath. He’d climbed a dozen mountains as part of his training, but none of them had looked as inhospitable as the mountain before him. The mountain rose up to the clouds, its peak hidden in the dark blue atmosphere. His suit reported heavy discharges in the upper levels. It would definitely not be safe to climb.
“I hereby claim this mountain in the name of Janet Oakley, my sister,” Private Oakley announced, mischievously. “Does anyone have a bottle we can use to dedicate it?”
“You only get to name landmarks if you happen to stay here permanently,” Peerce pointed out, sarcastically. “But if you chat up the Governor a little, I’m sure he will consider naming the mountain after your relatives.”
Percy had to smile. Terra Nova had suffered, badly, from bureaucrats on Earth trying to name everything from mountains to oceans, all the while trying to avoid something - anything - that someone could construe as offensive. None of the names had lasted, he recalled, while later colonists going to other worlds had insisted on the right to name landmarks themselves. Unsurprisingly, there were places on Britannia that had ended up with names no one dared write down. But the Governor would probably have vetoed them if they’d been too offensive.
He took one last look at the mountain, then led the way towards the Exercise Ground. It was a flat plain - or as close as anywhere came to flat on Clarke - which would serve as an ideal route for a hostile force to approach the colony. A handful of men in armoured combat suits could pass through it quickly, he noted as the Marines came to a halt, but it would be harder to get wheeled or tracked vehicles through the gap. It would depend, he decided finally, on just how aggressive the enemy was determined to be. Clarke Colony - or whatever they ended up calling it - wouldn't have any real defences for years to come.
“They’re going to come from the north,” he said. 1 Section had already landed, he was sure; they would have shook themselves down by now, easily. “We can meet them here ...”
“Yes, Corporal,” Peerce said.
Percy thought hard. Peerce would follow orders, but he wouldn't offer suggestions, not now. The exercise was as much a test of Percy’s tactical skills as it was anything else; he had to set up the ambush himself, or risk being marked down by his CO. He looked from side to side, silently evaluating the position, then sorted out a plan.
“You three, dig foxholes here, here and here,” he said, using his HUD to mark out three separate locations. There was no need for entrenching tools when the suits could dig into the ground with ease. “You three, lay wires from here to here, then place the active sensors to the rear. You three, set up the mortars over here.”
Peerce turned to face him as the Marines hurried to work. “Wires, Corporal?”
“Wires,” Percy said. He tried very hard not to smirk. “I’ve got a cunning plan.”
“Just don’t pull a Baldrick,” Peerce said. Baldrick had entered the military lexicon to symbolise an officer who became so impressed with his own cleverness that he missed the basic flaw in his plans. “Wires will make it harder for you to move your troops.”
“I know, Sergeant,” Percy said.
He smiled to himself as he started to dig one of the foxholes himself. Armoured combat suits had been hailed as the be-all and end-all of military technology, at least until they’d actually entered service. It was true that even a light suit of powered combat armour could resist bullets, or even protect its wearer from IED blasts, but they had their limi
tations. And one particular limitation was a major problem on a world without a standard atmosphere. They needed radios to communicate with their fellows.
And radio pulses can be detected, Percy thought. There wasn't any quicker way to get oneself killed on the battlefield than by radiating a signal that might as well say ‘come kill me now.’ He’d seen it happen during hundreds of exercises, when they’d been allowed to make mistake after mistake, just so they could see the consequences without anyone actually having to be hurt. The CO will deploy passive sensors for sure, looking for us.
But, by using wires, the suits wouldn't need to radiate anything.
“You’ve also put the active sensors to the rear,” Peerce added. “You do know they will be detected?”
“I’m counting on it,” Percy said. If he was lucky, Lieutenant Hadfield would assume that the active sensors were placed next to his men. He might be suspicious if he picked up no traces of radio emissions. “But we will see.”
He frowned as a red icon popped up in his HUD. The exercise was about to begin.
“Places,” he ordered, sharply. The foxholes were ready; he clambered into one, then carefully dug through the icy soil until he had an excellent view of the plain. “Here we go.”
The waiting was always the hardest part, he reminded himself, as the minutes seemed to stretch into hours. There was always the temptation to declare the exercise a failure, or to suspect the enemy had cheated and attacked the colony through a different angle of attack, or even to leave one’s position and start scouting forward. He kept his eyes peeled on the landscape as a snowstorm blew up in the distance, sweeping towards them threateningly. The weather seemed to be largely unpredictable, as far as he could tell. It would probably be years before the weather service managed to come to grips with Clarke III’s weather and start making accurate predictions.
“I’m picking up a drone,” Private Oakley warned. He’d been placed in charge of the section’s ECM. “They’re probing us.”
“Bollocks,” Percy said, slowly. He was impressed they’d managed to fly the drone in the planet’s atmosphere. It had been designed for Earth-like environments, not Clarke III. “Take it down if it gets close enough to get us on visual ...”
“Contact,” Peerce said, sharply. “Incoming suits!”
Percy swung around and peered towards the enemy troops. There were only three of them, wearing the same armoured suits as his own men. They were advancing in sequence, one man moving forward while the other two covered him, then moving forward themselves. He wasn't surprised to note that their chameleon units were active, even though they drained power at a staggering rate. It was nearly impossible to pick them out from their surroundings when they were still.
But where, he asked himself, are the others?
He risked a glance at his suit’s passive sensors. There were no radio pulses being exchanged between the point men and the rest of their section, as far as he could tell, and it didn't look as though they were dragging wires behind them. Peerce had been right; wires were useful, when a section was locked in position, but actively dangerous if the troops had to move in a hurry. And the drone was practically hovering over the incoming soldiers ...
It struck him in a single flash of insight. “They’re using laser links to the drone to communicate,” he said. He’d heard of the possibility, but he’d never seen anyone use it in an exercise, let alone a battlefield. There were just too many ways it could go wrong ... yet, here, it allowed Hadfield to control his men without emitting any betraying emissions that would get them killed. “Oakley, target the drone. Mortars ... I want spread fire to the rear. Rifles, target the incoming point men. On my command, fire.”
“That will be costly, Corporal,” Peerce pointed out.
“Do it anyway,” Percy said. There was a pause. “Fire!”
He pulled his own trigger at the same moment. The hapless point men, caught in fire from several different positions, fell to the ground as their suits locked up, leaving them out of the fight. Percy smiled, then checked his HUD. The drone had shut down at the same moment, while the mortars had laid down heavy fire where he thought the rest of the enemy force had to be. There was a pause, then mortar fire came screaming back at them, aimed at his own mortars. They’d been waiting, he realised as he waited to see the outcome, for him to open fire, revealing the location of his own support weapons.
“Incoming,” Peerce snapped. Four men appeared in front of them, crawling towards the foxholes with terrifying speed. “Corporal?”
“Take them out,” Percy ordered, sharply. Two of his three mortars had managed to move before the enemy shells took them out, but the third was dead and gone. “And then alter position ...”
A second salvo of mortar shells landed around them. There was a long pause, then the electronic umpires decided that none of his men had been hurt. He smiled in relief, then keyed in a command to his remaining mortars. A shell fell among the advancing troops, locking up their armour. They were out of the fight.
“Fire Team One, with me,” he ordered. He jumped out of the foxhole as the mortars fired another barrage, taking the risk of being caught in the air. A suit might be a hard target to see and take out on the ground, but in the air it was an easy target. “Quickly!”
He boosted his suit as he led the charge forward, hunting for the remaining enemy targets. The CO wouldn't have put himself at the front, but he wouldn't have put himself at the rear either, not when he might have needed to take direct command. For a moment, a sudden flurry of snow almost blinded him, then he saw a handful of armoured troops advancing forward. He hurled a set of grenades from his suit’s inbuilt launcher, then opened fire as his men followed him. Two minutes later, it was all over.
“Exercise complete,” a dispassionate computer-generated voice said. “I say again, exercise complete.”
“And 1 Section is buying the beer,” Oakley said, as the ‘dead’ Marines rose to their feet and headed towards the foxholes. “We kicked serious ass.”
“So we did,” Peerce said. “Well done, Corporal.”
Percy beamed. “Thank you, Sergeant.”
“Definitely very well done,” Hadfield said, as his suit loomed out of the gloom. “Leading the charge yourself was reckless, but by then you probably had the victory in the bag anyway.”
“I only lost two men,” Percy said. He hadn't even noticed the second man ‘killed’ until scanning the after-action report from the automated monitors. Private Hardesty had joined him in the final mad charge. “But it would have been bad if there had been more of you out there.”
“Good thinking,” Hadfield said. He raised his voice. “Back to the nearest shuttle now, if you please. The storm is getting closer.”
Percy mulled it over as the Marines started the walk back to the colony. He’d started the battle with eleven men, counting himself and Sergeant Peerce. Losing two men didn't seem like a lot, but most of the battles the Royal Marines had fought in the past century had been against superior numbers, sometimes vastly superior numbers. Only better training and advanced technology had prevented complete disaster, at times. It was quite possible they’d fight someone who could afford to trade a hundred men for each Royal Marine and come out ahead ...
And the Tadpoles upset all of our calculations, he thought, looking down at the BAR-47 he carried in one hand. The plasma rifle could burn through a suit as easily as it could burn through bare skin; worse, the plasma blast inflicted horrific internal injuries on anyone it struck. Death was almost instant, in most cases. The suit was designed to seal itself and help keep its wearer alive, but the Tadpole weapons had made that almost impossible. Their weapons could do us real damage, if they got into the wrong hands.
The storm was pressing on their heels by the time they reached the shuttle, positioned neatly to one side of the colony. Percy opened the hatch, then waited for the remainder of the Marines to enter before following them in and closing the hatch behind him. The shuttle felt warm and welco
ming compared to the outside world, even if it was cramped and smelled of too many young men in close proximity. He sighed, then cracked open his suit anyway.
“Take a break,” Hadfield ordered his men. “It may be some time before we can take off and return to the ship.”
And pick up your shuttle, Percy thought, as the snowstorm swept over the shuttle. He peered out of the porthole and saw snowflakes brushing against the hull. It looked beautiful, but he knew it would be lethal if he went out in the storm without a suit. This place might make a good resort one day, if it can be terraformed.
He sighed inwardly as he picked up a datapad, then pulled up the records and started to work his way through the brief battle. It was easy, in hindsight, to see his mistakes, although he had managed to adapt, react and overcome his errors. The CO had launched a conventional attack too, he noted; if it had been real, the CO might have looked for another way to attack the colony, instead of impaling himself on the defences. There were several other prospective routes if he’d been willing to march around Percy’s position.
[Ark Royal 04] - Warspite Page 15