“I had hoped to shoot down more before they landed.” Eulenburg shook his head. “No. No, that’s a lie Sebastian. I didn’t think they would actually make a landing.”
“Yes, we are operating off the map. People have been arguing for…” Chevalier broke off coughing, “… arguing for twenty years, whether a forced planetary landing could or would be made.”
“I thought once it was clear they’d have to fight, and they didn’t appear willing to take the losses necessary to put in a bombardment, that we were going to be left to wither on the vine.”
“What’s your next move?”
“I don’t know.” There it was: the admission he couldn’t make to another living soul. Every course of action open to him looked to lead to disaster of one sort or another.
“What have they landed?”
“I don’t really know that either. They have established at least three beachheads, each close to one of the shelters. Guess we needn’t have worried about them throwing all their strength at one shelter at a time. But any idea of mutual support by the shelters is gone. Ours is approximately one hundred and fifty kilometres west of here. Their air defence is first class. Only one of our recon drones has penetrated their perimeter and even that one didn’t last more than a minute or two. It saw some kind of infantry, several battalions at least, soft skinned vehicles, artillery, possibly some armour but kinds or quantities… your guess is as good as mine.” Eulenburg paused staring into the middle distance, “They’re definitely building a spaceport and establishing their supply dumps. Once they have enough supplies and can move them forward, they’ll advance on us. Beyond that we know nothing.”
“No Alfred, we know the direction they’re going to come from.”
The clear plastic sheeting that had protected the Brigadier’s burned flesh during the early days of his injury, had now been replaced with treated pads to encourage the development of healthy skin. In turn conventional bandages held these in place. Although his eyes themselves hadn’t been damaged, the eyelids were another matter. Chevalier sat in his bed, his entire head swaddled in bandages, only his nostrils, mouth and ear holes uncovered. But while his body was still recovering, his mind, now that he’d been weaned off painkillers, was regaining much of its old sharpness.
“If air reconnaissance has failed, then we must send someone overland.”
“Asking someone to go beyond the perimeter Sebastian, is asking them to die.”
“Not necessarily,” Chevalier replied. “Small recon teams have a very real chance of avoiding detection. The information they can send back, now that most of our satellites are gone, will be priceless.”
“There will be no back-up for them. Once we come under close siege, the only way in and out will be the backdoor. The more we use that, the more we run the risk of it being discovered.”
Chevalier let out a tired sigh.
“You can’t save everyone Alfred,” he said. “You’re already asking everyone in those trenches to die. On the subject of risk, the coming siege will be an extreme exercise in risk management. Using the back door is a risk, but as long as we take care, it’s an acceptable one.”
The back door was another construction that took advantage of the legacy of Mount Hurtado’s volcanic past. It comprised a mixture of tunnels dug by humans and natural caverns that led from the deepest levels of the base to an opening in a heavily forested location seventeen kilometres to the north of Douglas as the crow flies. It had originally been conceived as a main way into the shelter, but that had been abandoned during construction. Now it served as a discrete entry and exit point.
Eulenburg stared into the middle distance for a while.
“You think it is necessary?” he asked quietly.
“Yes.”
“I’ll ask for volunteers.”
“And make sure that there’s enough explosives at the back door so it can be brought down quickly if we have to.”
Nearly three weeks passed without any movement by the Nameless towards Douglas, which wasn’t to say there was no movement at all. In orbit they were busy constructing something at the Lagrange Point between Landfall and the planet’s moon, while at the same time successive waves of transports continued to make further landings. Each Nameless convoy was met by the rapidly diminishing ranks of Landfalls fighters, until finally their numbers were reduced to less than a quarter of their original strength. Of the six recon teams dispatched towards the beachhead, three had stopped transmitting within a week.
Finally on day twenty the Nameless started their advance on Douglas. It took them two days to reach the base and another two to complete their encirclement. Down in Four C Eulenburg could only watch, deploy his forces and prepare for the inevitable.
___________________________
3rd May 2067, 06:30 Hrs Douglas Base, Frontline, Northern Quadrant.
It was funny really how the body sometimes learns faster than the brain it carried around. That was the thought that crossed Alice’s mind just after she heard the whistles of a salvo of missiles descending towards her. Without conscious thought, she’d instinctively pressed herself flat against the trench wall closest to the enemy. Every muscle in her body tensed. And she prayed.
The trench wall seemed to dance as the missiles started to land with a series of ear-splitting cracks. The first two descended into no man’s land, while the second pair came down between the front and support trenches. The third burst close, very close. Close enough for the concussion to knock her to her knees. Overhead shrapnel and wooden splinters zipped past and shattered tree branches rained down. As silence returned, Alice tried to draw breath as she pushed back the helmet that had slipped over her eyes. Why was it, she asked herself as she fought for breath, that every time it felt like she’d just run a marathon.
“Get over it girl,” she muttered to herself. “It’s no big deal. You don’t hear the one that gets you.”
It wasn’t the first time she’d heard incoming missiles, but it was the first time she’d been in the frontline when it happened, bringing breakfast up from the support line. From the distance came another series of approaching whistles and again she hugged the trench wall. This time there was no landing though and four distant explosions instead. Without doing anything so foolish as raise her head above the parapet, Alice looked up towards the nearest hill. A few weeks ago the forest canopy would have blocked her view, now a combination of winter and artillery fire had brought enough down to clear a line of slight. The marines with their usual tendency toward the grimly cheerful, called that hill and its laser battery, Famine. Working clockwise around the plateau the rest were War, Pestilence and of course, Death. The laser defence battery sited on top of the hill was now fully activated, tracking and firing on the missiles arcing toward Northern Quadrant. Although from where Alice crouched, a barely detectable glimmer was the only sign of its operation.
A pair of hands grabbed her underneath the arms and heaved her back onto her feet.
“You alright, Peats?” Corporal Tessa Dennison asked roughly.
“Yes, Corp,” she replied shakily just before ducking again as another missile landed in no man’s-land. “Should I go back to the support line?”
“Laser defence knew that one was falling short,” Dennison
said. She’d stayed upright when Alice ducked, “it let it go through. Get your stuff together and get down into the deep shelter.”
“Corp?”
“Already got word from HQ. This is the just the warm up act. They’re bringing up more arty. It’s too late for you to get to the support line and you aren’t going to want to be in the communication trenches for this. We’re in for a fun afternoon.”
Beyond, Alice could hear more missiles landing and increasingly few being brought down short.
She joined the stream of marines heading for the sector’s deep shelter, as all around missiles continued to land. She paused to allow two marines, carrying a third between them to pass. The wounded man’s face was
nearly grey and his right leg was covered in blood. Even as they passed, Alice could see he was struggling not to cry out as, despite his comrades’ efforts, he was bumped and jostled. Then it was her turn to descend into the earth.
As she went down the uneven steps she realised that while claustrophobia hadn’t bothered her during the time she’d spend in the base’s main shelters, it was going to this time. Down there she’d been below hundreds of metres of good solid rock, but here they were only twenty-five metres down beneath soil and concrete, deep enough to be buried alive, but not deep enough to feel safe. There were no seats in the shelter as there hadn’t been time to find or build any. Non-combatants like Alice were herded toward the back, furthest from the entrance, which only intensified her discomfort. When the barrage lifted, the marines would have to be the first out. As she sat on the damp uneven floor, in the semi darkness, Alice watched as streams of dust fell from ceiling to floor with each impact. There was almost no talk in the shelter as the noise pretty much precluded any such attempt, even if people had tried. Instead people simply sat there, most of them staring fixedly at the entranceway, tightly gripping their weapons and equipment. A few seemed to manage to look impassive, calm even. Alice envied them, perhaps even hated them a little. Most jumped and startled at each crash though. With so many bodies in such a confined space, the heat and humidity was rising fast. Alice could soon feel sweat streaming down her back. She looked at her watch a few times near the start and was shocked to see how little time has passed. After that she stopped looking. Better not to know that what seemed like hours, was only minutes.
___________________________
09:37 Hrs
“Looks like they finally plan to put in a full assault, sir. The Northern Quadrant is taking a beating,” Captain Gillum said quietly. With Four C’s main holo set for ground display, the Captain’s observation was hardly necessary. The whole sector was blinking red. For three weeks the Nameless had probed the outer ring of defences, mostly with small groups of infantry attempting to infiltrate their way into the line, occasionally backed up by short but intense artillery bombardments. All of these attempts had been halted well short of the frontline. Maybe the Nameless had finally lost patience or maybe it had all been part of the original plan. Either way they were finally putting in their first proper assault.
“Our laser batteries don’t seem to be as effective as they were,” Eulenburg replied pointing up at the display.
Four white overlapping circles were visible, each centred on one of the four hills that marked the corners of the base. The two centred on Death and Plague were fairly static, the ones over War and Famine though were in constant motion. The laser defence batteries on the top of each hill were completely automatic units. Their computers tracked and prioritised each of the incoming missiles, but it took a measurable length of time for the lasers to destroy each one. If the salvoes were too dense then the batteries didn’t have time to burn through them all. When that happened, the computer had to make priority choices, reducing the size of the area protected, leaving missiles aimed at less critical parts of the base to get through.
“The computers have already run an analysis. They’ve changed the launch pattern for their missile batteries, sir. They’re launching from further out, so by the time the lasers see them, they’ve gone ballistic. The lasers have to either set off the warhead or foul the aerodynamics. They weren’t really designed to handle this level of fire.”
Eulenburg grunted a reply as he continued to stare up at the display. They were designed primarily to prevent someone dropping an atomic weapon on them from orbit. Stopping ground fire was very much a secondary objective.
“Sir, have you eaten today?”
The question was so unexpected it actually got Eulenburg’s attention.
“I ate…” he had to pause for thought, “last night.”
“I’ll contact the canteen sir. Get them to send up something.”
“There are higher priorities, Captain,” Eulenburg replied sharply.
“Respectfully sir, there is nothing we can do for the time being,” Gillum replied undaunted. “You still have to eat though.”
“We don’t know how much of an attack they’re going to put in, or how badly the Northern Quadrant’s been hurt. We’re going to have to be ready to order up our reserves if there is any sign of them breaking through. Contact Colonel Motter. If they bring up armour we’ll have to match. Instruct the Indian battalion to be ready to move in to support the Northern Quadrant line. Order that small American detachment we have to link up with the Indians.”
Gillum paused before answering: “Yes sir.”
“Also Captain…” Eulenburg hesitated for a long moment before continuing, “order the laser batteries to withdraw protection from the frontline.”
“Sir?”
“The front is too wide for them to stop enough to make a real difference. They are to protect themselves, the artillery and the deep dugouts. Order the artillery to concentrate on counter battery fire.”
“Yes sir. I’ll also contact the galley and get them to send something down,” he said before leaving the command platform.
Eulenburg turned to stop him then shrugged.
For two solid hours the base’s northern frontier was pounded. There was no attempt at precision targeting by the Nameless. They simply saturated the entire sector with wave after wave of missiles. By the end of the first hour, eighty percent of the hard lines to the front were cut. The only information that was making its way down to Four C was from the drone aircraft they’d put up. From an altitude of two thousand metres, all the drone’s camera could see of the Northern Quadrant was a mass of explosions, dust and flying debris while beyond, on infrared, it detected a warm mass gathering at the edge of the tree line.
___________________________
16:03 Hrs
The explosions weren’t by any means constant. It might have been a bit easier to bear if they had been. Instead salvoes seemed to roll up and down the line, steadily getting closer before bursting directly overhead and receding again. Someone, perhaps several people in the shelter, had soiled themselves and the resulting smell was terrible. Sitting at the back of the shelter, Alice had pulled out the one centaur book that was still in her possession. She’d half thought that working on it might provide some kind of a distraction, but instead she found herself staring at the battered cover feeling sorry for herself. Sitting in a cold hole in the ground listening to explosions wasn’t a place she had ever expected to be. The book now seemed to be a symbol of what she’d lost. When the field telephone rang, even the calmest individual jumped. Lieutenant Avedon answered it. Alice was too far back to hear his side of the conversation. As soon as he hung up, Avedon turned to them all.
“Listen up. Airborne recce have observed enemy forces massing, so we will be making contact shortly. Sergeant Medvedev, I want you and your gun team up and out first.”
“Sir,” came the reply from somewhere near the entrance.
“The trenches will have taken damage,” Avedon continued. Outside the thunder of explosions gave his words extra emphasis. “Find the best cover you can, but do not bunch up!”
All around the shelter marines rolled onto their feet and primed their weapons. There was a final flurry of explosions outside, then abruptly it stopped. Everyone made a collective move for the entrance.
“Wait for it!” Avedon shouted.
A final salvo landed close enough to send dust and debris cascading into the shelter.
“Go! Go! Go!”
Marines were already piling out of the shelter almost before the Lieutenant had managed to enunciate the first letter. Alice and the rest of the half dozen support personnel surged after them.
“Hold it, damn it! Hold it!” Dennison shouted at them. It was too late though. Rationally they were all safer in the shelter than they were out there, but after God only knew how long sitting there in what felt like their own tombs, rationality was taking a
back seat.
As she dashed up the steps Alice expected the trench above to look much as it had when she went down. Reaching the top, her foot slipped in the loose soil and she went nose first into the dirt. As she tried to get up, a foot in the middle of her back forced her back down. The next person coming up at least attempted to hurdle her, not successfully though, as a heavy army boot clipped the back of her head, again sending her back into the dirt. As she finally staggered back to her feet, Alice got a chance to take a look around. The trenches, the fruit of thousands of man-hours, were in ruins. The walls had collapsed in most places, reducing them to deep ditches. The steel sheeting that had been supporting the walls was either gone or scattered. There was an overpowering smell of smoke, dust and what she could only assume were explosives. Then a hand clamped onto her shoulder and dragged her back down to her knees.
“Damn it,” Dennison snarled, “what is it with you idiots? You were safe down there!”
Alice made no reply since the question wasn’t particularly directed at her.
“We’ll just have to try to make the best of this. Grab a partner and head to Number Three Section’s piece of the line,” the Corporal shouted.
“Yes Corp,” Alice replied as she started to move away.
“And for God’s sake, keep your bloody head down!” Dennison shouted after her, before hurrying away to bellow at the other auxiliaries in sight.
As she made her way down the ruins of the trench line, Alice collared another auxiliary. Some marines were positioned on the remains of the firing step, their weapons already trained out into no man’s land, while others frantically tried to clear trenches. Alice was just trying to wriggle over a blockage when there was a shout from further ahead.
“Contact! Infantry two hundred metres!” A burst of gunfire followed and the Marines who were digging abandoned their shovels and snatched up their rifles. Within seconds the rest of the front erupted and whoever or whatever was approaching responded in kind. Alice and her new partner both rolled over the blockage together as bullets whistled overhead.
The Landfall Campaign (The Nameless War) Page 24