Decisively Engaged (Warp Marine Corps Book 1)

by Carella, C. J.

  Timothy’s scream of anguish was lost amidst the thunder of war.

  Twenty

  Year 163 AFC, D Plus Twenty-three

  “Are you sure?”

  Spacer Apprentice Heinrich Gutierrez nodded resolutely, not the least bit intimidated by being braced by two superiors at the same time.

  “You can check the tape, ma’am. That space-time distortion is a shield activation. A big shield. Lasted at least forty-five seconds.”

  Chief Donnelly wasn’t ready to buy the sensor tech’s theory. “Could be bouncers off our shields. Those duplex rounds generate all kinds of gravity emanations, and we’re under constant bombardment. Not to mention the Wyrashat grav-cannon; those mess up sensor readings like nobody’s business.” She tapped on the screen where a graph displayed variations in local space-time. “We got hit with a couple dozen special munitions at the time of your ‘blip.’ Followed by the Vehelian’s power plant going off.” That event wasn’t a spike in the graph but rather a long curve that filled the next several minutes. “Between the enemy artillery and the gluon plant blowing up, it’s hard to tell what was happening at the time.”

  “Which is suspicious in itself,” Heather said. “That barrage was unusually heavy; they’ve been stingy with their duplex rounds lately. That kind of maneuver is just what I’d do if I was trying to conceal a force field test.”

  “Expensive maskirovka,” Donnelly replied, using the traditional Russian term for military deception. “They launched a general attack at the same time and suffered massive losses.”

  “We did too. That distraction almost finished us off.”

  The O-Vehel embassy had been partially destroyed; only the building’s heavy field compartmentalization had kept any of it standing after a lucky duplex round had destroyed one of its two gluon power plants and temporarily knocked out the area shielding for that section of the line. They’d almost lost the war right then and there, and all the forces in that sector had taken over ten percent casualties.

  “Which is why…” Donnelly started to say before she froze in mid-sentence and slumped in her seat. “I’m sorry. I just realized I’m trying to think of reasons why it isn’t true because I don’t want it to be true. I’m sorry.”

  “I get it. I don’t want it to be true, either.” Heather turned to the Spacer Apprentice. “Good job, Spacer Ortiz. Carry on.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  Heather went to share the bad news with Captain Fromm. She couldn’t afford to think of him as Peter at the moment.

  She found him in his apartment, where he’d had his first full night’s sleep in three days. After the brutal battle, both sides had agreed to a twenty-four hour (well, twenty-five-point-three hours, a Jasper-Five day and night) armistice to allow for the removal of the dead and some much-needed wound-licking. The Enclave’s two clinics, the Marine’s BAS and a hastily-built field hospital were full of wounded personnel, and the fabbers couldn’t produce nano-meds fast enough, not without the risk of running out of bullets and other indispensable consumables. The fabber operators were working non-stop; some of them had become casualties from overstrain, and they still couldn’t meet the needs of the Enclave. Not that it mattered; they were running low on feedstock as well. A couple more battles like the last one, and they’d be reduced to using low-tech weapons.

  Fromm had used the armistice to catch up on his sleep. There were still plenty of emergencies, but none of them required his attention. Until now.

  Her imp woke him up; he invited her in and indulged in a brief hug and kiss before getting down to business.

  “The Kirosha have tested an area force field,” she said. Fromm listened quietly while she outlined the findings of Spacer Ortiz.

  “The spaceport. They didn’t set the demo charges right, and their pet Lamprey was able to salvage a field generator along with that fabber,” he said when she was done.

  “Maybe they did everything right. A field agent’s imp can hack into military systems. If the Lamprey was close enough, he could have disarmed some or all of the charges. I’m guessing it was only a few of the charges, since the Kirosha don’t have access to the three fabbers and four area force fields we left behind. Not that assigning blame is an issue at this point.”

  “You’re right, it isn’t. The only important thing is the result. We are fucked. With an area force field, they can march tanks and artillery right into our lines and overwhelm us. If I were them, I’d launch a general attack like the one we just survived while they deploy an assault force behind the shield. We won’t be able to concentrate on it without risking a Ruddy breakthrough somewhere else. And once they’re through the trenches in numbers, it’s all over but the screaming.”

  He closed his eyes as he worked it all out. “We could fall back into the embassy buildings and hunker down behind their shields, as long as we don’t mind abandoning half the civilians and all the refugees, since there just isn’t enough room for them. And that will only buy us a couple more days, maybe less, before they storm each building in turn and finish us off.”

  “Unless?”

  “What makes you think there’s an ‘unless’ in this situation?”

  “I can think of a couple things, and I’m not a jarhead. I figure you can come up with something better.”

  “We can try deploying mines, but we’d need days to produce them, and I doubt we have that long. Or we can use the cargo shuttles to launch an airmobile raid, except we know the enemy has anti-air assets; that’s how they killed Gunny Obregon. Which leaves us with the warp catapult.”

  “Is it ready?” Heather asked. There’d been arguments about using precious resources to rebuild the catapult, but Fromm had made a passionate argument for having the ability to strike back rather than just surrender the initiative to the enemy.

  “It took a while, what with everything else taking precedence, but it’s about ready,” he said. “Sort of. I was thinking of using it to raid the Palace, take the Queen hostage, maybe, or just whack the crazy bitch and hope whoever is next in line is more reasonable. Except we can’t aim the fucking thing worth a damn; the thieves only took the platform, not the attached sensor suite. Without it, we would need a beacon of some sort, like the energy signature of a power plant.”

  “Like the one maintaining their field generator.”

  “Yes. It should work, but it’s not going to be easy. The warp aperture is unstable. Anybody we send through is going to be exposed to warp turbulence. They estimate we’ll take as many as ten, fifteen percent casualties just from going in.”

  “Rockwell’s contacting the other embassies. Maybe they can help with your tech problems. And help outfit the task force, too. This has to be a multi-species effort. You might even call it the International Warp Catapult Project.”

  “Sounds like a typical State Department boondoggle.”

  “Not everything has to be a hundred percent American, you know.”

  “I suppose. It feels weird, counting on ETs.”

  “This is a case of hanging together versus hanging separately.”

  “Guess it can’t hurt to have them take a look.”

  “Good. Of course, even if the warp drop goes swimmingly, the task force will have to fight its way back to us.”

  “It’s a one-way trip, Heather. A force on foot, armed only with what we can carry on our backs, facing hundred-to-one odds, and that’s just counting the units directly in contact…” He shook his head. “Accomplishing the objective will be hard enough. After that, we’ll be cut-off and surrounded. At seventh and last, the Ruddies can dogpile us and stomp us to death. We aren’t coming back.”

  “And all that ‘we’ shit means you want to lead the way.”

  “I’m not sending my men on a suicide mission while I sit on my ass. Fuck that.”

  “You’re thinking like a Lieutenant. Like a Second Lieutenant. Not thinking at all, in other words.”

  Fromm shrugged. “If we do this, I’m leading the operation. That’s
final.”

  Heather raised her hands in surrender and turned away from him. “Okay, sir, Captain Fromm, sir. I won’t get in your way. And I’ll talk Rockwell into going along. But first you’ve got to promise me something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Stop treating this as a suicide mission. Suicide is for losers. Promise me you’ll do everything in your power to come back.”

  Their eyes met.

  “I promise.”

  Year 163 AFC, D Plus Twenty-Five

  “… and sometimes the bear eats you,” Russell said, turning his cards over. “Four kings, dabrahs.”

  Gonzo dropped his hand in disgust as Russell scooped the chips. His imp recorded the transaction; his account was nicely in the black. Not as much as it would have been if he’d just banked a quarter of his pay like he was encouraged to do, but saving money just wasn’t as much fun as winning it off other people.

  It’d been a quiet few days since the general attack that almost made it through the wire. The Ruddies were probably resting and refitting, getting ready for an even bigger push. And if they had a working area force field, it’d be up to Russell and his fellow devil dogs to save the day.

  “It don’t matter nohow,” Private First Class Dubicki said, sounding gloomier than he had any right to be, having folded as soon as the second king had shown up on the table. “We’re all gon’ get kilt.”

  “Stow that bullshit, Doobie,” Gonzo told him. “That’s loser talk. If we get killed, we’ll do it smiling and singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic or somesuch. Nacle will be lead tenor or whatever the fuck you call it, won’t ya, Nacle?”

  Nacle looked up from a corner in the common room, where he’d been composing an email while the rest of the guys did fun stuff. “Been telling you since I met you, Gonzo. I can’t sing worth spit.”

  “Can’t drink. Can’t fuck. Can’t swear. Can’t sing. The fuck you good for?”

  “I can shoot,” the Mormon said; his glare made it clear who he had in mind for a target.

  “Take it down a notch, willya?” Russell said. Everyone was worked up. Doobie had a point; the mission briefing they’d gotten sounded a bit too much like suicide. And it was all Russell’s fault. If he hadn’t stolen the fucking catapult, there would be no mission.

  He got a private imp message from Gonzo a second later. You sure Crow won’t sell us out?

  If he was going to, he would have already, Russell sent back.

  That catapult had been nothing but trouble. They’d gotten screwed just about every way possible. Well, no arrests or court-martials, granted; the skipper wasn’t looking to jam anybody up. But they were out a ton of cash, and were probably going to get killed to boot.

  Life in the fleet sucked ass sometimes.

  * * *

  The cell was deep beneath the Great Pyramid, carved into the foundations of the sacred building. It was cold and damp, and stank of offal and despair. Despite all that, Colonel Neen – the former Colonel Neen – counted himself lucky. The torturers hadn’t started in on him yet. Every once in a while, he could hear the screams of far less fortunate prisoners. Political dissidents, disgraced government officials, courtiers who had given offense to the Crown or to someone high-ranked enough to have them thrown in this most august of prisons, they all were dragged down into the dark knowing they would never again see the sun or the gentle glow of the Eye of God. All they had to look forward to was the release of death, a gift that their jailors would sadistically deny them until the last possible moment.

  How long had he sat alone in the darkness, his only company the biting and stinging vermin that shared the cell with him? Neen had no idea. Besides the screams from his fellow captives, the low rumble of artillery was the only other constant of his current existence; the war against the Star Devils was still going on. Neen suspected that his fellow officers were not having any more success than he had. Probably much less; he had managed to inflict some damage on the enemy, and he knew that assaulting fixed positions defended with alien technology would lead to massive losses for far lesser results. How many regiments, how many entire divisions had been thrown away so far? How many lives been lost, against a foe who had not done any harm to the Kingdom until Kirosha chose to turn trading partners into deadly enemies?

  His cell door opened, casting enough light into the cell to temporarily blind him. Neen wasn’t hungry, so it couldn’t be meal time; he was usually starving by the time someone remembered to bring him some thin cereal mash and a jug of stale water. An unscheduled visit could mean several things, none of them pleasant.

  “Leave us,” a familiar voice said. The cell was plunged back into darkness a moment later as the guards shut in Grand Marshall Seeu with his former protégé.

  “What brings you here, Teenu?” Neen said as rudely as he knew how, deliberately using the Grand Marshall’s personal name and omitting his titles. “Come to inspect my new quarters? If the war against the Star Devils lasts much longer, you may find yourself partaking in similar accommodations.”

  “It was not my decision to send you here,” Seeu said.

  “It does not matter. I am here. I wish I had died along with the rest of my regiment. Alongside my dead boys.”

  “To be a commander is to love one’s army. To be a commander is to willingly kill that which he loves.”

  “Yes, I am familiar with your wise words, Teenu. I’ve read your book plenty of times. Do you have a spare copy you could leave with me? It is too dark to read in here, but I could use its pages to wipe my arse.”

  “You are angry.”

  “My men are dead. Are you going to bring them back? Are you going to give me back my guns, my troops? I suspect you are not. So say your piece and leave me be.”

  “In two days, we attack the Star Devils, using some of their own devices against them. This will be the decisive moment. If we fail, we will not have the resources to attack again. We will be reduced to mounting a long siege and waiting for our new allies to arrive and finish off the Star Devils. Which they will do, for a price. Our esteemed ally made it clear that if we cannot win by ourselves, our current agreement will be modified accordingly. We will once again be reduced to servitude, dependent on our new masters to protect us.”

  “You knew it was madness to go to war with the Americans,” Neen said, feeling exhilarated for the first time in years. To be free to speak his mind at last was a heady experience. “Even if we kill every Star Devil on the planet, our fate is wholly contingent on whose ships will next appear over our skies. If it is the Americans, we are doomed. If it is the Lahn Arkh, we will bow our heads to them, and from everything we’ve learned, they are unlikely to be a better choice.”

  “All you say is true,” Seeu admitted. “I have given orders to capture alive as many Americans as we can, if we win. If need be, we can use them as hostages should their fleet be the one to appear next.”

  “We promised the Lahn Arkh we would kill all Americans on the planet.”

  “What is one more broken promise? They can be disposed of easily enough if the Lahn Arkh arrive.”

  “What a weak reed we are, to bend this way or that, as the wind blows,” the former colonel said.

  “We are weak, Neen. I have played this game as well as I could, just as you did. You executed the ambush perfectly. It is not your fault that the enemy was strong enough to break free and turn on you. Sometimes the game is lost before it begins.”

  To hear himself exonerated brought warmth to Neen’s entrails even after all the dishonor and indignities heaped upon him. He began to regret his harsh words.

  “You honor me, Grand Marshall. Here you stand, discussing strategy with a former soldier, now a condemned captive. I am curious as to your reasons for doing this.”

  “I note with gladness that you have remembered some of your manners, Neen. I am here to make you an offer. I will make similar offers to several other prisoners. One must plan for defeat as well as victory. If I win the day, I swear to you,
I will use whatever influence I earn from my triumph to have you released and restored to your offices.”

  That was more than Neen had ever dreamed of. A smell ember of hope began to burn in his liver.

  “And if I lose, I will need your help,” Seeu went on. “Your help, and that of the others, for we will face desperate times, and the Kingdom’s survival will require desperate measures.”

  “Whatever happens, the old Kirosha will be gone,” Neen said; he was beginning to understand what the Grand Marshall had in mind. “You do realize that, I hope.”

  “Change is fraught with danger. It is sometimes necessary. Even Ka’at is not immutable.”

  Neen should have felt elated at the prospect of escape and possible revenge. Instead, he was suffused with sadness and a quiet sense of purpose. He squatted down, hands held in a sign of obedience.

  “Lead me, Grand Marshall.”

  * * *

  “It’s a kludge, all right,” Sergeant Seamus Tanaka said as Fromm walked around the end product of weeks of frantic work, not to mention the expenditure of precious materiel and fabber time.

  A normal warp catapult looked like a flat circular surface, dull gray in color, surrounded by a rim of brass and gold gravitonic circuitry, with a gluon power plant underneath. The Marine thieves had carefully sectioned off the launching pad, along with the circuitry rims; the power plant had been destroyed or proved to be too massive to transport and conceal. Tanaka, several engineers from Caterpillar, two Wyrm Savants and a retired Oval warp-drive designer had busted their asses to reassemble the pad, hook the rebuilt device to a Wyrm power plant, and graft an Oval computer to the whole thing to coordinate the wildly fluctuating energies involved in creating two warp points on a planetary surface.

  The improvised power plant and computer clashed horribly with the catapult’s human design. The whole thing looked as if a not-particularly-smart child had taken three toys from different manufacturers and welded them together. But the simulations said it would work, and the Oval computer would hold things together much better than a human model, turning the possible ten percent loss rate into a much-less-suicidal half of one-percent. Given that the pad would only be able to launch twenty-five people in total, there was a good chance nobody would die in transit.