Ephialtes (Ephialtes Trilogy Book 1)

by Parker, Gavin E

  Lucero gestured for Bobby to go first. “After you, if you don’t mind. I’d like to be the last to leave.”

  Bobby wondered if Lucero may be playing some angle, and he was tempted to insist that she go ahead of him. He decided to let it go. “Okay,” he said, and he pulled himself aboard the shuttle.

  Lucero took a look around, though there was little she could see in the scant amount of light available from the hatch. The drone made its way past her and back through the hatch. She heard it report to its masters, “There are no further personnel aboard Ephialtes apart from Commodore Lucero, who is boarding Europa now.”

  Lucero tugged on the hatch rim and glided effortlessly into the shuttle. She patted the hatch as she passed, saying, “She was a good ship.”

  Bobby personally oversaw the sealing of the hatches, both on Ephialtes and Europa. He messaged the pilot that it was safe to disengage and the pilot acknowledged him. “We have a few more things to do then we’ll disengage and head home,” she said.

  “Okay,” said Bobby. “We’ll move back to the passenger area.”

  “Do that,” said the pilot. “Strap yourselves in.”

  In the passenger section Bobby scanned the rows of seats for Askel. At first he couldn’t see her and he didn’t want to be seen to be looking, so he was relieved when he noticed her and saw that she hadn’t noticed him.

  Bobby’s seat was at the front of the cabin. He had two of his team with him, with the rest sat along the back of the cabin where they could observe those in front of them. Bobby didn’t expect any trouble. He thought Lucero seemed like a straight-up sort of character and he could sense the relief in the cabin. However humiliating it might have been to have been defeated, he knew the crew were glad to be alive.

  Bobby was about to float over to Askel. He had decided to ask her something technical about Ephialtes - about what might happen to her over time as she remained in lonely orbit slowly atrophying - just as an in. But as he went to unbuckle his harness he heard the pilot’s voice over the cabin’s strange omnidirectional speaker system.

  “This is your captain speaking. We are about to disengage from Ephialtes. We will then manoeuvre to a position ready for descent. Please remain in your seats until further notice.”

  Kostovich had been so engrossed in the live feeds from Ephialtes and Europa that he hadn’t given much time to the data from the drone he had sent to investigate the crashed dropship.

  The data he had suggested that while Parry 5’s missiles hadn’t totally destroyed the only dropship to make it into the Martian atmosphere, they had damaged it enough that gravity would do the rest. The ship had crashed at a safe distance, anyway, so there seemed to be no hurry to investigate. Soon after the crash a sandstorm had swept the area making any recon impossible at that time. The drone had only been launched that morning, when weather conditions were more favourable.

  The feeds from the helmet mounted cameras of Bobby’s team and the rescue drone were fascinating. Ephialtes was in much better shape than Kostovich would have predicted. He thought that, judging by what he had seen, they may have been able to survive much longer than he had predicted. He marvelled at human resilience.

  As the feeds showed an external view of Ephialtes from Europa, still looking mighty as she receded into the distance, Kostovich glanced at the terminal displaying data from his own recon drone. None of the feeds were updating and in the corner of the screen the words ‘Data Interrupted’ slowly flashed in amber.

  He looked at the time on the screen. There had been no new data for forty minutes. He tried a few things to communicate with the drone - manually contacting the auxiliary coms system, sending a soft reset command - but nothing worked. He ran the data back to the moment he had stopped receiving transmissions and looked for any anomalies. There were none. The drone had simply and suddenly stopped.

  Kostovich took Foveaux by the arm and guided her to the terminal. “Look at this,” he said.

  “What am I looking at?” said Foveaux.

  “This is a recon drone I sent out to the crash site a couple of hours ago. It’s gone dark.”

  “Is that unusual?”

  “It’s not entirely unheard of. Weather conditions aren’t great at the moment but I would have expected some indication of any problems before losing contact. This one just went out,” he snapped his fingers, “like that.”

  “And that was at the crash site?”

  “No, that was on the way to the crash site. In fact, it wasn’t that far out from the city. On a direct line from the city to the crash site.”

  “Do you think it was shot down?”

  Kostovich shrugged. “Don’t know. You’d expect some warning even with that. You know, see the missile coming or something. It just feels a little . . . odd, to me. What do you think?”

  Maya didn’t know what to think. But she could see that Kostovich had concerns.

  “I’ll send some people out there right away.”

  “Good,” said Kostovich, relieved. “You know the troop carriers can go outside, they’re fully sealed. The flight suits are designed for low pressure, too. It’s late afternoon out there, about four degrees Celsius, I think, so your people won’t freeze to death either.”

  “I’ll tell them to suit up,” said Foveaux.

  “Great,” said Kostovich. “I’ll launch another drone. It’s probably nothing, just a mechanical failure or whatever. I’ll let you know if I see anything.”

  “Okay,” said Foveaux, “me too. Can you send me the coordinates for the area the drone went down?”

  “I’m sending them now,” said Kostovich. “It’s forty kilometres or so west of Parry 4. Head out to the spaceport and just keep going.”

  C H A P T E R 3 5

  The Horizon

  Kostovich’s second drone had just taken off as Europa was touching down. The loading bridge swung around and connected. Bobby’s crew escorted their charges off the shuttle and into the loading area, where two of Foveaux’s transports awaited.

  Foveaux approached Bobby. “Well done,” she said.

  “Simple recovery mission, no problem,” said Bobby.

  “We’ll take them back to the garrison and hold them there for processing. Listen, can you come with me?”

  “What is it?”

  “Kostovich has picked up some suspicious activity. He wanted me to check it out. I’m taking some troops over there right now.”

  Bobby noticed the armoured troop carriers near the transports. “Okay,” he said, “I need to finish up here, just hold on a moment.” Bobby walked over to his crew and congratulated them on their deportment during the mission. He shook hands with them all.

  When Bobby returned to Foveaux she was talking on her comdev. “Yes, hold on,” she said, “I’m putting you on speaker. Bobby Karjalainen is here.”

  “Karjalainen?” said Kostovich.

  “Hello, Dr Kostovich,” said Bobby.

  “I was just telling the commissioner. I’ve just lost another drone. It’s not mechanical failure. I made a visual on five dust columns just before I lost contact. I think the dropship made a successful landing, though maybe a little off course. The mechs are a few minutes west of the spaceport. I’ve roughed out their speed. They may be in missile range in the next fifteen or twenty minutes. I’m going to send another drone to the crash site - we’ll go the long way round this time - to see if they’ve sent another squad in some different direction, and I have all my missiles ready to go on them as soon as they breach the horizon. But the Parrys are primarily an air defence. You need to get out there and stop them from making contact with the city. You’re a commander, right?”

  “I was,” said Bobby.

  “Then you know their tactics. Figure out what they are going to do and stop them from doing it. I’ve got reasonable odds with the missiles but their countermeasures are pretty good. If you can get eyes-on you have artillery and other battlefield weapons you can bring to bear on them.”

  “We do?”
said Bobby.

  “Yes. The troop carriers have plasma cannon. If you can get line of sight there’s nothing they can do to defend themselves against them. But you’re vulnerable to their missiles. Let me take care of those, I can deal with the air. You have to get eyes-on and hit them with the cannon.”

  “Anything else we need to know?”

  “If all else fails, I might have a Plan B”

  “You’re expecting this to fail?”

  “Not expecting. But good to have a fallback, eh?”

  “Not really,” said Bobby. “Not if the failure of Plan A means I get my ass kicked.”

  “Don’t worry about it now. I’m still working on it. Take those mechs out, and hurry.”

  “Will do,” said Bobby.

  “Take one of the troop carriers. I’ll take the other,” said Foveaux.

  “Do you have any kind of plan?” said Bobby. “At all?”

  “Not really,” said Foveaux. “Split up, if necessary abandon the carriers and carry on on foot. We have some RPGs and light personal GG missiles in the back. We can work with those if we have to.”

  “Okay,” said Bobby. “Lock down the hangar, we don’t have any time to waste.”

  Foveaux spoke into her comdev and yellow lights and claxons sounded around the hangar bay. “Decompression in thirty seconds,” said a disembodied voice, repeating with the seconds decreasing in decrements of five.

  Foveaux shouted above the din to Bobby, “The transports will have to stay here for now. Let’s go.”

  Bobby and Foveaux climbed into their respective troop carriers.

  “Hi, I’m Bobby,” he said as he entered, “the commissioner has just placed me in charge of this vehicle.

  “Not a problem, sir, good to have you aboard,” said the driver.

  “Have you had much training in this vehicle?” said Bobby.

  “Just picked her up this morning,” said the driver.

  “Great,” said Bobby. He noticed an indicator on the dashboard showing that external air pressure was dropping. He rummaged around the back of his seat and found a helmet, which he put on. “Foveaux?” he said into the com.

  “Go ahead,” said Foveaux.

  “We’ll break south and you break north, okay?”

  “Sounds good.”

  Bobby saw the huge hangar bay doors opening. They retracted slowly to the floor until he had a clear view of the shuttle and the runway beyond it. Beyond that was the untrammelled surface of wild Mars. He punched the driver gently in the shoulder and said, “Let’s go.”

  Lund and Lucero had seen the intense conversation between Bobby and Foveaux, and the pointing at the troop carriers, from their seats in the transports.

  “What do you think it is?” said Lund.

  “Some sort of emergency?” said Lucero.

  “Is it a trap? Are they just going to leave us here?” said Lund, hiding the panic in her voice.

  “I don’t think so,” said Lucero. “They’ve left the drivers and guards with us. Unless they’re planning on bumping those off, too.”

  “They’re reacting to something,” said Lund.

  “I can’t think what,” said Lucero.

  “How far out were we when we got hit?”

  Lucero shrugged. “Forty, fifty thousand kilometres?”

  Lund nodded. “We launched three dropships. Maybe they made it. We would have been in range - just.”

  “I doubt it,” said Lucero. “The blast probably caught them too. And if it didn’t the Martians have other missile defences. I’m sure they would have picked them off.”

  “That’s a missile battery there,” said Lund, nodding at the Parry base on the far side of the spaceport. “But no defence is infallible. What if they got through? What if just one got through?”

  “What if one what got through?” came a voice from across the aisle.

  Lund was startled by the aggressive tone. “We were just discussing the -” said Lund, but Lucero hushed her.

  “Do not presume to interrupt a superior officer’s conversation,” said Lucero. “What’s your name, soldier?”

  The man straightened in his seat. “My name is Commander Foley,” he said.

  Though he had his suspicions before, Steiner now felt certain the Martians were onto him. The second drone, he thought, was no coincidence. He had taken that one out, too. That act would have alerted them to his presence, even if the drone had not been able to detect him. He checked the details with his HUD. He was now within a handful of kilometres of the spaceport. As soon as he had a visual on the missile battery his plan was to attack it with lasers and take it out. After that the spaceport would be there for the taking. It would be a simple matter of walking up to it.

  He checked the data coming from his mechs. It was all good. A scan of all radio frequencies picked up various rubbish, but one group of transmissions stood out. It was coming from the region of the spaceport and although he was unable to decrypt it he was fairly sure it must be military. The position and frequency suggested as much. That, together with the presence of the drones, told him that they were onto him. From now on timing was crucial.

  What little information he had about the Martians’ missile batteries told him they were aimed primarily at the sky. Until he made it over the missile battery’s horizon he would be relatively safe. But he needed to get over the horizon in order to have line of sight for his lasers to do their work. The mechs would have a small window in which to fire, and during that time it was likely that the Martians would fire missiles at them. The mechs’ missile defences were pretty good. They had a ninety-five percent success rate in protecting against missile attack. They had chaff, flares and most impressively their lasers to take out an incoming missile once it was locked on and headed at them in a straight line. The mechs’ camera systems could guide their lasers, and an incoming missile provided a relatively stable target.

  Steiner had detailed maps of the area around the spaceport. There was an outcrop of rocks that they would be able to approach in the lee of. They would be able to prepare the attack and then step from behind the rocks to launch it.

  Steiner had managed to sleep as his mech had trundled from the crash site to the spaceport. It had not been comfortable or refreshing but he felt his mind was clear enough to engage in battle. He had taken on sustenance too, in the form of the chocolate sludge. He had also managed to make use of the commander mech’s commode facilities. Although he was tired and dirty, and the smell inside the cockpit was strong enough to kill a horse, he felt ready for battle.

  On seeing the outcrop appear over the horizon Steiner felt his resolve stiffen. Where he had allowed himself the luxury of self-pity on the journey to the spaceport he now cast all such thoughts aside. Once more he had become a single-minded warrior and all his focus would be on winning this battle.

  He scanned the skies for drones; there were none. He scanned the horizon for troops or vehicles; there were none. He proceeded with his mechs towards the outcrop.

  As they crossed the plane Steiner looked first to his left and then to his right. He knew the mechs were automatons, machines under his control, but anticipating the battle ahead he couldn’t help but feel a brotherly attachment to them. He could feel their strength and resilience, and watching them stride together with him filled him with an esprit de corps that he couldn’t really explain. He was the unit and the mechs were merely an extension of his battle capability, but somehow he felt they were his comrades; that they would look out for him if he was in trouble and he would do the same for them. It was all he could do to resist giving them some sort of rousing speech to encourage them in the forthcoming fight. In the end, he settled for a few words to himself. “Let’s get these sons of bitches,” he said, and his troupe of towering metal warriors continued stomping towards the horizon.

  On reaching the outcrop Steiner sent three of his mechs to the left while he and the other one went to the right. If this had been a simulation he would have sent the dropship on
a reconnaissance mission way overhead, giving him a view beyond the outcrop. But this was no simulation and his dropship had been destroyed. He knew they would have to proceed Wild West style, dodging out from behind the outcrop and firing at the Parry battery before dodging back. While he didn’t like the risks it presented, something about it appealed to him. It would be like playing one of those IVR games.

  He programmed his HUD to overlay a visual image of the missile battery where it should be, so it appeared he could see it through the outcrop. He programmed his laser to fire in a figure of eight pattern centred on the middle of the battery, and he set similar configurations in his mechs.

  One last time he checked on his radar for incoming missiles and saw none. Finally, he made a visual inspection of the sky. He knew it was pointless. His electronic detection aids were far more accurate than his puny human eyes, but in the martial spirit at the heart of the Commander Program he somehow felt connected to the battlefield at a human level, and visually checking the skies in that way felt necessary.

  Sensing that the coast was clear he prepared to step out from the protection of the outcrop and begin the attack. As if to the mechs under his command, but in fact to no one but himself, he said, “Let’s go,” and began the attack.

  C H A P T E R 3 6

  Assault

  From his position in the control centre Kostovich was scanning the horizon. There were high resolution cameras on the Parry 4 battery allied to radar and thermal imaging cameras.

  “Eyes on the skies,” he said to Walton.

  “On it,” came the reply.

  “There’s a heat signature flowing upwards and backward and somewhat to the right of that outcrop,” said Baldwin. “It’s doesn’t look right to me. It’s very subtle, could be geothermal or even the sun heating a rock maybe, where the sand has been taken away by the dust storm. Or it could be enemy forces.”