Steel Storm (Steel Legion Book 2)

by Casey Calouette

  Count-General Pishkin looked over to Colonel Petovic.

  "We'll evacuate as many as possible while we hold the gate."

  "But you're not to divert assets to help them," Count-General Pishkin added.

  Colonel Petovic looked away. "Any strategic asset is to be destroyed before the enemy can secure it."

  Colonel Clarke looked at Arap and then over at Riga. This wasn't a defense op; they were burning Squire so that the Kadan couldn't get any assets. "If this is a ruse, why are we destroying the industry here?"

  "Kalivostok is more defendable," Count-General Pishkin said. "Colonel, if your recon discovers something different then we'll request a clarification from KALCOM."

  No initiative. Colonel Clarke sighed and looked down at the map. How close could they get? No, the real question was, how close did they need to get? The concentration of enemy forces would increase the nearer they were to the outgate.

  "Duke Kornilov is offering titles on Squire to your brave troops. Those who distinguish themselves will be rewarded," Count-General Pishkin said sincerely.

  Someone laughed in the back of the room.

  A team of engineers walked into the command room. Only their eyes showed through the thick layer of dust. One of the men coughed and hacked. Another spoke. "We salvaged one of the Kadan tanks, Count-General."

  Colonel Clarke looked up from the display.

  "It's just like the one they recovered on Lishun Delta, sir."

  Colonel Clarke pushed through the crowd. "Side sponsons? Energy shield? 134-mm cannon? Exactly the same?"

  His heart beat faster. Everything they'd designed the new tank for was specifically to counter the Emflife model. He wasn't worried about the original Kadan trench models—they were useless on a fluid battlefield. The Vasilov had one shot to match the Emflife tank; he hoped they aimed right.

  "Yes, sir," the engineer said. He wiped the dust out of his eyes. "A damn spitting image."

  "Well then, let's get to work," Colonel Clarke said.

  In a matter of an hour, they laid out a simple plan. Or at least as simple as they came when the movement of thousands of troops went. Any time someone tried to add in another layer, Riga would call them out. "Quit getting fancy," he'd tell them. "All it takes is a simple plan executed simply. You get fancy, and shit goes wrong."

  Clarke was happy to have an outsider in the planning. At first, a few people tried to shout him down. Once, a major asked him to leave. All Riga did was yell back in his raspy voice and point out that he was a consultant and he was consulting. Any time someone had an idea, Riga could give tried-and-true commentary.

  If it was a good question, he would acknowledge it, walk through it, and come to a conclusion. But if it was shitty, he'd leap down their throats and make sure they knew how stupid it was. The end effect was that everyone thought a bit more before speaking.

  When they left, Clarke walked with Riga through the crowded bunkers. "Thanks."

  Riga pushed past a group of soldiers. "You people pay me for an opinion, and you'll damn well get it."

  "So what's your opinion of all this?"

  Riga stopped. He waved a finger in the air. "This, this whole facility, is bullshit. Sticking on Kalivostok is bullshit. Waiting for the fight to come to you is bullshit. Moving out is the only thing that isn't moronic."

  Colonel Clarke started to speak, but Riga kept talking.

  "You've got the B team here, Cole. Look at it: a bunch of militia just itching to run, and two infantry regiments, one with an asshole in charge, the other one with a noble retard. Then your disposable convicts."

  Colonel Clarke put the B team part behind him. "You think this is just a feint?"

  Riga rubbed his chin. "I don't know. If it is, tomorrow is going to be a long day."

  "Why's that?"

  "Because then the only thing to do is take back the outgate." Riga turned and kept walking.

  #

  Chapter Twelve

  Planet Squire, Kalivostok System

  Industrial Transit Zone

  The armor rolled through the dust-streaked darkness into the surrounding hills. At each cover point, the lead tanks would peel off and tuck into cover while more climbed up and through. The visibility was better than the day before, but not by much.

  On one side, Bravo Company punched up with Delta a few hundred meters behind. On an opposite arc, Alpha and Charlie climbed up a gentler slope past the wreckage of a half-dozen Emflife tanks. The wrecks were torched, scarred by shrapnel. Most had the tops popped off, though it wasn't clear if by intention or as an effect of the ammunition cooking off.

  At the rear, Fox Company labored up the center ridge with the Sixth Light Infantry, Colonel Carco's unit. They halted a few hundred meters up the slope and took position to cover the main transport link. No one moved on the main road, nor on the cargo rails next to it.

  The clouds broke as morning came. A tint of yellow colored the world like the sun was filtered through a cathedral window. The fierce dust clouds from the day before were now subdued little devils that danced and whipped in the wind.

  Tomi leaned forward out of habit and peered into the dust. They were at the edge of an industrial zone. Smoke rose from the buildings. The road they followed was marked on both edges by hurricane fencing, a feeble effort to keep the dust off the roads. It made a ridge on both sides and offered prime cover.

  "Hold on," Mick said.

  The main cannon slid up and away from the dust shields before settling in and scanning the complex.

  Tomi keyed up his map and studied the route. They'd have a zone of manufacturing, warehousing, and blocs of worker homes for the next dozen kilometers. He looked to one side and saw Bastard, Lieutenant Torori's tank, and on the other side was Bulwark. A bit further back, Bayonet idled next to Bishop. The former was the antiaircraft unit and the latter artillery.

  "We're gonna get out, I bet ya twenty," Hess said. "Whenever we sit like this, we have to get out."

  "I'll take that bet," Vinovy said.

  "Shut up," Wellington said. "It was metaphorical. You don't bet on stuff like that."

  "I didn't—"

  "Poker? You play poker?"

  Vinovy spoke up, a bit more excited. "No, but I can learn!"

  Mick kicked his boot against the cabin wall. "Don't gamble with Hess and Wellington."

  Bulldog came onto the comms. "Prepare to disembark infantry. Bishop, fire on defined grid."

  Bishop snapped down reinforcing legs. They hammered into the pavement with a resounding clack. The upper panels of the tank folded back and revealed a multibarreled rocket launcher underneath. The launcher swung to the side and fired.

  The rocket's shot almost completely vertical. In the split second they hung in the sky, they relayed basic information back to the tanks. Then they fell, and the rockets fired once more. They soared downward toward whatever target they had identified, and when they were a dozen meters over the target area they released a package of explosives.

  "Infantry out!" Mick yelled.

  The back hatch slammed down, and everyone raced out into the chill air. Puck gave the clear, and the hatch closed back up.

  The infantry broke into two lines and ran alongside the edge of the nearest building. Smoke billowed up in front of them as one of the buildings caught on fire. Brigitte pushed through the wall of a building, and her infantry ran inside. Down the line, Bitchwhipped and Bastard crawled along a service road with the cannons pointing downrange.

  "Keep pace with 'em," Mick said. "But don't break us out of this sandwall."

  Tomi slowly pulled ahead and steered the tank so one track was rolling in the dust. The turret spun to the side and pointed at the far corner of the warehouse.

  Puck crept up the edge corner and held up a fist. The rest of the squad dropped down into cover. There was a berm of sand that had fallen from the roof. He crept up to the corner and then back away. "Armor! In the street! It's pointed right at you!"

  Tomi slammed o
n the brakes before Mick asked. He stuck it into reverse and crept back.

  "Sit tight, Bulldog," Sergeant Bell, commander of Brigitte called.

  There was a loud clattering sound from inside of the warehouse. Then Brigitte opened fire. Shells shredded through the outer wall. Sparks and ricocheted rounds shot into the air.

  "Go!" Mick yelled.

  Tomi hit the accelerator and Bulldog skidded on the sand-covered road. He pulled up past the cover of the sand berm and stopped.

  A single Emflife tank struggled to pivot in the center of the narrow road. It had just pulled itself out of a defensive position to bring its armor toward Brigitte. The Vasilov tank was half caught on the wreckage of the warehouse wall. It fired round after round at the Emflife tank.

  "Firing pen!" Mick yelled.

  Bulldog's cannon thumped out a three-round burst of armor-penetrating rounds. These were specially designed to punch through the shield technology that the Emflife tanks used.

  The first round flared against the shield and ricocheted directly into the ground. The next two burst through the bluish-tinted shield and punctured into a seam in the armor.

  Brigitte delivered the final blow. The Emflife tank crunched to a halt and the bluish-tinted energy shield flickered and popped. Thick smoke poured out a second later.

  "Secure it! Check that building!" Mick called to the infantry. "Tomi, get us—"

  A crash slammed into Bulldog. It sounded like a gong. The reverberations shook everything. The electronics dimmed for a moment. Shock alarms flared.

  "Impact! Twelve o'clock!" Tomi yelled. His visor was overlaid with an indicator of where the round had impacted. It showed as a glancing strike; the armor wasn't compromised.

  Bulldog drove around the corner and took cover behind the next building.

  Someone announced contact with infantry down the line. Small-arms fire erupted with another artillery barrage.

  Tomi's heart thumped in his chest. He leaned forward again. His eyes darted from the edge of one building to the street. He saw a Vasilov tank drive across a gap and take cover. He wanted to sneeze; the dust was in his nose.

  Something moved in the next building. Tomi activated the chain gun controls. "Movement in the building!"

  "If anything comes out, shoot it," Mick said. "Puck, check it out!"

  Sophia, Vinovy, and Veriha sprinted across the road. Vinovy stumbled and sprawled face-first into the sand. Sophia dragged him into cover. On the opposite side of the road, Hutchins knelt down and pointed his grenade launcher across the street.

  Sophia popped a grenade off his chest harness and crawled up next to the wall. There was a broken window just above him. He came to a squatting position, hefted the grenade, and then stuffed it back into his vest. "Civilians!"

  "For fuck's sake," Mick said.

  Tomi let go of the chain gun control and took a deep breath.

  "Bulldog, ignore them and keep moving," Lieutenant Torori called. "Get ready to take cover."

  "You heard the man," Mick said.

  ***

  The bombers threaded the needle that was the stargate and blasted through the air. The shockwave that followed exploded the dust into a million bits. There were nine, and each was named for an island in the Kalivostok sea. In the flash of a moment, they were over the armor, through the rolling clouds of tank-stirred dust, and into the dry, yellow sun.

  Each of the automated systems deduced locations, checked vectors, calculated the wind, and adjusted. They shed altitude, dropping down toward the horizon, and then they really accelerated. Somewhere beneath them, cattle stampeded.

  A digital bombardier clicked away the moments.

  Kadan antiaircraft umbrellas spooled up. A withering line of projectiles slammed up into the sky. They glittered like lances of frost before tumbling back into the dust.

  The first to die was a bomber named Whistle. Next was a bomber named Summer. Then the next and the next. They were gone in an instant, the briefest flash. Internally, they were nothing but propellant and explosives. Speed was life.

  But one survived for the split-second necessary. It shed its cargo and, being spent, gave its last moment as an observer. A packet of data, a dozen images, was broadcasted. Then it too was gone.

  The bomb fell a few hundred meters before it too was intercepted by the umbrella. But it was too late and a touch too high. The fireball was massive, a roiling mass of anger and blistering heat. It dissipated like a summer storm and was gone. Nothing remained but the black soot in the wind.

  ***

  "The hell was that?" Mick said. His voice squeaked as he said it.

  Tomi hunched down instinctively when the shock waves passed overhead. He released the controls and let Bulldog rumble to a stop. "Artillery?"

  "Bastard, we just had one hell of a boom."

  "It's friendly, keep going."

  They rumbled down along the sand's edge and halted as a dust devil whipped past. The infantry ran on either side. At each corner they halted, looked, and raced across. Gunfire rang out in the distance, followed by an explosion. More smoke billowed up. Far behind them, the artillery echoed into the sky, and a distant shitstorm descended on someone.

  Bulldog crunched through a pile of debris and stopped next to a building with its side ripped open. The infantry poked in before continuing ahead. More refugees ran out from the buildings. They wore scared faces and carried things they should have left. One man had a stuffed chair on a cart.

  Puck ran up to a cluster and holstered his weapon. He dragged them into cover and huddled next to them. "Mick?"

  "Go ahead."

  "They said the armor came in yesterday. They heard the fight in the storm, then most of it backed out."

  "Uh-huh, anything else?"

  "They, uh, they say they saw some robots."

  Mick didn't reply. "Tell them to keep moving."

  "They say they're big robots," Puck said. The wind whistled as he spoke, and the sand rasped past his microphone.

  "I heard you. I'm sure they saw all kinds of shit. Keep moving."

  "Roger," Puck said.

  Veriha crouched down at the last building on the lane before creeping out to the corner. His demolition pack was large on his back, like a hunched monkey.

  "Everyone! Get to that edge! Dig in! Inbound armor!" Lieutenant Torori yelled. "Go, go, go!"

  "I don't see armor. Lots of refugees coming in. Sweet Jesus, look at 'em all, gotta be a thousand people," Veriha called back.

  "Go, go," Mick said to Tomi.

  Tomi punched the accelerator, and the tank plowed through an intersection. He picked out a spot next to a line of ore containers.

  Bulldog pivoted. One track spun one way while the other track spun opposite. A crunching noise from the side of the tank announced that they were firmly against the wall. The track drive labored, and they were tight. A second later, the main cannon slid up like a striking cobra and scanned over the containers.

  "Get into cover. Watch for Kadan infantry," Mick told the squad.

  Hutchins, Puck, and Gous set up inside of a broken building. Sophia leaped up into one of the ore containers and spread out his gear. The rest of the squad spread out into dust hills. Kallio huddled next to the rear hatch and prepped her med kit.

  "Bulldog, can you see anything?" Riga said over the comm.

  "Negative, Devastator."

  "Change spectrum, you should see it."

  "Shit," Mick said.

  Tomi clicked over from the visual spectrum to the enhanced view.

  "Woah, woah!" Mick yelled.

  Dust devils danced across the wide-open plain and looked like static tornados in the new spectrum. Low dunes rose and fell like cascades of seawater frozen on the horizon. There on the far side, came giant humanoid suits of armor.

  Each was nearly a dozen meters tall. Some had long gun barrels for arms; others lacked any arms and had rocket launchers. They raced through the sands, sprinting, lurching, struggling through it. Mixed with them all
was Emflife armor. Dozens and dozens of tanks. In the distance was infantry, like tiny soldiers; they almost seemed to be still compared to the sprinting suits and charging tanks.

  Barely visible against all of it was one of the ancient pillars rising up into the skies.

  "Contact! Armor, uh, powered infantry?" Mick said. His voice cracked excitedly.

  "Fire!" Lieutenant Torori called.

  Bulldog tracked the leading suit of powered armor. The targeting computer took in the range, velocity of the target, estimated wind, and difference in gravity, and programmed the first round. The moment Mick hit the trigger, everything was ready. The gun shifted an imperceptible amount to account for the new errors. Off it went.

  Mick only sent a single shell out.

  It sailed through the dust and over the dunes and was interrupted by a crosswind, but finally it struck. The nose of the penetrator punched through the armored suit's energy shield. The tungsten carbide tip spalled against the armor plate in a shower of molten metal. Right behind it, a mass of molten cobalt bored through the hole and shredded the inside of the walker.

  The twelve-meter-tall combat suit wavered. A burst of flame rocketed out of the arm joints, followed by an explosion out of the back. One foot caught in the dust and the suit fell into a mechanical heap. Incandescent white flames burst out, and then the entire unit exploded. One leg cartwheeled through the air and tumbled into the sand.

  "Holy shit," Mick whispered.

  Bulldog fired again and again. The rounds sailed into the mechs, and one by one they tumbled. Delta Company crawled into position and added another wave of fire. The air sounded out with cannon fire, artillery rounds, and small-arms fire. Finally, all of the mechs were down.

  The Emflife tanks halted in the wreckage of the mechs and returned fire. They were almost completely hidden by the dust and rising smoke. Only when they fired, or when their shields were hit, did they come into view.

  A tank from Delta Company suddenly erupted into flames. Black smoke poured out of the rear hatch. The tank's infantry ran back to it and then retreated into cover.

  The comms were wild. Contact was announced everywhere. Voices called targets, firing points, ammunition status—anything and everything.