The Empire's Corps: Book 06 - To The Shores...

by Christopher Nuttall

  “We will establish the truth of such issues,” Sivaganga said, blandly. Neither he nor the Prince expected the off-worlders to surrender their fellows – it would be in line with their arrogance – but it would make a suitable excuse for attacking the Residency. “I must insist that they be surrendered at once.”

  The two off-worlders exchanged glances. “Unacceptable,” the woman stated, flatly. “We cannot simply surrender anyone to your idea of justice.”

  “And we cannot allow you to shelter fugitives from justice,” Sivaganga retorted, forcing himself to take her seriously. Off-worlders believed that women could do anything a man could do. “If they are not handed over to us, we will be forced to take them from you.”

  ***

  Edward fought hard to keep his temper under control. It was now far too obvious what was actually happening. The locals had deliberately started the riot – carefully ensuring that no off-worlders were actually killed – in order to use it as an excuse to start a fight and invade the Residency. Even if he’d been inclined to surrender his people, something that would have been a gross betrayal of the men and women under his command, they would just have kept tacking on demands until they found something he physically couldn't give them.

  “While Wolfbane would prefer to remain uninvolved in this affair,” Flora maintained, “I feel that we cannot set the precedent of handing anyone over to you.”

  Edward could have kissed her. Defending the Residency would be hard enough at the best of times, but it would have been far harder if Flora’s forces absented themselves from the fight. If nothing else, he would have needed to spread his own people thinner just to cover the walls ... and if she’d decided to join the other side, the building might have become indefensible. But then, a few hours of shelling – if the locals had artillery – would have destroyed the building anyway.

  “There will be a full investigation,” he promised, “but we cannot allow you to simply take our people.”

  “That is unacceptable,” Sivaganga snapped, so quickly that it was obviously pre-planned. “We will not allow you off-worlders to break our laws with impunity. It was hard enough to agree to allow you to hold your conference here. Now, we will take whatever steps are required to force you to surrender the criminals – and those who shelter them to us.”

  He took a step backwards, glaring at them both impartially. “You have two hours to reconsider,” he added. “If you refuse to surrender them to us at the end of that period, you will be removed from our planet.”

  Edward looked over at the guard. “Take him back to the gate and kick him out,” he ordered, sharply. A moment later, Sivaganga was hustled away. “We need to get ready for a fight.”

  Flora nodded. “I’ll coordinate my forces with yours,” she offered. “We’re going to have to work together.”

  “Thank you,” Edward said, surprised. But perhaps he shouldn't have been, he told himself firmly. The locals were unlikely to differentiate between two different groups of off-worlders. In his experience, those who played with mobs ended up losing control completely. “And I’ll try to summon reinforcements from the coast.”

  He scowled as he led her into the building and down into the basement kitchen. The servants were seated there, their hands bound firmly behind their backs. Evicting them from the Residency was probably the smart course of action, but he had a feeling that the locals would punish them for daring to be thrown out of the complex. Or, if the mobs started attacking anyone who might have had any dealings with off-worlders, the servants would die before they had a chance to protest their innocence.

  “It's two hundred kilometres from here to the garrison,” he mused, thoughtfully. Shuttles could bring in reinforcements, but he knew that the locals had access to some antiaircraft weapons. God knew if they could shoot down a shuttle, but finding out the hard way would be costly. “We might have to hold out for several weeks.”

  Flora nodded. “We could try to break out of the city,” she suggested. “Or would that be too risky?”

  Edward scowled. If he’d had a company of Marines – and no one else – he would have taken the risk, relying on speed and armoured combat suits to prevent the enemy from pinning them down and exterminating them. But most of his soldiers were unarmoured and they would be accompanied by a handful of civilians. It was far too easy to imagine them being trapped by howling mobs and being torn apart, one by one. Maharashtra was simply too large for him to escape before the hammer came down.

  “Far too risky,” he muttered. “I think we’d better start preparing for a siege.”

  He looked over at Villeneuve. “Start moving all of our bedding into the basement,” he ordered, grimly. “At least we’ll have some protection under there.”

  But if they start shelling us, he thought, privately, we won’t have any protection at all.

  He pushed the thought aside and glared down at the makeshift map of the city. “Get a couple of drones in the air,” he added, addressing Coleman. “I want to know when they start moving troops up to the walls.”

  “They’ll probably put snipers in the nearest buildings,” Flora offered, thoughtfully. “They could easily fire down into our complex from there.”

  Edward nodded, wondering just how long the locals had been considering their plans to attack the off-worlders. Had they had them in mind from the day they’d started designing the Imperial Residency? It was a large complex, but Fiona was right. There was nothing to stop snipers firing down into the courtyard – and through the windows – from the nearby buildings. Hell, they wouldn't even have to be specifically skilled!

  “Put three of the Marines on the roof with sniper rifles,” he ordered. “They can discourage anyone who wants to try to take shots at us.”

  He raised his voice, addressing everyone in the compartment. “From this moment on, you are cleared to engage anyone who tries to cross the walls or fire into the complex,” he added. “Lethal force is authorised; I say again, lethal force is authorised.”

  “Understood, sir,” Coleman said.

  ***

  “The off-worlders rejected our demands,” Sivaganga reported, as he returned to where the Prince had established his HQ. “They refused to hand the criminals over to us.”

  “Of course not,” the Prince sneered. No one had seriously expected the off-worlders to simply hand over their men, not when they had good reason to suspect that the whole affair had been staged. “But I have several infantry units moving into the city right now. And the mobs, of course.”

  “I suggest evacuating the area surrounding the Residency first,” Sivaganga said, mildly. “It would give us more time to get troops in position to storm the complex.”

  “They are already running for their lives,” the Prince said, dismissively. He didn't sound too concerned, but most of the people who’d lived near the Residency had profited from dealings with off-worlders. They too would be purged once the off-worlders had been exterminated and all traces of their presence destroyed. “But the mobs will appear more spontaneous.”

  He looked down at his map. “The off-worlders in the garrison will move to assist their fellows,” he added, sourly. “We have forces in place to block them. And others in position to destroy infrastructure if necessary.”

  Sivaganga nodded in relief. The Prince might be an ill-tempered zealot who saw the whole affair as a chance to render his position as Heir to the Throne unchallengeable, but he was not allowing his hatred of off-worlders to blind him completely. If the ground forces the off-worlders had landed were too powerful to be stopped directly, they could be forced to slow down by destroying bridges, canals and food supplies. Besides, even they had to run out of supplies sooner or later.

  “The mobs can go in now,” the Prince ordered. “Let the off-worlders feel our wrath.”

  ***

  “I’ll send the CEF forward at once,” Brigadier Yamane said. “How long can you hold out?”

  “It depends on what they send against us,” Edward
reminded her. If there had been nothing between the Landshark tanks and Warrior AFVs, they could have reached Maharashtra in three to four hours. But drone and orbital surveillance were picking up signs of enemy troops moving into position to block their advance. “If they’ve decided to destroy us with artillery, it is unlikely that we can hold out long enough for you to reach us.”

  He closed his eyes for a long moment, remembering Gaby – and Avalon, and everything he'd hoped to accomplish. “If we are defeated, you are to pull back to the Garrison and wait for the starships to return,” he said, cursing the diplomatic preconditions under his breath. A single destroyer would have been more than enough to prevent the locals from overrunning the Residency. “Do not throw away your people in a futile attempt to rescue us.”

  “I understand,” Yamane conceded, with obvious reluctance.

  Edward saw the mutiny in her eyes and understood perfectly. Marines did not abandon their own. If Marines were trapped, or captured, the entire force would do whatever it took to get them back alive – or avenge their deaths. But this was different. The CEF was simply too far away to make an impact in time. If they were facing obliteration, there was no point in wasting the CEF in a futile attempt to save them.

  “I mean it,” he warned. “There will be a chance to avenge us when the starships return.”

  He closed the channel and sighed, heavily. One way or another, this affair was going to leave scars on their souls. Assuming they survived, of course.

  His wristcom buzzed. “Colonel, there are mobs advancing towards the gates,” Villeneuve reported. “They’re definitely under control.”

  Edward nodded and walked out of his office, into the makeshift situation room. Several consoles had been set up on the kitchen tables, each one showing the live feed from hand-launched drones orbiting over the complex. The mobs were advancing forward, controlled by a number of men in black robes. Even maddened as they were, the mobs seemed to defer to them. Edward wondered vaguely who they were, then dismissed the thought. All he needed to know was that they were in charge.

  “The ultimatum hasn't run out yet,” Flora pointed out. She didn't sound concerned, even though she would be more used to combat in space than on the ground. Spacers always considered their field to be clean. “Are they trying to intimidate us or are they jumping the gun?”

  Edward shrugged. It was a mob – and mobs were unpredictable and unreliable. There was no way to know if the locals intended to attack before the ultimatum ran out, but it was quite possible that was going to happen anyway. He studied the dark-clad men thoughtfully, wishing he could hear what they were saying to the mob. Probably reminding them to rape, then loot and finally burn, he decided.

  He looked down at some of the other views from the drones. Mob violence was breaking out in several other parts of the city, well away from the Residency. Men and women were being dragged out onto the streets and brutally lynched, while their homes and businesses were burned to the ground. It looked very much like the local government was losing its grip on its population already, Several smaller mobs were heading towards the slums surrounding the city, ready to attack the untouchable caste. In the chaos, he suspected, hundreds of thousands of private scores would be settled. It was very much like Han.

  The mobs halted momentarily as the Residency came into view ... then stumbled forwards, pushed by the men and women behind the first ranks. Edward winced as he saw several of the crowd falling over, knowing that they would almost certainly be trampled to death, then gritted his teeth as the mob pressed forward, advancing on the gates. The guards were already in position with stunners at the ready, but stunners had always been less than perfectly effective against mobs. They tended to use the first rows as human shields against stun pulses.

  “Here we go,” Villeneuve muttered.

  Edward felt – again – a strange chilling helplessness as the mobs plunged forward, slamming into the walls. No amount of merely human strength could have budged walls made of hullmetal, but Lakshmibai was so backwards that it couldn't even begin to produce such composite materials. Thankfully, the mobs seemed more intent on attacking the gates rather than challenging the walls; if they’d fallen, the Residency would have rapidly become completely indefensible. Brilliant flickers of light shone out as the guards opened fire with stunners, sweeping them across the crowd. Hundreds fell to the ground, but thousands more kept coming.

  Flora looked over at him. “We’re going to have to switch to live weapons,” she observed, bitterly. “All of the gates are under attack.”

  “Use gas first,” Edward ordered. If nothing else, the gas might distract the crowds long enough for the stunners to take them all down. He knew that hundreds were already dead, crushed under the mob, but he didn't want to add to that number if possible. “And then prepare to open fire.”

  Another group of rioters appeared on the display, carrying ladders towards the walls. Edward gritted his teeth and issued orders, knowing that they couldn't risk people scrambling over the walls. The Residency was hard enough to defend as it was. Moments later, the Marine snipers picked off the ladder-carrying rioters, leaving their bodies lying in the streets. The ladders lay broken and shattered in their wake.

  “There’ll be more of them,” Edward predicted, grimly. “Engage any other ladder-carrying ...”

  And then the crowds simply started to fall back from the walls.

  Chapter Fourteen

  This is amply demonstrated by Anglo-Greek relationships in 1941. While the Greeks were facing a life-or-death struggle with Italy (and then Germany), the region was a third-order consideration for the British, who could survive a defeat in Greece, but not an invasion of the United Kingdom. Unsurprisingly, the Greeks did not care for this attitude and it blighted post-war relationships between the two powers.

  -Professor Leo Caesius. Diplomacy: The Lessons of the Past.

  “Orbit Station can't drop anything on their heads,” General Raphael admitted, through the intercom. “We can hit something the size of a city, but there are no precision weapons.”

  Jasmine scowled as she studied the map. The CEF was largely across the causeway already – thankfully – but they still had quite some distance to go before they reached the capital city, where they would probably have to fight their way through the streets. There was little data on the current state of the planet’s infrastructure, which would make it harder to get there in time to save the Colonel and his men, yet it was clear that the planet’s military was deploying to block their advance. Jasmine suspected that her force had the edge on manoeuvrability, but they would have to punch their way through. There was no time to be fancy.

  She wished, not for the first time, for some heavy – and relatively cheap – transport aircraft, aircraft that could be risked in combat. The only craft she had that could ship reinforcements to the capital city were the shuttles ... and if she started losing them in significant numbers, the war would be lost with them. If nothing else, re-embarking the CEF would be far harder without the entire complement of shuttles.

  “Order the helicopters to provide air cover as the Warriors lead the way,” she ordered, finally. It was relatively easy to track the enemy positions through their radio transmitters, but she had to remind herself that the enemy might know what she was doing. They might have an entire infantry unit dug in under strict radio silence, just waiting for her to poke her nose into a trap. “The tanks are to move up in support.”

  “Understood,” Buckley said. He passed her orders on to her subordinates, then looked back at her. “Do you want to send the scouts forward first?”

  Jasmine shook her head. Ideally, she would have preferred to send the scouts forward, but the advancing force was likely to overtake them very quickly. Instead, she would have to gamble and rely on the drones to spot any enemy forces lurking in ambush.

  “Tell them to keep an eye on the city,” she ordered, instead. “Is there any sign of a reaction from either side?”

  “Not as
yet,” Buckley reported. “But they may not have had time to decide what to do yet.”

  He paused. “You should remain here,” he added. “You're in command ...”

  “I’ll be in the command tank,” Jasmine declared, flatly. She would have preferred to command from a heavy battlesuit, but there wasn't one available for her. Besides, commanding anything larger than a company of Marines would have been very difficult from a suit. “I am not going to hide while others take risks on my behalf.”

  “Of course not,” Buckley said. His voice hardened. “But you will stay back from the front lines.”

  “Yes, mother,” Jasmine conceded, tiredly. “Which one of us is the Big Banana, anyway?”

  “The Colonel,” Buckley said. “And he said that you weren't to place yourself in too much danger.”

  Jasmine made a face. There really was no answer to that.

  ***

  “This would be lovely countryside,” Corporal Jason Briggs judged, “if it wasn't for the poverty.”

  Sergeant Andrew Wyrick shrugged as the helicopter raced eastwards, searching for enemy contacts. The countryside was lovely, he had to admit, although the war had definitely torn up most of the cropland and farming settlements that would have ordinarily fed the population. As it was, he honestly couldn't remember seeing anything worse in his career, even on Han. The handful of locals who looked up at the helicopter showed no curiosity; nothing but a listlessness that suggested that they were too far gone to care. Andrew had been on worlds where the helicopter might have been taken for something unworldly, but this was different.

  “I suppose it would be,” he grunted, keeping one eye on the threat receiver. No one was entirely sure how many ground-to-air missiles the locals might have purchased off interstellar traders, but he was sure that they would have been deployed to block the CEF from advancing towards the capital. The locals had little in the way of an air force – one of the reasons they hadn't been able to destroy the rebellion – and their forces could shoot at anything in the sky, confident that it belonged to the off-worlders. “But we have to keep our minds on the job.”