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

by Christopher Nuttall

  Somehow, he managed to make his way to the lines without falling over. The guards met him, keeping their expressions carefully blank, and guided him into a washroom. Sivaganga washed himself clean, knowing that the true stain would never come off his soul. Even the ministrations of the Prince’s women weren't enough to make him feel better.

  Pushing them aside, he donned a new set of robes and made his way up to the Prince’s chamber. The Prince would not respond well, either to the news about the bargain or – worse – that the off-worlders had threatened the entire planet. Carefully, Sivaganga started to work through an edited version of the truth, one that wouldn't have him facing the Prince’s rage and fury. He’d have to take what he’d heard to the Rajah and pray that the old man was more understanding than his son.

  The Prince listened in silence until Sivaganga had finished explaining that the off-worlders had rejected the bargain. Oddly, he didn't look surprised; it took Sivaganga a moment to realise that the Prince hadn't really expected success, even if he did want his ally back. But then, their captive was just a soldier, hardly a fair trade for an aristocrat.

  “Then we will dispose of the captive,” the Prince said, once Sivaganga had finished. “He has outlived his usefulness.”

  “My Prince,” Sivaganga said, as carefully as he could, “he may yet have a part to play.”

  The Prince’s eyes narrowed. “And you feel that he should be kept alive?”

  “I feel that we may be unable to use him if he is dead,” Sivaganga answered. There were dark rumours about just how the Prince worshipped the gods. Most of them were outright nonsense, he was sure, yet he’d always had a feeling that there was a solid kernel of truth in them somewhere. “A dead man is largely useless.”

  “Very well,” the Prince sneered. If he did practice human sacrifice, he showed no particular enthusiasm for cutting their captive’s throat inside a temple. But then, he wasn't stupid, merely a hothead. He understood what Sivaganga hadn’t dared say out loud. “We will keep him alive, for now. But he will not be allowed to return to his people.”

  Sivaganga bowed his head in relief, mentally calculating how best to approach the Rajah without his son realising what he was doing. As strange as it seemed, contingency plans needed to be made. The entire planet was at stake.

  And, he knew now, they’d made a dreadful mistake.

  In the distance, he could hear the sound of guns booming to life.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  However, the British victory was very limited. Argentina was not permanently defeated, nor could they realistically be forced to disarm (even merely to rid themselves of the capability to refight the war at a later date.) The tactical British success was not necessarily a long-term strategic success.

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

  Specialist Gareth Nix fought down the urge to cough as he crawled forwards towards the overhanging ledge. The enemy troops attacking the Residency might be of limited value, but the ones they had patrolling the countryside near the coastline were alarmingly good. Gareth knew that they knew the countryside much better than the Avalon Stormtroopers – and would have a much better idea of what was out of place. The slightest sound could betray his presence.

  He smiled grimly to himself. The Stormtroopers were Avalon’s first Special Forces team, a replacement – although no one said that out loud – for the diminishing number of Marines. Avalon simply lacked the capability to produce the enhancements and implants the Marines used to make themselves the best of the best, although they'd been told that humans had been producing special operations forces long before human implantation had been developed and put into active service. The Stormtroopers told themselves that their very lack of augmentation made them better than the Marines. Mostly, the Marines kept their own counsel on the issue.

  Bracing himself, he reached the ledge and peered down towards the enemy encampment. It looked surprisingly familiar, reminding him of Forward Operating Bases that the Knights had established on Avalon ... although he had to admit that similar problems tended to lead to similar solutions. A handful of carefully-camouflaged guns, positioned to open fire on advancing enemy forces, surrounded by a fence and roving guard patrols. The enemy seemed to dislike the idea of fighting at night, but their guards seemed as alert as ever. But then, being forced to fight a long and gruelling insurgency would have taught them a few lessons about staying on guard – or they would have been wiped out by now.

  He scanned the encampment with his NVGs, then sent the first microburst transmission back to the FOB. As he expected, there was no reply for several minutes, allowing him to continue studying the enemy position and silently note its weaknesses as well as its strengths. When the reply finally came – confirming that all of the other Stormtroopers were in position – he produced the laser pointer from his belt and carefully pointed it towards the guns. The dot of light it produced was completely invisible to the naked eye, but proper sensors would have no difficulty picking it up from several miles away. Once the dot was firmly positioned on the guns, he sat back and sent a second microburst transmission. All was in readiness ...

  And all hell was about to break loose.

  ***

  “The Stormtroopers are in position,” Colonel Cindy Macintyre said. “They’ve designated their targets.”

  Jasmine let out a breath she hadn't realised that she’d been holding. Lakshmibai had been the first off-world deployment for the Stormtroopers, an exercise they’d expected to be little more than a proof-of-concept for the Avalon-raised operators. God knew that some of the Marines had made snide remarks about Stormtrooper targeting skills, remembering older units that had borne the same name. But they’d proved themselves, slipping through enemy patrols and getting into position to designate targets for the long-range guns.

  “Good,” she ordered. Dawn was about to break. “Send a signal to the gunners. They are authorised to open fire.”

  ***

  “Shells set to smart mode,” Captain Thaddeus Rice said. “I say again, all shells set to smart mode.”

  “Understood,” Colonel Robin Lafarge said. “Fire.”

  The big guns, carefully transported over the causeway and onto the mainland, fired as one, throwing a hail of shells into the air. Her crews didn't wait to see the results of their labours; they started reloading the guns at once, ready to fire a second barrage. She took her eyes off the crews and concentrated, instead, on the live feed from the guidance nodes. If something went wrong, she would only have a few minutes to act before the shells started crashing down randomly. The only real certainty was that the shells would land somewhere on the other side of the front lines.

  She smiled as the command network was rapidly established, each shell’s seeker head carrying a tiny portion of the burden as they searched for the pinpoint lasers that designated their targets. Once located, the command network rapidly assigned specific targets to specific shells, then started altering their trajectories until they were precisely targeted on the laser dots. The enemy shooting had been imprecise, to say the least; they had little conception of what smart warheads could do.

  The first explosion flashed up in the distance as the shell slammed down into its target and detonated. Others followed, wiping out enemy guns, command posts and strongpoints. It wouldn't be complete, Robin knew from bitter experience; enemy bunkers might well be carefully positioned to limit the damage her shells could do. But it would certainly cripple their ability to reply in kind.

  She looked back down at the display. Most of the exposed guns had been destroyed, but there were probably others that hadn't been located. She tapped a switch, designating several targets for a second strike, then forwarded the orders to the big guns. Moments later, a second barrage of shells were launched towards their new targets. She was rewarded by a colossal fireball in the distance as something – probably a fuel or ammunition dump – was taken out by a direct hit.

  “Reload,” she ordered
. The Stormtroopers would no doubt have additional targets for her, once the enemy started to react. They’d know the CEF was planning to break out and strike towards the capital city, forcing them to take whatever steps were required to stop the newcomers. “And then wait for targets of opportunity.”

  In the distance, the flames were still rising up towards the lightening sky.

  ***

  Gareth suppressed the urge to whoop and cry hurrah as the enemy gun position vanished in a sheet of flame. He ducked down instead, praying that a piece of flaming debris wouldn't come down too close to his head, while listening carefully to the command channel. It was quite possible that the enemy would start flushing out the Stormtroopers – if, of course, they realised that they were there. There was no way to know what conclusions the enemy might draw.

  He peeked back over the ledge and smiled to himself as he saw the devastation. The guns were gone, while the handful of tents were burning brightly; bodies lay everywhere as the enemy soldiers attempted to cope with the sudden crisis. No doubt they’d believed that the CEF would remain in its pocket, rather than trying to take the offensive ... or that it would take longer than three days to prepare the rebels to take part in the fighting. But the CEF hadn't had the luxury of time to make its preparations.

  “All primary targets destroyed,” he muttered into his communicator, and then started to crawl away from the burning camp. “Looking for secondary targets now.”

  The land seemed to come alive with the sound of firing – and explosions. He kept to the shadows, wondering just what the enemy thought they were shooting at – and smiling every time a shell rocketed in from the CEF and gave the enemy a really bad day. Not too bad, he told himself, for gunnery crews that had spent five years trapped on a tiny island, with only a handful of local girls for company. The ground shook violently as something detonated in the distance, sending yet another fireball billowing into the air.

  He paused as he saw moving objects against the darkness, heading west. Tanks, he realised mutely; enemy tanks, hoping to intercept the CEF before it managed to break through the lines and destroy the enemy’s ability to wage war. He rapidly set up his laser pointer and called in the strike, asking for a full spread of shells. Moments later, the tanks were destroyed in rolling series of explosions, leaving most of them nothing more than burning wreckage. The stench of burning flesh reached him moments later and he clipped on his mask, allowing him to slip through the chaos and make his way eastwards. Behind him, the world burned.

  ***

  “The drones are reporting near-complete destruction of the enemy guns,” Cindy reported. “If any others show themselves, orbit station will pick them up and we’ll take them out quick.”

  “Good,” Jasmine said. The first stage of the operation was going according to plan, something that bothered her. A plan that was going perfectly, in her experience, was generally charging headlong towards a pitfall. “And the enemy commanders?”

  “Being suppressed,” Cindy said. “Every time we pick up a transmission, we hurl a shell at the source. Even if they stop standing next to the transmitters, they will have some real problems coordinating their forces.”

  Jasmine nodded. The enemy commanders were about to learn the true meaning of fog-of-war. They wouldn't know what was happening outside their eyesight, ensuring that they couldn't coordinate a proper response to her advance. She had no doubt that individual enemy units would fight bravely to slow down her forces, but isolated from their fellows all they could do was die bravely.

  “Then order the ground forces to advance,” she ordered, pushing down her doubts into a locked compartment of her mind. “And provide fire support as necessary.”

  ***

  Corporal Sharon Jones looked at her targeting systems as the Landshark lurched into life, its colossal treads chewing up the ground as it started to move eastwards. The integrated battlespace management system obligingly provided her with a list of long-range strikes made against enemy positions, followed rapidly by a warning that many enemy strongpoints might have remained undetected. If nothing else, the absence of vehicles or radio transmitters would make it harder for them to be spotted before they opened fire.

  The CO had made the deliberate decision to stay off the roads, even though it ensured that they would have a bumpier ride. Sharon approved of his decision; the Landshark was heavy enough to ensure that the enemy road network – which was primitive at the best of times – would be rendered completely useless if the tank drove down it. Some of the smaller tanks in Avalon’s inventory were light enough not to have to worry, but none of them had been attached to the CEF.

  She braced herself as the seconds ticked by, knowing that they could hardly hope to sneak up on the enemy soldiers. The engine might be quiet, but the sound of them crashing their way through the foliage and crushing trees and rocks under their treads could not be concealed. A shiver ran down her spine as the vehicle lurched, moving through a tiny stream as though it wasn't even there; somewhere out there, the enemy were waiting. They would be fighting back ...

  An alert flashed up on the display. The enemy guns – those that were left – were firing desperately, although they no longer had the sheer weight of fire that had stopped the CEF in its tracks three days ago. And they were dying almost as quickly as they revealed themselves; they might be able to hide inactive guns under camouflage, but every time they fired a shell they revealed their position to the orbiting sensors or the drones. It ensured their rapid destruction by the CEF’s guns.

  “Contact,” she snapped, as two antitank rockets raced towards them, followed by a hail of RPGs. The hull thrummed as the weapons slammed into the tank, but inflicted no damage apart from minor scratches. “Request permission to engage.”

  “Permission granted,” the CO said, as more rockets impacted against the hull. “Take them out.”

  Sharon selected the machine guns mounted on the lower armour, swung them around and fired on the enemy strongpoint. It had been solidly-built, given the time and materials the enemy engineers had had to work with, but the strongpoint disintegrated as the machine gun bullets tore through the flimsy protection. The rain of rockets and other improvised weapons stopped abruptly. Her sensors tracked a handful of men fleeing for their lives, but she ignored them. They couldn't do the tank any harm.

  “More strongpoints up ahead,” the driver observed, as the tank started to move up an incline. A thunderous explosion shook the vehicle, but the mine had been detonated too soon to inflict any real damage. “They’re dug in well.”

  “Take them out,” the CO ordered. “And then take us onwards.”

  ***

  Michael silently admired the devastation the tanks had left in their wake as they charged through the enemy lines, heading eastwards. Strongpoints had been broken open, guns and tanks had been smashed as if they had been made of paper and the enemy had been heavily demoralised. Hundreds of dead bodies were scattered everywhere, some clearly not even remotely prepared for a fight. He didn't know why the enemy were reluctant to fight at night, but it had worked in the CEF’s favour. Their enemies had been taken completely by surprise.

  He led the way up the incline, watching for traps as they checked strongpoint after strongpoint. The tanks might have smashed their way through the enemy lines, but he knew better than to think that they’d killed all of the enemy soldiers. Given time, they might regroup and start counterattacking. Or, for that matter, try to slip westwards as the front lines moved past them and hit the CEF’s supply lines. A burst of gunfire from a half-smashed strongpoint forced him to duck, then motion for two of his soldiers to pin the enemy gunners down while he crawled around their position and threw a grenade into their hiding place. The explosion killed two enemy soldiers, but left a third mortally wounded. Michael hesitated, then shot the badly-burned man in the head. It was, he told himself, a mercy kill.

  The sun rose in the sky as they pressed onwards, taking out dozens of enemy strongpoints. They’d do
ne an excellent job of emplacing them, he had to admit; if they hadn't been so badly hammered by the artillery or the tanks, it would have been a very costly assault. He stopped to catch his breath, then crawled around yet another smashed strongpoint. Ahead of him, he saw an enemy soldier stumble into view, his hands in the air.

  “No weapon,” Sergeant Grieves observed.

  Michael nodded and raised his voice, barking out a command in the local language. If he was pronouncing it correctly – whatever the locals spoke seemed to change its meaning unless the pronunciation was exact – he was telling the local to keep his hands in the air and surrender ... unless he wanted to die. Michael had honestly never realised what a blessing Imperial Standard was until he’d had to learn a handful of phrases in a strange new language. At least with Imperial Standard everyone spoke the same tongue.

  The local babbled something Michael couldn't follow, then waved towards yet another strongpoint. A line of battered-looking men emerged from the shelter, keeping their hands in the air. Judging by their faces, they expected to be shot out of hand, rather than taken prisoner. None of them carried obvious weapons, but Michael had been briefed on how some fanatics would cheerfully attack under flags of truce – or surrender. One bastard with a grenade and bad intentions could provoke a massacre and ensure that future surrenders wouldn't be accepted.

  He keyed his radio as the flow of enemy troops came to an end. “We have thirty-one enemy troops trying to surrender,” he reported. He motioned for the enemy soldiers to sit down, keeping their hands in the air. It wouldn't be very comfortable for them, but he was more concerned with the prospect of treachery. “Can you arrange a POW pick-up?”

  “That's a roger,” the CO said. “Secure the prisoners, then detail two of your men to act as guards. They’ll be taken back to the POW camp.”