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

by Christopher Nuttall

  The men with guns eat first, she reminded herself. It was possible that the civilians would rebel against the enemy, but it couldn't be taken for granted. Nor could she assume that it would succeed. The enemy had tried hard to keep guns and other weapons out of untouchable hands and, by and large, they’d succeeded. Civilians might be desperate, but they had very little to fight with, save their bare hands.

  She looked over at Cindy. “You sent them the demand for surrender?”

  Cindy nodded. “I had it broadcast over the radio and through megaphones,” she said. “Everyone in the city will have heard it. But there’s no sign of a surrender.”

  Jasmine scowled. Marines fought insurgents on a regular basis and one thing they’d learned was that a small number of insurgents – or carefully-prepared troops – could keep an entire town under control until the fear they used to control the population was broken by the liberating army. The principle was the same; even if there were thousands of enemy soldiers who wanted to surrender, they’d be unable to give up without being shot in the back.

  The drones had been observing the town for hours, long enough to confirm that women and children had been herded into buildings at the centre of the town, where they were effectively serving as both hostages and human shields. They’d figured out that Jasmine was reluctant to order long-range strikes against targets where civilians might get hurt, she realised; they’d actually cuffed a number of children to the rooftops, showing them clearly to the observing drones. If push came to shove, she knew, those children were going to be hurt – or worse.

  Outside the centre, there were a series of defensive lines. The outer ones were manned by hastily-raised civilian ‘volunteers,’ who had probably been given a rifle, a few rounds of ammunition and sent out to die bravely. Further in, there were lines manned by actual soldiers, who would take advantage of whatever damage the volunteers had inflicted on her troops. And, beyond them, the troops that guarded the enemy commander. If he could be killed ...

  She shook her head. There was no easy way to take down the entire town without bloodshed.

  “Send the signal,” she ordered, bitterly. “The town is to be taken by storm.”

  ***

  Michael braced himself as the Warrior rumbled forward, guns swivelling around to target possible threats. He led his squad in its wake, silently grateful for the half-hour catnap he’d been allowed to take after they’d set up lines around the town. Without it, he wouldn't have been at his best as they approached the enemy buildings.

  The slums on the edge of the town looked deserted – and permanently on the verge of falling over. Michael honestly couldn't understand why the locals tolerated such conditions; even slavers, the most despicable form of life in the universe, took better care of their slaves. But then, slavers needed healthy stock to turn a profit and the locals simply didn't care. There were so many untouchables that millions could die and millions more would step forward to take their place.

  He wrinkled his nose at the smell as he glanced inside the first hovel. Inside, it was dark – and deserted. There was barely enough room for two or three people by Avalon standards, but judging by the blankets and the crudely-constructed loft, it had held upwards of ten people. He hoped, for their sake, that most of them were children, but he had a feeling that they’d been adults. How could anyone live in such conditions?

  Leaving a green flag on the side of the door to mark the building cleared, he led the way to the next building and shone a light inside. Lights seemed to flare back at him and he almost fired a shot, before realising that he was staring straight at a pair of young girls and their older brother. All three of them were wearing rags, their faces pockmarked with scars and blemishes that could have been removed in bare minutes with modern surgery – and they were absolutely terrified. To them, he must have seemed like a creature from another universe.

  “Come on out,” he ordered, in the local tongue. The phrases sounded odd on his lips, but the children seemed to understand. Their faces were still fearful; they moved in a manner, he realised grimly, that suggested that all of the fight had been beaten out of them. Judging by the way the boy was limping, that beating had been only a few days ago. “You're safe now.”

  He pointed the children towards the embankments they’d drawn up around the town, then pushed his feelings aside and led the way onwards, moving through dozens of tiny shacks and hovels. A handful hid other refugees – or dead bodies, men and women who had simply expired in their sleep or had been murdered by their fellows. Most of them, he couldn't help noticing, looked to be old. Had their children and grandchildren murdered them when they became a liability? Off-hand, he couldn't think of anything more disgusting one could do to one’s parents.

  An explosion broke into his thoughts, followed rapidly by a series of shots aimed from hastily-assembled barricades. Michael cursed himself for his distraction and took cover, searching frantically for the source of the shots. Someone had ripped apart a number of slightly-better built homes and turned them into barricades, which they were using as firing positions. Others seemed to have taken up positions in various homes and firing through the windows, or tiny slits they’d cut into the wood. It would have been a strong position, Michael noted, if they’d had better materials to use.

  He unhooked a grenade from his belt, then nodded to two of his men. They primed the grenades and threw them, then advanced forwards as explosions tore the enemy barricade to shreds. Several shots were still coming from a nearby house, so he threw a second grenade through the window and the firing stopped sharply. He glanced at the bodies – all of them were civilians, unless he missed his guess – then reached for his megaphone.

  “Surrender,” he bawled out, in the local dialect. “Surrender and you will not ...”

  The megaphone exploded in his hand. He gaped at it for a split-second, then jumped aside, swearing out loud. The enemy had at least one capable sniper, probably one of their enforcers, in position to take shots at his men. And if the sniper had aimed at his head or chest instead of the megaphone, he would be dead now.

  The Warrior advanced forward, bullets pinging off the metal hull and ricocheting everywhere, and pointed its main gun towards the sniper’s nest. Michael winced as the gun fired, launching a HE shell into the target. A building disintegrated with staggering force, sending the sniper falling to his death. Moments later, the Warrior’s machine guns cleared the next pair of barricades out of the way.

  A handful of enemy soldiers staggered forwards, hands in the air. Michael’s men stripped them, bound them and then pointed them towards the edge of town. They’d have to keep their surrender, Michael told himself. If they tried to run, their own people would be likely to execute them for daring to realise that it was hopeless and surrender. He cursed again as mortar shells started plunging down in the distance, targeting the handful of Warriors. One of them was struck directly and was badly damaged, although not destroyed. The crew stumbled out, alive.

  “Get back to the embankments,” Michael ordered. He would have preferred to put them into service on the firing lines, but there were hundreds of Warriors stored in the Garrison, far more than they could hope to use. The crew would hopefully have a new vehicle by the end of the day. “Hurry!”

  The fighting started to blur into a series of patterns as they forced their way onwards. They broke into buildings, cleared them of enemy soldiers and did what they could for the civilians they encountered in the midst of the fighting. It rapidly became impossible to predict just what the enemy would do; some surrendered after a token show of resistance, others fought to the death and had to be wiped out completely. Michael couldn't help feeling a little respect for their determination, even as it was muted by horror at what they considered acceptable treatment of civilians.

  An antitank rocket raced out of a nearby house and slammed straight into the Warrior. This time, the armour was not enough to protect the vehicle and it exploded into a fireball. The crew would have died, he ho
ped, before they knew what had hit them. Pieces of flying metal flew everywhere, causing him to duck and then start crawling towards the enemy firing position. Despite the situation – and the tiredness pervading his body – he found himself smiling with gallows humour when he realised that the enemy soldiers had fired the antitank rocket in a confined space and the exhaust had killed all four of them.

  He winced as another series of mortar shells crashed down. Thankfully, the enemy didn't seem to be very good shots; in their place, he would have taken care to have all the possible targets zeroed in before the fighting started. On the other hand, the CEF’s own mortars were firing counter-battery shots and they didn't seem to have time to take aim properly before they had to move. He took cover behind a reasonably solid wall to catch his breath, then smiled in relief as he realised that reinforcements were moving up to take over the front lines.

  “Get something to eat, sir,” Sergeant Grieves advised him. Now that they were no longer the tip of the spear, they could unwrap a ration bar each before returning to the fight. “And make sure you have something to drink too.”

  Michael nodded, pulling a ration bar out of his combat dress and opening it with one hand. None of them dared let down their guard too far, not when it was all-too-likely that some enemy holdouts might have been missed. The tactical net had informed them that several enemy soldiers had been missed and they’d given the reinforcements some nasty moments, after they’d come out of their hidey-holes. He started as he saw movement at the corner of his eye, then relaxed slightly as he realised that it was one of his men answering the call of nature.

  “At least I didn't piss myself,” the soldier protested, after his comrades started ribbing him.

  “You’ll get your pecker shot off,” another jeered, as he finished his ration bar. “I heard that replacement dicks are smaller than real dicks.”

  Michael rolled his eyes. The Commonwealth was determined to take good care of its fighting men and women – and indeed, even training accidents received the best medical care available. And yes, it was possible to replace a penis ... but what sort of idiot would expose himself to enemy fire in the hopes they’d get a bigger one in hospital?

  “Target like mine,” the first soldier pretended to muse, “how could they miss?”

  “And with a target like mine,” the second soldier said, “why would I want a replacement?”

  “All right, you clowns,” Sergeant Grieves sneered. “Party’s over. Time to get back to work.”

  The front lines had advanced nearly five hundred metres, Michael discovered as they came out of cover and checked in with the tactical net, but he stayed on alert anyway. The enemy were shooting mortar shells off at random, while their soldiers still seemed torn between surrendering and fighting to the finish. And the buildings here were stronger, a great deal more solidly constructed than the shacks and hovels that belonged to the untouchables. They posed greater problems for the advancing forces.

  He watched as a Warrior advanced down the middle of the street, guns constantly scanning for targets. The crew didn't seem to care about the threat of enemy rockets or missiles; instead, they were providing covering fire for the advancing infantry. There was a movement at the corner of his eye and he turned, weapon raised, to see a large dog cowering against one wall. Clearly, it hadn't been trained to serve in the military. And then there was a whistle and the dog lunged forward, heading right for the Warrior. Michael saw the package wrapped under its body a moment too late. The dog ran right under the vehicle and exploded.

  Michael cursed out loud as he saw the warrior flip over and come crashing down, smoke and flames pouring from its exposed underside. The underside was heavily-armoured, he knew, but it hadn't been the priority that shielding its sides and top had been. He allowed himself a sigh of relief as the hatches popped open, then swore again as sniper fire picked off the crewmen before they could take cover. The enemy had devised a very deadly plan and carried it out with surprising skill.

  “Target the following coordinates,” he ordered, as he sought cover against one wall. The guns would respond to his call, thankfully. He’d been told that the Imperial Army had rarely allowed the people on the ground to call in artillery support, something that he was sure the Drill Instructors had made up. Who else would know that they needed support? He rattled out the coordinates, then braced himself. “Hurry!”

  The ground shook as a series of shells crashed down on top of the enemy position. Michael rolled over and led the charge forward, knowing that the snipers – if they had survived – would be too distracted to fight back. Most of them appeared to be dead, along with several women in civilian clothes. Michael felt a twinge of guilt; he’d known that there was a prospect of running into human shields, but he’d told himself that it wasn't too likely. He should have known better.

  It seemed that the fighting only intensified as they fought their way into the final set of defensive lines. Michael found it hard to remember why they were trying to take prisoners in the first place; if they hadn't looked so helpless, he knew that he would have gunned them down without a second thought. The massive palace that had served as the centre of the enemy’s operations fell rapidly, once they realised that they had been defeated. Somehow, Michael wasn't surprised to discover the enemy leadership trying to sneak their way out of the city. They’d been dressed in drag.

  Slowly, the fighting died away as the CEF took control of the town. A handful of holdouts continued to cause trouble, but they were rapidly surrounded and eliminated with pinpoint artillery fire. Most of the enemy soldiers who had survived the fighting surrendered once they realised that their commanders had deserted them, throwing down their weapons and accepting capture. Michael found his unit, tired and battered through it was, assigned to escort the prisoners out of the town until proper accommodation could be prepared for them.

  Private Willis looked over at him. “Sir,” he said, “is it always going to be like this?”

  Michael considered the question gravely. Willis had been a newcomer to the squad, a cherry straight out of basic training. Like all such FNGs, he’d taken his share of ribbing while his squadmates made sure they could trust him at their backs. But, despite that, he’d had an air of innocence, even if it had been slightly tainted by his activities while on leave. Not any longer.

  “It could be worse,” he said, finally. “And it will be, once we hit Pradesh.”

  He looked over at the prisoners – and the handful of civilians who had come out of hiding to jeer at them. The level of repressed hatred was staggering, even though he knew that he should have expected it. He found himself tightening his grip on his weapon, wondering if the crowd were going to lynch the naked and helpless prisoners. How could he have blamed them if they’d wanted to show their tormentors the same mercy they’d been shown?

  “Take a look at them,” he added, inviting Willis to follow his gaze. “They turned this planet into a prison – and a mass grave. They’re worse than pirates, worse even than the Old Council. Killing them is our duty.”

  He scowled at the young man’s back as he returned to the rank. Michael had seen worse, as had a handful of his more experienced men, but the others had been ... innocent. The barbarity they’d seen during the fighting was new to them. Something would have to be done about that, eventually. But, in all honestly, he didn't know what.

  A shower of dirt and filth rained towards the prisoners. Michael lifted his voice, barking out a command in the local language. He mangled it twice, but eventually he managed to convince the throwers to stop. But he couldn't really blame them for wanting revenge, could he?

  He linked on to the tactical net. “The prisoners won’t be welcome in the city any longer,” he said, after reporting the brief incident. “Is there somewhere for them to go?”

  “Soon,” the CO said. “Just get them back to our lines. We’ll take it from there.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  This is amply demonstrated by the American re
sponse to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The United States armed and trained the resistance to the invaders, which eventually forced the Russians to retreat. However, the aftermath of the invasion was a devastated Afghanistan, ripe for fundamentalism which would eventually lead to a new threat to world order.

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

  “The only thing costlier than a battle lost is a battle won,” Jasmine mused, as she walked through the abandoned warehouse. Seventeen bodies had been laid out on the ground, seventeen men who had died under her command. She couldn't help feeling as if she had failed them, as if another commander would have found a way to save their lives. But she knew that she was the one in command.

  The reporter looked over at her, but said nothing. He probably had nothing to say, she thought bitterly – nothing sensible, at any rate. What would a civilian, one who had fought with pen and ink and computer messages, know of the pain of losing someone under an officer’s command? Even a resistance fighter wouldn't feel the same way. The dead might not have been Marines, but it hardly mattered. She was responsible for issuing the orders that had sent them to their deaths.

  Five men killed in damaged or destroyed Warriors. Eight killed by enemy fire. Four killed by friendly fire ... and wasn’t that a joke? In the Imperial Army, even the merest hint of a friendly fire incident would have snarled the offensive while the commanders carried out an investigation and hired lawyers to ensure that someone else took the blame. Jasmine had already looked at the records and knew what had happened; the strikes had been called in at very close range and, inevitably, someone had become very unlucky.