Lords of War (Star Crusades: Mercenaries, Book 1)

by Michael G. Thomas

  “Your failure at Montu is spreading like wildfire through Karnak. The Byotai settlers are not running anymore. They are standing their ground, all because of your incompetence. You are as incapable as you are inept.”

  An explosion off into the distance caught Nakoma’s attention. A large plume of dust rising up high into the air followed it.

  “My personal guard has arrived, Nakoma. Your troops will contain the enemy on three sides. Do not let them escape. I will land behind them, and I will end this the way you should have.”

  Nakoma knew this was a personal attack, even more than an attack on her clan. The Spires had only managed to move into a position of relative prominence due to the Red Scars failure years before at Karnak.

  Takosk wants me to fail. Then he will seize two territories on Karnak, and his shame will be consigned to history.

  “I will assault their position from behind. Make sure that…”

  Nakoma gave the signal for the connection to be severed. Her hands were shaking, but not from fear; this was pure rage. It took her almost ten seconds before she could compose herself enough to speak.

  “Spires, we have been betrayed. The Red Scars are here. Will you let them take what is ours?”

  In answer, another of her aircraft was hit by gunfire and fell from the sky. This time it managed to right itself and staggered away trailing black smoke. Nakoma shook her head in frustration.

  “We must destroy these mercenaries and show that it is us, not the animal soldiers of Takosk, that have the right to rule here.”

  As she finished speaking, she spotted black shapes off into the distance and moving in close to the other side of the train. They were much larger than the aircraft her clan used. Where the Spires were masters of hit and run attacks and raids, the Red Scars were more of a brutal assault force. They relied upon armour and war machines, as opposed to the finesse of her people. Her confidence was shattered when she realised quite how large the Red Scars force was.

  He is not here to help me. He’s here to take over this entire region.

  The Spires clan moved ever closer, while one by one, the heavy raiding landers of the Red Scars dropped off a bizarre menagerie of contraptions a kilometre away from the battle. Nakoma snarled, realising that while she’d put two hundred soldiers and fifteen aircraft into the battle, the Red Scars had tripled that number, plus their war machines. She rose to her feet and pulled her helmet from its mount on the side of the aircraft. Two of her bodyguards removed a chest plate from the same place and helped fit it to her.

  I will lead the last assault, and I do not care which enemy I will be fighting.

  * * *

  Gun watched the vast horde of war machines coming from the opposite side of the train from the current attack and began to laugh. There were just four of them at the train, and this vast enemy seemed like a cruel joke to him now.

  “They really want to make sure, don’t they?”

  General Daniels twisted back to watch.

  “They don’t want us getting back to the Byotai, or even worse, speaking to the Alliance. If the Byotai see what we can do, and that they can be beaten, well, what do you think will happen next?”

  Gun shrugged.

  “I’ll tell you something else, Gun.”

  “What?”

  The General grinned.

  “They mean business.”

  Both looked at more than a dozen large wheeled vehicles almost the same size as a train carriage. The tops were open to the elements and filled with weapon toting soldiers. Darting in about this formation were twice as many smaller vehicles, carrying harpoon guns and automatic cannons. They had begun firing even at this long-range to little effect. Gun heard shouting and went to the side of the carriage, peeking through the many small holes in the metal. Even he was staggered at the line of soldiers closing on their position. It looked like a medieval battle where hundreds of soldiers would line up on the battlefield. Gun banged his fist on the side of the train wreckage.

  “General, help Spartan.”

  From his position higher up, General Daniels had the perfect view of the enemy. For now the vehicles on the other side were too far away to engage. He would deal with that when the time came. He’d purposely kept his head down, and there was only a tiny gap through the broken metal on the upper section of the carriage he dared look through. He fired one more shot and slid off to the right to get a view of the nearby position occupied by Spartan. He’d seen all kinds of combat, but what he could see took him right back to the war.

  What is he doing?

  Spartan rolled back until just twenty metres from the train when the Spires soldiers finally overran his position. Gun could see a creature snapping at his heels, and two-dozen or more soldiers were knocking him to the ground. He felt a lump in his throat but grinned when he saw Spartan back on his feet. In his hands was a blade, something taken from one of the Spires soldiers, and he was hacking away. The blows continued to rain down on him.

  “Shoot on Spartan’s position.”

  General Daniels loosed off a dozen shots, several striking home. Two managed to hit Spartan, but thankfully with no obvious effect. Then came the screaming sound of falling objects. He looked up at the sleek shape of their Jackal dropship. It barrel rolled while a single arrow shaped fighter pursued it behind the nearest hills.

  “General!” Syala shouted.

  He looked back and found himself looking at the first three of the Red Scars vehicles. One was coming right at them, the warriors on board waving weapons and howling like teenagers. Shots blasted away, and he quickly ducked back into cover and checked his magazine.

  “Not good. Not good at all.”

  The scream of engines suddenly stopped and was replaced with the screaming voices of warriors. He moved out of cover for an instant, took aim, and fired three times. Two of the enemy were hit, and then they were amongst them around the train. Whereas the Spires soldiers were careful in their movements, these Red Scars were like wild animals.

  “Die!” Gun roared.

  He glanced to the left; at least a dozen of them had been surprised by Gun. The massive warrior was shot at least three times, but now he was amongst them. A few foolish ones fired back at him, and in their haste managed to shoot their own people. The first two went down from strikes with his left arm, and then a third hacked at him with a curved blade, knocking the rifle from his right hand, a weapon he’d been using as a club.

  “Ha, ha!” he laughed.

  Reaching forward, he grabbed the warrior’s arm, locked it, and then yanked. The entire limb ripped out, leaving a screaming warrior and blood pumping all over Gun’s body. He swung the arm over his head and smashed the bloody object back into the warrior’s face.

  “That’s how to disarm somebody!”

  Another shot hit him in the chest, and this time the impact seemed to have an effect. He staggered back, shook his head, swinging his arms to strike yet more of them.

  General Daniels dropped his now empty rifle and lifted his sidearm.

  “I’m coming!”

  His shooting was precise, no more than two rounds per target. Something struck his left arm, another hit his cheek, and he was on the ground. He could feel the warm blood trickling down his face.

  “This can’t…”

  A massive thud shook the ground so hard he almost left the ground for a second. It was something as loud and powerful as the collapse of a massive building. His first instinct was to roll to the side and brace himself for the heat of a bombing run. For the split second, he was sure he could see the dark shapes of large bipedal fighting machines, and then the entire area filled with dust engulfing the defenders, the train, and every single one of the attackers. The last thing he heard was the relentless hammering sound of heavy weapons firing.

  * * *

  Jackal Dropship ‘Haywire’

  Kanjana pulled on the column and twisted the dropship through an incredible series of manoeuvres. She was flying at a little ov
er two hundred feet and back toward the mountains, away from the train site. The drop had been a lot closer than she’d intended, and the engine intakes were partially clogged from the dust kicked up by the battle around the train. A quick glance showed the battle site was full of dust, made worse by the soldiers’ landing.

  Good luck, Khan.

  She wanted to go back and provide air cover, but as well as the massive amount of ground fire, there was still the issue of the remaining fighter that had followed her down from space.

  “Everybody okay back there?”

  The six mercenaries acknowledged from inside their protective cocoons.

  Good.

  “Help them. We have to protect Spartan and the others. The suits are expendable, our people are not.”

  The pursuing fighter was close, and its guns firing almost continually. Impact after impact was registered; and at any moment Kanjana expected to see the engines had finally been destroyed.

  “You arrogant...little…”

  Kanjana forced the dropship down even lower and through a complex series of rocky arches and valleys. Both spacecraft left a wake of heated dust behind them as they banked and rolled through impossibly tight gaps. The gun battle abated for a short time until they moved out into a more open section. Kanjana made a subtle course correction and then reversed the engines.

  “Here we go!”

  The change in velocity was massive, and if it hadn’t been for the thick straps, she would have been thrown against the windscreen. For a brief moment, the Anicinàbe slipped past, and then she hit the burn mode. Unknown to the fighter pilot, there was nothing but a jagged outcrop of rock in front of them. The dropship narrowly avoided crashing as it pulled away. The fighter was ripped to shreds by the impact. At the same time, the final few rounds from the automatic cannons struck her other engine, and this time the damage was severe.

  “What was that?”

  The dropship lurched to the right and quickly lost speed. Kanjana knew right away she was in trouble. A glance at the navigation screen showed the location of the capital Montu, the mountain range, the track system, and the Byotai enclave of Caldos. The latter was the only location flagged by her sister as safe.

  “Very well, Caldos, here we come. Let’s hope the locals are friendly.”

  The dropship groaned as if it was trying to remove a painful projectile, when in fact it was barely staying airborne. Using every trick she knew, Kanjana somehow levelled the craft and plotted a slowly descending course to Caldos. Then, and only then, did she break radio silence.

  “Mayday, mayday. This is Haywire. I’ve been heavily damaged, need assistance.”

  After doing a mental translation, she repeated the message in broken Byotai. Unlike the others, she was natively fluent, at least partially in Byotai. Red warning lights came on as a fire broke out on the number two engine.

  “Haywire, we receive you.”

  Kanjana exhaled in relief at hearing the sound of Arana.

  “Land near the enclave. They will be waiting for you.”

  Another explosion ripped the cowling off her engines, and she found the dropship coming down fast. The hills between her and the enclave were now impassable, so she banked hard, trading height for speed and turned back toward the signs of battle.

  “Fair enough, in that case fire support is what I’ll bring.”

  As her course altered, she found herself looking at the long raised section, out in the open and between the two tunnels leading into the mountains. On one side were the large numbers of Spires soldiers and aircraft, most of which had now landed to disgorge the rest of their soldiers. On the other side of the track was a widely dispersed formation of fast moving ground vehicles. Many were small, but she counted plenty of larger wheeled vehicles, each bristling with warriors.

  “Let’s see what we can do.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Many still argue that there is little need for fighter pilots to train for close range combat. Missiles can destroy a target a hundred kilometres away in an atmosphere, and thousands of kilometres in space. Even so, in the hectic environment of actual combat, there are numerous examples of where the skill and agility of these men and women proved once and for all, that weaponry was just one of the components of an effective combat fighter. The great battle of Proxima, Euryale, and the Black Rift were just a handful where fighters made a difference. Guns and missiles retain their uses, even after hundreds of years of development.

  Fighter Combat for Beginners

  Maglev Rail Network, Khagi District, Karnak

  Spartan was on his back, and four Spires soldiers held him down. A fifth pointed a handgun at his face. This one had cast aside his robes so that his light armour was plain to see. Spartan tried to move, but unlike Vanguard armour, the M-3B was completely unpowered.

  All that gave him strength was his own muscles, and using just one arm he relaxed it, just to catch him off guard. One of the Spires soldiers lost his balance, and Spartan yanked him to the ground. The unfortunate warrior hit the ground headfirst and was knocked out cold.

  “I’m not finished!”

  Spartan tensed his arms and forced himself up from the ground. He didn’t get far, but it was enough to send the Spires soldiers into a panic. Another ran in to help, but Spartan threw him aside and tried to sit up. His stomach muscles groaned, but even the five of them couldn’t keep him down. The commander was completely bald, save for red tinted goggles covering its eyes. Then, and only then, did Spartan know he was facing a female Spires soldier. She raged at him, pushed the barrel to the metal of his helmet, and screamed.

  “Out of the way!”

  The voice was loud and amplified electronically. A metal leg crashed into the female commander, and she vanished over the other side of the rocks. The other soldiers turned their attention to their antagonist, giving Spartan just the time he needed.

  “Yeah!”

  He’d broken the neck of one Spire as he rose to his feet, before the metal machine blasted four of them with shoulder-mounted coilguns. One tried to run past it, but a second machine stepped in his way and cut him clean in half. Spartan grabbed a rifle from one of the fallen soldiers and looked up at the two machines. Dust swirled around them as they dealt destruction with their powerful guns.

  “Khan?”

  It wasn’t easy to see through the dust, but the shapes of two massive metal warriors encased in their customised Jötnar Assault Suits was an all too familiar sight. These were effectively airtight armoured bodies that encased the Jötnar. They were unpowered, but that was no issue for them. Unlike the equipment CTC had been working on, they looked more like crude medieval soldiers, but scaled up to the size of a mythical troll.

  Both were standing apart, their legs planted firmly to the ground. They opened fire with such intensity it felt like fifty soldiers were firing at once. Khan paused for just a moment and shouted via his external speakers.

  “Spartan, there’s something back there for you.”

  Khan then laughed, the sound of his voice booming out into the battle.

  “I don’t know how, but the ground drop work! I thought we’d be killed by the impact.”

  He pointed behind him to where the dust cloud was thickest. Spartan didn’t hesitate and ran past his friend, smacking his lightly armoured fist against Khan’s arm as he did so. A short distance behind were two more suits, one completely static, yet upright and waiting. The other was up the short slope to the track and had crashed into the train, and was half jammed inside it. Spartan moved to the upright one. As soon as he was within three metres, the front opened up.

  “The Maverick suit.”

  Shapes moved behind it, and he grabbed for his carbine. He pulled the trigger just as the first of the CD1 Grunts came right at him. He should have recognised the shapes, but for that brief moment they were just more Spires soldiers. The weapon hissed, but did no more, and as he saw what they were, he sighed happily.

  Out of ammo, just as well!r />
  Only then did it actually occur to him that they were friendly. Two ran past him, forming up on the flanks of Khan and Olik. They moved quickly and opened fire right away, with neither saying a word to him. Spartan shook his head in surprise and then stepped into the Maverick armour. At once his own armour connected to the control nodes with a gentle clunking sound, and he felt his limbs relax as the powered armour system took up the strain from his battered and damaged body. The adrenalin, mixed with the suit’s drugs had taken the edge of his injuries, but this was a much better way of keeping him in the fight. The overlay system connected to the other warriors as well as the Grunts, and even to the single dropship that was now out of sight. He took a step away to join the fight, and then remembered what had been happening prior to their arrival.

  Gun!

  Spartan turned around and clambered up the slope. He was an easy shot for the enemy from there, and shots were already striking his armour. The onboard computer tracked the approach vectors, and the automated left shoulder gun mount returned fire. Spartan didn’t even need to issue the command. It was a fully automated defensive measure.

  He looked left and right, finding his friend via the thermal imaging. Gun was leaning against the carriage, beset on all sides by Red Scars soldiers. General Daniels was on his back and firing a handgun, and there was no sign of Syala.

  Not good.

  “I’m coming!”

  Spartan began at a walk, increasing in pace and dropping down just metres away from his wounded comrade. Inside the armour they were now of a similar size and build.

  “Spartan!” Gun groaned.

  One of the Red Scars leapt off a vehicle and ran up to Gun with a pack of warriors. Most carried carbines and shotguns, but the leader had a massive harpoon weapon. The attack looked more like a beach assault; soldiers rushing up from their landing craft, except these landing craft were ground vehicles, many looking as though they’d been cobbled together in a scrapyard. The static providing covered fire for those in the open.