“I’m unhurt,” said Sybutu. “Stay down and play dead. I see the rebel attack coming in. Let it pass. And... good call on grabbing the armor first, Bronze. You just saved our lives.”
Zavage shut down his armor into passive mode. He retained ultra-low power, short range radio link, and nothing else. The buffer foam had softened into a sticky mess that was growing cold. It would get even colder real quick. Everything would. But his life signs were shielded by the armor and he would appear dead.
Just so long as we get back up before I freeze to death for real.
The helm’s enhanced vision display and HUD had shut down too, but in this mode the polarization of the visor had reduced so he could see through clearly. It didn’t help much. The glare from the ice and snow was now blinding without the helm’s assistance, and the view to the spaceport was blocked by a curtain of debris from a creeping barrage of artillery shells.
A heavy beat shook the ground, growing louder by the moment. Zavage stopped worrying about the cold and started fighting back the powerful urge to vomit as sickening waves of sonic power pulsed through his stomach. The prospect of drowning was another worry, as the snow was melting all around.
A cylinder moved into his field of vision, lengthening into a tube that became a battle tank’s main armament.
Keep. Absolutely. Still.
His guts churned. If he retched, even if the tank didn’t spot him, it surely had supporting infantry that would.
Keep calm…
The heavy grav tank thundered past, just yards away, pounding the snow beneath it, and having pretty much the same effect on the inside of Zavage’s head.
He couldn’t identify the tank model. Sybutu was so obsessive about these details that he could probably tell the year of manufacture from the pattern of the blast shields that hung down into the snow like rigid curtains over its flanks, there to protect against infantry like him getting close and firing rockets at its underside. Zavage didn’t need to know. It was a tank with a damned big gun, and if it saw him as a threat, he’d be dead.
The behemoth passed him, the spray of snow it threw behind showering him and providing additional cover just in time for the support troops to arrive.
A cloud of hover darts followed fifty yards behind the line of five tanks. These were nimble light air vehicles that would hang in the air for a few moments before flitting to another position like hoverflies with nose cannons. Behind each pilot sat a heavy infantryman in armor similar to the Legion’s and armed with heavy weapons and det packs.
The heavy tank rumble was now a bass note almost overcome by the high-pitched buzzing of hover darts. But the formation was moving fast behind its creeping artillery barrage, and it soon left Zavage behind, dismissing him as just another corpse rapidly cooling to ambient temperature.
By pure chance, he had landed at such an angle that he had the perfect view of the rebel attack as it rolled in. It was hoping to punch through the disorganized Corruption, and mainline straight through to the spaceport. It seemed to Zavage that the rebels had learned from their earlier repulse, and were using the creeping barrage not to destroy the enemy so much as to hide from them.
So far, the tactic was working. A few of the Corrupted were firing through the curtain of destruction thrown up by the artillery barrage at where they thought the rebels might be, but most of them jogged toward the spaceport, oblivious to the threat steaming up to their rear flank. They were almost at the main gate.
Neither faction expected much resistance from Kulm’s spaceport garrison. Zavage hadn’t either.
This proved a mistake.
The Militia officer had been waiting for the moment to make his presence felt; that time was now.
A volley of missiles shot out from the spaceport’s watchtowers, screaming through the air above Zavage. They must have been aimed at the rebel artillery because it fell silent and didn’t resume. Several missiles shot through the debris screen thrown up by the creeping barrage and detonated beneath one of the tanks. Secondary explosions rocked the behemoth’s underside as its hardworking gravitics blew out. The beast of metal and ceramalloy crashed deep into the ice.
There was more to Kulm’s defenders than missiles.
They lit up a fusillade of blaster bolts that burned brightly through Zavage’s inactive visor, hitting several hover darts.
Smooth, reflective armor in the aircraft nose cones protected the vehicles, but two deflected bolts hit pilots of other darts, sending them tumbling out of control to the ground, and taking out another dart on the way down.
The parvenu officer had made his mark, but the spaceport garrison had only managed to tweak the nose of the rebel juggernaut, making it angry.
The tanks replied via their main guns. Even the grounded tank that had sunk hull-down into the ice had traversed its turret and joined the CAEM shells hitting the gate. Controlled Area Effect Munitions made a big bang but reined in the explosion – great for blowing shit up with minimal collateral damage.
The watchtowers were obliterated and – it seemed – the garrison along with them. The only damage to the spaceport beyond was to receive a light covering of dust.
Kulm’s brave soldiers had taken care not to fire on the Corrupted, and now the reason for that tactic became clear. With the artillery barrage silenced, and not having themselves taken heavy fire from the spaceport, the infected legionaries finally saw the rebels as a deadly threat and pivoted their attack to face them.
With Corruption and Rebellion exchanging fire, and the darts dancing through the air to stab down blasts of automatic fire at ground targets, no one was paying attention to the dead men in legionary armor that had been overrun by the initial advance of the tanks.
Sybutu’s voice came over the comms. “On my mark, we get one of those MM-7s together and x-skragg those tanks. Zavage is gunner. Bronze, load feed. I set the tripod and command. Three, two–”
“Break. Break,” Zavage interrupted. “I do not see MM-7. Over.”
“You’re practically lying in them,” Sybutu replied. “There’s a main barrel ten yards from your feet. Three, two, one, go!”
The armor was a stiff encumbrance that was almost impossible to move, not least because the human stink inside was a reminder that it had not been set up for a Kurlei. But by the time he’d pushed himself to his knees, the armor’s power functions had restarted. So had its internal heater. With the muscle enhancement fizzing through the armor, Zavage leaped into the air.
Together, they swiftly assembled the gun components that had been buried in the churned-up snow, but which their helm HUDs had clearly highlighted.
Bracing his lower back against a mound of snow, Zavage snapped the holo-sights onto one of the mobile tanks with his left hand and readied the firing stud with his right.
“Light ’em up,” said the boss.
“You got it.”
Despite the many components of the gun’s Firing Stability Platform, Zavage felt an urgent power surge through the MM-7 as it came to life and threw x-shells downrange.
Brrrpppp! Brrrrpp!
Spent cases fountained into the air as rounds clattered against the tank’s armor. Some bounced off, peppering the snow, but many fragments stuck onto the tank like half-melted licorice.
“Switch target,” Osu ordered.
With no obvious damage to the tank, Zavage traversed the gun to take in its nearest neighbor. He checked load feed was good and targeting locked. Then he opened up once more.
Even the MM-7 would struggle to penetrate a main battle tank’s armor with conventional rounds, but Bronze had loaded x-ray rounds, another technology whose secrets had been lost, but Zavage didn’t need to know how to manufacture an x-round to point and shoot them.
“Switch target,” Sybutu said again.
As the x-round came into range of its target, a miniature fusion bomb ignited, its enormous power channeled into a nanosecond pulsed x-ray laser that hosed the target, focusing its energy beam on the inside of the
vehicle. The tiny amount of unconverted energy often melted the round casing, but that was nothing compared to what the x-ray beam was doing to the tank’s crew. As for its electronics, unless the tank was properly shielded, they would be turned to slag.
The three tanks Zavage had raked with the x-rounds had gone dormant, but the other two were traversing their turrets to exterminate this threat from their rear. Hover darts banked around and blew small craters into the snow around the gun team as they sought to take out the MM-7 gunners first. But in exposing their vulnerable flanks to Corrupted blaster fire, the aircraft began taking heavy losses.
Which would be no consolation if the sappers were blasted to hell.
“Switch targets.” Osu sounded as cool as if ordering his lunch in the Faxian chow hall.
Zavage’s heart was pounding louder than the noise of the gun, and he was glad of his high-grip gauntlets because his hands were slick with fear. Nonetheless, he set the target lock on the turret that looked in the holo-sights to be almost aiming its barrel directly at his face. Target lock. Ammo check. Fire!
Brrrpppp! Brrrrpp! Booooom!
Something unyielding slammed into Zavage’s face and he was thrown hard against his icy back rest.
He was sliding backwards on his butt. Two pairs of hands were dragging him.
“Move it!”
He willed his feet to work.
“Come on, you ugly sack of squid meat!”
Zavage found his feet and ran with Bronze and Sybutu. He was too disoriented to know where he was headed – just away.
Then he looked over to the rebel attack wave and saw the last tank with its barrel pointed directly at them.
Fear drove an additional burst of speed, but the world suddenly fell away, and he was falling. Sliding. Landing with a bump at the bottom of a shell crater. Sybutu and Bronze toppled onto him.
“Stay down,” said the sergeant.
Zavage was okay with that for a while. “What happened?”
“One of those dart fighters got our number,” Sybutu answered. “The MM-7 took most of the impact. That and your face.”
“Lucky it wasn’t the tank gun,” said Bronze who had already scrambled to the lip of the crater, peering out at the battle. “That would have delivered more than just bruises.”
The sounds of battle washed over them for a few seconds as they got their breath back. Zavage realized he’d lost his rifle. It had never truly felt his, having been stolen from a Corrupted corpse, but he sure missed it now. The furious exchanges of blaster fire taking place just a few hundred yards away meant there would be plenty more rifles lying around to be picked up.
“They were main battle tanks,” Sybutu mused aloud. “No one designs resistance to energy beam munitions anymore.” Zavage understood why the man sounded so unhappy about a fact that had saved their lives. The modern-day military had lost so much. They wouldn’t have stood a chance against the Legion of the Orion Era. What if they had to face an enemy equipped with higher tech weapons? Perhaps those who had created the Corruption?
But that was a problem for tomorrow.
“Any sign of life in that last tank?” Zavage asked.
“No,” Bronze replied. “Reckon it had zeroed in on us only to discover we’d zapped its fire control system.”
“We left it too late to bug out,” said Zavage.
Bronze looked down at him. “We would have timed it just right if we hadn’t lost time dragging away a fish-head who’d decided to go all sleepy on us in the middle of a battle.”
“That’s enough,” said Sybutu, but Zavage could sense Bronze’s good-humored grin even though he couldn’t see it behind the opaque helm. Whatever psychological crisis had overwhelmed the SpecMish man back in the city had resolved itself for now.
“The Corrupted are going to win this round,” said Bronze, returning to his observation of the battlezone. “The hover darts are taking a pasting. Whatever they might once have been, their soldiers aren’t legionaries. They’re drones with no coordination that I can see, but they remember how to take a knee and lay down accurate fire.”
Sybutu joined Bronze at the lip. “Any sign of the spaceport garrison?”
“Negative.”
Zavage got to his knees, intending to join the other two, but Sybutu waved him back down. “You took a knock, Zavage. Use this timeout. In any case, you’ve made your presence felt in this battle. Scores of the Corrupted are carrying det packs over to the stranded tanks. Others are carrying them to the spaceport gate. They’re not acting as brainless zombies as much as I’d like. They still look like an unruly mob divided up into separate packs, but those packs are tactical elements operating independently to provide fire support for the assault element going in with the det packs.”
“So what you’re saying,” said Zavage, “is that they’re acting as if their legionary brains have been scooped out and replacement Militia ones dolloped in.”
“Yeah. I guess that about covers it.”
Sybutu sounded amused by his reply, but Zavage’s words had sounded dumb as soon as they had escaped his mouth. Only that morning they had still been talking of Chimera Company. Were they back to Militia versus Legion so soon? Had none of this meant anything?
“It’s all over,” said Bronze, who had never shown any interest in smacking down the Militia. That was interesting: the former Special Missions man had probably seen far more of the galaxy than any of them. Were the two facts connected? “The hover darts are fleeing. They know they can’t save the tanks now.”
A series of explosions proved Bronze’s point a few moments later as the charges laid by the Corrupted blew up the tanks.
By then, Zavage was intent on a new task: reconfiguring the helm comm system to throw a signal far enough to snap into the headset net used by their former Militia comrades – to send a signal that could connect with specific headsets.
Sybutu might not have changed his opinion of the Militia troopers, but Zavage had. Of one trooper in particular.
Text appeared in Zavage’s helm in a disapproving shade of red.
Connection to external comm node active. Warning! Link is not secure!
“Green Fish, it’s me. Just checking in.”
“Vol,” she said breathlessly. “Could do with your help about now. We’re pinned down by rebels near the docks.”
“Hang tough, Green. We’re near the spaceport. The Corrupted have beaten the rebels back. Twice. Maybe the rebels will think again and pull back from the city.”
Instead of Green Fish’s sweet human voice came heavy breathing and blaster fire. Sounded like she was clearing out from a position that had gotten too hot for her.
Meanwhile, back in the crater, Sybutu was reporting on what he was seeing in the battle zone but didn’t appear agitated. Zavage kept him on half-mute.
“Don’t think that’s going to happen,” said Green Fish. “We’re not going to make it. And that’s a shame. Spend a night of passion with a Kurlei. It was the only item left on my ten things to do before I die. So close. It would have been great, Vol. Remember me.”
“It still will be. Hang in there, Green Fish. You’ll get to complete your list. I swear it.”
“Zavage!” Sybutu shouted.
“Yes, Sergeant.”
“Are you fit to go?”
Zavage cut the external link. “Yes, Sergeant.”
“Time to move out. We merge with the Corrupted entering the spaceport, find Fitzwilliam’s ship, and persuade him to take us off-world. Then we report in to Legion high command before coming back for Urdizine. Any questions?”
“Yeah,” said Zavage. “Can you find us something difficult to do next time? I could do with a challenge.”
Sybutu laughed. Zavage hadn’t heard that sound since they’d left Camp Faxian.
They scrambled out of the crater and back into the battle.
There was one impossible objective Sybutu had left off. They had to get to the docks and rescue their friends. It was bad enough leav
ing Urdizine to fend for himself. They couldn’t leave the others behind to die. Zavage wouldn’t allow it.
BRONZE
“Captain Tavistock Fitzwilliam. Owner-operator of free trader Phantom. Bay 27-Gamma.” Bronze flicked through the console log in the abandoned spaceport control center. “Port fees paid in advance for the next month… refueling and resupplying… they booked some minor repairs. According to this, they’re still here and ready to go.”
“Good work,” said Osu.
Damn! He was good. This, at least, he could still do well. SpecMish had backdoor access to many systems and Rho-Torkis Main Spaceport was no exception. But something was not right. “Fitzwilliam’s ship has been here eight weeks. Time is money for a free trader, and I’ve never known one yet who felt comfortable with an empty cargo bay, because I’ve never known one who didn’t have debts to pay. Financial or otherwise. Why have they been here so long? And why haven’t we seen ships fleeing the battle?”
“We can ask them that ourselves,” Osu replied, “after we secure passage off-world.”
“Get real,” said Zavage. “It’s not going to be easy.”
Bronze stared at the Kurlei. What was bugging him?
Zavage looked away, ashamed.
“No, it’s not,” said Osu. “But we’re Legion. We do it anyway. Let’s go.”
“Wait,” said Bronze. “The ships are on lockdown. All of them. A security override was issued in the early hours of this morning. They’re clamped and tethered. I’m downloading the override code for the Phantom’s bay.”
“Can you countermand the lockdown throughout the port?”
“Yes.”
“Do it. But then re-clamp Fitzwilliam’s ship. We don’t want him slipping away too easily.”
When Bronze had unlocked every ship in the port bar one, Osu led them down the port control building. Bronze noted half-drunken coffees still steaming and holo-screens showing uncompleted mayday messages pleading for assistance. Where were the staff now?
Rho-Torkis had become a planet of mysteries, and that was one more that would have to wait.
——
Once the Corrupted forces had taken out the rebel tanks and driven away the hover darts, the survivors – about three hundred of them – had entered the gaping holes where the gates had once stood and seized the port without resistance. Once inside and back on script, a renewed sense of purpose and organization took control. Teams of legionaries armed with heavy weapons ringed each occupied bay, making doubly sure that no ship could escape.
Chimera Company - Rho-Torkis Box Set Page 32