by C H Gideon
The orders went out, and the crews responded quickly. APCs bore the anti-missile systems and fresh troopers to the mines, and then returned to HQ bearing troopers whose mine shifts had ended.
Several hours passed, during which time he ran through a myriad of possible scenarios with Styles’ help. Tension heightened throughout the battalion, and Jenkins did his best to project an aura of calm as Roy took part in its assigned leg of the aegis patrol scheme.
“Missiles inbound,” Xi declared over the platoon-wide nearly six hours after the nuclear bomb had gone off. She spun Elvira’s missile launchers up, dropping the mech into firing position as she prepared to fire at the inbound projectiles. This batch of Jemmin missiles had an estimated impact less than six kilometers from her patrol’s current position.
Holy Diver had been assigned to 5th Platoon, while Elvira was in 4th. Both mechs were technically capable of missile intercept, though Holy Diver was the superior anti-missile platform.
Colonel Jenkins’ standing orders were to engage missiles that encroached on the Terran zone of control, or ZOC, which included a fifty-kilometer radius extending out from every Terran-controlled point of terrain. This latest pair of missiles originated from a point just inside that radius, near the Alpha Site mine, and were set to strike well within Terran-controlled territory.
She locked her rockets on the LRMs and fired, sending the quartet of interceptors streaking into the sky. Two rockets per target gave a greater than ninety-three percent chance of interception. While far from perfect, it was the best she could do with her current systems.
The rockets screamed through the thin atmosphere toward their targets, bracketing them and sending their wreckage in a fan-shaped cloud toward the ground.
“Elvira reporting two LRMs neutralized.” Xi was surprised when she received nothing but static in reply. “I say again: Elvira reporting two LRMs neutralized.”
Again, no reply.
As she ran a virtual diagnostic on the mech’s comm systems, she keyed up the intercom. “Lu, check the comm system. I’m not getting a reply from HQ.”
“Everything checks out, Captain,” Lu reported promptly, confirming her virtual diagnostic’s findings.
She ground her teeth as she checked the local RF—radio frequency—bands, finding no apparent source of interference. The radio simply didn’t work, and no one knew why.
“Establishing P2P with the platoon,” she said, a rare note of anxiety creeping into her voice. “Cave Troll, do you copy?”
“Cave Troll here,” came the Jock’s deep, rich voice. “What’s going on with the RF?”
“No clue, Cave Troll.” She grimaced. “Gym Cricket, Heavy Metal Jesus, do you copy?”
“Copy, Elvira,” came Gym Cricket’s reply.
“Loud and clear, Captain,” replied Heavy Metal Jesus’ Jock. “But HMJ’s seeing some funky background on the high-band RF.”
“All right, stick to the P2P and maintain constant linkage,” she confirmed. “They’re broad-spectrum jamming us, but as long as P2P works, no one’s alone. You have your mission orders. Protect Delta at all costs.”
Suddenly, a pair of icons appeared on her tactical plotter just eight kilometers away.
“Contacts,” she snapped. “Two Jemmin Specters bearing two-six-eight, distance six-point-one kilometers.”
But just as soon as they appeared, they vanished only to be replaced by another pair of icons only three kilometers from her current position.
“Contacts,” Cave Troll growled, “bearing one-one-five, distance three-point-two kilometers.”
“Shit!” cried Gym Cricket. “My drive system just went offline!”
Xi felt her hackles rise. “Say again, Gym Cricket?”
“My drive system is in a self-protective restart cycle,” Gym Cricket replied after a brief, but potentially lethal, delay. “I won’t be mobile for another forty seconds.”
“4th Platoon, hold fast,” Xi ordered, her mind racing before she latched on to one particular thought. “4th Platoon, shut down all RF transceivers and physically unplug them. Now!”
Her own systems began to behave strangely, just enough that she noticed hiccups in Elvira’s responsiveness, but she was able to deactivate the mech’s RF transceivers while her Wrench and Monkey scrambled to manually disconnect the devices from her onboard systems.
“What’s going on?” she heard Samuels call from the rear of the cockpit. Xi heard no fear in the woman’s voice, which was a pleasant surprise, but the last thing she needed right then was a civilian reporter climbing up her ass with questions.
“Lock it down, Blondie,” Xi snapped. “We’re under attack.”
“General, my people are experiencing targeted systems interference in tandem with enemy weapons fire and encroachment on our zone of control,” Jenkins said, knowing that every word he now spoke would be recorded for later examination.
“Are you certain these are not merely malfunctions, Colonel Jenkins?” General Akinouye asked, his expression neutral as he leaned slightly toward the video pickup.
“One hundred percent, General,” Jenkins replied with total conviction. “Three of my mechs have reported catastrophic system failures as a result of targeted takeover attempts. These failures have occurred within minutes or seconds of Jemmin weapons fire. Under the Illumination League’s charter pertaining to the treatment of colonial organizations, even such colonies of questionable allegiance to their parent nations as some argue the case to be for our Terran Republic, the ILPF is prohibited from engaging in such acts of aggression.”
Akinouye’s visage darkened as he leaned closer. “You’re the commander on the ground, Colonel. What is your recommendation?”
“Recommend you contact the Jemmin in orbit and advise them to stand down,” Jenkins said firmly. “Also recommend you authorize 1st Battalion to engage targets behaving in a hostile manner, deadly force authorized, sir.”
General Akinouye’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure about this, Commander?”
Jenkins nodded. “I am, General. We came here to do a job, and my people are being harassed with potentially lethal consequences while we are in the performance of our legally-sanctioned duties. We’re content to abide by League law in this matter if the Jemmin stand down, but if they refuse or fail to acknowledge our attempts at dialogue, then we’re ready to engage them.”
“Stand by, Colonel,” Akinouye commanded before his visage vanished from the screen.
Jenkins sat in relative silence for nearly six minutes, while the Roy’s crew went about their respective tasks. He could hardly believe what he was saying: was he ready to engage the most powerful space-faring civilization in the known galaxy, or was it all just bluster? He sincerely thought he meant it, but the moment of truth had not yet arrived. He could still back out, find some reason to withdraw and save face in the process as any sane person would likely do.
But Lee Jenkins hadn’t lived a life of making the safe decisions. The Jemmin were provoking him, probably in large part because they thought he would back down.
And nothing made Lee Jenkins madder than an enemy thinking they could intimidate him into submission.
“When have I ever given that impression…” he muttered under his breath.
General Akinouye’s face returned to the screen, and the longest-tenured member of the Terran Armed Forces seemed alight for the first time since Jenkins had met him.
“This is General Akinouye to all Terran forces on Shiva’s Wrath…” he began, his grim cast and hard tone making clear he understood the gravity of the situation. Then he spoke the five magic words that every warrior longed to hear from his commander. “You are cleared to engage. The Jemmin warship is refusing our hails. We can only interpret this as an act of open hostility and are therefore prepared to defend ourselves. I say again: all Terran Armor Corps forces on Shiva’s Wrath are cleared to engage Jemmin forces who take offensive actions against Terran Armor Corps assets. Good hunting, Colonel,” General Akinouye sa
id with a curt nod. “Make us proud, son.”
The line went dead, and Colonel Lee Jenkins felt a thrill course down his spine. It wasn’t exuberance or joy that filled him, but the knowledge that he was about to stand up not just for himself, but for all of Terran humanity.
He transmitted over P2P to every mech and declared, “This is Colonel Jenkins relaying our orders from General Akinouye: we are cleared to engage the enemy. I say again: we are cleared to engage the enemy. The next provocative maneuver by Jemmin forces is to be met with lethal force. Acknowledge.”
The rapid stream of acknowledgments bolstered his resolve, and he swelled with pride at the lack of hesitation from his mostly-new mech crews. At that moment, they were united as only warriors under fire could be.
It was time to shoot back.
5
Illumination
“All right, people,” Xi declared over 4th Platoon’s P2P comm net, “weapons hot. The next non-Terran signature that appears within our ZOC gets cratered, and return fire is authorized on the point-of-origin for future missiles which encroach the ZOC.”
A flurry of acknowledgments streamed across her screen, and then they were left to wait.
…and wait.
And wait.
Forty-nine minutes passed as Xi’s people remained on high-alert. Without the neural linkage, Xi’s body might have begun to tremble. But the cybernetic implants helped to regulate the physical manifestations of heightened anxiety, and as a result, she knew she could remain in a combat-ready defensive stance for at least nine continuous hours before requiring relief.
And that relief could come in the form of sleep or, in emergencies, chemical stimulants.
“Stay focused, Xi,” she muttered, her senses awash with the neural link’s sensor feeds. Interpreting those streams in real-time was far from intuitive, but after a few months’ training and the combat experience, albeit limited, it felt like second nature. The outside cold assaulted the systems that she cycled in a sequence to keep them from freezing up. The inside temperature was steady.
The reporter poked her head out occasionally, but retreated under an enfilade of threats and cursing.
Xi could “smell” movement at the edge of Elvira’s optical sensor range, but to focus her attention on it, she needed to engage her visual cortex. She could “feel” seismic and atmospheric variations through the mech’s myriad of specialized sensors, but to focus on them, she needed to engage her auditory system.
Switching back and forth to process the constant stream of data was routine to even a rookie Jock, and much as she hated to admit it, Xi Bao had only seen active combat duty once. On Durgan’s Folly. And her neural link had been broken for the majority of her combat experience, so she was hardly a ten-year veteran mech Jock.
She “smelled” something behind her, and focused her visual cortex on the rocket trail of an inbound missile. “Mid-range missile inbound,” she reported while spooling up her anti-missile rockets and simultaneously re-orienting Elvira so her artillery could target the point-of-origin. “Engaging.”
Two rockets flew from their mounts, streaking up at a near-vertical angle before arcing toward the inbound weapons. A muted flash confirmed the offending missile was down. Just as that confirmation came in, she locked onto the missile’s estimated point-of-origin. Sixteen kilometers from Elvira, it was at the very edge of her ability to accurately engage.
“Target lock,” she declared. “On the way!”
Elvira’s dual artillery cannons thundered in rapid succession, driving the Scorpion-class mech’s legs a full foot into the ice from the recoil. She had laid her guns according to temperature, atmospherics, the worldlet’s gravity—which was sixty percent of the human standard, and every other variable she had learned to account for.
The shells took parabolic arcs toward their target, whistling through the thin air as they flew. The Owl drone assigned to 4th Platoon put its eyes on the impact site two seconds before the shells turned the pristine ice-field into a shower of icy shards and snowy powder. The impact report registered several seconds later as the faintest tickle on Xi’s forearms, and when the frozen cloud had settled, nothing but a misshapen crater remained in the ice field.
“Missile point-of-origin destroyed,” Xi declared, but she knew that it was unlikely in the extreme she had actually struck the vehicle responsible for launching the MRM. Humans had mastered the art of firing vehicle-mounted missiles, and even artillery, on the run several hundred years ago. The Jemmin were superior in terms of technological advances, so it was foolish to hope they would succumb to something as simplistic as counter-battery fire.
“Copy that, Captain,” acknowledged Heavy Metal Jesus’ Jock. “I’m moving the Owl in for a closer look.”
“Jemmin use ceramics and noble metal composites,” Xi reminded him as the Owl swooped down toward the impact site. “Some of their stealthier vehicles also employ special polymer skins which redirect light and give them visual-spectrum cloaking capability.”
“On it, Captain,” HMJ’s Jock affirmed as he directed the Owl-class drone down to a height of just two hundred meters above the crater. “Scanning the site…” he reported as streams of data came back from the Owl. “Negative, Captain,” he finally declared, “nothing but salty ice here.”
Xi noted that there had, a few seconds earlier, been some small quantity of liquid water at the bottom of the oblong crater. But as the Owl had conducted its inspection, the water had re-frozen into a flat, placid-looking pool.
“Bring the Owl home,” Xi ordered. “They’re still just fucking with us. Let’s be ready when they come back for seconds.”
Her platoon Jocks acknowledged her command, and she switched her P2P to link up with Colonel Jenkins.
“Jenkins, go,” the colonel greeted.
“We need to use the Bonhoeffer’s sensors, Colonel,” Xi urged. “There’s no way for us to overcome their stealth capabilities from down here.”
“The Jemmin in orbit aren’t making it easy for them to support us,” Jenkins replied. “They’ve deployed some kind of drone-cloud in the upper atmosphere which interferes with the Bonhoeffer’s systems. Our people are forwarding whatever telemetry they can, but it’s been hit-and-miss for the last hour or so. And frankly, I can’t trust we’re receiving accurate data from them. If the Jemmin are able to interfere with our communications gear, we have to assume that even our P2P net is potentially compromised. We can’t count on their sensor support, but Styles is working on cracking the Jemmin stealth systems.”
“Good enough for me,” Xi acknowledged, knowing there was nothing else to be said. If the Jemmin could break the high-security P2P network, which was nearly unthinkable, it would severely hamper the battalion’s coordination. The colonel wouldn’t have suggested such a thing was possible without good reason, and Xi had learned it was usually smart to follow her CO’s lead.
“Contact,” Cave Troll reported a few seconds before Elvira’s sensors registered a pair of icons nine kilometers from 4th Platoon. “Engaging.”
Cave Troll launched four short-range missiles at the encroaching targets, and those targets winked off the board less than a second before the SRMs struck the icy ground where they had been.
“Moving Owl into position,” reported Heavy Metal Jesus. A few seconds later, the ice crater came into view. And just as before, nothing but ice and fast-freezing water. “Negative debris.”
Xi’s sense of “smell” was suddenly overpowered by thirty new missile signatures. Originating from three previously-unmarked locations, she locked onto one and barked, “On the way!”
Elvira’s guns roared, sending high-explosive shells at the target twelve kilometers from her position. Xi locked onto eight of the inbound missiles, half of which were aimed directly at 4th Platoon, and launched sixteen anti-missile rockets.
The rockets sliced through the frigid air, fanning out in pairs to engage the inbound missiles. Bolts of light stabbed up from 5th Platoon at the opposit
e end of the teardrop-shaped patrol route, and four missiles were snuffed by Holy Diver’s precise railguns.
Elvira’s anti-missile rockets tore into the approaching missiles, scrubbing eight-of-eight from the sky.
A warning indicator screamed at the edge of her hearing, and Xi was temporarily disoriented by it before realizing what it was. “I’ve got a reload failure on Two Launcher,” she snapped.
“Forty seconds, Captain,” Lu replied, and she would have upbraided him, but another wave of thirty missiles appeared at the edge of her vision.
Reloading the other launcher with fresh anti-missile rockets, Xi locked onto four of those missiles and fired, sending her interceptors into the sky.
“Engage missiles, HMJ,” she called out as her mech’s anti-missile rockets reloaded at a painfully slow rate.
“Engaging,” Heavy Metal Jesus acknowledged, sending hyper-velocity tungsten bolts into the approaching missile swarm from the humanoid mech’s dual railguns.
Another pair of icons appeared just three kilometers from 4th Platoon’s position, and Cave Troll growled, “Plasma cannons engaging.”
The squat, humanoid Cave Troll, which nearly displaced as much as Elvira, raised its thick weapon arms in preparation to fire. The thrum of Cave Troll’s charging capacitors vibrated the ice so powerfully that Xi could feel it through Elvira’s seismic sensors. Three seconds after Cave Troll’s charge cycle began, both guns belched roaring gouts of relatively sluggish plasma streams. The blue-white flames tore through the air, leaving a thick trail of smoke as they gently arced toward the three-kilometers-distant targets.
The plasma streams incinerated the impact site, sending a geyser of steam bursting hundreds of meters into the air.
Heavy Metal Jesus engaged two more missiles with its railguns, sniping them from the sky. The distant Holy Diver did likewise, scrubbing four missiles. Combined with unexpected support from HQ, the second wave of missiles was neutralized.