Metal Legion Boxed Set 1

by C H Gideon

  The ground beneath Elvira’s legs began to thrum, and it took her a fraction of a second too long to realize Cave Troll was prepping to fire.

  “No, wait—” she began, only to be silenced when Cave Troll’s plasma cannon incinerated the last bug vehicle on the field.

  “Repeat your last, Elvira?” Cave Troll’s Jock asked after the steam had dissipated, leaving nothing but the smoking ruin of the fourth bug vehicle behind.

  Xi bit her tongue, knowing that to explain what she had meant to say would compromise the mission’s secrecy. “Nothing, Cave Troll,” she replied as lightly as possible. “I was just going to say that one was mine.”

  “I think you’ve notched more than your share of kills down here, Captain,” Cave Troll chuckled.

  “This is Elvira,” she raised HQ, “requesting R&R at current position.”

  “R&R inbound, Elvira,” acknowledged Styles. “ETA: fifty-three minutes. Will you need medevac?”

  “Negative, HQ,” she said firmly. “Widowmaker was lost with all hands, but the rest of us are alive and well. We’ll be limping back to the barn.”

  “Copy that, Elvira,” Styles acknowledged. “Good work out there.”

  In spite of the obvious fact that he was right, Xi couldn’t help thinking that she had just made a catastrophic error by not stopping Cave Troll in time to investigate the bugs’ strange behavior.

  She could only hope she would get a chance to redeem herself. But first, she needed to figure out if she was jumping at shadows or if the bug had been attempting some form of communication.

  13

  Command Decisions

  “After the Jemmin Assault destroyed thirty percent of our radiation meds,” Doc Fellows reported in the privacy of Jenkins’ cabin, “we’re down to just three days before the exposed men and women start suffering permanent radiation damage.”

  “We can’t extract the infantry to the Bonhoeffer…” Jenkins shook his head bitterly. “Not with the Jemmin lurking out there.”

  Fellows’ expression darkened. “Then unless you can neutralize their anti-aircraft capability, men and women are going to start dying within the week, Colonel. And when they do, it’s not going to be pretty.”

  Styles leaned forward. “We’re working on some theories for neutralizing the Jemmin, Doc.”

  “It’s time to put them into action.” Fellows snorted. “You don’t want men and women dying on this rock from rad poisoning…and you don’t want pictures of their deaths making their way back home,” he added pointedly.

  “Frankly, fuck the political fallout,” Jenkins grunted, slicing a look over at the cramped room’s lone silent occupant, Sergeant Major Trapper Sr. “But you’re right…something has to give down here. Soon. Is there anything else?”

  “The mech crews should be able to stretch their deployments out to another ten or twelve days before they start suffering effects.” Fellows nodded. “If you could somehow extract the infantry, you could stretch that timeline out to two or three months with our remaining supply of meds.”

  Jenkins was not about to put Trapper on the spot, but he needed some kind of input from his infantry commander. “Your thoughts?”

  Trapper smirked, looking precisely like his son as he did so. “I’m just here to fight, Colonel.”

  “I know you don’t outrank me, Sergeant Major,” Jenkins retorted mildly. “Combined with the difference in our respective field experience, I have greatly appreciated your deference to this point when it comes to my command decisions. But right now, I need the best counsel available to me to make my next call, and that counsel includes the honest opinion of the most experienced soldier on this hunk of ice.”

  Trapper nodded in thought for a long while. “My boys and girls aren’t plagued by the targeting problems your mechs have had. We only had a twenty percent miss rate when those Jemmin hover-fighters ambushed us from inside HQ,” he finally said. “To remove the infantry, even though we’re fatally wounded to a man, would be to abandon you and your clankers to an enemy that has the tactical upper hand.” He shook his head with finality. “We knew what we signed up for when we came down here, and we’re going to stand our posts until ordered to do otherwise. That’s not some veiled plea for you to give me an out,” he added, his eyes as hard as diamonds. “As long as Armor Corps shares this rock with hostiles, my troopers are staying put.”

  “I appreciate your stalwart support,” Jenkins said with feeling.

  “Besides…” Trapper’s smirk turned mischievous. “We’re not about to walk off the line in front of the brass.”

  Jenkins chuckled, recalling his brief but important meeting with General Akinouye. During that meeting, the general had made two things abundantly clear: Armor Corps was here until this situation was resolved, and he had no intention of assuming operational command. The first bit had been expected since their last conversation prior to Bahamut Zero’s arrival, but the second was a shock. How often did the longest-tenured officer in the armed forces abdicate operational command to a lieutenant colonel on his first official deployment under his branch’s banner?

  It was a hell of a recommendation, and Jenkins felt every pound of pressure that recommendation placed upon his shoulders.

  “All right.” Jenkins nodded approvingly. “Then for the time being, we’re staying put.” He turned to Styles. “But I want our best extraction packages presented for my review in twelve hours.”

  “You’ll have them.”

  “Good. Thank you, Doctor.” Jenkins nodded to Fellows, then stood to salute the older man. “Sergeant Major.”

  Trapper returned the salute, and the two departed the cabin.

  “My simulation packages can’t produce better than a sixty percent withdrawal success rate,” Styles said grimly after they had gone.

  “Which means that, with three heavy lifters aboard the Bonhoeffer,” Jenkins grumbled, “the odds are we’ll only get the troopers off this rock before the last of our lifters is shot down.”

  “Leaving us stranded unless or until the Bonhoeffer can go get fresh lifters.” Styles nodded knowingly.

  “During which time, the Jemmin will doubtless return and finish us off from orbit.” Jenkins rubbed the bridge of his nose before moving his fingertips to the dark semicircles beneath his eyes. “The only reason they haven’t already done so is because of the political fallout they’d suffer.”

  “It seems their control of the Illumination League is a lot more tenuous than most people believe,” Styles observed. “Otherwise why not just drop a nuke on us from orbit and then claim we violated some obscure law, before offering the Republic a token of contrition?”

  “They’re afraid of something…” Jenkins agreed. “And whatever they hoped to find down here is part of it.”

  “It has to be evidence of something. But what?” Styles asked frustratedly.

  “We don’t have time to indulge in further speculation,” Jenkins said, feeling his resolve strengthen now that he had a new clock to work under. “Let’s see your latest idea on neutralizing the Jemmin.”

  “All right…” Styles hesitated before producing a data slate and sliding it across the table. “But you’re not going to like it.”

  Stifling the urge to groan, Jenkins picked up the slate and began to examine its contents. A few minutes later, he muttered, “I’m starting to hate how often you’re right.”

  “Lu, Staubach,” Xi called after parking Elvira following their latest patrol and disconnecting the neural link, “to the cockpit.”

  Her mech’s crew reported, with Staubach predictably arriving first in spite of having farther to come from the rearmost seat in the mech’s cabin.

  “Reporting, Captain,” Staubach declared, bracing at attention.

  “At ease,” Xi said, resisting the urge to smile at his infectious enthusiasm while Lu made his leisurely way to the cockpit. “All right,” she declared, “I think it’s time to switch things up a bit. Chief Lu—” She turned to the middle-aged mechan
ic. “—you’ve done everything I’ve asked of you since joining my command.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” he replied in his usual, flat fashion.

  “Also,” she continued neutrally, “Private Staubach has gone above and beyond on multiple occasions, including live-fire hull walks to expedite repairs.”

  Lu stiffened. “Captain, you can’t order me to take those kinds of risks. The Uniform Code...”

  “I’m well aware of the Code, Chief,” she interrupted. “I’m also well aware that, as the ranking officer in this company, it is my prerogative to confirm duty posts and roster assignments. I think Elvira will function better in combat if we had you and Blinky switch posts for a deployment or two. I know you’re capable of being my Wrench,” she continued, ignoring the growing look of resentment on Lu’s face, “but I want to see if Blinky is as well. With all the casualties and material damage the battalion has suffered on Shiva’s Wrath, it’s going to be critical going forward to examine who can and can’t demonstrate flexibility under fire.” She drew a short breath. “To be blunt, you’re a known quantity. You’re predictable. You’re reliable. I appreciate reliability. But Blinky has picked up the slack for you on several occasions and has gone out of his way to make your job easier. I haven’t seen you reciprocate, and that’s concerning to me. This is your chance to pay him back,” she finished, pointedly not adding, “to say nothing of actually trying to impress your CO for the first time in your service together.”

  Lu braced to stiff attention. “Yes, Captain.”

  “Carry on,” Xi acknowledged, returning the salute and subtly gesturing for them to exit the cockpit. While she had spoken the truth to Lu about his change in assignment, Xi knew that some part of her decision had been due to the nagging thought that Lu simply couldn’t measure up to Podsy. And judging from the early returns, it was possible that Blinky could. Xi and Podsy had completed Durgan’s Folly together, just two people in a mech designed to be run by a crew of three. She missed that efficiency almost as much as she missed Podsy himself.

  A few seconds after Lu had departed the cockpit, Ms. Samuels entered through the open door and nodded approvingly. “I was wondering when you’d do that.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Oh, come on.” Samuels lowered her voice to just above a whisper. “It’s plain as day that Lu’s been sandbagging, doing the bare minimum. It must be a relief to snap him up after all this time. I’ve seen the way your jaw muscles bunch when he shows less enthusiasm than Private Staubach.”

  Xi shook her head in amazement. “How can you be the Fourth Estate’s spear-tip if you can’t see what’s going on here?”

  “Help me understand,” Samuels urged, leisurely propping herself against the bulkhead.

  “We’re in the middle of a fight, Ms. Samuels,” Xi said, fighting to keep her emotions reined in. “Now is not the time for upbraiding or public floggings. Wars are won and lost in the temples. They just play out on the field like a Rube Goldberg machine.”

  “I don’t think that’s quite what Sun Tzu meant.” Samuels offered the hint of a smile.

  “I think it is.” Xi shrugged. “There’s no sense arguing with the laws of physics, and there’s no sense trying to make someone into something he’ll never be. I’m not being punitive with Lu, I told him the truth. I need to see how Blinky performs for a few full shifts as a dedicated Wrench, and I’d like to see how Lu responds to what he probably sees as a demotion. Staubach’s obviously over-qualified to be a Monkey, and both his neural batteries and tactical reasoning show enough promise that he might even make Jock soon. As a potential bonus, I might also reignite the same passion in Lu that saw him enlist two days after the atrocity at New Australia became public knowledge. But that didn’t factor into my decision,” she said with conviction she didn’t entirely feel. “Any commander who lets personal feelings or grudges influence her command decisions doesn’t belong in the big chair. This is the best move not just for Elvira and her crew individually, but for the battalion as a whole, and I’ll stand by it if and when Chief Lu submits my order for official review.”

  Samuels’ grin faded and was replaced with her professional veneer of detachment. “Thank you, Captain Xi.”

  Xi suspected Samuels had been recording the conversation, so she had purposefully failed to mention the handful of times Lu had been mildly insubordinate. And her reason for leaving that part out was simple: she needed Lu, just like everyone else in the battalion needed him. And if she stabbed him in the back by airing those issues in public, she could kiss her hope for Elvira’s improved performance goodbye.

  Xi hesitated for a long moment before closing the cockpit’s door and hailing Roy on the P2P. She was ready to discuss her theory about the bug vehicles with the smartest man in the battalion.

  “Roy here,” greeted Styles. “What can I do for you, Elvira?”

  “I need to run a theory by you,” Xi said with deliberate emphasis on the word “theory.”

  He recognized her coded message indicating that she needed to discuss the bugs, evidenced by his next, “Stand by.” A few seconds later, his voice returned, and it was clear he had switched mics—and probably rooms. “Go ahead, Captain.”

  “If I’m right about this,” she began, “then I think I know how to complete our secondary objective.”

  The “secondary objective” was a coded reference to the diplomatic mission they had come to Shiva’s Wrath to conduct. Styles, ever the bright spark, replied, “I’m all ears, Xi.”

  She explained her theory and, to her surprise, found very little in the way of criticism from Chief Styles.

  Not long after Styles ended the call, Xi’s comm board showed an incoming missive summoning her to Roy.

  Styles had apparently recommended she join them to discuss her budding theory, so Xi donned her rebreather and made her way to the battalion’s command vehicle.

  This wasn’t the kind of thing to be discussed in the open, even on a nominally-secure P2P line.

  “All right, Captain,” Jenkins said after Xi had closed the cabin door behind her. “Start at the top.”

  Xi stood opposite from the seated Jenkins, while Styles sat beside Xi as the young woman replied, “I think I know how to make contact with the bugs, Colonel.”

  “So Mr. Styles tells me.” Jenkins nodded toward the technician. “But I need details, Captain Xi, and I need them now.”

  “Vorr are an aquatic species largely similar to the octopus,” Xi explained. “They regenerate their limbs, and part of their customary greeting posture is to willingly surrender a portion of one of their own limbs in order to allow the faction they are greeting to appraise it, usually via consumption.”

  “I’m aware of Vorr social quirks.” Jenkins’ eyes narrowed. “But we’re here to talk about the bugs, not the Vorr.”

  “I’m aware of that, Colonel,” she said, firmly holding her ground. “But I think Vorr greeting rituals informed this species as to how they’re supposed to greet others.”

  Jenkins cocked his head in mild confusion, flicking his eyes to Styles, who nodded approvingly. The colonel leaned back. “I don’t follow.”

  “The Vorr have some kind of diplomatic relationship with the bugs,” Xi explained. “It stands to reason that during first contact, they probably greeted these new aliens according to some modified version of their cultural practices.”

  “They fed them parts of themselves—” Jenkins nodded, having followed that much. “—or surrendered tech or some other valuable resource as an opening gesture of goodwill.”

  “Yes, sir,” she agreed. “Now, these aliens are largely unknown, but it seems that both the Vorr and the Jemmin are familiar with them. I base that on the orbital strike the Jemmin warship sent down after the lone survivor of my engagement with the bugs. Why send an orbital strike down on a lone, wounded vehicle and risk aggravating the situation with us? It doesn’t make sense unless the Jemmin already know about this species and, unlike the Vorr, don’t have a
working relationship with them.”

  Jenkins’ eyes flicked over to Styles, who was nodding slowly. “Go on, Captain.” Jenkins gestured invitingly.

  “I think the Vorr knew enough about human social customs,” Xi continued, “that they intended to act as intermediaries to facilitate a smoother introduction between ourselves and these bugs. The Jemmin, knowingly or not, interrupted that by driving the Vorr off this rock and leaving both us and the bugs to figure each other out without a manual.”

  “Nearly every first contact situation in recorded history involving unknown species has ended catastrophically,” Styles interjected in support of her supposition.

  “I don’t think the Jemmin knew about the bugs before they withdrew the bulk of their fleet, sir,” Xi said confidently. “Otherwise, I doubt they would have left just one ship in orbit. When they fired on that fleeing bug, they were making it as clear as a Solarian’s conscience that they didn’t want us meeting these new aliens.”

  Jenkins nodded, having already arrived at much of this behind closed doors with Styles. “What is your recommendation, Captain?”

  “Look at these after-action reports, Colonel,” Xi urged, proffering a data slate. “The highlights are mine.”

  Jenkins scrolled down the record, finding the indicated passages that compared the number of mechs on battalion patrols when they encountered the bug vehicles. His eyebrows rose in genuine surprise. “They’re all perfect matches…”

  “Four vs. four, three vs. three, four vs. four.” Xi nodded eagerly. “Even in my last engagement, I had six mechs before the Jemmin attacked. I lost two mechs, but six bugs appeared...”

  “And two held back,” Jenkins finished, more than slightly alarmed that no one else had noticed this fact earlier.

  “Making that engagement four vs. four,” she finished emphatically. “And twice these bugs have gone head-on to me near the end of the engagements. I didn’t understand it before, but I think I do now.” She squared her shoulders and stiffened her posture. “I think they were attempting to initiate a social exchange of some kind.”