Hellfire: Mechanized Warfare on a Galactic Scale (Metal Legion Book 3)

by CH Gideon

  Cans One, Two and Three had all been packed with medical supplies generally reserved for combating the worst kinds of viruses ever encountered in human history. Topped off by magazines packed with the most effective (and expensive) anti-missile rockets in the Terran arsenal, it wasn’t hard to figure out that things on the Brick were more dire than anyone had anticipated.

  Scuttlebutt was running rampant, and the deck crews had correctly concluded that someone other than surprisingly well-armed border-jumpers was down there on that planet. There were only two nations which made these latest requisitions make sense: the Jemmin or, more chillingly, the Solarians.

  Of course, Podsy had known all along, but it was still fascinating to see his fellow servicemen go through the process of discussing the reason for these order revisions. The older members of the Bonhoeffer’s crew were decidedly less interested in working through the situation than the younger crew, but the same measure of grim determination filled the visages of every man and woman present.

  As Podsy loaded a case of rockets with his forklift, his comm link went off.

  “Podsednik here,” he acknowledged.

  “I need you in Control ASAP, Lieutenant,” came Chief Rimmer’s reply.

  “Be there in twenty seconds,” he remarked, pushing the case to its slot in the narrow support can before pulling back and letting the grease-monkeys secure the ordnance for shipment. He turned the forklift and sped off to the deck’s control room, where Chief Rimmer sat alone before a workstation.

  Podsy jumped down on his new awkward legs. His old legs had been amputated midway up the thigh by Doc Fellows, and during rehab, Podsy had been given a choice between conserving as much of his original tissue as possible or performing the most expeditious (and, in his mind, the most effective) replacement procedure.

  He had opted to remove most of the rest of his soft tissue below the pelvis while also replacing his pelvic bones with an alloy frame. He had initially thought this would be a far more difficult procedure than simply grafting a prosthetic onto what was left of his body, but the truth was simple: Terran orthopedic surgeons were far better and more experienced at replacing entire limbs than they were at custom-fitting prosthetics to stumps of mostly-useless flesh and bone like his thighs had been. The reason for this was simple: vat-growing limbs and grafting them onto the existing tissue was the preferred method for extremity repair.

  The problem with that approach was that it would take a year to complete, during which time he would hobble around on mostly-useless legs and be a burden to everyone around him, so the choice to have most of his lower half replaced prosthetically had been a lot easier than he would have imagined. He had also put in for a full vat-grown replacement set of legs and pelvis. Though many of his fellow crew liked to rib him about whether or not his more sensitive parts were still all-original and fully functional, he thought that was getting too much into his business.

  Podsy didn’t have a problem, and that was probably the greatest relief of all, more so than losing his legs. He marveled at how shallow that seemed but accepted it as the male paradigm that no amount of evolution would change.

  Looking down at his heavy metal legs, Podsy was comfortable that he had made the right call. They were still clunky and poorly-coordinated due to a combination of his inexperience at using them and, perhaps more importantly, because they were still dialed way down so that he didn’t hurt anyone with their potentially outrageous power and speed.

  “Lieutenant,” acknowledged a passing corporal, who saluted with an all-metal right arm emblazoned with the Terran Armor Corps’ heraldry. There was a certain fraternity between amputees, which Podsy found both comforting and distressing. Some of them seemed to center their identities on their injuries, which seemed like a pretty poor system of self-valuation. But others validated the legendary camaraderie which existed only between those wounded in the line of duty. It was one thing to take fire, another to take a hit, and still another to lose a part of yourself in combat. It was like a marksman award for the enemy.

  And it took an exceptional person to not only refuse to slow down but also to pick up speed in the face of such opposition. Podsy was comforted to know that even if he was not made of such stern stuff, he was surrounded by people who made him aspire to be like them.

  “Corporal.” Podsy acknowledged the salute with a brief but meaningful look before making his way into Chief Rimmer’s office. “What have we got, Chief?”

  “Close the hatch,” Rimmer said, and Podsy complied before making his way to the workstation. Once there, he saw an image of four seemingly frail and decidedly avian-looking warships. With the wormhole gate visible off their sterns, the quartet of warships looked every bit like predators who had just found a meal.

  “The Finjou?” Podsy asked, although it wasn’t a question. He had reviewed the files on the Brick’s true owners and familiarized himself with their ship designs and capabilities.

  “They came through the gate two hours ago.” Rimmer nodded grimly. “Most of their arsenal centers on air superiority, so we have to assume they’re going to antagonize the Bonhoeffer to push us off overwatch.”

  “What’s the general’s disposition?” Podsy asked, his mind already working through the myriad supplies the Brick-bound battalion would need if the Bonhoeffer was displaced.

  “He’s asking for your input, actually,” Rimmer said, causing Podsy’s eyebrows to rise in alarm. “He wanted you brought up to speed before you go up there, so consider yourself up to speed and get a move on.”

  Why would General Akinouye want my input? he wondered, the gears of his mind spinning out of control.

  “Thank you, Chief,” Podsy acknowledged after failing to answer his own unspoken question. He made his way to the drop-deck’s interior blast doors and keyed in his access codes. During active deployment, the exterior sections of the Bonhoeffer were isolated from the ship’s primary hull, known to the crew as the “keel.”

  The reason for this isolation was simple physics. During battle, a warship like the Bonhoeffer could receive fire so powerful that it could sheer through a meter of the best armor used by the TAF. And while the venerable warship was built to withstand the physical shock-loads of those impacts, its human crew was considerably less hardy.

  As a result, every section of the Bonhoeffer “floated” on independent shock-absorption systems, some of which Podsy passed by as he made his way through the ship’s spine. Gears, hydraulic cylinders, mimetic gel-based damper pads, and even graphene sheets tensioned by high-powered magnets worked together to dampen the shock of kinetic impacts on the hull. But all of the ship’s various outer sections were anchored to the keel, which made protecting it of paramount importance.

  A hit to an outer section might overcome the shock-load systems, killing everyone in that area by throwing them with spine-breaking force, but a hit to the keel could do the same to everyone aboard the warship, no matter where they were stationed.

  As a result, a condition-one call sent nearly every Terran aboard the Bonhoeffer to their crash-couches, where they would not only have protection from impacts, but they would also be provided several days’ supply of air and water. During the deployment at Shiva’s Wrath, the Bonhoeffer’s drop-deck crews had been out of their couches in order to secure partially-prepped ordnance while the ship took fire.

  Podsy disliked the idea of jumping into a crash-couch and riding a battle out, but he suspected he would soon be faced with that prospect if the Finjou decided to push the matter.

  He finally arrived at the CAC and keyed in his credentials, causing the trio of heavy blast doors to slide open one after another and permit him entry to the ship’s nerve center.

  Filled with three dozen expert technicians, their workstations were arranged in three levels around a bowl-shaped theater which featured a raised dais at the center. The imposing but purely functional captain’s chair was situated there, occupied by Colonel Li as he conducted the ship’s departments with the prof
essionalism one would hope to see in a Terran warship commander.

  General Akinouye had the privilege of occupying a similar chair built into the starboard edge of the bowl-shaped chamber, and he waved Podsy over with a faint flick of two fingers. The lieutenant skirted the upper rim of the CAC’s theater and made his way to the general’s simple but robust station. He offered a salute, which the general acknowledged before gesturing for him to stand at ease.

  “Lieutenant Podsednik,” Akinouye greeted him, and Podsy was reminded of his meeting just a few hours earlier when the general had summoned him to the same precise spot. “Colonel Li, if you have a moment,” Akinouye called.

  “Of course, General.” Li nodded, moving down the short set of stairs which separated him from the rest of the theater. He then ascended a set of stairs that brought him to stand before the general.

  “The Finjou are here, and I want options,” Akinouye said, driving straight to the heart of the matter. “Colonel Li, your thoughts?”

  Li shook his head firmly, seeming to ignore Podsy as he spoke. “Four Red Talon-class corvettes present a credible threat to the Bonhoeffer, General, but in a wide-open engagement, we’d mop the floor with them.”

  “I’m aware of our respective tactical ratings, Colonel,” Akinouye said neutrally. “What are your recommendations?”

  “The way I see it, we have two choices, General,” Li replied. “We either move to intercept the Finjou and force an engagement that slows their approach, buying our people on the surface time to complete their mission. Or we permit the Finjou to make orbit and contend with them once they’re here.”

  “I don’t want to start a shooting war with the Finjou, Colonel,” the general said with mild displeasure. “And by even the most charitable interpretation of the facts, we’re their guests.”

  “Then we stand off,” Li said matter-of-factly. “We’ll be cutting off support to Dragon Brigade, but there’s no way we can outmaneuver four ships intent on driving us off geo-synch without firing on them…or ramming them, I suppose. We can use that time to open a dialogue, but the odds of success on that front are questionable.”

  Akinouye nodded contemplatively. “Either way, Dragon Brigade is stranded unless or until the Finjou have been addressed, and the Finjou will make station in six hours.”

  Podsy took an unconscious step forward as the reason for his summons became apparent. “General, Colonel, if I may?”

  Akinouye’s gaze quickly pivoted to Podsy, and the colonel’s grudgingly followed suit. “What is it, Lieutenant?” Akinouye asked pointedly.

  “We’re loading fourteen fresh drop-cans on Two Deck right now,” Podsy explained. “If we keep them working on their current orders and transfer all available personnel over to Two Deck, we could load twenty-two more cans from there and drop them before the Finjou arrive. It’s not ideal, but it addresses the supply issue. The entirety of our effort is to buy time for our people on the planet. Once the Finjou arrive, they are going to make things tough up here and down there. Better that we are each able to support ourselves independent of the other, and it gives the Bonhoeffer the room it needs to maneuver and avoid, or at least delay, a conflict with the Finjou.”

  “One Deck is already engaged loading those cans,” Akinouye observed. “And the supplies being loaded into those cans are vital to the integrity of our ground-based forces. I don’t want to pull anyone off that effort.”

  “First and Third Shifts can deal with One Deck if we transfer fifteen people from Engineering or Gunnery,” Podsy explained. “Give Second Shift another thirty able hands and I’ll pack Two Deck’s cans with all the ordnance our people would need to secure their position against a continental-scale air-based invasion force.”

  The general nodded in thought before turning back to Colonel Li. “What do you think, Colonel?”

  “I think half the cans on Two Deck are either down-checked or in the repair queue with urgent flags,” Li replied with a grunt. “Any ordnance we sent down in those would get no better than a coin flip at surviving the drop.”

  “We spread out the drop-zone, Colonel,” Podsy suggested. “Put half a klick between each can so that if one goes off on impact, it doesn’t take the others out. And we load the highest-value ordnance into the cans we’re most confident of.”

  “That breaks protocol in about nine ways, Lieutenant,” Li retorted. “And it’s a waste of perfectly good ordnance. Each of those cans is packed with assets with an economic value totaling the combined life’s effort of between fifty and two hundred Terran citizens. You’re talking about potentially blowing thousands of Terran lives by playing fast and loose with the rules. Considered preparation and precise execution are how you win battles.”

  “We’ve got 463 people down there, Colonel Li,” Podsy replied unyieldingly. “And I know for a fact that each of them would gladly go work in a factory somewhere to pay off the debt incurred by a little wasted ordnance if it meant an improved chance to complete the mission and leave the Brick behind.”

  Li squared his shoulders to Podsednik and fixed him with a burning gaze. “You took a little fire on Durgan’s Folly, narrowly avoided a court-martial after violating my ship’s data core’s integrity, and now you think you can lecture me on logistics? Are you some sort of unheralded expert on tactical analysis, Lieutenant?”

  “No, sir.” Podsy shook his head, letting the colonel win the short-lived contest of wills by briefly lowering his eyes to the deck. “But I was called up here to offer my input, and this is what I’ve got.” He turned to General Akinouye, who had silently observed the exchange with a measure of bemused interest only now apparent to Podsednik. “We can do this, General. We can get those supplies planet-side before the Finjou arrive, and it will buy us the time we need to reach our objective without actively antagonizing the Finjou. To demonstrate our sincerity, we pull the Bonhoeffer off station-keeping as soon as we’ve delivered our cans, but we maintain a covering position which ensures we can effectively engage the Finjou if they become hostile to our people.”

  Akinouye’s eyes flicked between the two of them before the wizened officer’s lips parted in a toothy grin. “What do you think, Colonel?”

  Li eyed Podsednik for a long moment, his face a professional mask as he eventually nodded. “He’ll do, General. He’s rough around the edges and has a cocky streak in him that might get him—and, more importantly, his people—into trouble, but he’s right for the job. I do need to be absolutely clear on one thing before I sign off on this, though,” he added frostily, fixing Podsy with a look that promised retribution. “If he ever fucks with my systems again without receiving prior authorization, I will treat it as mutiny under fire.”

  “Agreed.” General Akinouye nodded, and Podsednik had never felt quite so small as he did at that moment with both Armor Corps veterans staring him down. “All right, Lieutenant Podsednik, we go with your plan. With one modification,” Akinouye added, a twinkle entering his eye as he pointed across the theater to an empty workstation. “You conduct Second Shift’s efforts from your new post at Ground Control.”

  Podsy had to mentally replay that last bit a few times before realizing what had just happened. He lifted a salute and nodded. “Thank you, General.”

  “Hop to it, son.” Akinouye grunted, and Podsy moved across the CAC to the empty workstation labeled “Ground Control.” Its former occupant was standing nearby, and after a few minutes she brought Podsy up to speed on the interface and helped coordinate the upgrade to his credentials.

  He suddenly realized that Colonel Li had already ordered the exact personnel transfers Podsy had suggested.

  And Li had sent those orders out while Podsy was still en route to the CAC. We’re already on the same page. I need to treat him like it.

  “Two Deck, this is Ground Control,” Podsy declared, filling the distant battle-damaged deck with the sound of his voice. “Let’s pack these cans.”

  “Roger, Ground Control,” Xi acknowledged, surprised nearl
y to the point of shock to learn of Podsy’s new post. “We’ll arrange to pick up those cans, but we’ll need aerial support while we do it. I’m forwarding our retrieval itineraries.”

  A few seconds passed before Podsy replied, “Your itinerary is acknowledged. Combat Interceptor Patrol will be active during all scheduled retrievals.”

  “Copy that, Ground Control,” she said with a nod, knowing that she would need to get Elvira out there to help pick up some of the larger bits of gear. “We’re glad to have you up there, Lieutenant.”

  “Stand by,” Podsy said abruptly, leading to a lengthy pause before he resumed, “Bonhoeffer will be off overwatch in five hours and forty-six minutes. Be advised, CIG is dispatching Wasp and Stiletto Squadrons to your position.”

  Xi recoiled in surprise before realizing what he meant. “Roger, Wasp and Stiletto inbound. We’ll clear the pad.”

  “We are receiving an inbound message from the Finjou,” Podsy explained. “Forwarding now.”

  An auto-translated strangely-clacking voice came over the line. “This is Finjou Claw One-Nine-Six to all non-Finjou forces in this system. You are ordered to withdraw from our territory in thirty-one Earth standard hours, or we will facilitate your removal by any means necessary.” As the creature spoke, it almost sounded like its teeth were chattering and striking each other, and Xi was not ashamed to admit that it was a decidedly unsettling sound. “Trespassers remaining in our sovereign territory after that time will be evicted with extreme prejudice.”

  Xi raised the battalion. “All right, people. Things just got a little more complicated. Let’s go collect our supplies and hunker down. I think we’re going to be here for a while, and it’s probably going to get hot.”

  10

  The Power of Principle

  “Ready to break orbit, Colonel?” Thomas Oxblood asked after Jenkins boarded the sleek courier ship.