Warp Marine Corps- The Complete Series

by C. J. Carella

  Leroy was on the bridge of the flotilla’s flagship, a converted battlecruiser that had been stripped of her main guns but retained her armor and heavy force fields; she held five War Eagle squadrons. They’d planned to name her the Enterprise, but the group commander had fought hard to get his way, spending every favor he had left for the privilege of naming his ship.

  The USS Nimitz sailed towards her baptism of fire. Admiral Leroy Burke set aside his fears and doubts and savored this moment.

  “We are cleared for departure, sir.”

  “To all Strike Group Elements: Engage.”

  Parthenon-Three, 165 AFC

  Charlie Company left the narrow pass for resupply and a new mission. Which from the looks of it would be a redeployment from the frying pan into the fire.

  The job of blocking the pass was now in the hands of the Volunteers’ Regiment, along with an ad hoc company of private contractors cobbled together from the ranks of several New Burbank corporations’ security teams. As usual, the mercs had a large number of combat vets among their ranks, and they’d been issued enough heavy weapons to put that experience to good use. Alongside militiamen who were literally defending their homes and families, they should be able to hold off any further enemy incursion. Fighting from fixed positions along a narrow front that couldn’t be flanked was as easy as it got, combat-wise. Charlie Company couldn’t be spared for the easy jobs.

  They’d had two quiet days. The Vipers had pulled away from P-3’s orbit and were refitting and resupplying in deep space. Sixth Fleet was playing games with them, feinting via warp jumps that forced the enemy to deploy for combat. Hopefully that would buy them a couple more days, but sooner or later they’d be back.

  On the ground, two enemy assault troop divisions and tanks had chased the 101st’s other two companies and their Army attachments halfway through the valley, taking heavy losses, before pulling back to Davis’ Gap and assuming a defensive posture. Alpha and Bravo had been glad to see them go and were regrouping in the neighborhood of Davistown. The push into the valley and the doomed attempt at outflanking their defenses appeared to have been part of a reconnaissance in force rather than the main thrust they’d feared. The western half of Forge Valley had become a no-man’s land of sorts. The aliens were waiting for further reinforcements while securing their staging area.

  Fromm’s company was going to head west and poke that hornet’s nest.

  “Do you understand your orders, Captain?” Colonel Brighton asked him.

  “Yes, sir. Take command of a task force comprising Charlie Company, the BLT’s armor platoon and Bravo’s Mobile Infantry platoon. Advance towards Davis’ Gap. Ascertain enemy dispositions there and provide forward observer support for artillery attacks. Attempt to provoke an enemy sortie and lead it into a series of ambushes, with the goal of weakening the landing zone holding force.”

  The ideal goal would be the destruction of the landing zone, but they didn’t have forces to fight a set-piece battle against the better part of a corps. This sortie would be risky, but weakening the enemy was worth it, as long as the cost wasn’t too high. And making the other bastard react to your actions was central to the Corps’ doctrine.

  “We can’t afford any serious losses, Captain, which is the reason I’m sending you. I know you will make sure you preserve your command.” The other two company commanders, Jimenez and Bradford, were a little too enthusiastic; Fromm had seen that during the previous week’s engagements. This mission required a good sense for when it was time to run away; stay in place too long and the Vipers would overrun and destroy his unit.

  “Don’t get caught in a pitched battle. Sting ‘em and break contact, rinse and repeat. If they chase you all the way into the valley’s central ridge, where we can give them a good pounding, all well and good. If not, we’ll at least give them a bloody nose. All the fabbers in New Burbank are working three shifts, so we’ve got plenty of ammo. Burn as much of it as you want, but spare the men.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  More troops were mobilizing at New Burbank. A city of two million, where all of its adults had undergone at least four years of military service, could easily put together several divisions’ worth of troops, but easily did not mean rapidly. Not to mention those improvised divisions would be lightly equipped and shaky as hell, far worse than the regulars or even the militia. When those units faced Viper assault troops, it wouldn’t be pretty.

  They needed to buy time, and disorganizing and damaging the enemy forces on the ground would make things harder for the ETs when their reinforcements arrived. It was a gamble, and a reinforced company was just strong enough to do some damage, and small enough that its loss wouldn’t cripple the defense effort.

  All he had to do was accomplish the mission with acceptable losses. Acceptable, that is, to everyone except the human beings that would be left bleeding and broken on the field.

  Trade Nexus Eleven, 165 AFC

  “Got dispatches about the war,” Guillermo Hamilton said as he walked into the station house.

  The local nest of spies – spies preferred the term ‘intelligence officers’ but Heather liked the plain unvarnished truth, at least inside her head – looked like any mundane office would, both befitting their cover as traders and because most of what they did was in effect office work: their time was spent reading, analyzing and collating information. She gratefully accepted the imp-to-imp download and settled down to catch up on the big picture. Guillermo didn’t look happy, so the news was probably all bad. He’d finally begun to act like his old confident self, after weeks of being a nervous wreck following the sanctioning of the GACS-1138 and its crew. Expecting the other shoe to drop, she supposed.

  She herself hadn’t lost any sleep over it. She’d helped prosecute and kill an enemy Sierra, just as a tactical officer on a warship would have. Those crewmen had been enemies and they’d been disposed of accordingly. The methods had been more underhanded than in a naval battle, but dead was dead.

  And if things continued the way they were, dead was what she, Guillermo, everyone in the US and very likely every human in the galaxy would soon be.

  The news was indeed bad. Terribad, even; her mother had been fond of using that made-up word and it fit the situation to a t. Fighting a three-front war was never easy, and developments on all three theaters made it clear just how desperate things were becoming.

  On the Galactic Imperium front, things were still relatively quiet. The Imperials didn’t have direct access to human space, and were currently negotiating passage with the polities in between, using a combination of bribes and threats. Their methods were working. According to the dispatch, the Crabs had geeked and granted full access to their former enemies. The Imperials would be in a position to threaten half a dozen American systems sometime in the next two or three months. Fourth Fleet, the force tasked to defend that region of the galaxy, was fairly strong, but it probably wouldn’t be strong enough. The war might be lost right then and there.

  The Lampreys had gotten beaten like a drum twice in a row, first at Paulus and then Melendez, but the US allies who were in the best position to exploit those defeats were dragging their feet. The Wyrms had delayed their expected – and promised – offensive and there were hints that they might be considering making a separate peace. Which would be awkward for everyone concerned, most particularly the Allied Task Force, a collection of US, GACS and Puppy volunteer ships currently operating in Wyrm space. If the Wyrms stabbed the US in the back, the war was as good as lost.

  And finally, the Vipers’ push into human space had netted them Heinlein System and they were well on their way to overruning Parthenon. After which the war would be… well, one got the picture. Three point-failure sources, all with damn good chances of failure. No self-respecting gambler would play those odds.

  The battle for Parthenon had a personal element for her as well. Peter Fromm was stationed there. He could be dead already.

  And there is nothing you can d
o about that, she chided herself. So concentrate on the things you can affect.

  She had plenty of things to do. Honest Septima kept sending a steady stream of information from the Imperium, some of which had a great deal of potential, provided the Powers-that-Be chose to do something about it. The combined power of the Tripartite Galactic Alliance was very alarming to other Starfarer polities, who rightfully worried about becoming the next target in line once humans were dealt with. Many of them, including the Vehelians, were having second thoughts about their neutrality.

  A victory at Parthenon might just show the rest of the galaxy that the US wasn’t doomed, and that might be enough to gain humanity some new allies. Or even some old ones; the Puppies were getting close to going all-in instead of merely providing funds and materiel, along with a trickle of ‘volunteers.’ But it was going to take something decisive, in a fight where survival would be close enough to a miracle to call it one.

  Hope. Willful self-deception.

  It was at moments like this when she wished she could believe in something that might listen to her prayers.

  Parthenon-Three, 165 AFC

  “They’ve been busy,” Russell commented as he took in the sights.

  About a mile from his prone position on top of a ridge, the Viper landing zone sprawled between three large hills, tall enough to make the position a tough artillery target. Multiple area force fields, set up in successive layers, made it even tougher. The Viper remfies that had been left behind on the LZ while the alien grunts got their heads handed to them hadn’t been sitting on their alligator-like asses; they’d set up a damn good defensive perimeter, not only shields but also fast-firing lasers capable of destroying hundreds of supersonic artillery shells.

  Part of Charlie’s company’s mission had been to find some good arty targets. From the looks of it, the cannon-cockers might as well save themselves the trouble and the ammunition. At least until Charlie lured some ETs out of their safe zone. That was part of their mission, too.

  Russell crawled back down the slope. He’d used his helmet passive sensors and a laser-transmitter to send his observations over to the rest of the squad, which in turn would send it to the company CO. They were being cagey; the Vipers could detect normal gravity-wave communications like nobody’s business, and they’d gotten some artillery of their own, mostly tubby 89mm mortars firing from a 20-shot rotary launcher that would plaster any comm emissions within seconds of spotting them. Their bombs packed about as much punch as the Marines’ hundred-mike-mikes, or maybe a little more, not that anybody in the task force wanted to find out exactly how big a boom they made.

  “All right, the dance is about to start,” Staff Sergeant Dragunov announced on the squad’s channel. “Keep your heads down until I give the word. You know the drill.”

  That they did. Hit ‘em hard and fast, and then skedaddle back into their waiting LAV for a quick drive to their next rally point. They couldn’t afford to get into a serious fight with the ETs, who could steamroll the company in a matter of minutes if they cornered it somewhere. There was a fine line between conducting an effective ambush and making a glorious last stand, and Charlie Company was going to be tap-dancing all over it.

  They had no drones doing recon for them – too easy for the Vipers to spot, which would spoil the surprise – so Russell didn’t get to see the tank platoon they’d brought along poke their turrets over a couple of hills about three klicks away and give the alien LZ three rounds of rapid fire with their main guns. The sound of twelve blasts from the Normies’ 250mm graviton guns echoed through the entire canyon like the drums of an angry god. He didn’t need visuals to imagine what it would be like on the other end of those shots. Even multiple energy shields couldn’t stop a dozen aimed blasts; at least two or three would get through and hit something or someone. The duller roar of a power plant explosion followed up the volley, and smoke billowed out towards the sky, visible even from the reverse slope where First Squad of Third Platoon waited for its turn to join in the fun.

  “That’s gotta hurt,” he said.

  “I bet,” Nacle agreed. Gonzo wasn’t around to come up with something funny in response; the little guy was still in the rear getting patched up, the lucky S.O.B. Nacle had turned out to have a good handle on the ALS-43, but Russell still missed his buddy. Hopefully his fire team would be made whole after they came back from this field trip.

  “Here they come,” Dragunov said. “Get ready.”

  The Vipers were reacting to the attack, although not as quickly as Marines would. The crackle of heavy lasers and their own grav cannon broke out in the aftermath of the big explosion. The return fire might have even been fast enough to hit some of the tanks, but Russell doubted it, not that he would find out one way or another until they played the tapes during the after-action report. The aliens’ infantry couldn’t hope to catch the Stormin’ Normies, so they’d have to send their vehicles after them while their mortars pounded the tanks’ former positions, where they’d hit nothing but rocks. The tank platoon had taken off at flank speed as soon as they’d delivered their graviton greeting to the ETs, and were racing towards their next firing position.

  And before the Vipers could catch up with the Normies, they’d be getting a new surprise.

  “They’re in the kill box,” the squad commander said. “Move it!”

  First and Third Platoons scrambled up the slope towards their firing positions on top of a ridge overlooking the path the enemy Turtles were taking in pursuit of the MBT-5s that had blasted their encampment. Russell got his first good look at the Viper combat vehicles through the aiming point of his helmet sensors: they sort of looked like an egg lying on its side with a straw poking out of its front, narrower end. Not much to look at, other than the fact that their shields were about as good as their own LAVs, and their 120mm railgun fired a steady stream of hypervelocity sabot-discarding darts that could peck through a mountain if given enough time, and would do the job just fine on any tank or infantry fighting vehicle that stuck out in the open for too long.

  The enemy was sending a dozen of the floating eggs forward. They stuck close to the ground because to rise too high risked being acquired by the heavy guns of the closest planetary defense base and earning a shot from an anti-starship weapon as a door prize. They were moving as fast as Normies or LAVs, maybe a little faster, something to keep in mind when it was their turn to run from the damn things.

  At the moment, they weren’t looking to run from them, though.

  Russell’s targeting icon came to rest on the lead vehicle; he waited patiently while the rest of the designated hitters had zeroed in on the same target. As soon as the aiming symbol turned green, he opened up, sending a 20mm micro-missile towards the alien death-machine. His shot hit home, along with three LML-10 armor-piercing rockets and a long burst from Nacle’s ALS-43. The multiple, near-simultaneous impacts breached the Turtle’s shield, and one of the missiles pierced the tough but thin shell of the flying egg, cracking it and scrambling the living crap out of anybody inside. The tankette’s crew consisted of a driver and a gunner, and both of them were probably evenly spread around the interior of their vehicle as its fast hover turned into an ungainly roll on the ground, bouncing off it several times before hitting a boulder and coming to a full stop. Greasy smoke poured out of a hole on its side. No big ka-boom ensued; the aliens built ‘em tough.

  “Not tough enough, though,” Russell muttered as he ducked for cover; he knew what would happen next.

  The two platoons’ combined fire had accounted for three enemy vehicles; a fourth one looked a little bit wobbly. Before the aliens could react, Charlie Company’s three 100mm mortars dropped thirty thermobaric bomblets over the enemy formation. Each shell sprayed a cloud of atomized fuel two hundred yards wide and ignited it.

  Light and overpressure washed over Russell despite being behind cover and nearly a klick away. He ignored the sensations; he didn’t need Dragunov’s yelling “Move, move, move!” to know it
was time to go. The fuel-air explosions were unlikely to kill the enemy vehicles; force fields and sealed armor were the most effective counters against thermobaric detonations. But they made for a hell of a distraction.

  Even so, the enemy vehicles lashed the ridge with their railguns and coaxial lasers. Rock and dirt came apart as multiple shots shaved a good foot off the top of the hill. Even with portable force fields, the Marines wouldn’t have made it through that storm of fire unscathed. Which was why they weren’t there anymore.

  Russell slid down the hill, letting gravity do most of the work as he and First Squad moved towards their getaway vehicle. Even though his ears were ringing a little from the massive explosions, he could hear the lesser blasts of grav guns and missiles from Second Platoon’s LAVs as they took the Vipers tank company under fire from yet another ambush position, five hundred meters further back. Just as the hatch of the infantry carrier swung shut with all of First Squad inside, without any casualties for a change, Russell heard yet another boom. At least one more Viper mini-tank had bought it.

  And this was just the beginning of the party they’d planned for the aliens.

  * * *

  “Target!” Staff Sergeant Konrad Zimmer shouted as he highlighted a Viper tank emerging from behind a hill.

  “On the way!” PFC Mira Rodriguez yelled back. A graviton bolt speared the ET vehicle sometime between the second and third word of the standard response. Nothing with less than starship-grade shields and armor could take a direct hit from the Norman’s main gun. The Viper’s light tank fluoresced brightly for a brief instant before shattering like a dropped glass vase.

  “Hit!” she said, and started humming the chorus from ‘Valhalla Is Burning’ by Gotterdammerung.

  A couple seconds later: “Hit!” A force field generator this time. It was frantically darting for cover, but Mira caught it with time to spare, the shot going through two layers of shielding before blowing a hole through its thin outer armor. The bulbous vehicle’s floating motion ended abruptly as it dropped like a rock, although it didn’t blow up.