Warp Marine Corps- The Complete Series

by C. J. Carella

  Before that, however, she had a decision to make.

  Third Fleet could proceed with its original plan and fight whichever forces were present at CD-5; it could leave the Lampreys be, withdraw to Xanadu and head to the Imperium, or it could retreat, join up with the carrier task group plus any other reinforcements she could get, and then return to CD-5.

  “That would add three weeks to Phase One,” she muttered. The only option that stuck to the schedule was the first one. And after seeing the Death Head Squadron in action, she’d come to trust Zhang and Genovisi. If the two warp witches said time was of the essence, she had to believe them. Option One was it.

  Every day they delayed was another opportunity for Kerensky and his Black Ships to do something unthinkable.

  * * *

  Nobody died.

  Nobody in his company, that was. Charlie’s losses had been limited to seven wounded-in-action, two of them badly enough they’d be out of commission for several days, but Bravo had been less fortunate, with three KIAs when their assault element ran into an unexpected Lamprey patrol, leading to a close range firefight. For all that, the 101st had accomplished its mission with minimum casualties, due to a combination of training, the new weapon systems they’d brought along, and pure good luck. The latter would never last.

  Operation Larvae Stomp had been an unqualified success. Five MEUs had reduced three Planetary Defense Bases in the kind of land assault that was becoming unnecessary with the advent of fighter aircraft. If Third Fleet had been able to deploy a hundred or so War Eagles, those teleporting cannons could have destroyed all PDBs with minimal losses. They didn’t have any, however, and the handful of Death Head gunboats they’d brought along couldn’t do the same job, not in an acceptable length of time. The Marines had taken care of the ground defenses the old-fashioned way, except with better warp catapults and weapon systems.

  The only unit that didn’t get the job done flawlessly was the 89th MEU, which had ended up facing a brigade equivalent of mechanized infantry. Bad intelligence was the inevitable end of rushed operations, and this had been no exception. The 89th had to be rescued by two gunboats that engaged the PDB and the enemy ground forces at close range. The final score had been sixteen dead and twenty-one injured Marines versus some five thousand dead Lampreys and an obliterated defense base.

  Fromm knew his company could just as easily have dropped into that meat grinder.

  Set it aside, and put the mission first.

  Five

  Star System Sokolov, 168 AFC

  It is eerie, how quiet things are now, Nicholas Kerensky thought as he walked through the halls of the Odin.

  Even after decades of living with thought-activated imp-to-imp communications, most humans found it more comfortable to talk out loud to each other. For one, implants with that level of sophistication were still beyond the reach of many civilians – you only got a full set imps if you enlisted past the Obligatory Service’s four-year term – and for another the thought-to-comm conversion wasn’t perfect, leading to garbled transmissions and the occasional stray thought being sent out by accident, often leading to what amounted to uncomfortable levels of honesty. Even the Navy relied primarily on audible or audiovisual transmissions.

  Among the crewmembers of the Black Fleet, however, real telepathy was universal. Using it exclusively was becoming second nature, and hearing actual speech was growing rarer with every passing day. It was too convenient, not to mention instantaneous, which at distances greater than one light-second made it extremely useful.

  The old Kerensky would have found the silence pervading the CIC unnatural and disturbing. The man he had become was mildly amused. Even the ordinary telepathic chatter he could normally ‘overhear’ was muted; everyone was intently awaiting his orders.

  The time to act had finally come.

  He settled down on the fleet commander’s chair, noticing a tingling sensation in the back of his head that warned him he needed a new dose of Melange; a quick command to his medical implants sent the drug coursing through his bloodstream, quenching the cravings. For the first few seconds after getting dosed, his awareness expanded a hundredfold and he could feel the mood of every man and woman in the fleet. A small percentage was afraid, and a smaller number still couldn’t help feeling regret for what they had done and soon would do, but even they were committed to the cause. There were no doubters and second-guessers left; they had been weeded out in the last few months since their odyssey had begun.

  Remembering the fate of those potential traitors wasn’t good for his mood, however, so he forced himself not to dwell on it. He carefully composed his thoughts before transmitting them to every crewmember in the fleet:

  “When we set off on this mission, I promised you justice. Justice for a century and a half of violence and hatred, justice for unprovoked attacks culminating in the Days of Infamy and a Galactic Alliance dedicated to the extermination of humanity.”

  Intense imagery followed his words: many of his crew had memories of slaughter and loss, and Kerensky took those intimate moments – the shock of hearing about the death of loved ones, funerals where the coffins lowered to the ground had been heartbreakingly small, sights and sounds no human should ever experience but which too many of the had – and shared them with everyone, making them feel the pain their comrades had suffered. The mental roar that followed was full of rage and bitterness. That was all to the good: that rage would serve them well in the dark days ahead.

  “The galaxy has decided there is no place in it for mankind. For decades, we tried to be good neighbors. We traded peacefully when we could, and only defended ourselves when attacked. We never started a war; every conflict since First Contact was initiated by our enemies. And every attack they launched on us was repulsed at great loss to them. Even then, we mostly refrained from doing what our enemies wished to do to us. The two lone exceptions – the Snakes and the Gremlins – were the result of necessity. It was them or us. And now, it appears that the great Starfaring Powers have made the same determination. It is them or us. Either we accept extinction, or we visit it upon those who wish us dead.”

  Another mental roar washed over him, and it made him feel almost godlike – and at the same time, humbled. They would die for him, kill for him, and follow him to the Gates of Hell itself. He must prove himself worthy of their loyalty, for they had sacrificed everything to become the terrible swift sword of humankind.

  “Today, we march forward to destroy those who would destroy us. They called us demons and devils, but I call us Crusaders, fighting for something greater than survival. We have put everything on the line for this moment, and future historians will remember us, because without us there will be no future for humanity.

  “Today, we sail forth and bring justice to our enemies.”

  The cheers that followed were heard on this reality and the strange realm from which the Black Fleet drew its power.

  Imperial Star Province Bizzik, 168 AFC

  “The Insects are getting on my nerves, Captain,” Senior Watch-Stander Branck said.

  “You know that ‘Insect’ is a demeaning term, Branck,” Captain Hentel said in a bored tone of voice. “A clear sign of bigoted wrong-think. I should report and denounce you.”

  The two Taro soldiers laughed at the old joke, the sensory cilia on top of their heads waving in merriment. You developed a sense of humor quickly in the service of the Imperium, particularly when you belonged to one of the Junior Races, the dozen or so species who had been a little late in joining the Founding Trio on the path towards Unity. It was a choice between gallows humor and quiet desperation.

  Captain Hentel was as unhappy with their current posting as his second in command. Bizzik was a Kreck system; its main planet was one of those rare low-gravity and thick-atmosphere worlds that the Insects liked to infest with their teeming hordes. The Kreck weren’t very good soldiers, however, and they preferred to staff their orbital fortresses with hardier sophonts. The Taro were happy
to oblige, trading tax exemptions for military service. Once Hentel’s twenty-eight-year term ended, he would not have to pay income or life-support taxes for twenty-one years; if he played his cards right, in a decade or two he might even have enough money to purchase a Vote and become tax-exempt for life.

  That was how the Ladder of Life worked; most Imperium denizens were Taxpayers doomed to penury and sacrifice; the Voters were spared from such duties due to their power to elect Proxies, who in turn selected the Mega- and Giga-Proxies whose decisions actually mattered, except where the Triumvirate was concerned, of course. The Three Rulers answered to no one.

  And the Triumvirate, in its infinite wisdom, had made war on the Humans. The demand for military personnel had skyrocketed, giving Hentel the chance to rise from lowly Taxpayer to the (temporarily) tax-exempt status of Soldier, and from there to the officer sub-class. Duty on a major province was a plum assignment. Unfortunately, it happened to be in an Insect world. Becoming a Voter might be worth the hardship, but that was in the future, and he was suffering here and now.

  “You won’t denounce me, my dear Captain,” the watch-stander said wryly. “What reward would my enforced diminishment earn you? A few days of leave on the surface of Bizzik-Two?”

  “Perish the thought.”

  Bizzik was full of Insects – Kreck, he reminded himself; the exoskeletal little bastards didn’t like to be called by their nickname – and they literally stank up the place. The Kreck communicated via pheromones, and unfortunately the Hentel’s Taro species had a rather refined sense of smell, one that found the secretions of the Kreck to be utterly nauseating. The first time he’d been to Bizzik-Two he’d vomited all over the inside of his pressurized suit; not even the military-grade atmospheric filters had managed to keep the stench out of his cilia.

  “I believe I will forgo the honor of unmasking your intolerance, Watch-Stander.”

  “All paths can lead to Unity, sir, Captain, sir!”

  “Easy there, Branck. Even the Insects can spot sarcasm if you lay it on thickly enough.”

  “You are correct, Captain. My apologies.” Branck even sounded somewhat sincere.

  Unity was a wonderful concept if you belonged to one of the Founder Races, who by the mere virtue of their origin automatically started at Voter rank, and only dropped down to the lowly status of taxpayer if they failed to be even marginally useful to the Imperium. For the Juniors, it was just the way things were. Like the weather, you learned to accept it, or you spent your life being miserable about it. It was said that in a thousand years or so, a fourth member would be added to the Triumvirate. Hentel doubted he’d live to see that day, and even if he did, the Taro wouldn’t be the chosen one.

  His cilia drooped in a gesture of resignation. At least he was saving most of his pay; there was little to spend it on, here in Bizzik. A quick check at the timekeeper app in his implants revealed his watch was due to end in another hour and a half. He was looking forward to a full day of rest, if not of relaxation. The rest of the watch duty crew aboard Orbital Defense Station Eleven were equally bored and ready for some time off.

  “Contact! Multiple contacts! Warp emergences at three light-seconds!”

  Branck’s shout and the maddening buzzing sound of Kreck alarms filled Hentel’s hearing orifices, nearly deafening him. Shock paralyzed him for a second or two, but his training soon asserted itself.

  “Onscreen! Weps, I need firing solutions, now! Raise shields to full power!”

  “Do we wait for positive identification, sir?” Weapons-Technician ‘Weps’ Jicks asked.

  “Fire at will, Weps! That’s got to be the Humans!”

  Dormant battle-screens flared into life and status readouts flashed past Hentel’s eyes. Their readiness had been near-minimal. The Imperium might be at war, but this system was two sectors and five warp transits away from the nearest front. He had no idea how the Humans had managed to arrive at Bizzik without warning.

  And yet, that’s who the invaders were. The slender lines of the emerging vessels were unmistakable, although they had been painted solid black instead of the silver-gray color the American Navy used, according to his ship-identification app. The paint job made no difference to his sensors of course.

  “Something weird about those emergences, sir,” Branck said, all business now.

  “I’m having trouble locking on, Captain!” Weps added. “The warp apertures haven’t closed yet.”

  “Yes, they have warp shields,” Hentel all but growled. “Have you been asleep through every briefing? Just target the general area. Some energy will get through to the actual ships.”

  “No, sir! Those aren’t shields. They are staying in warp! It’s a battleship-class vessel, but it’s not emerging, sir!”

  “I don’t care. Fire missiles! Give me a target, dammit!”

  Even as he barked out his orders, Hentel saw his people weren’t spinning spacer tales but telling the plain truth. None of the twelve ships on his sensors had emerged from warp, but were sitting somewhere in between the real universe and the Chaos Lanes. ODS-11’s graviton batteries were having a hard time locking on the ghostly apparitions. Weps was good at his job, however, and after a few seconds of fiddling he had firing solutions for three contacts. By then, over twenty thousand anti-ship missiles were already underway; Hentel vectored them onto those targets even as eighteen ultraheavy grav cannon opened fire.

  “No effect!”

  “Maintain fire,” Hentel ordered; he felt a slight tremor under his feet moments before the Defense Technician announced the force fields surrounding the defense station had been partially drained by the enemy’s first energy volley. A ten percent reduction, which didn’t bode well, since most of the non-emerging vessels were concentrating their fire on ODS-10. A quick check showed him the sister station’s shields had been knocked down to fifty percent.

  “Reload magazines and launch as soon as they’re ready,” he ordered. Standard operating procedure when dealing with the Humans was to bury their warp shields under massive missile volleys; sooner or later a guided ship-killer would strike a place not protected by those insane devices. Meanwhile, his energy weapons would peck away at the enemy, hoping for a lucky hit on an actual hull rather than those Chaos Walls protecting them. Except this time the Chaos surrounded the enemy ships completely. He didn’t know if anything in his arsenal could affect them.

  CDS-11 fired every weapon in its arsenal. Some energy was getting through to the non-emergent vessels, but it was a mere fraction of the total force being expended on them. Weps’ bobbed his head in a display of desperation. His scanners’ readouts determined that the combined fire of Bizzik’s surviving ground and orbital stations wouldn’t be enough to inflict critical or even significant damage on any of the enemy ships in the little time they had available.

  Moments later, Hentel saw dozens of new contacts appear over the planet’s surface. Human warp fighters. The tiny vessels swarmed around one of the Planetary Defense Bases hammering them at close range with battleship-grade energy weapons. They were also safely ensconced within warp space as they attacked, so the ground defenders inflicted no appreciable damage. The captain shut off the sensor feed. What was happening down below wasn’t his concern. Fighting and dying in orbit was.

  Five minutes after the battle began, CDS-10 blew up. Hentel watched the end of the orbital fortress with all his visual cilia twisted together, focused on the same impossible sight. A cold rush ran down his spine as he realized that his station was next.

  “Captain…”

  “I know, Branck,” Hentel said. Surprisingly, there was less fear than he would have expected. He mostly felt a dreadful sadness. “It’s been an honor, old friend.”

  The watch-stander understood. “Same here, Hentel.”

  They kept fighting until the end.

  * * *

  “Launch the rest of the fighters,” Kerensky ordered.

  All but one of the twelve space fortresses around Bizzik-Two were go
ne; the one exception had survived only because it’d been temporarily protected by the bulk of the planet it was supposed to defend, but in a few seconds it would join the others and become more scattered debris and future navigational hazards. That still left seven of the original nineteen Planetary Defense Bases, but his Black Eagles were handling them. It was time to put an end to this.

  “Full emergence.”

  Ghosting an entire warship wasn’t a trivial exercise, even with the extra warp generators all his Black Ships now mounted. After ten minutes of hanging on the threshold between universes, tidal stresses became high enough to inflict damage. After thirty minutes, his vessels would break apart. Luckily enough, he’d only needed eight minutes to eliminate the enemy’s orbital defenses. There was no defense fleet at Bizzik, so after the PDBs were dealt with, he could get on with the job of exacting retribution.

  “If we use the Mind-Killers on the entire planet, our rewards will be great,” the Prophet said.

  Kerensky turned to the former fighter pilot who now was his XO. ‘Prophet’ (formerly known as ‘Beak’) Dhukai was a slender, dark-haired man whose intense glare would have been uncomfortable even before he became the living conduit between the Black Fleet and its Warpling allies. Dhukai had risen through the ranks during the months the fleet had spent refitting at Sokolov System. His assistance had soon become invaluable. Unfortunately, he was now turning into the religious version of a political officer. Nothing a sane military commander wanted around, in other words. At some point in the not-too-distant future, the Prophet would outlive his usefulness. Kerensky wondered if the moment was at hand, not bothering to conceal his thoughts from the former fighter pilot.