The Fall of Valdek: A Military Sci-Fi Series (The Unity Wars Book 1)

by Peter Nealen

  But considering it had taken two shipboard powergun bolts from point-blank range to even begin to do that, he wasn’t hopeful that this was a weakness that could be leveraged anytime soon.

  Movement ahead caught his eye. Dravot must have seen it too, as he swung his powergun to his shoulder, fired, then ducked flat as cone-bore rifle fire buzzed through the air like a squadron of flesh-tearing insects.

  They were still seventy meters from the crash site, and cover was thin. They couldn’t afford to get bogged down. Scalas dashed forward, firing as he went, smacking clones off their feet with blue-tinged lightning bolts as they became visible. It looked like the ragged remains of a platoon was hunkered down in the lee of a wrecked tank, one that appeared to have gotten dangerously close to breaking through to the crash site before its turret had been taken off by an HV missile. The clones were spraying gunfire wildly at anything that moved, and it seemed to Scalas they were confused and scared.

  They also died quickly. Especially when Geroges hit the ground a few meters behind Scalas and opened fire with his MT-41. A long, ravening burst that crackled and thundered like sheet lightning. It tore the clones apart.

  Then Scalas and Dravot were forging up the crumbling outer slope of the crater. “Friendlies, friendlies!” Scalas was broadcasting over his comm. It would be the height of stupidity to get that far and get his head blown off by a friendly powergun because he failed to communicate.

  As he crested the crater rim, he found Caractacan Brothers and a few Valdekans lining the rim to either side of him, their powerguns aimed over the heaped dirt and debris, watching for clones. Several more were stationed above, toward what was left of the Sword’s nose cone. “More are coming through,” he said to the nearest man, a squad sergeant by the rank insignia on his pauldrons. “Where is Centurion Dunstan?”

  The squad sergeant pointed toward the crushed bow of the Sword of the Brotherhood. “In the command post, against the hull,” he said. “Coordinating the defense.”

  Of course he is.

  Scalas didn’t express aloud his contempt for a centurion who “coordinated” from a command post behind the fighting. He would never speak ill of another centurion in front of that centurion’s subordinates. Or his own, for that matter.

  “Brother Legate Kranjick is behind me,” he said. “When he gets here, tell him where the command post is.” Without another word, he stalked down the slope of the crater, in the direction the Century XXXIV squad sergeant had pointed.

  The crash site was a nightmare. The smashed remains of the stricken starship loomed overhead, casting dark shadows over the crater, blocking out half the cloudy, dusty sky. The crater floor was loose, all crumbling dirt and shattered steelcrete, and made for treacherous footing. Dead and wounded lay amid the debris, and there were far too few men up on the crater rim, crouched behind powerguns and firing back at the clones that swarmed around the wreck. Scalas wondered just how many had survived the crash.

  He watched Dravot looking around as they crossed the crater floor. While the armor disguised the younger Brother’s expression, the man’s carriage alone communicated the anger that built within him. Scalas’s own thoughts echoed what he had no doubt was going through the other Caractacan’s mind. He was remembering the dead from Cobb’s squad too.

  The command post was little more than a hole in the stricken starship’s flank, where Dunstan was crouched behind some twisted hull plating along with the Sword of the Brotherhood’s executive officer and a couple of Valdekan officers. The spot was elevated above the crater rim, which would have allowed Dunstan a better view of the battlefield had there been less smoke in the air.

  Scalas lengthened his strides as they neared the command post. He didn’t want Dravot to get there ahead of him.

  But Dravot was fast. “Traitor!” he snarled as he clambered up onto the curved bit of outer hull right at Scalas’s side. “Deserter!” He lunged at Dunstan, and Scalas had to grab his arm. “Coward!”

  Scalas yanked Dravot back with a heave. The younger Brother didn’t even look at him; his visor was locked on Dunstan like a targeted powergun.

  “How many died, Dunstan?” Dravot demanded. “How many Brothers died because you left your post?”

  “Enough,” said a rumbling voice behind them.

  Kranjick had moved quickly as well. As he heaved his bulk up onto the warped and smashed plating, Scalas saw that his armor was newly scored by several deflected cone-bore rounds. He straightened, towering over Scalas and Dravot both, and stared at Dunstan.

  “This disaster had best be worth it, Centurion Dunstan,” he said, his voice flat and heavy. “Where is Commander Rehenek?”

  Dunstan shook his head. “He was here, but he pulled out just before we arrived. It is my belief that this force was diverted here expressly to kill or capture him once the enemy figured out that he was here. They were on approach as he left, which was why we were shot down. If he hadn’t retreated…”

  “Enough,” Kranjick repeated. “I don’t want to hear your excuses for disobeying orders, lying to our allies, presumably lying to your men—I can think of no other reason your century would have unquestioningly followed you on this folly—deserting your post, and getting your ship destroyed and many of your men killed. You will answer for it. But now is neither the time nor the place. Squad Sergeant Yen!”

  “Squad Sergeant Yen is dead, sir,” one of the Caractacans standing below reported. “Squad Sergeant Rokoff is the only squad sergeant still alive in the century, sir.”

  Kranjick’s helmet turned toward Dunstan like a weapons turret. “Squad Sergeant Rokoff!” he bellowed, his armor’s amplification sending the call echoing across the crater.

  The same squad sergeant who had greeted Scalas and Dravot as they’d climbed over the crater rim turned and strode over to the command post. “Yes, Brother Legate?” he asked, stiffening to attention.

  “Brother Dunstan stands relieved for cause,” Kranjick said. “You are now brevet centurion of what remains of Century XXXIV. Begin assembling your men for evac.”

  Rokoff saluted, lifting his powergun, muzzle up, in front of his visor. “We don’t have many left, sir,” he said. “Twenty percent of First Squad died when that powergun blew up.”

  “They bought you time,” Kranjick said. “Their sacrifice will not go unremembered. Now, quickly. Before the enemy regroups.”

  Scalas was about to ask about how they would reboard the dropships with enemy tanks still roving the open ground beyond when a deep, ground-shaking rumble answered his question. With heavy, thunderous roars, the Boanerges, Dauntless, and Challenger appeared overhead, leaning forward, their drives both propelling them toward the enemy and holding them off the ground. Powergun bolts flashed down into formations of armored vehicles and beyond, deep into the dust-shrouded reaches of the spaceport’s support yards and the smashed defenses beyond.

  Kranjick was looking at Scalas as if he had heard the question that had gone unsaid. “One ship, unsupported and unready, flying into a prepared enemy, was shot down. Three ships, ready to fight and on the heels of the kind of disruption those dead men created by dismounting one of the Sword’s powerguns, are another matter entirely.

  “Now hurry and assemble your men. We will need to lift before the enemy manages to regain their equilibrium. Our hunt for Commander Rehenek will require further preparation and planning. I am tired of rushing about, one step behind.”

  15

  As the centurions assembled with General-Regent Rehenek in the Valdekan command center once more, the room felt suddenly far from the battle. The lights flickered occasionally as the latest starship fly-by pounded the fortress from above, and a continual low, thumping rumble of the bombardment penetrated the thick walls, but it was nothing like what they had just departed. Yet the Brothers themselves had brought the battle with them. They were covered in dust and soot, and they stank of ozone, smoke, and less wholesome odors. They smelled like combat.

  “Yes,” the Gener
al-Regent said wearily, “Amra is gone from the fortress. I became aware of my son’s new mission only a few moments ago, after I could no longer recall him.” The old man looked more than tired. He looked deeply weary in a way that went beyond time and age. He was tired in his soul, weighed down by the destruction being wreaked upon his people and now by the personal strain of seeing his son, whom he probably thought of as his world’s last hope, throwing himself into the thick of battle, seemingly trying to get himself killed.

  Scalas had no son, and never would. He was sworn to the Brotherhood for life. He could not truly understand the fears that were part and parcel of seeing one’s own flesh and blood go into harm’s way. But he had lost brothers in arms, and he knew the weight of command. So he could understand well enough.

  With a wince of pain, the elder Rehenek steered his exoskeleton toward the briefing theater where he had first revealed just what they were up against. Kranjick and the centurions followed him. Brevet Centurion Rokoff seemed slightly hesitant, as if he still wasn’t certain that he belonged here, but Rehenek didn’t seem to have noticed the change in personnel.

  Then again, none of them had doffed their helmets, so he had no way of noticing, unless he spotted the different markings on Rokoff’s pauldrons.

  Inside the briefing room, a holo was already up. It depicted what appeared to be the entirety of Gorakovati and the country around it, including the settlements and towns all over the shoulders of the towering volcano. It also showed several pulsing red malignancies, most of them centered around population centers. One of the largest was around the planetary defense fortress itself. Another was some four hundred kilometers away, on the other side of the mountain. A thin blue thread ran from the fortress, around the side of the mountain, toward that more distant red blotch.

  The General-Regent pointed, and that same red stain pulsed brightly. “Recent signals intelligence has pinpointed that position as a groundside command post. My son believes that our remaining ground-based defenses make low orbit too dangerous, and since the distance to the Lagrange points makes direct command-and-control from there unfeasible, this so-called ‘Galactic Unity’ has landed a starship there, and is using it as a command center.”

  Kranjick nodded slowly. “And he’s going to attack it.”

  It wasn’t a question, but the General-Regent nodded in response, nevertheless. “He hopes to disrupt their attacks enough that we can regain some initiative.” The heaviness in his voice spoke of his despair. The General-Regent knew, clear down to his bones, that Valdek was lost. Even if his son succeeded, the old man’s spirit was already broken. He was hanging on to life through sheer stubbornness, to try to give his son a chance to escape.

  The Duchess stepped into the theater. She said nothing as she stepped to her husband’s side. The message was clear: whatever was to come, they would face it together. Equally clear was the fact that there was increasingly little that anyone in the command center could do. The defenders were set in, and they would stand or fall in place. Every resource the Valdekans had remaining inside the fortress was committed. They could not even reinforce a sector if it began to collapse, not without opening another hole for the seemingly endless swarms of clones to take advantage of.

  The elder Rehenek looked up at Kranjick’s visor. “He has a head start,” he said, “but he’s going around the shoulder of the volcano. I know that Caractacan armor is proof against vacuum. If you could go over the mountain, you might be able to catch up with him before he makes contact with the enemy.”

  “Do you wish us to prevent him from assaulting the command ship?” Kranjick asked quietly. His voice was as low and monotone as ever, but Scalas knew his mentor well enough to tell that he was somewhat conflicted about the request. They were being asked to convince a man not to fight for his planet and his people. It would be a bitter pill to swallow, and Scalas knew that were he on the receiving end of such a request, he would refuse.

  “Getting him off this world is the only hope a Valdekan resistance has left,” the Duchess said. “Explain that to him. Explain that unless he finds allies and returns with enough of a fleet to finally defeat these abominations, then all is truly lost. Destroying one grounded starship won’t change that.” She held out a data chip. “Show him this. It is a last message from me. He will obey his mother.”

  Kranjick took the chip gravely. “I will do as you ask, madam.”

  “I have drawn back a company of Valdekan First Force commandos to accompany you,” the General-Regent said. “Along with what combat vehicles we still have left that we can spare. I fear they are few. Any of the commandos who survive must go with you when you leave the planet. They will form the core of my son’s resistance force. The vehicles are mostly tracked or wheeled, but they should be able to negotiate most of the mountain, provided you don’t go right through the caldera.”

  Scalas was frowning a little, and he would have expected Kranjick to be doing the same behind his visor were he not entirely familiar with his superior officer’s near-constant expressionlessness.

  “If time is so pressing, we will do a short-range lift by ship,” Kranjick said. “That means we will also have better fire support once we manage to rendezvous with the commander.”

  But the General-Regent shook his head and tapped another control. The holo zoomed out until it showed the entire planet. One formation of Unity starships was moving away toward the L4 point. A second, larger formation, with dozens of ships surrounding a mammoth dreadnaught of unfamiliar design, was on an approach vector to the planet.

  “Our remaining scanning capability is severely limited,” the Duchess said quietly, “but it is clear that this dreadnaught carries far more firepower than we can hope to match. We might survive for a while inside the fortifications, but anything in the air will not. You will have a greater chance of going undetected—and therefore avoiding an orbital strike—if you go overland.”

  “But if we are cut off from our ships on the other side of the volcano, then we won’t be able to get your son and his troops off-world,” Soon pointed out. “And then the entire effort will be for nothing.”

  “That is why you must not tarry,” said the General-Regent. “As my wife said, we can hold out here for a time. That monstrosity will eventually batter through our defenses, but not immediately. Trust me, Centurion: I will not allow your ships to be destroyed on the ground if I can help it.”

  That all the Valdekan defenders would likely be dead if that happened went unsaid.

  A flashing light drew every eye to the room’s control panel. Rehenek clumped his exoskeleton over to it, pressed a key, and spoke briefly in Eastern Satevic. He frowned at the reply, then said what sounded like an affirmative before turning back to the holo.

  A comms window opened up in midair. It showed a man with longish hair and a full beard. His olive skin was lined but still hale, his pale eyes bright. He wore a coat with shoulder boards and a tall collar heavy with gold braid. He was immediately recognizable from the first message Rehenek had played for them. Geretesk Vakolo was making contact again.

  “Hello, Bozhidar, old friend,” Vakolo said. There was a strange lilt to his Trade Cant, but Scalas couldn’t place it. “Isn’t it time to end this?”

  “’Friend?’” Rehenek spat. “Is this how Sparatans show ‘friendship’? You have wrecked my world, slaughtered my people…”

  “As my message made clear when our forces arrived, Bozhidar,” Vakolo said calmly, “the goal ahead of us is far too important to let sentimentality stand in our way. I warned you what resistance to the Unity would cost, and still you chose to resist. You went into this war with both eyes open. Do not attempt to say otherwise.”

  Rehenek stood firm. “I have nothing more to say to you that I have not already said with laser, railgun, particle beam, and powergun.”

  The bearded man sighed, rather like a disappointed father. “You will not surrender? Not even seeing that your last fortress is on the brink of failure, and my forces
are legion beyond numbering? See reason, Bozhidar.”

  Instead of answering, Rehenek barked what might have been a curse in Eastern Satevic, and aimed an unmistakable command back at the control panel.

  But the window did not close. The bearded man leaned closer.

  “Unfortunate,” he said coldly. “The Unity will not be stopped. Galactic civilization can never progress while all its peoples still live scattered and leaderless, focused only on their own small, petty concerns. I had hoped that you would see sense and submit. Instead, the Unity will be built upon your bones.” His eyes shifted. “I would warn you, Caractacans, to depart, but your kind will ultimately have no place in the order that is to come. Your deaths on this world should serve as a message to your comrades. I might consider letting one of you live, though, to send back to your headquarters. So that the rest of your dying order will know what awaits them.”

  Only then did the comm channel cut out.

  Rehenek turned to the control panel. His face was pale, and for a brief instant, Scalas could see just how shaken the old man was. And no wonder—how many shocks of impending doom could one man withstand?

  Rehenek spoke urgently to whatever comm tech was on the other side of the panel’s intercom. When the conversation was finished, the General-Regent looked at his wife, stark fear in his eyes. “The tech says that he tried to cut the connection, and failed.” He spoke in Trade Cant, apparently for the benefit of the Caractacans. His voice was low and haunted. “Geretesk was in complete control of our comm systems.”

  “Is it possible that his people on the ground got a virus into your systems?” Costigan asked.