Ruined Terra (Book 11 of The Empire of Bones Saga)

by Terry Mixon

  The one person he didn’t immediately spot was Julia. Kelsey’s doppelgänger was nowhere in sight.

  He double-checked what he could see of the personnel through his implants. Marine officers and sergeants had the ability to track of all their personnel, their condition, and other salient facts about them at a glance. He normally didn’t access that type of information, but he did know it existed.

  It took him longer than it would’ve taken Talbot to scan down the list of people in the column, but he reached the end without finding Julia. That wasn’t good.

  He expanded the view and finally found her tagging along behind the ready response team.

  He cursed under his breath. He could order her to return to the column, but he knew that was useless. Just like his sister, the woman never changed her mind when she made it up. If she thought something needed doing, she’d do it and damn the consequences.

  “What’s wrong?” Kelsey asked, sparing him a glance.

  “Your double attached herself to the ready response team. It looks like she’s on her way out to fight the horde.”

  Kelsey said something distinctly unladylike. She’d obviously been hanging around Talbot and the marines for far too long.

  “It’s too late to stop her now,” she growled. “She’s got Raider implants and her armor, so she’ll be as safe as anyone. Her presence might actually help them accomplish their mission, which I’m sure is exactly what she had in mind. I can’t say she’s wrong, even if I do want to strangle her.”

  “Pot, meet kettle.”

  His sister barked out a short laugh. “I suppose that’s true enough. The question is, would slamming these bastards hard enough make our lives easier? Instead of just sending the ready response team to ambush them, maybe we should divert most of the marines to hit them head-on and crush them.”

  “They’ve probably got a lot more of those antiarmor weapons,” he argued. “They didn’t come all this way looking to just fight. They intend to catch us and kill us before we reach the outpost.”

  “Then they’re going about it all wrong,” she said bluntly. “Even though they’ve got more warriors, they’ve got to know that we’re going to punch their lights out. There is literally no chance that that force is going to catch up with the main column.

  “I realize that it looks that way, but if we delay them any amount of time at all, the column will make it to the outpost. They’re screwed when it comes to keeping us from getting there if that’s their plan.”

  Jared frowned. He wasn’t experienced with fighting on the ground, but if he put this into the same frame of reference as a space battle, he could see what she was saying.

  Thinking about it that way brought another, uglier thought to mind. If this was a fight he was orchestrating, that attacking force wouldn’t be the only one on the board. There’d be others waiting for that obvious group to drive them into an ambush. Ships with their drives down, hiding in plain sight, and waiting for his ships to waltz right into the kill zone.

  “Then they’re a distraction,” he said grimly. “They’re herding us into an ambush. There’s another force somewhere in front of us waiting to spring a trap. Maybe that’s being paranoid, but we have to plan for the worst and hope we’re wrong.”

  Kelsey’s eyes widened as she understood what he was saying. “I’ve got to tell Beauchamp. Get Talbot to get his people on the move. I want them in front of the column right now. We need to have the drones looking more closely at the ground we’re going to be traveling over. Damn but that’s clever.”

  With that, his sister raced off in the direction of Captain Beauchamp.

  Jared opened a channel to Talbot and passed word of what he suspected to the marine officer. The other man cursed, oddly enough using the exact turn of phrase that his wife had used earlier. Maybe that wasn’t so odd, now that he thought about it.

  “We’ve sent all the armor to meet the incoming force,” Talbot said. “Do you think that’s what they wanted?”

  “I’d count on it. They have to know that we have the means to see them even when others on this world don’t. We’ve proven it to them in ambushing them at the camp. A canny leader will deduce that.

  “Now they’ve put a large force out there so that we’d respond, so of course we’re going to use the strongest force we have available. They probably have other weapons at their disposal that will be just as surprising as the antiarmor weapons. We’re not going to know what until we engage them. We also won’t know anything about the group I suspect is ahead of us until we find them.”

  With the tall grass that covered much of the area between them and the outpost, Jared suspected that the intruders were concealing themselves somewhere in relatively plain sight.

  The marine drones had the capability of detecting things infrared and ultraviolet, so it shouldn’t be difficult to switch them over and locate any hidden groups. They wouldn’t have had time to dig a deep enough hole to conceal their presence. In this fallen world, they probably didn’t have much need to do that either.

  Even though he knew Talbot was undoubtedly thinking along those lines, he added his suspicions.

  “I’ve been thinking about that too,” Talbot said. “I’ve got a couple of drones running through the area ahead of us looking for locations they could be using. Once I find them, if they’re there, I’ll start putting together a tactical response.

  “I’ve already searched the area closest to us, and it looks clean. I’d imagine they’re another two or three kilometers in front of us, if they’re out there at all. They have to allow space and time for us to be spooked by their diversionary force.

  “In fact, they may not be directly in front of us. They may expect us to change course based on contact with their diversionary force. We don’t have enough drones to search all around us for a great distance, but we should be able to provide enough coverage to locate where our problem is going to be before we run over them.”

  “Keep me informed,” Jared said. “If you need to act without direct orders, consider the word given. Do what you think best to defend us. Kelsey is talking with Captain Beauchamp right now, so her people will be in the loop. I’ll join her right now to pass along any information you get because I doubt Kelsey will stay in the column when the fighting is imminent.”

  The other man laughed. “I suppose not. Well, we’ll do what we need to do. You’ll make it to the outpost.”

  “Good luck, Colonel. Mertz out.”

  Jared killed the channel. The unspoken part of what Talbot had just said was that the people in the column might make it to the outpost, but the marines engaging the enemy would take losses. Losses they could ill afford.

  Jared considered donning his powered armor but decided he already had enough problems riding. Besides, if the horde did ambush them, the men and woman in the armor would be their primary targets during the initial attack. Best not to paint a bull’s-eye on his back when he couldn’t react like Kelsey. Her augmentation might give her a chance to survive something like that, but he had no such edge.

  He put his negative thoughts out of his mind. There was nothing he could do to minimize what was coming, other than trust the marines to do their jobs. Now he needed to focus on doing his.

  Kelsey laid out the situation for Captain Beauchamp. The other woman wasted no time asking how she knew, instead ordering her people into action. Some of her men went out to bolster the scouting forces ahead of them with orders to spread farther out in front of the column.

  Unfortunately, the only way that those scouts would likely get information back is when they were ambushed and some of the number killed. Those were brave men and women, Kelsey knew. Very much like the marines.

  Almost as soon as Beauchamp finished doing that, Jared rode awkwardly up and told them what he’d told Talbot to do. The news wasn’t pleasing to Kelsey, because she could read between the lines. Talbot was going to put himself and his people between them and whatever danger was out there waiting. She wasn�
�t going to let him do it alone.

  Jared could apparently sense where her thoughts were going, because he gave her a stern look and shook his head without her saying a word. “You’re critical to this mission, Kelsey. Talbot and the marines can handle the fighting. You need to stay here with the rest of us. We’ve already got Julia off helping them.”

  She immediately balked with a firm shake of her head. “I can do more if I make sure we don’t get ambushed at all. It’s all fine and good that Julia is doing her part, but I need to do mine. The farther away from the column we can keep the fighting, the less chance that any of the civilians get hurt.”

  “You’re looking at this all wrong,” he said. “We have the marines to do the fighting for us, just as they should. This is one of those times where you have to stand back and direct what’s going on. Talbot is controlling them in the field, and we need you to be our leader.”

  “You’re our leader.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m the military commander of this mission. You represent the Imperial Throne. Neither of us can afford to die. We need those codes in your head once we get to the palace.”

  She scowled. “That’s playing dirty. Julia has the same codes. She’s obviously found a way to make them work, so you should be happy you have a spare.”

  He shot a look toward Beauchamp, who was focused on directing her subordinates. When he spoke again, he pitched his voice low.

  “Even though she’s been with me for months, I don’t trust her to the same degree that I trust you. She has her own agenda, and I’m smart enough to realize that. Right now, it aligns with what we’re doing. What happens when her people would benefit more from working against us?

  “Even leaving that aside, you’re my sister. I’m not going to lose you fighting out there when it isn’t critical to our survival. I’m the senior military officer, and it’s my job to declare who does fighting and where. This is one of those times where you have to obey orders, Colonel.”

  Her scowl deepened, and she felt her teeth clenching. Dammit. As much as she wanted to argue, she knew that she had to support the separation of civilian power from the military. If they were fighting, it really was his call, and she had to acknowledge that. She could overrule him when it came to policy, but not strategy and tactics.

  This was one of the flaws of being both an ambassador plenipotentiary and the senior officer in the marines. Sometimes she had to follow orders, and other times she had to give them. Sadly, this wasn’t one of the latter.

  She pulled her horse around to his other side with an easy tug of the reins. Pitching her voice low, she gave in to the inevitable.

  “Fine, but I’m going to get into my armor. If those bastards get anywhere close to us, I’m going to smash them into little bitty pieces.”

  He smiled a little and shook his head. “I’m not ever going to change who you are. All I can do is remind you of what we need to save, the human race. I understand that you want to go out and fight, but your survival is just as critical as mine. We’re both going to have to make some sacrifices.”

  While she didn’t disagree, she worried that the sacrifices would be paid for in blood. If the horde came close to the column, she wouldn’t hesitate to do her absolute best to pound them into the ground like a tent stake, but she had to bow to reality. He was right, as much as it galled her.

  It looked as if it was going to be up to her husband and her doppelgänger to settle this unpleasantness. She hoped they were up to the task, because they’d only get one shot at it. If they failed to stop the horde and reach the outpost, this mission was over and so were they.

  20

  The ready response team was more than halfway to the oncoming enemy force by the time Corporal Boske figured out that Julia was tagging along. To say that she was less than pleased would’ve been something of an understatement.

  The woman slowed and made her way directly toward the off-center path that Julia had been following, making no effort to conceal her intentions. She planted herself directly in Julia’s path, planted her fists on her hips, and glared at the princess.

  At least that’s what Julia assumed the other woman was doing. Boske’s helmet was opaque, so she’d just have to take the glare on faith. Julia had armored up when the marines had, so Boske was just as in the dark about her own expression.

  “Dammit, Highness,” the marine noncom sent over a private channel. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Julia slowed to a stop in front of the other woman, doing her absolute best to convey nonchalance with her posture. To avoid giving the other woman an advantage, she kept her armor’s ability to project her face onto the outside of her helmet turned off as well.

  “I’m making certain these marines have the best chance they can get at surviving this encounter,” she said firmly. “We both know those horsemen are going to have a lot of the antiarmor weapons. The more firepower you have, the better the chances are that you’ll take them out before they kill our marines.”

  “Those marines are my responsibility, Highness. Don’t you think that your unexpected presence would make their survival less likely? If you just pop up with no warning in the middle of a fight, someone is likely to shoot you or get shot at because you surprised them. You need to go back to the column.”

  “Not going to happen,” Julia said firmly. “I brought along enough heavy weaponry to do my part. You don’t have enough people in powered armor to be picky. Let’s do both of us a favor and not waste time that we don’t really have. I’m going to be part of this fight. You might as well make use of me, because I’m going to be there whether you like it or not.”

  The other woman spent a full ten seconds cursing but caved to the inevitable. “Fine, but you do this my way. I give the orders, and you follow them to the letter. We don’t have time to argue about who’s in charge, so it’s going to be me. If you can’t handle that, I’ll have my marines hold you down, strip that armor off of you, and make you run your little ass right back to the column. Am I clear?”

  Julia’s initial reaction was to tell the woman that she’d like to see her try. That, however, wouldn’t be very helpful—particularly if she carried out her threat—so she decided to be cooperative.

  She wondered if the marine would be so bold while talking to the Kelsey from this universe. Probably not.

  “We’ll do it your way, Corporal,” Julia said. “How can Big Bertha help?”

  With that, she tapped the large weapon that she’d commandeered for use with her armor. She’d picked up the name from one of the other marines when he was explaining how it worked to her, but she wasn’t precisely sure where the phrase came from. It sounded mildly insulting, but the marine didn’t seem to take it that way, so she wasn’t sure.

  What she did know was that the weapon was more than capable of doing its part in the upcoming fighting. It was a plasma rifle built for powered armor. In the scheme of things, it wasn’t that large, but had an outsized ability to damage people, equipment, and the landscape.

  They didn’t have a lot of ammunition left for it, but they needed something that could take out a large group of riders before they could scatter. Which, based on their previous behavior, was exactly what they’d do. Then they’d keep shooting at the marines until they killed them all before heading on to attack the column.

  “How many shots do you have for that thing?” Boske asked.

  “Six. It was all I could find. Most of the ammunition didn’t survive the crash.”

  Boske nodded. It was hard to see while she was in armor, but the slow tilt of her head gave Julia the clue.

  “I’d rather keep that weapon in reserve, but I understand the need to take out as many people at once as we can. I’m authorizing you to fire two shots. That’s it. We need to save the rest of the ammunition for later because we might desperately need the ability to use plasma at some point, and if we use all of the ammunition too quickly, we could be screwed.”

  “What if they ge
t past us?” Julia asked. “They’re going to catch our people out in the open. We’ve got to use whatever firepower we have to take them down while we can.”

  The noncom raised her hand slightly. “I don’t have time to argue with you. You’re authorized to fire two rounds, and if you see a large grouping of personnel after that, you may fire one more, but I don’t expect that to happen. Right now, they’re clumped together because they don’t think we know they’re coming. As soon as they realize they’ve been discovered, they’re going to scatter.

  “Frankly, I’m not even sure that you’ll get that second shot off before they’ve separated enough to render the plasma blast zone too small to make a dent in their numbers. All we can hope to do is to take out as many of them as we can and try to get them to engage us.

  “If they decide that they’re going to ride on, nothing we can do can stop them. We just have to make ourselves the target they want to take out. Otherwise, Colonel Talbot and the rest of the marines are going to have to deal with them, and that’ll mean a higher number of casualties that I’d rather avoid.”

  That was what Julia hoped to avoid, too. The horde wouldn’t have sent such a large force against a group protected by high-tech armor if they didn’t think they could handle the problem. That meant they had some kind of surprise hidden up their sleeves. One that she was certain that no one would like.

  They’d have to adapt and overcome. They really didn’t have much of a choice.

  Talbot had to admit that the attackers had hidden themselves well. If he hadn’t had access to drones with infrared and ultraviolet capability, he would’ve missed their hiding places in the grass.

  It seemed that they’d dug shallow holes and then dragged mats of woven grass across themselves. The cover perfectly matched the grass around them, which impressed him a great deal.