“Three hundred and sixty kilometers, Sir.”
“Maintain approach.”
“Sir,” Communications, “Message in from 8th Squadron. They’ve reported Sector A9 is cleared. No casualties.”
“Outstanding, I knew the Widows would come through. How many kills?”
“Eight platforms: six orbital strike, two space dominance.”
“Damocles now at three hundred kilometers.”
“Start matching speed and orbit, hold us at two-fifty.”
“Aye, Commodore.”
“Commodore!” the ensign turned and looked back over his shoulder, eyes widened. “Picking up three large bogeys on approach to the Damocles. Too much radiation interference to identity. Detecting no IFFs.”
Cullins frowned.
“Scramble Second Squadron for immediate intercept, anti-ship warheads. Get me the CAP.”
“Go ahead Washington, this is Raptor,” a holo of a night-black helmet. Beside it was the wire diagram of a Raven space superiority fighter.
“Inbound bogeys, Raptor. The CAP is to approach with caution, I need you to get me a visual ID.”
“Understood, Raptor out.”
“Communications, tight beam transmission to each bogey: we are the Washington and we are conducting search and rescue operations. They are to identify themselves immediately, or be fired upon.”
“Yes Sir. Interference is high though, they may not receive.”
“Great. Scarecrow, abort your mission. Repeat, abort mission and return to the Washington.”
“ … again? … ington, I’ve got people … eady on … “
“Damn. Mr. Viegas, Main Weapons?”
“Commodore?”
“Target each bogey and standby to fire on my order.”
“Understood.”
“Washington this is Raptor, bog… are locking weapons on us! …questing weapons free.”
“Negative Raptor! I need that visual!”
“Sir, firing solutions ready, terawatt batteries are standing by.”
“Raptor? Do you have a visual? Come in Raptor, do you have a visual ID? Raptor? Come in, Raptor.”
Heads stopped and turned again.
Silence.
“Picking up a weak transmission,” communications frowned in concentration, “ Sir, I think it’s Raptor.”
“Well put it on!”
“…ton, this is the …”
“Raptor?”
“… destroy … us …”
“Raptor?”
“…ington, this is destroyer group Columbus under …tain Clark. What are your orders?”
Relief spread through the decks. Ragged applause started.
“Good to hear your voice Columbus, we thought we were the only ones who made it.”
“Likewise Washington, good thing your gutsy pilots didn’t shoot us down when we locked our weapons.”
“Why aren’t you transmitting IFF?”
“We don’t trust them, Sir. We don’t much trust anything right now.”
“Fair enough. We’ll send you some new, secure codes. Are you damaged? Do you need help with wounded?”
“We’re okay Commodore. We went offline for some unscheduled maintenance, and that’s when it happened. Some of our systems won’t restart, but besides that we’re fine.”
“Excellent. Going offline is what saved you. Our fighter squadrons are busy clearing out all the automated weapon platforms, sector by sector. Think you can give them a hand?”
“Wilco, Commodore.”
“Outstanding. I’ll connect you with our tactical.”
“Sir, just one question - have you noticed the clouds?”
“The clouds?”
“The ones that keeping moving and stopping, and moving and stopping – all at precisely the same time?”
“We have, Captain. Those clouds are biological swarm computers. Components of the Xeno-Transcendent. We believe they stop moving to focus on processing, giving the the Xeno Transcendent a surge.”
Silence.
“Sir, the clouds are getting bigger.”
“I know. But we’re in no shape to counterattack. Our first priority must be to retake space. Either we do that in the next forty eight hours, or -” Cullins paused for a moment, deliberating. “Or we’ll lose this war. Do you understand?”
On all decks, heads stopped and turned. Murmuring died and trains of thought were lost.
“Do you understand Captain?”
“Yes Sir.”
“How old is this footage?”
“Judging by the sun’s position, close to afternoon. That’s around nine hours ago,” replied Lieutenant Viegas. “It’s transmitting on a loop, on all frequencies. One of the new satellites detected and flagged it.”
“Where is this Whiskey Outpost?”
“About eighty kilometers North of Salona, it’s a deep desert resupply station. There’s nothing out there except them.”
“Survivors?”
“Unknown. I diverted a pair of Ravens to do a flyby but they saw no activity, no flares.”
“Send two Crossbows with marines and have Doctor Wright go with them. We’ll need him to examine the residues. Make sure they’ve prepped for Von Neumann rapid response.”
“Sir, do you think this was a nano-attack?”
“There was no fog, but nothing else can eat through a person that fast. Their reproduction is also assisted; it’s the only explanation for such a huge growth in swarm-size. Where is that swarm now?”
“About twenty kilometers East, past Salona. It’s stopped moving, the swarms have all entered their ‘processing’ phase.”
“Can you show me the trajectories for all identified swarms?”
Viegas looked down at his tablet, his fingers racing. He looked up suddenly, his face bleached.
“What is it?”
“They’ll all arrive at Kashi in twelve hours.”
Day Four
“Sarge!” Natraj waved from the lookout tower, the dawn desert sun painting him in silhouette. “Contacts coming in from the North!”
One of the soldiers huddled by the fire looked up, coffee mug in his hands.
“Can you ID them?” Aziz yelled back.
“Looks like a bunch of UNAID four-by-fours!”
“UNAID pulled out of Kashi last month,” Shields put down his half-eaten MRE.
“I heard their vehicle depot was robbed.”
“Technicals!” Shields grabbed his rifle.
“Natraj!” Aziz stood, cupped a hand to his face. “They using the road?”
“Negative! They’re strung out in a line! Looks like they’re trying to flank us!”
Rifles were grabbed and food trays dropped in the sand. Men threw themselves against sand bags, heavy laser guns began to swivel.
“Recon!” Shields yelled, striding to the watch tower. The air hummed suddenly, two khaki drones appeared. Small and sleek as cats, they hovered on tilt fans. Sniper pods were tucked under them – targeting lasers glowing.
“Orders?” one asked.
“Get me targeting data. Go lase those trucks,” he climbed up the ladder. They streaked away.
“One-Twenty Em Em!”
A rhino-sized machine pistoned forward on four legs. It’s armored hood bloomed apart like desert petals. The black tube of a self-loading mortar emerged.
“Receiving targeting data now,” it replied. “Vehicles entering range. Shall I open fire?”
“Wait till they get closer,” he took Natraj’s optics and squinted. The UNAID trucks were much clearer now. Their white and blue colors were heavily dust stained. Some were crammed with armed men in scarves and ammo belts. Others were mounted with heavy machine guns or rocket launchers. Muzzles flashed as they opened up.
“Fire!”
The mortar boomed: the rhino bucked against its shocks. Men turned away, sand rose like smoke. A second boom. A third. A fourth. A round every second.
The ground flashed and sand fountained. A truck
tumbled and tore apart into fire and black smoke. Another followed, its passengers splashing into red spray and limbs. Someone was screaming.
At the sand bags the soldiers cheered. The combat drone stopped firing.
“All motorized targets neutralized. Accuracy, ninety-three percent.”
“Good work,” Shields pulled out his radio – he was just getting used to it. “Recon, what’s the situation?”
“Twelve technicals destroyed. At least one hundred infantry casualties,” the radio rasped. “Only eighteen survivors are on their feet. They are withdrawing. Shall we shoot them?”
“Negative. Expand scouting radius to five kilometers. Get out there and show me – “ he stopped and frowned “show we what’s beyond that dust storm that just appeared.”
“Affirm.”
An armored squad car pulled up under the tower. Aziz manned its machine gun mount. He waved to Shields.
“Ready to go out and bag some prisoners, Sir.”
“Negative – something doesn’t add up.”
“Sir?” Aziz shrugged. “They attacked, we got ‘em. Seems pretty straightforward.”
“They never attack that way. They always probe first; see what we can dish out – like a combat support drone with a mortar. Why didn’t they probe this time? They lost a whole company’s strength out there.”
“Well we won’t find out till we bring the survivors back for interrogation.”
“You’re right. Go on and – “
The radio squawked.
“Motorized force approaching, one hundred and twenty plus technicals. Mortar, HMG, and anti-armor weapons, estimating six hundred plus infantry. ETA six minutes. Taking heavy – “
The feed went dead.
“Fuck!” his knuckles whitened around the handset.
“Bad news?” Aziz cocked his head like a dog.
“This was the scouting party! And that,” he pointed into the desert, “That’s no dust storm!”
Aziz jumped from the car and started bellowing orders. Shields got back on the radio.
“Fire Direction Control, this is Lieutenant Shields, Second Company, First Platoon!”
“Artillery FDC receiving, go ahead Lieutenant.”
“Requesting fire mission: direction one-twenty to one one-twenty two, range two thousand meters!”
“Target?”
“Motorized Infantry battalion. Fire with effect!”
“Robotic weapons support!”
Plaster rained down on Captain Hovik, 6th Company. He lay on his back behind the sandbags, his radio in both hands. Kneeling to his right, a soldier opened up with his SAW on full automatic. Blue tracer beams cut through the clouds of cement dust.
“Robotic Weapons support to Ninth Street! On the double!”
Lying prone to his left, a rifleman kept cool and aimed. Three round burst. Next. Three round burst. Next.
A sudden gust cleared the cement dust cloud, restoring their view of Ninth. Huge, grey, warehouses lined both flanks of the street. It stretched on, the Rice District’s spine. A smoking Cherokee lay slewed across it, its side and rear hatches open. A Ranger lay half-out of one, his shredded arm a meter away. Over the dead transport, muzzles flashed at them. Rounds zip zipped into the sand bags.
A runner darted between rubble piles and streaked behind the barricade. A whole platoon gave him covering fire. A rocket flashed above and exploded a cellular tower.
“Report! Where the hell is Second Platoon?!”
“We fell back Sir!”
“What?”
“IED took out Lieutenant Khan, we lost six more to shooters hiding on rooftops, and our radio too. Sergeant Sajadi pulled us back to Seventh and Third. We were being pursued Sir, maybe a hundred insurgents.”
“A hundred?”
Massive armored forms pistoned into view from around a corner. Their centaur torsos were gun turrets.
“Reporting,” the three boomed.
“Where are the rest of the you?”
“Six and One are climbing a grain silo on Fourth Street to provide maximum mortar coverage. Five has been destroyed.”
Hovik looked left and cupped his hand to his mouth, “Lieutenant!”
“Sir!” a man stopped shouting orders further down the line of sand bags. Ducking, he ran over.
“Hakim, you and Third Platoon hold the street with one HLG and one rocket launcher. I’m taking the other HLG and First Platoon, we’re going to rescue Second.”
“Yes Sir! We’ll be fine Sir!” a man spun round behind him, thrown from the sand bags. He cursed and gripped his shoulder, red spreading under his fingers. A pair of medics descended on him like vultures.
The combat support drones thundered forward. Weapon blast guards retracted, yellow warning lights began cycling on their chests. A man with a damaged visor quickly looked away, as a heavy laser gun lit up like a supernova.
The river ran red.
Burning barges were pressed against the docks. More caught fire and their crews screamed and plunged overboard, their wrecks drifted and pressed up against the rest. Still they came, an armada of river craft. It stretched into the horizon.
A huge, black landing craft rammed up against a jetty. Its prow slammed down becoming a ramp, thick chains holding it taut. Packed inside were gunmen, they erupted cheering on to the dock, firing rifles into the air and at the defenders.
Servos whined. Armored legs tall as lamp posts stepped forward.
“I got this,” boomed powerful speakers.
The chain gun spun: each barrel rising, blasting, tumbling, rising again. Casings rained down, glinting in the morning sun, puddling on the wooden jetty. Men were torn apart, rounds punching through several at a time. They ricocheted off walls, embedding in skulls or ribcages.
The black powered armor strode down the jetty, firing. It reached the floating abattoir and got down on one knee. From prepared positions behind it, an entire company poured down covering fire. The machine gripped the sides of the barge, rose to its feet, and then flipped the vessel over. The vessel crashed into the water, upsetting a raft-load of fighters and spilling them into the river. Rifle and laser fire rained down as they drowned.
Deep inside the Great Pyramid, the controlling teletrooper sipped coffee from a tube. He panned left and then right, the armor’s head turning with his. It took in the battlefield through its seven remaining eyes.
Its four platoon mates stood in a perfectly straight line. Tall as town houses: even the slightest movement was amped a hundred times. Sparks rippled across their midnight-black plating: small arms fire bouncing off.
A small pop-up appeared red in the corner of his sight: rocket warning. The point defense laser on its shoulder pulsed: the pop-up disappeared. Along with it went two men who had just prepared an RPG.
“Captain Pozetta, this is Lieutenant Gautam,” he said quietly. Back at the docks, his chest speakers were booming. “The outcome is a foregone conclusion. However, the burning wrecks are a problem. They’ll set the jetties on fire.”
“This is Pozetta!” he radio sparked, the man’s yelling choppy with background weapon fire. “I have HLGs and mortars moving in to support! Can your teletroopers clear the docks?”
“Affirmative Captain, wilco.”
He cut the radio and cleared his throat.
“You heard the man, let’s get to it. Gupta, I need you to give us covering fire.”
The other men and women in the room assented. They stood in VR cubes just like his, techs with tablets checking their vitals. Meanwhile others hunched over screens, frowning at diagnostics and falling ammo levels. Crisscrossed by hundreds of lasers, the teletroopers’ black smartsuits were tracked by the micrometer. 360 degree holo-displays showed them carnage not too distant from the air-conditioned bunker.
At the docks they strode forward, like gods fighting for Troy. They descended, the water lapping at their shoulders. One tore a burning boat in two, and threw the halves into the oncoming vessels. The air soon filled with
wooden asteroids, flaming and tumbling into the screaming horde.
One of the operators chuckled, his rig was marked JOSHI.
“Too easy.”
Too easy.
Suddenly the operator next to him fell to her knees, red pop-ups wallpapered her displays.
“What the fuck?” she strained in her smartsuit. “I can’t get up!”
“What the fuck?” Pozetta watched the teletrooper plunge beneath the water. Huge waves splashed out and the spray pattered down on him and his men. “What the hell just happened?”
A second teletrooper went down, an arm flailing before it disappeared.
“What the fuck just happened?!”
The third waded to where its partner had been. The one standing on the jetty ran to its edge. They looked down, optics panning.
The wader spun about, then pitched backwards like it was struck by a train. A foot rose out of the water – then was snapped back under. A huge wake formed, powering out towards the river.
“Lieutenant Gautam!” Pozetta yelled in the radio. “Gautam!”
The river god burst up from the water, its black tentacles thick as tree trunks. It pounced like a squid on a dying fish, yanking the last machine underwater. A second river god surged out. Only its gleaming black hump showed – big as a Viking longboat. Then it sank down - under the jetty.
The wooden pilings and planking shattered like toothpicks. Debris exploded into the air, scattering and tumbling down. Men cried as they dodged planks. A weapons support drone staggered back and crashed, impaled by a piling.
Insurgents cheered: their firing became frenzied. Sand fountained as an RPG slammed into a sandbag position. On the left and right, landing craft reached the jetties and men poured out. They ducked into warehouses and ran down streets.
“FDC, this is Pozetta, Third Company! I need a fire mission stat, direction thirty nine, range – “ he looked up over the sand bags. “Range fifty fucking meters!”
“Third Company, this is FDC. Sorry Sir, all guns committed.”
“What? Fuck that! We’re facing a whole battalion! I need arty support now!”
Burning Eagle Page 29
