We are done here, Givens realized, seconds before a new Sun-Blotter launch was detected. ‘Only’ twenty-five thousand this time.
The cold equations of the fight were obvious. She couldn’t afford the losses the enemy was inflicting, and the exchange ratio would only get worse.
No choice. “Prepare for warp transit. Sixth Fleet will fall back to Parthenon-Three.”
She had expected her ships to launch multiple hit-and-run attacks on the enemy, hammer the Vipers every step of the way and bleed them dry before the two forces arrived at Parthenon-Three. Instead, her ships would have to disengage after inflicting minimal losses, allowing the enemy to effect repairs, reload their magazines and rejoin the battle at a time of their choosing.
Kerensky had warned her about this. She’d thought that dealing with the initial missile barrage would allow her to fight longer and do better than her fellow commander. And she had, but not enough. Not nearly enough.
Retreating this early in the game stuck in her craw, but keeping her command intact was paramount. Last stands made for great drama, but only if there were any survivors to appreciate the stories. As long as Sixth Fleet remained to block the warp-lanes leading deeper into American space, the enemy could be held in the system. In retrospect, she probably should have declined a deep space engagement and kept her ships close to P-3. Effecting a warp retreat while under fire was neither easy nor painless.
Her orders were transmitted and Sixth Fleet prepared for transition before the missile storm could reach it. Their warp shields flickered for a fraction of a second before they could leave ordinary space-time, and that was enough for the Vipers to score several hits. Two destroyers and another cruiser – one of the last Presidential-class vessels still in service – became rapidly-expanding gas and debris before the chaos of warp space swallowed the retreating formation.
Givens’ warp nightmares were always informed by her deepest fear: failure. During the few seconds before she and her ships emerged in orbit around Parthenon-Three, she was regaled with images of the planet burning while the lifeless hulks of Sixth Fleet drifted idly above its skies. Her grandson Omar appeared before her, wordlessly expressing disapproval as he beckoned her to follow him into the dark. She shook her head and willed the waking nightmare to go away.
Had that been just a hallucination, or a vision of things to come? She’d find out soon enough.
Parthenon-Three, 165 AFC
“Come with us, Grampa!” Mar cried out from a passenger window of the ground-effect bus carrying the last load of refugees out of Davistown. Tears were running down her face.
“I can’t,” Morris said. His eyes were burning and his voice came out harsher than he intended. “I’ll see you when it’s over.”
“You won’t. You’ll go to Heaven like Mom and Dad, and I’ll never see you again!”
“Child…” he began to say, but the bus lifted from the ground and the whine of its fans made speech impossible. He waved to his granddaughter as the bus lurched forward, heading to the relative safety of New Burbank.
Very relative safety. If the regional force fields and planetary defense bases went down, Mariah and everyone in New Burbank would burn to death in the glare of Viper city-melters. That would only happen over Morris’ dead body. Which didn’t mean it wouldn’t happen.
Morris watched the line of fleeing vehicles for a few moments before rubbing his eyes and looking around. He was far from the only militiaman saying goodbye; two dozen others were there, about half of his platoon. They were all in uniform; there weren’t enough field long-johns to go around, so his unit made do with locally-fabbed fatigues made of tough fabric but lacking all the sophisticated systems of real uniforms. At least the militia’s combat element had been issued clamshell breast plates and sealed helmets, the kind of stuff the Marines had worn about a hundred years ago, without any exoskeletal reinforcements and only light force fields that would stop shrapnel and a glancing beam but not a direct hit unless you got lucky. Better than nothing, but if it came to a serious firefight they were going to take big losses.
Good thing that the Marines were expected to do most of the fighting.
Morris’ platoon and the entire Forge Valley Volunteer Regiment would be providing support to the 101st MEU, along with the US Army’s 323rd and 331st Brigades and three National Guard regiments. For most of those troops, that meant being in the rear with the gear, doing the work the trigger-pullers needed done so they didn’t run out of power packs or snacks at the worst possible time. If the Volunteers had to fight, it meant the shit had well and truly hit the fan. Morris was still glad he and the rest of his platoon were being issued IW-3s when they reported in, because he expected the shit to hit the fan at some point. Probably sooner than anybody expected.
The troops of Bravo Company were scheduled to assemble at the town’s Green at 1200 hours. It was still early, but Morris headed there. The walk from the bus station to the Green was short; it was a short walk to anywhere in Davistown, given that downtown comprised of a whole four city blocks. Most of the stores and buildings were closed and shuttered; the only men and women he saw out and about were in uniform. The three churches around the Green were also closed. The only establishment still open for business was the Irish pub across from City Hall, and that would only last until the troops headed out and Davistown became a ghost town. The rats at City Hall had left hours ago, of course, except for the mayor and the sheriff, who were both officers in the Volunteers and pretty good people, for rats.
A largish group of militiamen were clustered around the Green, smoking or drinking coffee – or rather, Parthenon chicory, which was close enough for the name as long as you’d never had the real thing. Something in the planet made the real stuff impossible to grow, despite the fact the climate on the plateau should have been ideal for it. Morris had enjoyed Earth coffee during his time in the Corps, but since he couldn’t afford it anymore, he’d grown used to the local version.
“Heya, Gator,” one of the men in combat gear said.
Gator. It’d been a while since he’d heard his old handle. Not since Otis and Ruth had gone and gotten themselves killed, and he hadn’t been able to make it to town to drink with his old buddies.
“How goes, Lemon?” he said.
Boris ‘Lemon’ Nikolic smiled at him from under the raised visor of his helmet. The big guy was another retired leatherneck. He and Morris hadn’t served together but they had exchanged life histories over some fine booze during an American Legion-sponsored shindig, shortly after arriving to Parthenon-Three. They’d both been out on the sharp end: different planets, different wars, but in the end it all came down to killing the sorry bastards trying to kill you. Along with all the other combat vets in town who’d volunteered for militia duty, they’d been assigned to the recon-escort platoon in Bravo Company.
“Fair to middling,” Lemon said. “Sent the kid away?”
Morris nodded. “Should be safe enough at New Burbank.”
“Yeah.” Lemon didn’t sound convinced, but Morris didn’t mind; he was whistling in the dark, and they both knew it.
“Any scuttlebutt?”
“Sixth Fleet is in orbit now; gave the Eets a bloody nose but had to retreat. An old Chief I know – retired, but still plugged into the Chief’s network – tells me our fleet got a pretty bloody nose, too. He heard the Vipers met up with a supply squadron three days after they kicked Sixth Fleet’s ass, and have been fixing their cans, getting ready for round two.”
“They didn’t really kick our ass,” Morris protested. “They lost more ships than we did.”
Nikolic shrugged. “It’s all bubblehead BS to me, Gator, but that’s how Chief Hoover called it. Sixth Fleet should have kept up the pressure on the Vipers rather than running back here. They didn’t because they couldn’t.”
“Yeah. Guess the Chief’s right.” Being outnumbered had rarely been a problem for the Fleet before, except when the odds were completely insane. But now they were outgunned, and that was
n’t good. The orbital and planetary defenses on Parthenon-Three were first-rate, but would they be enough to help Sixth Fleet keep the Vipers out? He didn’t think so.
Urgent FLASH traffic from his imp interrupted his musings. WARP EMERGENCE IMMINENT. ALL MILITARY PERSONNEL REPORT TO THEIR ASSIGNED STATIONS. THIS IS NOT A DRILL.
Morris glanced up at the green-gray skies. It was close to noon, but he thought he saw a few lights blinking up there. Real or imagined, it didn’t matter. For the defenders out in the black, the light show would start soon enough.
“Guess it paid off to be early for the muster,” Lemon said, gesturing at the other militiamen running towards the Green.
Morris shrugged. “We should have a day or two before the Vipers can deploy any ground troops. We won’t be needed before then.”
He wasn’t sure he had another fight left in him, but the aliens weren’t giving him any choice.
* * *
“Drones gonna be doing a spot check in three, people,” Staff Sergeant Dragunov said. “Them camo blankies better be good and tight over everything or I’ll make you sorry your mama didn’t smother you in your crib.”
“I’m already sorry,” Russell muttered to himself. He wasn’t worried, though. His squad knew what they were doing; they’d broken in all the boots even before they left New Parris, so by the time they got into their first firefight on Parthenon-Four everybody knew what was what. Of course, that shindig had been against barbarians with a few Starfarer special ops types. Things were going to be different now.
“Should I go outside to make sure?” Nacle asked.
“Nah, we’re good. Nobody can spot us from overhead.”
They’d spent a good bit of time and effort camouflaging their position. There was an FOB back some ten klicks that was slightly less-well camouflaged on purpose, so when the Vipers came down they’d figure that was where the defensive line was. The idea was to give the Eets a nice surprise when they tried to enter Forge Valley, which as far as the aliens were concerned would soon become the valley of the shadow of death.
The camo nets covering all their prepared positions blocked all kinds of signals, everything from IR and radio to graviton waves. Nothing could get in or out, which meant the foxholes could get mighty hot even with the air conditioners and heat sinks working overtime. But the enemy would end up in a much hotter spot once they made contact.
To keep the camouflaged positions in touch with the rest of the battalion, the combat engineer platoon with the MEU had set a network of laser transmitters which sent out the take of observation points, drones and satellites. Being line-of-sight only, they couldn’t be easily tracked by the enemy. Russell used them to check on the drones checking on them. The little machines were flying over Charlie Company’s position, but all they were detecting was the local flora, a mix of local palm trees and gene-modified spruce oaks, with patches of competing grass species in between. There was no sign of Russell’s squad, or the rest of the company, spread out in a shallow C-formation, covering one third of the mile-wide prairie leading towards Davis’ Gap.
The drones went by without spotting anything. Russell tried to check the situation up in orbit, but higher was keeping a tight lid on news about the space battle raging overhead. At night you got so see all kinds of flashes, which could mean many things, few of them good. When the battle was close enough to be visible from the ground, it meant the enemy was too close. The Vipers had arrived to Parthenon-Three two days ago, and they’d been slugging it out with Sixth Fleet and the local defenses ever since. The fact the ETs were still up there meant the good guys hadn’t won yet. Or were losing, which was another way to put it.
He couldn’t blame the bosses for keeping things quiet. There’d been too many civvies on P-3 to evacuate – barely five million, mostly children, had managed to escape before the Vipers showed up – and if they heard too many bad news they might panic and make things worse. The local authorities had put as many people as they could in uniform, and organized the rest to assist in the defense of the planet, but too many pogues treated their four years of obligatory service as an extra-long round of summer camp, and any lessons they’d learned hadn’t sunk in. The local remfies had even elected a Federalist to the Senate, the kind of shit only the most coddled star systems and shithole states like Vermont ever did. Anybody who didn’t vote the straight Eagle Party ticket believed in a universe that wasn’t full of murderous ETs. Well, they’d learn soon enough.
The visual feed from the drones disappeared, replaced by a FLASH message: LANDINGS IMMINENT. He switched to the observation posts’ visuals and watched a swarm of landing pods coming down from the sky.
Since no living ET species other than humans could launch warp assaults, Starfarers had come up with their own techniques. The Vipers’ way was to send down thousands of pods, aimed at uninhabited areas protected by terrain features. Thousands of missiles were coming down as well, aimed at the closest Planetary Defense Bases and any city near them. The PDBs and other anti-air assets blasted the incoming with lasers, hypervelocity munitions and plasma bursts. A lot of pods were blown away, but the defensive fire had to concentrate on the missiles, because if enough of those hit, some might get through the defense shields and blow up some innocent civvies. ETs didn’t use nukes, but a few dozen plasma warhead impacts would be almost as lethal.
The sky was full of descending contrails, along with scattered bursts of light and smoke as an ADA round hit a target. Somewhere to the rear, the 101st’s own air defense artillery guns got into the game: 12mm lasers swept their assigned sectors with thousands of high-intensity pulses. The targets had force fields, but a few bursts would chew through them. The poor bastards inside a pod hit by one of those would either die quickly if in the direct path of the beam or would get the chance to scream all the way down as the pod’s braking and steering engines died and they plummeted to the surface. Either way, they wouldn’t be a problem.
A lot of pods ended up that way, but not enough. Vipers organized their drops expecting to lose as many as sixty or seventy percent of their troops on their way down. Their assault troopers were a gene-engineered sub-breed of their species, designed to be about as smart as a dog. An assault ship carried millions of embryos aboard, threw away the ones that died in warp transit, and force-grew the others in about eight hours. The vat-grown instant soldiers were ‘educated’ via direct neural cortex downloads and programmed to fight and follow the orders of a portable computer that was about as smart as the systems controlling your typical video game. Russell had played enough games to know that even a dumb system could beat you if it had enough firepower on its side.
The contrails – hundreds of them – descended behind Kacey’s Ridge, a line of tall hills some twenty klicks away from Davis’ Gap. Russell’s imp did the math for him: thirty minutes for the Vipers to come out of their pods, assemble their vehicles – modular designs that used portions of the landing pods for many of their parts – and head out towards the valley, mostly on foot. Figure two hours to make it through the rough terrain. In a hundred and fifty minutes or so, things were going to get downright interesting.
Things were going to get interesting for the ETs a lot sooner, of course.
* * *
Fromm watched the battle’s progress from his command vehicle, forcing himself not to squirm in his seat. The urge to be doing something was still there, but he was learning to control it.
The first salvos from the 101st’s artillery hit the Vipers’ landing zone before most of the surviving pods had landed. Cameras built into the rounds showed several hits before the enemy deployed area force fields and blocked the rest of the incoming. The next barrage consisted of a combination of shield-busters and anti-personnel. That would whittle down the enemy force, but wouldn’t destroy it. The MEU had a full battery of multiple-launch rocket systems, plus an Army artillery brigade with four batteries of slightly antiquated but still fairly good 200mm howitzers. Twenty-eight guns could cover only so much
ground, however, and their mortars and other long-range assets were being held back for the time being.
“They’re estimating a reinforced brigade-size force is assembling behind those hills,” Lieutenant Hansen said as swarms of drones crested the obstacles and died in droves for a few seconds’ worth of visual footage. “About five thousand effectives, not counting casualties.”
“Sounds about right.”
The Vipers had tried to land close to a division’s worth of troops on this sector and they’d lost over half of them in the process. That translated to about three, maybe four thousand combat troops still able to fight out of the estimated five thousand; the Viper ground-assault formations were almost all teeth, with very little in the way of logistical ‘tail.’ And facing them was the Marine Expeditionary Unit, about a thousand combat troops, plus the Army’s arty brigade, and a local militia regiment, two thousand strong but providing only a couple of hundred fighting men, lightly armed and equipped. The artillery would help a lot of course, and the rest of the troops would take care of most the Marines’ non-combat needs, but the fact remained that they’d be outnumbered three to one. The enemy would be short of artillery and combat vehicles, but Viper assault troopers were bred for strength, speed and endurance. They could advance on foot at a steady twenty miles an hour on anything like level terrain, close to thirty on roads. Artillery would slow them down, but their mobile field generators were better than American models, and that would minimize their casualties.
Fromm shrugged. The greater tactical situation, let alone the strategic one, were not his problem. His problem was to ensure that the ambush he’d prepared was carried out as effectively as possible, followed by a retreat under fire towards their next defensive position, where Bravo Company would launch its own ambush. The plan was to lead the Vipers on a merry chase through the valley before throwing them out through a series of counterattacks, or, failing that, stopping them cold at the other end, the point beyond which the enemy could not pass, because that was where PDB-18 guarded the cities of New Burbank and Henderson, with a combined population of three million-plus civilians.
No Price Too High (Warp Marine Corps Book 2) Page 18
