Morris’ farm had been in the path of the Viper advance; he hadn’t bothered checking on what they’d done to it. There would be plenty of time for that later.
The truck ride became smoother as they reached the city proper, which had been hardly touched by the battle. A few missiles and beams had made it through and there’d been casualties, of course: over three thousand dead and twice as many injured, but a quick peek through the ubiquitous public cameras on every city corner showed most of New Burbank stood untouched. Lucky bastards.
They spent the last fifteen minutes of the ride through town in companionable silence. Morris almost nodded off, but he was afraid of falling asleep. The dreams had been bad, especially the ones where he was back on top of the burning bus. It was going to be a while before sleep came easy to him, if ever. But there was something he knew would make him feel better.
Finally, the truck stopped and someone banged on the outside, letting them know it was time to get off. The tattered remains of Second Platoon, F Company, Volunteers Regiment, stepped out into the morning light. A small group of cheering civilians waited for him. Friends and family from Davistown. Someone had made a banner: GOD BLESS YOU. WE LOVE YOU.
As soon as Morris was out, a small figure disentangled herself from the neighbors who’d been watching over her and came running towards him. He knelt down just in time for Mariah to barrel into him like a soft, towheaded missile.
“Grampa!”
“Here I am, pumpkin. Here I am.”
It’d been worth it, all of it.
* * *
“Corporal Edison! Front and center!”
Russell froze in mid-stride and suppressed a curse. He’d been headed towards New Burbank’s red-light district, three months’ pay burning a virtual hole in his pocket. Ninety-six hours of liberty beckoned, and he’d already burned two of those visiting Gonzo in the hospital. It’d been rough; Gonzo had taken the news about Nacle very hard. Russell was just beginning to process the loss, and it’d be a good while before the whole thing ran its course. He’d been through it enough times, burying his buddies, and he knew how the aftermath worked, not that it was always the same. His gut feeling was that this one was going to be worse than most. And getting drunk and laid would help; a little bit, but it would help.
He turned around and stood at attention, facing the Navy officer who’d stopped him in his tracks. The female Navy officer. At first he didn’t recognize her. Her face was the same, though, even with the unfamiliar military hairstyle and white officer’s hat. His mouth twisted in a nervous half-smile.
“Congratulations on your promotion,” Lieutenant Commander Deborah Genovisi said. Her smile was anything but nervous; the last time she’d seen that grin, that and her long hair had been all she’d been wearing.
“It ain’t official yet, ma’am,” the soon-to-be-minted non-com said; he’d get his extra stripe when he was back from liberty. It didn’t matter much either way. He’d been a corporal before, and chances were he’d end up busted back to lance coolie soon enough. That was how he rolled. “Pleased to finally learn your name, ma’am.”
“At ease, Corporal. We’re both off-duty.”
“Of course,” he said, forcing himself not to add ‘ma’am’ at the end.
“As you can see, I’ve been reactivated. Looks I may be trying my luck aboard one of those new warp fighters, now that the Navy has decided it wants in on the action. We couldn’t let you Marines have all the fun, could we?”
“I guess not.” Hearing those flying guns that had saved Russell’s bacon were property of the Corps had been a very pleasant surprise. He’d been looking forward to rubbing the fact in the noses of any bubblehead he ran into, from here to eternity. Except the Navy would probably steal the whole thing. It wouldn’t be the first time the Marines got screwed.
“I have quarters not too far away, if you wouldn’t mind a night cap and some company.” Her voice softened. “I think we both could use it.”
Fraternizing with an officer was a bad idea, even one outside his chain of command, but Russell had never been afraid of bad ideas. That was how he rolled. And maybe it was only fair for a Marine to do a little Navy-screwing of his own.
His smile grew wider.
* * *
“That’s the last of them,” Lieutenant Hansen said, highlighting the spots on P-3’s map where the final mop-up operations had just wrapped up. He was still in the casualty list, but he could handle doing the paperwork entailed in the aftermath of the battle. “All alien forces on the planet are accounted for.”
He was mostly right. All major Viper concentrations on Parthenon-Three had been exterminated, but scattered individuals still remained, hiding out in squad-sized groups or even individuals. Hunting down those remnants would take weeks, or the month or so before the aliens’ consumables ran out and they died of natural causes. Vipers could find no nourishment in human friendly worlds, or breathe their atmosphere for that matter. Fromm figured the militia, Guard and Army units tasked for that purpose wouldn’t wait for starvation or asphyxia to do the job, though. They had acquired a taste for Viper blood.
The aliens had come to exterminate humanity, and were quickly learning such behaviors could be easily reciprocated. One would think the fate of the Snakes and the Gremlins would have sufficed to teach that lesson to every Starfarer in the known galaxy.
If the US won the war… The three enemy empires comprised slightly over fifteen percent of all known sophonts in the galaxy. If it was a fight to the death, humanity would be wading in oceans of blood.
Fromm went over the casualty lists one more time. They’d lost a few more people during the march back to friendly lines. An enemy without the option to surrender died hard. Mercy under the circumstances was suicidal, though. It’d still been hard, firing upon helpless enemies who’d exhausted their ammo and were no more dangerous than wild animals.
He shrugged. You could repent and mend your ways later, or your children and grandchildren might, as long as you survived. If he had any tears to shed, they were for the men and women who’d lost their lives stopping the invasion force. His company had been worse than decimated: even after all the wounded were fit to return to duty, he was going to have to rebuild the unit almost from scratch. There would be plenty of manpower available now that full mobilization was underway, but turning those individuals into a fighting force would take a good deal of work.
The 101st MEU and the rest of Expeditionary Strike Group Fourteen would be heading back to New Parris for rest and refit. Fromm didn’t think he would have as much time as he had after the actions at Jasper-Five. His guess was that the US would take the war to the Vipers and Lampreys now that their fleets had been savaged and humanity had a new weapon to make up for its numerical inferiority. Going into the offensive had its own risks, of course. Fromm remembered the field exercise against Viper defense forces, which weren’t comprised of half-sentient clone soldiers but smart, dedicated and well-equipped professionals. Those troops would be defending their homes, and wouldn’t go down easily.
The war would go on.
The thought filled him with dread, intermixed with a sense of eagerness that made him hate himself.
Trade Nexus Eleven, 165 AFC
Guillermo Hamilton was watching the latest news report from a passing American vessel, enjoying it in its full holographic glory, when Heather McClintock all but ran into the office.
“There you are,” he said. “Have you seen the footage from the Battle of Parthenon? It’s…” The look in her face finally sunk in. “What’s wrong?”
She was already transmitting a set of instructions to all the systems in the alleged trading post. Hamilton’s eyes widened in shock when he saw the self-destruct codes flash before his eyes. “The fuck is going on?”
“Hope you had your bug-out bag packed up,” she said. “We’ve got to get out of here in the next hour, or we’re in deep shit.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked after her
while she ran upstairs towards her bedroom. He’d tried to invite himself in there a couple of times and been politely rebuffed. Now, he followed her in. It was much as he expected; the only decoration in sight was a holo of some guy in a Marine officer’s uniform. The 3-D image flickered as Heather threw it into a duffle bag that was mostly packed already. Having a bug-out bag was a standard procedure.
“My criminal contacts paid off again,” Heather told him. “The Boothan Clan owns a handful of security officers in the Nexus. A set of sealed orders came in via courier this morning, addressed to the Vehelian Guard Commandant. One of the corrupt cops hacked into the system and took a gander, just in case it was something important. It was. Paying for it cost me a good bit of coin, but it was more than worth it.”
“So?”
“All humans in TN-11 are to be detained and handed over to the Imperium. The Ovals are waiting for a regiment of Spaceborne Infantry from their sector fleet to arrive before they start rounding us up; they are due in an hour. Figure another hour to deploy and coordinate with local security forces, and then they’ll start picking us up. We need to be off this station before that.”
“Dear God. That means…”
“War. War is what it means. The Ovals are joining the Alliance. Or, at best, they’ve caved to the Alliance’s demands and are just going to step aside and let us get slaughtered. At least they want to keep us alive, for now. They’re following the Imperium’s lead.”
“That’s plenty bad. Are you sure?”
“I hacked into the Nexus’ space traffic control system to look for confirmation. Two Oval planetary assault ships are inbound, ETA sixty-four minutes. Guess how many troops they can carry.”
“A regiment.”
Heather nodded, throwing a couple of additional items into the bag. She removed a handful of beamer power backs from a side compartment and stuffed them into several pockets of her jumpsuit before giving him a sidelong glance. “Better get packing.”
He did. “The official bug-out plan isn’t going to work,” he pointed out while he opened a closet in his bedroom and pulled out his emergency bag. That procedure required at least twenty-four hours’ advance warning, not two.
“I know. Nobody expected the Ovals would switch sides, let alone this suddenly. Luckily, I’m used to improvising on short notice. An American-flagged freighter, the Maffeo Polo, is currently docked on Level Sixteen and is due to leave in fifty minutes.”
“They aren’t going to let us go!” Guillermo protested. His bag was mostly prepacked, out of habit more than anything else, but it lacked a few personal things he had to jam into it in a hurry. From the way Heather was looking at him, he’d better hurry or she’d leave him behind. “They’ll just refuse to clear it for departure.”
“Well, yes,” she said. “My plan is to not give them any choice in the matter. I’ve been on my imp ever since I got the news, working with the US Consul to facilitate our exit strategy.”
Guillermo didn’t know what she was talking about, and he was afraid to ask.
“Don’t worry, Gill. I’ve got this.”
They were on their way out a moment later, not sparing a second glance at their home for most of the past year.
“The Consulate is quietly evacuating and destroying all files,” she went on as they briskly walked down the crowded promenade leading to a transit tube. The colorful gathering of aliens now seemed vaguely threatening to Guillermo. “Consulate personnel will meet you at the Polo’s docking bay. They’ll tell you what to do.” She handed him her bag. “Here, take my stuff with you.”
“Where are you going?”
“Like I said, I need to facilitate our exit strategy.” She grinned at him, and he felt his blood go cold. “I’m off to do some ground-pounding. Not your kind of scene, Guillermo. So be a good boy and hold my fucking bag, willya?”
He nodded stiffly and kept walking towards the lift while she went off deeper into the massive space station.
* * *
One does not simply walk into the Central Control Center of a Vehelian Trade Nexus.
Heather strolled casually past the Nexus Administration Building, noting that security had been increased. Where normally only a couple of bored-looking guards stood by the double set of sliding doors leading into the building, there was a full squad of Emergency Services troopers in light combat armor standing at attention. Vehelians were taller and wider that humans; the guards looked like gigantic death-robots in their faceless helmets and shiny breast plates, holding their weapons at port arms. She’d seen what their lasers carbines could do, and had no desire to be on the receiving end of one of them.
The guards automatically scanned everyone who entered the block of streets containing the station’s administrative offices. Heather’s imp had altered her ID codes; she would show up in their scanners as a member of the Vatyr species, humanoids about the right size and shape for her to pass as one, especially under the bulky outfit she was wearing. The same camouflage system hid her weapons from a casual scan.
The Emergency Service guards might dress like soldiers, but they were cops with mil-spec gear. They weren’t thinking like soldiers. For one, they were still hooked up to the station’s intranet; one of them was actually chatting with his prospective mate while standing at attention and pretending to give a damn. Against real soldiers, what she was about to do would have failed spectacularly. Military comm systems were hardened against intrusion; the police version relied on decent but hardly impervious firewalls, and the CIA electronic warfare devices were top-class, purchased from the Puppies at a ‘best friends forever’ discount. She was about to find out if the Agency had gotten its money’s worth.
Execute, she ordered her imp.
Every ES cop within a three-block radius collapsed limply to the ground, some of them convulsing feebly, the rest still like the dead.
“Go, go, go!” she cried out as she rushed past a couple of twitching forms, beamer in hand. The sensory overload program she’d sent via the Emergency Services command channel wouldn’t kill the Oval security officers, but it would keep them out of the way for at least thirty minutes. Hopefully that would be enough.
The multispecies workers inside scattered from the sight of an armed intruder in their midst. Only one Oval civvie, looking pretty tough despite wearing a plain office tunic, tried to get in her way. A stun blast scrambled his nervous systems and sent him to the ground. Heather vaulted over him and ran deeper into the complex. Behind her, a platoon of Warp Marines was deploying, their weapons and armor similarly hidden from view until she’d given the ‘go’ order. They would make sure she wasn’t disturbed while she finished the task at hand.
She had to stun a couple more people before she made it to the CCC; several people inside the large control center were also down, being connected to the Emergency Services network she’d turned into a weapon. They included the Guard Commandant; his massive form was slumped over a console, an overturned cup of steaming noodle soup he’d been drinking making a mess on his desk. A glance at the screen showed her the updated ETA of the planetary assault ships: thirty-two minutes. This was going to be close.
A chorus of ‘Clears’ answered her status query. The Marines had taken blocking positions on both sides of the avenue facing the building. So far all they’d had to do was wave their guns to scare the civvies away. Frantic calls for help were being sent by hundreds of cybernetic implants, but Heather’s imp had just finished hacking the communications center’s main computer. None of those calls were going to reach anybody.
Once she had secured the comm systems and uploaded a very special piece of Puppy software into the CCC’s computer, she placed a call to the next-highest Emergency Services officer in the base, a Captain Jeek, currently at the military docking level, where he was awaiting to take charge of the incoming Spaceborne Infantry troops. She didn’t give him a chance to speak.
“Listen carefully, Captain. I have taken over the Trade Nexus’ Central Control Cente
r. You will comply with my instructions or I will start shutting off assorted vital systems on select portions of the station. Among my first targets will be the military docking station. Do you understand?”
“You do not dare do this!” the Oval officer blurted. “You would be at war with half of the galaxy!”
“Your polity is in a state of war with the United Stars of America,” she said. “That makes this station a legitimate target.” While she spoke, her imp was downloading the space station’s data records, which among other things confirmed everything her criminal contacts had told her. The Ovals had betrayed the US, the egg-headed bastards. They hadn’t gone so far as to declare war, but were basically rolling over and playing dead for the Tripartite Alliance.
“You cannot do this!” She wasn’t sure if he meant she couldn’t physically do it, but she decided to be literal about it.
By way of response, Heather had all the emergency doors of the military docking level shut closed, sealing Jeek and his bodyguards between two airlocks, one of which she could vent to space with a mental command of her imp.
“Wait!” the good captain shouted. “Wait!”
“Do you understand the situation now, Captain?”
Jeek made an affirmative gesture. The officers’ double row of ridges, the only noticeable facial feature among Ovals, were turning purple with rage. “I understand,” he said.
“You will proceed as follows,” she continued. “All human personnel in the Nexus will leave the station, and your security officers will not hinder their movements in any way. The evacuees will board the starship Maffeo Polo, at which point we will exit into warp space. Under the circumstances, we will have to make a warp transition while in close proximity to your station, which will result in some property damage. I would like to say I am sorry for any needless destruction, but I would be lying if I did.”
The purple ridges were now a deep magenta, and they were throbbing steadily, a clear sign Jeek was suffering from a massive stress-induced headache. She almost felt sorry for him.
No Price Too High (Warp Marine Corps Book 2) Page 30
