Exodus: Empires at War: Book 3: The Rising Storm

by Doug Dandridge

  * * *

  “But we can’t just leave them here,” cried Doctor Jennifer Conway, tears streaming from her eyes. She looked over the line of cryo tubes that contained the bodies of many of her colleagues from the hospital, and many more patients. She looked up at the big armored suit that stood nearby. “The bastards will kill them if we leave them here. If we get them away they can be repaired and revived, most of them.”

  “There are two choices, honey,” said the familiar voice through the suit’s speaker. “You can leave with me and they will die, but you have a chance to live. Or, you can stay here and they will die, and so will you. And I’m not about to let you take that second choice.” The big armored Marine tossed her a coverall. “Put this on, right now,” he said in a commanding voice.

  Jennifer nodded and pulled the coverall on, all the while looking at the cryo tubes, then to the people who were trying to figure out a way to get them away from here. Another glance showed the reason for the consternation of the medical staff. All of the vehicles that were to be used to evacuate these patients, burned out hulks on the parking surface.

  “Doctor Chung. Doctor Abraham. The nurses.” Jennifer couldn’t stop looking at the cylinders as she zipped up the garment, a coverall that would give her some protection against projectiles and light amp weapons. She knew Glen was right, that her staying here would result in her death for no purpose. But to have rescued these people from the shattered hospital, only to leave them to be destroyed by the remorseless enemy. It was almost too much.

  “We need to go, babe,” said the Captain, opening an arm so she could grab onto his suit. “The rest of you need to run,” he called out to the other medical staff. “There is nothing you can do here but die. And we can sure use you for all the other wounded there’s sure to be.”

  Some of the staff nodded, then turned and ran, headed away from the sound of the firing. Others shook their heads and looked at the cryo tubes, making their minds up to stay, not able to abandon the helpless. The sounds of fighting were very close now, explosions, the crack of hyper velocity rounds, the buzz of a particle beam.

  “I’ve done all I can,” said Glen in resignation. He put his arm around his woman and lifted into the air, then flew on just above the ground, heading for the next row of shattered buildings.

  Whistling sounds filled the air, soon drowned out by explosions. Jennifer tried to look back, to see what was happening. Glen placed a big armored mitt in her way.

  “Don’t look, babe,” said the big man, a catch in his voice. “You don’t want to see.”

  Glen landing in a cleared space between the rubble of buildings. An NCO ran up, saluting. “Get the doctor some transportation,” he told the man, looking over at Jennifer. “I’ll join you as soon as I can,” said the Marine Captain, putting an armored hand gently on her shoulder.

  “What are you going to do?” asked Jennifer, looking up at the big Marine who was so important to her.

  “Make the bastards pay,” growled McKinnon, looking down at her, then over at his gathering men.

  Jennifer looked at the company, noting that there were a lot of missing men, realizing what that meant. “Be careful,” she told the Marine, blinking her eyes as tears began to flow again.

  “His Majesty doesn’t pay us to be careful,” said Glen with a chuckle, speaking loudly. “He pays us to kill sentients and break things. And that’s what we’re going to do.” He lowered his head close to Jennifer’s and spoke in a low voice. “That was for public consumption you know. I will be careful, just so I can come back to you.”

  The NCO came bouncing up, pointing to an aircar that sat over by the one semi-intact building in the area. “Good job, Sergeant,” said McKinnon. “I’ll meet you at the rendezvous,” he said to his woman, putting his gauntleted hands on her shoulders. “When you get there stay put.”

  Jennifer nodded her head, then turned and headed for the aircar. She was not surprised to find that it was a military model, with all the safeguards that such craft contained. As she lifted it low into the air she looked back to see the Marines charging around the cover of the building, and the sounds of fighting grew from near the hospital, along with the play of light and explosions that shown over the obscuring rubble. Then, not wanting to see anymore, the doctor took the aircar in a direction that left the city, staying low and letting the vehicle’s ground following sensors carry it just over the surface clutter that used to be a city.

  As soon as the car was clear of the city she opened it up, keeping low, setting the compass to take her where she wanted to go. You come back to me, Captain Glen McKinnon, she thought as the air car flew into the setting sun. Don’t you dare be another heartache. And with that she thought about all the people who had already died, and cried away the time to the sanctuary.

  * * *

  Colonel Samuel Baggett swore again under his breath as he looked at the battlefield map on his HUD. The sun was going down, and darkness was soon to follow, not that it made much difference to modern military forces. They had been fighting in the city since early morning, when the first of the Ca’cadasan troops had come down from orbit. His regiment was one in name only, it was more like an under strength battalion at this point, while the enemy Brigade had gained strength through the day.

  We bled the bastard though, he thought with a small smile on his face. And their friendly fire hurt them badly as well. In fact, he did not remember seeing or hearing of any support from orbit coming down on the city since early afternoon. That could change as soon as we lose our jamming assets, he thought, knowing that the enemy would find and silence most of the electronic warfare platforms by early the next day.

  Now he faced another problem. His units were hanging on by their teeth at the edge of the city, keeping the road open for what civilian evacuees there were. Baggett wasn’t sure what good this did, since most of those people would die in the next couple of days, along with the last of his command. I guess it’s just human to hold on and hope, though I really can’t see much hope in this situation. All we’re accomplishing is making some Caca mothers mourn the passing of their sons. If the Cacas even have mothers. While he was sure they did have some kind of delivery gender in their culture, humans really didn’t know enough about the species to be able to say anything about family structure. All they knew was that the Cacas were bad news, to be avoided at all costs. And that’s kind of hard to do when they come into your backyard.

  So, what do I do about a Caca armored force pinching my flanks, he thought, looking back at that HUD map. The map showed a number of Ca’cadasan tanks, sort of a hybrid between light and medium tanks in the Imperial inventory, striking at his right flank along with an unknown but assumed large number of what he could only call mecha. The visual showed the remainder of his mixed armor company holding out against that onslaught. The two heavy and seven medium tanks were holding their own, destroying an enemy vehicle with each main gun shot. What had once been eight light tanks were now two, their armor and electromag protection no match for the heavier enemy vehicles.

  As he watched another of the mediums went up in an explosion, hit by the guns of three of the enemy tanks and several of the mecha. He had to admit the enemy knew the rule of concentrating fire power, and another light tank died a moment after he had that thought. Two enemy tanks went up in catastrophic blasts, victims of his two heavies and their massive cannon.

  More enemy vehicles appeared in the distance, sending indirect fire into his ground troops as they closed with the armor battle. Baggett watched the battle anxiously, at any minute wanting to order his men to break out of the closing trap. That would be the doom of many of the civilians, those without transport who were trying to get away on foot. If his command was destroyed here it might mean the deaths of many more. The plan was to fight the enemy to the end of the Terraformed area and into the wilderness. That campaign was over before it began if he didn’t do something.

  The Colonel was just about to open his mouth and or
der the retreat when a cluster of green dots entered the screen, flanking the enemy thrust. He switched his view to that part of the field, feeding from the multitude of micro-robot probes in the air, and let out a yell of joy. Medium armor suits were swarming the enemy, cutting down the infantry and hitting the mecha with anti-armor rockets, while heavier weapons took the tanks under fire.

  A series of explosions rocked the enemy concentration, and the Colonel’s HUD showed the tracks of incoming mortars. In seconds the enemy was reeling in shock. In minutes they were swept from the battlefield, the remnants falling back with infantry suits on their tails, hitting them with everything they had.

  “You looked like you could use some help,” came the voice of Lt. Colonel Samantha Thomas, commander of the 4089th Independent Infantry Battalion (Medium).

  “How’d you get here,” said Baggett, boosting with his suit toward her position indicator on the HUD. A trio of troopers fell in with him, his guard detail on the battlefield.

  “Overland, of course,” said the laughing commander. “Hugging the ground and the low areas.”

  “No, I mean how did you know to show up here when I needed you?”

  “Don’t know about that, sir. But the General assigned us to reinforce you, so he might have known something I didn’t.”

  “General Klein is alive?” asked Baggett, surprised. “I thought he was gone.”

  “Headquarters got plastered to Hell and gone,” said the light colonel, stopping for a second to check on an incoming com and sending a command. She looked back at the Colonel. “We knew they would find it and take it out with KE. But the General set up a HQ in the wilderness, and relayed com through mobile platforms. The Cacas keep taking them out, but we always have a new one going soon after.”

  “I haven’t heard from HQ all day,” said Baggett, recalling the one transmission he got mid-morning that was cut off after authentication.

  “You area seems to be getting a lot of attention,” said the other officer, squatting down as if she was a little more conscious of her exposed position. Baggett squatted next to her. “Seems like the Cacas are looking to take Frederick first, while expending enough effort to keep the other areas in check. Don’t know why they aren’t concentrating on the capital.”

  Doesn’t really matter where they concentrate, thought Baggett, turning his HUD feed to the road leading out of the city, a thoroughfare packed with civilians who would be lucky to see tomorrow’s dawn. They have the strength to do pretty much what they want, and unless this is only a local invasion, which I doubt, relief will not be coming soon. We’re just a small colony out here on the frontier, and the Fleet will be concentrating on protecting and retaining the important systems.

  “So what do you want my boys and girls to do, Colonel?” said Samantha Thomas, breaking him out of his gloomy thoughts.

  “So, your battalion is attached to my regiment?”

  “Can’t see us trying to blindly strike out for headquarters,” said the other officer, her tone still upbeat. “And you’re the commander of this region.”

  “And your battalion is bigger than my regiment,” said Baggett, looking down, feeling the guilt of losing so many of his men. And what did you expect, genius? This is real war, not just a police action against the Lasharans. He shook his head, demanding of himself to get back to the here and now. “We’ll keep your battalion intact under your command,” he said, looking out over the battlefield, then at the officer. “I’ll organize my other combat strength into a second battalion, and my rear echelon people into a reserve, for what it’s worth.”

  Baggett shook his head again as he looked down the list of what he had left. At least we have the medium suits. If we were still light infantry I probably wouldn’t have any strength left at all. And the Cacas would have taken this city without bloodying their noses.

  “What about the militia?” asked Thomas after ordering her own people to cease pursuit and go into the defensive. “How many are left on your order of battle.”

  “I think the better question is how many are left that I can depend on,” said the Colonel, frowning. “I had about five thousand of them this morning. There’s maybe five hundred left, but how many died and how many just ran away I can’t tell.”

  “Should I tell my people to look out for deserters?”

  “Don’t bother. The poor saps are probably trying to protect their families.”

  “My people have families too,” said the Light Colonel in an angry tone.

  “You?”

  “My husband and children aren’t on the planet,” said the woman, the angry tone changing to one of sorrow. “They were supposed to be here by next week. I’m glad they aren’t here, but I worry about them being out there in space with this invasion going on.”

  Baggett nodded his head sympathetically. He was divorced, and his wife and children lived on one of the core worlds, which was very well defended. Defended enough? He hoped there would never be an answer to that question.

  “Form up your battalion and take defensive positions a couple of klicks behind my other battalion. I’ll start leapfrogging them back by units through the night and see if we can protect these civilians.”

  “Yes, sir,” said the other officer, rendering a quick salute, then turning away to get her unit organized.

  The fighting went on through the night. If not for suit injected stimulants and the nanites removing wastes from his bloodstream, Baggett was sure he would have passed out sometime before the dawn. But he had protected the retreat, at the cost of a third of his remaining soldiers.

  * * *

  Doctor Jennifer Conway looked down on the road leading away from Frederick to one of the satellite towns, where it would branch off to villages. There were a lot of people on that road, more than she would have thought possible. I thought there were more aircars available. Why are people driving in a traffic jam, or walking. No matter the reason, it was happening, and she was feeling guilty about having a four seat aircar to herself when others were struggling to get away from the killing front that was the Ca’cadasan advance.

  Jennifer looked over at the empty passenger seat, then back again at the people that were moving along the ground, looking through the aircar camera system at their faces in passing. She saw a farm field ahead and made up her mind, pushing the landing order into the car’s control panel. The car glided down and hovered for a moment over the desired spot, then lowered itself to the ground on whirring fans. Jennifer pushed the open canopy button and it slid to the rear. She stood up in the car, intending to yell to the people on the road and get some riders, hopefully a mother and children.

  What she saw from the road startled her, which quickly turned to fright. There were scores of people out there, most of them coming over the field’s fence. There were women and children among them, but the majority were angry or frightened looking men, and most of them were armed. There was everything from clubs to rifles, and some of the men were in militia uniforms. And they were all hurrying toward her car.

  Maybe I should forget this and just get the Hell out of here, she thought. All she had to do was fall back in her seat, hit the canopy close button, and lift off. This was a military aircar, so it should be able to stand up to whatever weapons they had out there. But that would be the coward’s path, and she was determined to save some of those children, no matter what.

  “Stop right there,” she called out in a loud voice, using the tone she used when stating orders in the hospital. Most of the people stopped and looked at her, but a couple of big men kept walking. Jennifer pulled the particle beam pistol from its holster and pushed the activation stud. The pistol whined for a moment, then the load light came on. She pointed the pistol into the air and fired a shot. The angry bee sound cut through the talking and murmuring of the crowd, and even the most belligerent of the men stopped in their tracks.

  “I can take three, maybe four people with me,” she said, looking over the crowd, gun pointed to the sky. “I will tak
e children, and a mother if she has several.”

  “We want that car, woman,” said one of the men, this one with a mag rifle in his hands and a militia helmet on his head. “I am with the government, and I order you to turn that car over to me.” He looked at her and a slight smile moved across his face. “Official business, you know.”

  “Bullshit,” yelled Jennifer, looking the man in the eyes and making him flinch. “I am not giving up my car, and I can’t take all of you to safety. So what will it be? Will a mother with multiple children step forward?”

  A man and a woman were speaking about forty meters from the car, he nodding, she shaking her head. Finally he stepped forward a bit. “Would you take my wife and children with you?”

  Jennifer saw that the woman had three small children, the oldest no more than five. She nodded her head and motioned for the woman to come forward, holding out a hand to stop the man. She felt bad doing that, when they might not see each other again, but was unwilling to let him come within range to take the car from her.

  “I’m Millie Thurgood,” said the woman as she made it to the car.

  “I’m Jennifer. Now get your little ones aboard, quickly now, so I can get us out of here.”

  The woman nodded and started to put the children into the car, placing the oldest in the seat next to Jennifer, taking the rear seat for herself and her younger children. Jennifer was starting to relax when a bullet hit the windshield and ricocheted off. Jennifer ducked down, not sure how the windshield would handle fire. Several more followed before the firing stopped. She looked out the windshield, which was lightly scored in several places, to see two men fighting over the rifle. One was the husband of the mother in the car, and that woman screamed out his name, then put her hands over her face. The man with the rifle shoved the husband back, then shot him with a burst of automatic fire that opened his abdomen with gouts of blood.