The Code

by Doug Dandridge

  “Are you ready?” he asked, sending the code that connected him to his agents.

  “We’re ready, my Lord,” said his Chief of the Secret Police. “On your command.”

  “We need to get you out of here, my Lord,” said the new guard captain that had been sent in to take charge of the security detail. “To your new bunker complex.”

  “Why?” The dictator was thinking of going to his bunker under the palace, someplace he could feel safe in that wasn’t far.

  “Fleet Commander Goran….”

  “Traitor Goran,” roared the dictator, clenching his three fists. “Never us that title with his name again. He is no longer one of my officers.”

  “Traitor Goran, then,” said the guard captain, head bowed. “The traitor knows where your bunker is, and he can give the humans targeting information. The new bunker out in the mountains is a much better alternative. Please, Dictator. We have an air lorry and escorts waiting.”

  The dictator thought about it for a moment. The orders had been given, so he need do nothing else. He might even survive out there in the mountain redoubt.

  “Very well,” said the dictator in a growl. “Take me there.”

  * * *

  “We are here to save our people,” said Goran into the com, looking at a blank screen.

  The other fleet was over a light hour away, and it would take that time for the message to get there, and an equal amount for a reply to get back. He didn’t want to fire on those ships. Those were his people over there. He had trained many of the officers serving aboard those ships. Hells, Kerg was a good friend. They had come up through the ranks together.

  He had thought about sending a warp fighter over to them to get a faster than light signal. That might be seen as an attack, so he had decided to wait them out and hope that no one tried to fire and start a battle.

  “Please respond. I wish for us to join up and head to the planet together, before that madman does something we will both regret.”

  “Do you think he will respond?” asked his chief of staff.

  “I don’t know. What I do know is that I don’t want to blow his fleet out of space.” Goran had no doubt he could do that with his better tech and the human support ships. But he might take some damage in return, and he wanted a strong Gorgansha fleet after the hostilities were over. The Consolidation might need them to help to restore order without depending too much on the humans.

  His ships still had the human tech that had been reduced to dust aboard every other Gorgansha ship in this system. And the wormhole launchers gave him a great advantage, especially as the range fell. The closer the fleets were, the less effective the ship launched missiles would be, while the wormhole launchers could send missiles across a street at point nine five light.

  He waited impatiently for the return message he knew was hours away. He brought up the take from close to the planet. The part of the battle that was really important was around his home world. This was just a diversion, hopefully one that would save lives. If the dictator’s fleet challenged what the humans could bring, they would be reduced to debris floating near the planet.

  “We are starting to launch our troops,” said Admiral Bednarczyk over the com. “The fighters are already working over the surface defenses.”

  “Please be careful, Admiral.”

  “I can’t guarantee there won’t be any collateral damage, Fleet Commander. But we will do our best. Could you send a message to your people over the com. We will broadcast it to your world. Maybe it will help. The fewer people we have to fight, the better.”

  “I will record it immediately,” said Goran, taking one last look at the plot, then gathering his words. He would make a plea to his people. It really didn’t matter how the civilians took it, since they would be laying low and keeping their heads down no matter what. It did matter how those who would defend the dictator took it. If they decided it was not worth spilling their blood for the bastard, even a few, it would be a successful speech.

  * * *

  Wittmore grabbed the chair arms of his seat as the Guadalcanal shook from a laser hit. Damage alarms sounded, while the ship schematic showed one large red area near the bow. A heavy cruiser moved into the way of the beam, taking the damage themselves while protecting the assault ship.

  “Get those troops out of the tubes,” he shouted into the com.

  “We’re queuing them out as fast as we can, sir,” called out one of the officers in charge of getting troops loaded into the means of egress and on their way.

  All of the heavy infantry going out through the forward tubes of the ship were humans and Imperial aliens not of Klassekian origin, those who had been trained and oriented to handle the disorienting effect of a combat launch and jump. That was two battalions aboard the ship. The rest, including a battalion of Klassekians, were aboard the assault shuttles, strapped in and ready to be dropped when the craft got to just above the surface.

  The ship shook again, a different kind of vibration, as the assault carrier fired hundreds of fake capsules and jamming pods that would protect the pods that carried troops and the shuttles. Fighters were also leaving the hangars, moving to run interference for the shuttles. It was bad if a fighter got blown out of the air. It was worse if a shuttle with four crew and thirty troopers died, ruptured suits ejected into the air before their wearers could contribute to the fight.

  Wittmore wished he could drop with his troops. He wanted to, but once he had passed the rank of colonel that option was lost to him. Orders had come down from the Emperor himself that no commanders above the rank of brigadier were to go down to the surface until the battle-space was secure. Instead, he had to sit up here, if not in complete safety, in the relative variety, and watch his people put themselves at risk. Something he hated with his entire heart and soul, but it came with the territory.

  “First Battalion, Seventh Brigade is about to get its boots on the ground,” came the call from one of the officers monitoring the landings.

  “Show me.”

  The general’s vision blurred for a moment, then he was surrounded by a globe view of the battle. It wasn’t coming through his eyes, of course, but through his implant, fed directly into the vision centers of the occipital lobe.

  He was apparently several kilometers above the surface of the world, the outskirts of an enormous city below. Multiple objects were flashing in the air, hit by ground fire, or blowing apart to fill the air with debris. A squadron of fighters banked below, their targets coming apart in flame and debris as lasers, particle beams and missiles hit.

  Wittmore backed away from the visuals, almost more than his mind could handle. The sensor image of the landing took its place, every object showing. Most of the capsules had already blown apart, releasing their soldiers into the air and filling it with sensor reflecting debris. The readouts of the soldiers appeared on the edge of his awareness. Some of them flatlined, the soldiers killed before they could ever enter the battle. Most made it to the ground, their suit grabbers slowing and lowering them at the last moment.

  The platoons started to gather. Not all of them were able to get to their units, instead attaching themselves to what they could find. Those units moved out, in spread formations, tracking and firing on targets. The shuttles homed in on the regions where the spreading companies had already cleared the terrain. With a quick low pass they ejected their cargo, battle suited troops flying out and down. Most wore the forms of humans, though a couple of massive Phlistarans squads deployed as well, and there were Klassekians among them.

  “Form the perimeter,” came a call over the com the general was tapped into.

  “We’re taking fire here. I have people down.”

  “Fire mission. Fire mission,” called out a voice asking for support, whether from fighters or the ships still battling in orbit Wittmore couldn’t tell. Areas in front of the soldiers flashed, fire and debris roared into the air, and a couple of enemy strong-points were blasted out of existence.

&n
bsp; A couple of shuttles came down, these of a different configuration, large bulbous objects on the ventral surface. The objects detached, and one thousand-ton Tyrannosaurs dropped to the ground to slow at the last moment and softly touch down. The pair of tanks moved smoothly toward the front. Beams came in to strike, glancing from their electromag fields or scoring minor hits on armor. One massive beast rocked back, its gun sending a penetrator out at relativistic speeds to collapse a building.

  Within ten minutes the entire brigade was down, the perimeter expanded, and the second brigade of the division was on the way in.

  “How are we doing, General?” asked the fleet admiral.

  “We’re taking some loses, but nowhere near as severe as I feared,” said Wittmore, wiping drops of sweat from his forehead. “The boys and girls are moving toward the palace through the city from four directions. How goes it up there, ma’am?”

  “We still have a fight on our hands,” said Beata over the com. “Mostly hidden positions opening up. We’ve been taking them out quickly, before they do too much damage.”

  Guadalcanal shook once again.

  “So I see,” hissed the general. “I just got hit again.”

  The view switched, the admiral sending over a direct link for him to see. Several bright flashes appeared on the surface of the globe. Not large, until he realized the scale. They looked like one megaton kinetics, striking at targets that had been identified as shore batteries.

  Good job, he thought. They wanted to cause as little collateral damage as possible, especially with so many civilians in the area. They also wanted as many of their own people to survive this fight as possible, and if that meant some collateral, so be it.

  * * *

  Ground Force Commander Krassrasas did not like what he was seeing. The shore batteries were all but gone, and as far as he could tell they had only destroyed one human ship. Maybe some others might have been severely damaged, but not that he could tell. And his efforts to keep the humans from landing soldiers on the planet had been laughably brushed aside. Their fighters had taken down all of his antiaircraft positions, and their soldiers had been taking down his strong-points with regularity and ease.

  By his best estimate he had lost a hundred soldiers for every single one of the enemy that had fallen. His people had been getting hits on the enemy’s suits, but most of the time they didn’t do much. Especially so with the massive six limbed aliens that were their heavy shock troops.

  “We’re ready to go, Commander,” reported his senior armor force commander for the capital city.

  “Hit them hard. I want them rolled up and ejected from the city.”

  “We’ll run over them, my Lord. They don’t have near the number of armored vehicles we have.”

  The ground force commander looked at the other male on the view screen. Numbers could be important. Or they might not mean a thing.

  He watched the take from a drone that was hovering slightly behind his mecha brigade. Over nine hundred of the heavy walkers, each over six meters tall, waited behind the ruble of buildings. All were fully armed, as heavily armored as the Gorgansha engineers could make them, crewed by motivated drivers.

  The commands went out over the net, and the mecha started to move, around the blocking debris and into the open. A few were immediately struck by particle beams, not the lower tech kind the Gorgansha used, but the much more powerful human variety. Not just better tech, but larger than any of his soldiers could carry, thanks to the strength imbued by the humans’ own battle suits. A couple of the mecha went down, a leg melted away or the cockpit penetrated. The rest started to fire, sending hundreds of beams out, trying to hit random targets that disappeared less than a second after they fired.

  “Charge,” yelled the brigade commander, and almost nine hundred right mecha feet stepped off. More went down, some hit by multiple heavy particle beams, others by hyper-velocity missiles of a type the ground force commander would have given his tail for. The mecha sped up, the line starting to arrange itself into layers as some fell behind the others.

  One of the mecha came apart, the cockpit flying into pieces as the central portion converted to plasma. Then another, followed by three more. Whatever had hit them kept on going and blasted into the ruble behind, all the way through and into some intact structures that fell into ruin.

  Their tanks, he thought in a panic as he saw the first of the massive beasts appear, its stealth field falling so it could reinforce its protective bubble. Only three meters tall, it was eight times more massive than any of his mecha. A smaller target profile, with much heavier armor. Beams from the mecha struck, all bouncing from the protective fields. The tanks all fired again, and a half dozen mecha flew into pieces.

  The tanks stood their ground, taking hundreds of hits. Every couple of seconds their main guns spoke, and more mecha died. The drivers didn’t stand a chance. Particle beams of superior power joined the main guns, then lasers, while the infantry continued to add their own fire to the mix. The mecha continued their charge. There was no doubting the courage of the drivers, though more and more were falling very second.

  One of the tanks stopped and sank to one side, one of its grabber units put out. That didn’t stop it from firing, and it hit another mecha a moment later. The brigade was down to less than five hundred machines, it was not looking good, but they still might be able to push through and overrun the enemy.

  A dozen fighters roared through, screeching at Mach ten and releasing their weapons into the mass of mecha. Scores of machines went up in balls of fire, hit by lasers, struck by projectiles, ravaged by the air power of the enemy. Another dozen aircraft rose up behind the enemy and played their weapons over the mecha, and scores more died. It was more than the troopers could take, and the remaining machines, less than a hundred, turned and ran. The battle had turned, it was obvious they weren’t going to accomplish their task, and soldiers now opted for survival.

  Most didn’t make it. The humans continued to pour in fire from the ground and the air. Less than twenty made it to safety. It was now a spent force, no longer of any use in this battle.

  “Are you stopping them?” came the voice of the dictator, just before his holo image sprang into existence.

  “No, my Lord. They are slicing through everything I put in their way as if it doesn’t exist. They will reach the palace in less than a half an hour.”

  “You have my permission to use our heaviest weapons to stop them. You hear me, Ground Force Commander. Everything in the arsenal.”

  “But, that will destroy the city,” said the make in horror. “All the people.”

  “And it will destroy the enemy. A fair exchange. You will do this, or I will have you executed.”

  Better that, better my entire line go with me, than I commit mass murder against our own people. “I hear you, my Lord.”

  The image of the dictator disappeared, and the ground force commander shuddered at the last look the ruler had leveled at him. He turned to his com officer, occupying a station in the bunker near his seat.

  “Get me the human ground force commander. I would speak with him.”

  The officer, who had heard the exchange with the dictator, stayed still for a moment, then gave a head motion of acceptance. He got to work with his equipment.

  “I have him, my Lord. His name is Wittmore, and he has the rank of general in their army.”

  A human appeared on the holo. The ground force commander had a lot of trouble telling the aliens apart, though he could see that this was a male of middle age, sitting in a chair on the bridge of a ship.

  “You wished to speak with me?”

  “I wish to call a cease fire.”

  “Nope,” said the human through the translator. “I like the way things are going, and we’re going to keep on until we have the head of your ruler.”

  “The ruler is not in the city. He is in a bunker in the mountains.”

  “Give me the exact location and we will send some people for him.�
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  “It’s heavily fortified.”

  “So was your planet, and this city. I think we can make our way to him. Don’t you?”

  “Very well. And I am issuing the order for my people to surrender to you immediately. Please, do not kill any more of my people.”

  “Any that still resist will be gunned down. Any that meet us with raised hands, and no weapons, will be taken prisoner and treated well. Understood.”

  “Understood,” said the commander, thinking that anyone that resisted after he issued the surrender order deserved to be burned down. He only hoped they didn’t take many of their more sensible fellows with them.

  “One other thing, General. The dictator has a plan to take as many with him as possible. He has an antimatter reactor on the surface, and I fear he will order it detonated if he is about to be captured.”

  “How large?” asked the human commander, eyes widening.

  “Two or three gigatons if he floods it with the entire store of antimatter.”

  The ground force commander didn’t know how to judge the emotions of humans very well, but from what he could see, he thought he saw revulsion and fear wage war on the human commander’s face.

  “Where is it?”

  “Under this industrial complex,” said the ground force commander, sending the map to the humans over the com. “Thirty kilometers outside the north edge of the city.”

  * * *

  Wittmore pulled up a globe of the world that appeared beside him, zooming in on the huge city. There had to be five or six hundred million Gorganshans in this metropolis, sprawling over a hundred thousand square kilometers. Nothing compared to Capitulum, but still large enough.

  “Do you have the plans? The defenses?”

  “I will send you what I have,” said the Gorgansha ground force commander over the com. “But the dictator didn’t trust anyone outside of the Secret Police and their Chief.”