by Mark Wandrey
“Cover Phoenix 1,” Hargrave ordered.
“Belay that,” Jim snapped immediately. “Do not put additional units at risk just to protect me!” He was shivering with fear when he gave the order, but he knew it was the right thing to do. “The planet is under heavy assault, and with Traveler gone, our only hope of surviving this is to get as many of us on the planet as possible. Now, proceed as ordered!” A second later, he watched on the display as the eight dropships split formation.
The pilots did the only thing they could – they took advantage of the debris of their own starship for cover. The cruiser destroyed, the enemy ships who’d destroyed it didn’t waste any more shots on the relatively tiny dropships. Instead they sent drones after them. They were generally robotic, sometimes remotely controlled, had hugely powerful engines with weapons systems and little else, and were notoriously deadly and efficient.
“Hang on down there,” Jane told her troopers secured in the hold, Jim among them. “We’ve got drones incoming.”
The Phoenix ships were capable of many more gravities of thrust than Traveler had been, and Jane didn’t take it easy, either. She pushed the old dropship for everything it was worth. Jim gasped under nine Gs of acceleration. Because of their orientation in the ship’s bay, it was being slammed into his right side. In seconds, he began to see floaters behind his eyelids and he was fighting for every breath. Splunk let out a single incomprehensible squeak of protest.
“Hang...in...there...kid,” he heard Murdock gasp between his own labored breaths. Jim couldn’t respond. He just fought for consciousness. Down in the right thigh of his suit, Splunk struggled against Jim’s flabby leg which was being deformed by the ship’s thrust. He tried to shift off her and was unable to budge his own bulk. Would this ever end?
The Gs fell off, and the ship maneuvered. Jim had a second to think they were out of it when he felt the unmistakable jolt of missiles leaving the dropship’s tubes. They were engaging the drones, and that was bad news. Up in the cockpit, Jane had abandoned any concern she had for injuring her troopers through radical maneuvers. Two of the nimble alien drones were homing in on her. She’d already watched Phoenix 7 die in a ball of expanding gas and debris, just as she’d seen several of the drones go down from her fellows’ missiles. Now it was her turn.
She unleashed ECM pods, filling the space around her with tiny robots that thrust and produced electromagnetic signatures like a dropship. At the same time, she unleashed half of her interceptor missiles, aimed at the attackers to their aft. She spun and slammed the thrust lever forward, telling her gunner to do what he could. They had worked together as a team now for almost a year. It had been a good partnership. He used the turrets mounted on the dropship’s roof and belly to fill the space before them with bursts of laser fire.
One of the drones exploded. She didn’t know if it was from her missiles or her gunner’s lasers. It didn’t matter. A second later a tight-focus particle beam punched through the cockpit and blew her gunner all over the inside. Systems shorted from the energy discharge, and the cockpit decompressed instantly like a cannon, sucking out bits of her friend and anything not tied down. Her flight suit sealed instantly, and she flew on.
She told the computer to fire the turrets automatically as she ranged for the last drone. Her own ECM was making it hard to find. She knew it was close, since the particle weapon didn’t have a lot of range. She took a best guess and let the rest of her missiles fly. A second later, another explosion.
“Eat it, muthafucka!” she screamed in triumph. Then, the drone’s missile, which it had launched a second before being destroyed, hit the Phoenix right behind the cockpit, cutting the dropship in half.
The cable runs cut, the dropship’s engines ran wild, as did its attitude thrusters. Twenty gravities of thrust pushed, twisted, and spun the crippled dropship for three seconds before the forces tore it apart and spilled the troopers into space. It was that insane thrust that had finally knocked Jim out and scattered his squad.
“What’s your status,” Hargrave asked, his signal slightly broken by static.
“Suit’s intact,” Jim said and went down the status list. “Oh fuck, jumpjets are out.” He turned off the radio. “Splunk, can you fix that?”
“Sure, fix...
“Can you get it fixed?” Hargrave asked anxiously.
“I’m on it. What about the rest of my squad?”
“You’re the only one I’ve gotten in contact with.”
“They’re all dead?”
“I don’t think so, or you would be, too. Use your command channel and sweep for them.”
Jim did. Using the suit’s functions he located eight CASPer ident markers varying in range from one to ten miles away.
“I have eight markers,” he reported, “I’m down one.”
“Considering you had your dropship shot out from under you, that’s not bad. Look, none of them are responding, so I think they’re out. Your...extra weight helped you a bit in that situation. You need to take remote control of them, rally to your position before reentry.”
“Reentry? I thought we were a couple hundred thousand miles out.”
“We were, son, but you’ve been out for hours and the pilots were hauling ass toward the planet. If you don’t manage their attitude, you’re all going to be a very pretty lightshow planetside in about an hour.”
Jim checked his radar. Sure enough, the planet was only a few thousand miles away, and coming up fast. He had the computer run the reentry and didn’t like what he saw.
“Splunk, hurry!” An annoyed chirp came from behind the small of his back followed by the sound of electrical snaps and pops. He swallowed and trusted her as he accessed the command link and began gathering the flock. Hargrave must have been right, because none of the troopers overrode his remote orders to their suits. The furthest away took a few minutes to reach him, but inside of five minutes they were all in formation within a hundred yards of each other. He had a minute to check their idents. Murdock was the only one missing. “Fuck,” Jim muttered, feeling sick and angry all at once. His position in the dropship was forward, just behind the cockpit.
The jumpjet controls went from red to yellow, and then to green. He thanked Splunk. She chittered and continued to mess around in the access panel. He hoped she hadn’t decided to fiddle, not at a time like this anyway. He linked all the CASPers to his flight computer, and initiated a reentry program.
“Come on, Splunk,” he said, “finish up, we need to land.”
“Land, good...
“Yes, it is good, but I don’t want to smash you with my butt, so get out of there now.” Without further orders, she closed the panel, and he felt her retreat into the thigh area. Outside, superheated plasma began to streak along the heatshield faring.
“Going to lose you soon,” Hargrave said. “I’m transmitting rally coordinates near the base where we were supposed to land. I don’t know...
“You too,” he said as he watched reentry the program run.
Because of their original speed and angle, they had to burn a lot of their jumpjuice to create a viable reentry angle. Even so, their reentry farings were burning like meteors as they blasted into Chimsa’s upper atmosphere. The suits began to initiate another controlled jumpjet burn, when the alarm light went off on Private Buckley. Jim checked the readout. His suit was out of jump juice. It must have been damaged when the dropship was destroyed.
Jim watched helplessly as the CASPer fell out of formation at far too steep an angle. The reentry faring burned up and flashed away, the suit began to melt from the intense plasma soon after. Buckley’s life sign alarm went off as the suit was breached, and he was cooked alive in less than a second. The suit was consumed shortly thereafter.
“Damn it,” Jim yelled. He wanted to kick, punch, or t
hrow something. “God damn it to hell!” Instead, he was wedged into his suit like a statue, waiting to see if he would be the next to burn alive. The gravities grew quickly as the suit slammed into the planet’s ever-thickening atmosphere. He was entering feet first, and the suit was designed for this sort of stress. The internal harness and structure held his body, and he tolerated it much better than the radical maneuvers of the Traveler.
The G forces topped out and began to decrease as he heard atmosphere screaming over the reentry faring. Another minute passed, and the computer controlling reentry blew the faring, the individual sections arcing away as they were designed, creating extra sensor echoes to confuse ground forces. The computer told him they were five minutes from landing. He was just beginning to get worried when the first of his squad came around.
His radio was filled with frantic calls for updates in seconds. He quickly took control.
“Quiet, everyone!” he barked. They instantly shut up. “The Phoenix was hit, we’ve lost two men from the squad, including 1SG. I’ve made contact with other units and have initiated landing. Call out to verify your condition.” One by one, in proper order, they all confirmed their suits were mostly in good shape. Some minor damage, a few dislodged weapons, but good enough. “Okay men, two minutes! Let’s stick this landing.”
After all that had happened in the short time since their arrival in the Chimsa system, from the destruction of Traveler to having a dropship destroyed around him, Jim found himself surprisingly cool as the ground rushed up at over 200 mph. Splunk chittered a reassuring sound against his leg and he concentrated on the task. At 500 feet above ground he pointed his toes, firing the jumpjets. They roared and burned steadily as the altitude ticked off, fast at first, then slowing. The HALD computer had been programmed with the planet’s gravity and atmospheric density during drop preparation. All he had to do was exert manual control based on the profile.
The ground came up at the precise moment he’d planned. At less than five feet up, Jim cut his jumpjets and fell. He spread his suit’s legs and bent the knees slightly as the suit thumped to the ground in a perfect landing. He’d expected nothing less from himself, and he wore the pin as proof. Jane had lifted a toast to that landing. As he turned his suit around and checked for the rest of his squad, he remembered that she wouldn’t ever hear of his second successful HALD drop. There was little chance she survived her dropship’s destruction.
“Jim,” Hargrave called over the command net, “status update?”
“Eight of us made it down,” he reported to his second in command. “Private Buckley and Murdock didn’t make it.”
“Damn,” he said; “understood.” Jim started getting data on his command. They’d only lost one squad in its entirety when Phoenix 6 was hit. Unlike his own dropship, it caught a direct anti-ship missile hit and was vaporized, troopers and all. Two other troopers had been lost from other squads, so he had a total a total of sixty-six soldiers, himself included. There was no word from the dropships that had carried the APCs, so he took them off the table. With the loss of those APCs, and no resupply from orbit, they were in deep shit.
“What are the conditions of your dropships?”
“We’re all fine,” Hargrave told him. “You’re the only squad forced into a hot drop. The ships are all mostly out of ammo though.”
“Okay, make entry on my coordinates,” Jim ordered, “I’m going to try and contact our client and get an update. That battle in orbit makes me wonder if we just dropped from the frying pan into the fire.”
“Roger that,” Hargrave said and began gathering the flock.
“Chimsa defensive command,” Jim called on the frequency he’d been provided by the client, “Chimsa defensive command, this is Cavalier Actual reporting.”
“This is Chimsa defensive command,” a hissing reply was translated for him, “we are glad you are here. The main facility is under heavy attack. I am sending you coordinates for you to land.”
“Chimsa, we were caught in the space battle. Our ship was destroyed. I’ve lost ten percent of my force as well as my ground support, and we have no air cover.”
“Oh,” the reply came a second later. Clearly the operator had been hoping for more than Jim had to give. “Are you in position to assist, in condition with your contract?”
“We are not defaulting,” Jim assured him, “I am just informing you that we are at reduced capacity. Transmit the details of the attacking force so we can plan your relief.”
“Details coming to you now,” the controller said. Jim watched as his maps began to update with the information. It didn’t look good. Clearly, the space battle was lost. There wouldn’t be any more assistance coming. Jim examined the area they’d landed in. A low scrub forest of orange-tinted trees was a short distance away, as well as a harvesting station with dozens of unusual trucks laden with cut trees.
“Hargrave, let’s talk when you’ve landed.”
* * * * *
Chapter 32
“How long to complete setup on the cannon?” the force commander demanded. The technician looked up from her controls. In the near distance, dozens of robots labored to finish construction of a battery of particle-beam cannons. Huge blast deflection shields of energy-reinforced metallic plates acted as cover, while hundreds of troopers waited next to transports. The city center where the industrial complex was located was only a mile away and in clear view of the cannon’s sights once they were operational. The city’s shields would be no defense for them.
“Another hour,” the technician said and went back to work. The force commander reviewed the work with her multifaceted eyes and clicked in satisfaction. She needed to see about getting her armor ready. The assault would come soon. She was pleased that her mercenary company, Grik-fo-no, was chosen for the mission. The race of MinSha stood to profit in both status and credits from this operation, although working with the Acquirers was not the best way to make a profit. They were far too good at turning situations to their own advantage, often at a major loss to any non-Besquith mercs crazy enough to work for them.
A flight of missiles left the target city and flew toward the MinSha lines. Laser clusters engaged them, shooting down several, and the defensive buttresses absorbed the massive explosions of the rest. No damage was caused to the systems being set up.
“Fools,” the commander said as more missiles flew, “spending their weapons so soon.” She activated her command channel. “Be vigilant, the enemy may be preparing an attack.” All the shiny, multifaceted eyes watched the city for signs of the attack from the front of the city; none watched behind.
Finally, a laborer returning to a landing craft for parts noticed something unusual. Just a mile away, a line of ground transports was moving. She used a pair of vision-enhancing goggles to examine them. There were about ten tracked civilian vehicles. They were moving quickly past the weapons battery construction site and appeared to be carrying loads of equipment. Civilians running from the battle? She considered for another moment, then her supervisor called for the needed parts, and she went back to work.
She arrived with the container of parts to replace those that had been damaged during installation. The supervisor took them and demanded to know why she was so tardy.
“There were civilian vehicles nearby, and I was observing them.” The supervisor looked up from her examining of the parts.
“What civilians? Scouts said that all civilians fled five planetary days ago when the combat began.” The laborer would have blinked in confusion, had she possessed eyelids, instead their species clicked their antennae together. She turned her head to look at the dust billowing into the afternoon sky. She looked back to the supervisor who was already taking the parts to the assembly teams. She stood for a moment, then looked back at the vehicles. They were still almost a half mile away, but they weren’t on the road anymore. They were heading straight toward the construction site. Really fast, too.
The laborer turned toward the construction te
am, searching for the supervisor. Something was seriously wrong. The transports were only a hundred yards away when dozens of jumpjets fired and the Cavaliers flew into the sky on high-arching trajectories.
“Oh, that’s not good,” the laborer said. She ran, all six legs working furiously. The supervisor saw her flash by out of the corner of her eye. As she watched the laborer rush by, the sound of racing motors caught her attention. She looked toward the noises just as the first transport slammed into a dropship a few yards away. Thousands of gallons of liquid hydrogen, fuel for the fire base’s fusion generator, detonated in a titanic fireball, killing the supervisor instantly, along with most of her construction crew.
The laborer knew the combat suits were coming for her. Terrified, she jumped aboard the first vehicle she came to and raced away from the coming catastrophe.
The force commander turned in the direction of the thunderous explosion as the shockwave rolled over her position two hundred yards away. An entire platoon of elite assault troopers was blown into the air, sending them cart-wheeling into other troopers, injuring them all and wrecking much of their equipment.
“What in entropy just happened?” she demanded of her assistants.
“I’m checking, Commander,” her second said as she called for an update over their command network for details. The construction crew didn’t answer; they and their supervisor had been blown into little, chitinous bits.
Another signal came in, and she looked up in surprise. She listened intently as more explosions punctuated the roar of the burning equipment. “Commander!” she finally yelled. “We’re under attack!”
“Where?” the commander demanded.
“Behind us!”
“The explosion wasn’t an accident!” the commander swore. She turned, starting to reorient her defense, just as a squad of CASPers soared into view.
Using the locals’ logging trucks to get in close had worked brilliantly, Jim saw, especially since the elSha had kept the MinSha soldiers’ attention with their constant missile barrage. They hadn’t wanted to spend the missiles as a diversion, but Jim had convinced them the missiles weren’t really good for much else and could be better used to create a diversion.
