by C H Gideon
She hesitated before flashing a lopsided grin. “That would be a fair characterization.”
“Indeed.” He nodded approvingly. “Let’s get these supplies loaded and make our way back to the barn.”
“Sergeant Major,” Podsy called out. “Commander Jenkins confirms receipt of your data packet. He says, ‘The steer’s on the spit’.”
“Thank you, Chief,” Trapper acknowledged. “We’ll be ready to roll in eight minutes,” he said, turning back toward Xi. “Mind if I ride along?”
“Not at all,” she said, feeling an unaccustomed thrill at the request.
Just as he said, eight minutes later, the last of the crates was loaded and the column, now flanked by a quartet of APCs bearing Trapper’s people and some of the more delicate supplies, headed back to the plateau.
“Sergeant Major,” Jenkins greeted as soon as Trapper stepped out of Elvira. “It’s good to have you.”
“Good to be back,” Trapper drawled, projecting the very image of a lifelong warrior and leader of men. He cast a dark, brooding look out at the horizon and snorted. “Never thought I’d set foot here again.”
“You were part of the last engagement here on Durgan’s Folly.” Jenkins nodded, having reviewed Trapper’s file in-depth over the previous half-hour.
“Back then, we were waiting around on the Marines to come in and show us how it was done,” Trapper chuckled. “Truth be told, Pounders ain’t got no business going up against rock-biters line-to-line. But we gave ‘em hell and held our ground long enough for the Marines to come in and do their thing. I was stationed on this very rock, in fact.”
“Really?” Jenkins cocked his head in surprise while gesturing for them to proceed to Roy, where they could have a more meaningful dialog than these unexpected pleasantries.
Trapper fell in beside him, pointing to the southern ridge. “Sandy bastards crested right over there so many times, we started shooting the cliff’s edge with artillery just to give us a better line-of-fire during their approach.” He nodded approvingly as his eyes flicked from one Pounder nest to another. “You put yours a meter or so closer than we did. Good work, it’ll save lives when they come.”
Jenkins disliked the suggestion that the enemy would attack them there, but if they had done it before, there was good reason to expect them to do it again. “Do you have any other recommendations?” Jenkins asked as they approached Roy.
“I might. Who’s in command of your Pounders?”
“Major Piper is the ranking FGF field officer,” Jenkins replied.
“Pete Piper?” Trapper clarified. “Good leader but not much of a thinker, tends to trip over himself. I’ll sit down with him and see what we can hash out.”
“That would be greatly appreciated,” Jenkins agreed as they stepped up Roy’s boarding ramp. Soon they were in Jenkins’ cramped cabin, and after closing the hatch, he asked, “How bad is it up there?”
“Like nothing we’ve ever seen,” Trapper said grimly. “We lost five dreadnoughts in the first hour.”
“What?!” Jenkins felt his whole body go numb. “Fleet’s never lost a single dreadnought before.”
“The rock-biters loaded fireships with limpets and self-propelled kinetic warheads that fired as soon as they were through the gate,” Trapper explained, sitting down in the chair opposite Jenkins. “Three dreadnoughts, the Marcus Aurelius, John Locke, and Thomas Jefferson, went down in the first three minutes. The other two, the Descartes and Zhuge Liang, were badly-damaged but managed to hang on long enough to clean up the first wave. They kept firing until Terra Han sent their SDF to bolster the line, and those boys managed to fight a draw long enough for Sixth Fleet to arrive in force. But you should’ve seen it, Lee…a hundred thousand of our boys, gone like that.” He snapped his fingers emphatically.
“Fireships attacking our dreadnoughts so close to the gates…” Jenkins shook his head in disbelief. “What does the League say?”
Trapper scoffed. “The League? They’ve never cared about the Terran colonies before. Why would you expect them to start now? They’ll probably wait until the dust’s settled and then come riding in with another round of sanctions to threaten us with if we don’t back our ships off the gates even farther than we already have. Hell, I’d be surprised if Sol hasn’t already denounced us for successfully defending ourselves.”
“Sol isn’t that bad,” Jenkins chided.
“If you ask me, they’re worse. We would never abandon Sol like they abandoned us. You know that,” Trapper said passionately.
“I like to think that’s true,” Jenkins allowed, but in recent years, he had seen a more parochial mindset spread throughout the Terran Republic. Anti-Sol sentiment in some colonies, especially those worst-hit by the Arh’Kel wars, like New Australia, had reached dangerous levels. The rhetoric was so bad that some of the minority political parties had adopted the position that Solarian humans were no longer human at all.
Given a few decades of unchecked growth, such rhetoric could well and truly divide the far-flung tribes of humanity on a potentially permanent basis, and as far as Jenkins was concerned, that would only serve hostile alien races like the Arh’Kel.
“You know it’s true,” Trapper said dismissively. “You and I would be the first boots on the ground if Sol ever needed help, to hell with what the politicians or brass said.”
Jenkins sat back in thought. “Do we have any idea how long it might take for Fleet to reinforce us?”
“Honestly? I loaded those cans and hopped a slow-rider over here as soon as it became clear they weren’t going to make good on their commitments to your battalion. The Fleet is trapped at the edge of this system fighting for their lives. Dropping you off here and then turning their backs like that…” He shook his head adamantly. “I couldn’t have lived with myself if I hadn’t done something about it. I’m just sorry I couldn’t bring a few squads of Marines with me. But with the extra ordnance and a few fresh Pounders, we should be able to hold this rock for a few weeks if needed.”
“A couple of days ago, I would have agreed with you,” Jenkins said heavily, sliding a data slate over for Trapper to review. It contained mission logs of the underground engagement, along with portions of what Styles had reported in his latest debriefing regarding potential enemy strength on Durgan’s Folly.
Like the seasoned professional he was, Sergeant Major Tim Trapper scanned the reports with calm stoicism, offering the odd nod of approval while reading through the engagement details. But when he came to the final analysis put forth by Chief Styles, an analysis which suggested there were millions of Arh’Kel on Durgan’s Folly instead of mere tens of thousands, he did a rare double-take.
“Your man’s not crazy, is he?” he asked without tearing his eyes from the slate.
“He’s the best I’ve ever worked with.”
Trapper whistled appreciatively before cracking a wry grin. “Well, that’s what I get for being an upright son-of-a-bitch more concerned with loyalty than covering his own ass. This here—” He tossed the slate onto the desk in disgust. “—is FUBAR.”
“Ordinarily, I’d argue with you.” Jenkins smirked.
Trapper looked up to the shelf where the purple-label whisky bottle sat. “How long has it been?”
“Two thousand, three hundred, and thirty-five days,” Jenkins replied without a second thought.
“Days?” Trapper chuckled. “Son, that word doesn’t mean spit on this hunk of rock.” He suddenly turned serious. “But good for you. I just might have to keep you on that wagon while the rest of us celebrate.”
“And I just might take you up on that,” he replied with a tight smile.
“Well then…” Trapper stood from the chair. “Looks like we’ve got some work to do.”
12
Long Live Rock & Roll
Six hours later, HQ’s seismic alarms went off. The rock-biters were breaching the surface in force.
They had completely surrounded the plateau.
“All crews, report to your mechs,” Jenkins ordered over the battalion-wide priority channel. “I say again, all crews, report to your mechs. This is not a drill. We have enemy inbound.” He switched to the Pounder command channel. “Major Piper, Sergeant Major Trapper, are your people prepared to receive the enemy?”
“Yes, sir,” Piper acknowledged promptly.
“Sar,” Trapper replied, as was his wont. Jenkins had served with Trapper once before, back when Jenkins had been a wide-eyed ensign and Trapper, oddly enough, had been the same rank he was today.
It was comforting having familiar faces on the line with him.
They had drilled this scenario forty-one times since arriving on Durgan’s Folly, and Jenkins had every confidence that his people would successfully repel the enemy.
The only question was how bad the butcher’s bill would be.
He switched back to battalion command. “2nd Platoon,” Jenkins barked, referring to the unit of fast-moving, light-duty scout vehicles that had no hope of surviving direct railgun strikes, “assume reserve posture in support of the ridge-line.”
“Assuming reserve posture, Commander,” acknowledged Koch, commander of that unit.
“4th Platoon,” Jenkins continued, “cover the southern quadrant with artillery fire at established perimeter.”
“Southern quadrant, yes, sir,” replied Captain Murdoch.
“5th Platoon,” he snapped, “cover the northern quadrant.”
“Northern quadrant, aye, sir,” Xi replied promptly and calmly, her tone and composure suggesting she was an officer much older than nineteen.
“3rd Platoon,” Jenkins continued, referring to the down-checked and immobile mechs which still had the ability to engage at long range via artillery, “cover the western quadrant and stand ready to deploy our Vultures. But keep them grounded until we need them. Rock-biter railguns are deadly accurate above ground.”
“3rd Platoon stands ready,” replied Ensign ‘George’ Rodenbaugh, commanding the Generally. He had demonstrated his superior artillery skill in support of Xi when they repelled the flanking attack at the collapsed tunnel, and he’d had been given fire control of the crippled vehicles as a result. If Jenkins had his way, he’d put George in charge of training every gun crew in the battalion.
“1st Platoon,” Jenkins continued as Roy’s systems sprang to life under Chaps’ expert control, “the eastern quadrant is ours.”
Acknowledgments streamed across his screen, and when they had done so, he noted with satisfaction that the Pounders had already manned every gun nest on the plateau’s ridge-line.
As a fortress used in previous campaigns, the ridge of the HQ plateau was piled high with multi-ton boulders, atop which sat precisely-positioned gun nests. The north, west, and southern faces of the granite plateau were nearly vertical, making them difficult, but far from impossible, for Arh’Kel infantry to scale. The faces were lined with a contiguous wall that stood an average of five meters high and was four times as thick at the base.
The eastern face, on the other hand, was gently sloped and presented every bit as tempting a target as slowly swimming fish snapping at bugs.
It was there where the boulder wall was segmented, forming inward-flexing V-shaped fortifications which featured three times as many nests-per-kilometer as the other faces of the plateau. It was there that the Arh’Kel had made their assaults during previous campaigns, and just as Sergeant Major Trapper had noted, Jenkins’ people had done their level best to refine the already-deadly kill-boxes.
Jenkins settled into his command chair and noted no fewer than fifteen separate breach points in the glass-field surrounding the plateau. The enemy had tunneled beneath the surface for days, possibly even weeks, carving new passages to serve the same purpose as the dozens of similar tunnels FGF forces had collapsed decades earlier. In spite of the consistent winds buffeting the glassy plain, those collapsed tunnels stretched forth in all directions from the plateau. To Jenkins, they had served as reminders of battles long-since concluded and warnings of those yet to come.
Battles like the one his people were about to fight.
“Twelve thousand Arh’Kel infantry identified, sir,” Styles reported, but Jenkins knew the number would be at least ten times that many before the dust settled. “Fifteen HWPs have already breached the surface and are converging on our position.”
Jenkins’ tactical plotter showed the encroaching enemy, led by their terrifying infantry which cartwheeled at speeds unattainable by humans. They had surrounded the plateau, but everyone knew that the northern, western, and southern offenses were diversions, feints designed to keep his attention from being entirely focused on the breach-point to the east.
As the enemy drew steadily nearer, they crossed the effective artillery range of fifteen kilometers. But at that range, only three mechs in the battalion—Roy, Elvira, and Generally—were capable of accurately engaging.
So the engagement perimeter had been set at eight kilometers, with fire authorized to a danger-close level of two hundred meters from the plateau’s ridgeline.
Thankfully, 1st Platoon had one long-range-missile mech, Preacher, whose crew had been itching to engage the enemy on their terms.
“Preacher, you are authorized to engage Alpha Package: HWPs designated 6, 7, 9, and 10,” Jenkins ordered.
“Copy that. Engaging 6, 7, 9, and 10,” Falwell, Preacher’s Jock, acknowledged with relish.
Preacher’s left missile mount, containing four cruise missiles capable of engaging vehicle-sized targets at up to a hundred kilometers, rotated toward its first target with an audible whine. The first missile tore loose of its tube, streaking toward the enemy heavy weapons platform as the LRM—the long-range missile—mount rotated toward the second target. Another missile was loosed, and another, and another until the four-missile launcher was empty.
Seconds later, all four missiles struck their targets in near-perfect unison, scrapping all four HWPs and leaving deep craters in the glass-field, each of which was littered with hundreds of rock-biter corpses.
Preacher’s crew worked with professional precision to reload the launcher with fresh ordnance as Falwell reported, “Targets down, sir.”
“Good work.” Jenkins nodded as the tide of rock-biters closed in. “Prepare to engage Bravo Package: HWPs 8, 11, 12, and 13 on my command.”
“Targets verified,” Falwell acknowledged, and thirty seconds later, Preacher’s crew had reloaded the left mount with four fresh missiles.
“Engage,” Jenkins said, and again Preacher’s crew unleashed four perfectly-timed cruise missiles, which left more corpse-strewn gashes in the glassy rock-field.
“Bravo Package down,” Falwell reported as his crews worked to reload Preacher’s right mount.
Railgun fire spat into the rock wall lining the southern ridge. Rubble was blasted loose, spraying deadly shrapnel inward. A dozen Pounders died when their nests were sniped by enemy fire.
“Requesting permission to engage, sir,” Captain Murdoch said over the command line.
“Negative, Flaming Rose,” Jenkins replied tersely. “Hold until the enemy reaches the perimeter.”
A pause, as was usual when dealing with the insufferable Murdoch. “Order received and acknowledged, Commander.”
No one liked holding their fire, but the truth was they simply didn’t have enough artillery shells or short-range missiles to fire at anything less than peak accuracy. If there were as many rock-biters on Durgan’s Folly as now seemed likely, they would need to make every shot count.
At this point, much as he hated to admit it, ammunition was worth more than the men and women who would fire it.
“Preacher,” he said, his resolve firming as he identified a fresh package of targets, “engage Charlie Package: HWPs 1, 3, and 5.”
“Charlie Package: 1, 3, and 5,” Falwell acknowledged with gusto. “Engaging.”
Four missiles tore loose in rapid-succession, and this time instead of four kills, Preacher manage
d to take out five, killing HWP 4 with the same strike that flattened 5.
“Charlie plus one down,” Falwell reported smugly.
Another wave of railgun strikes, this one to the north, slammed into the boulder-pile protecting that part of the ridge-line. Normally, Jenkins would have ordered Elvira II to engage with her LRMs, but the fire control systems in the down-checked Elvira had been destroyed by the danger-close EMP, so she was down to fifteens for long-range engagement.
But with only forty-six remaining LRMs in his arsenal, Jenkins suspected he would have no real trouble finding suitable targets for them as the engagement went on.
On the eastern front, the enemy finally crossed the eight-kilometer line, causing Jenkins to call out, “Hold…hold…hold…”
The enemy were trickling across the line, growing steadily in number as the onrushing horde’s main body surged into the engagement zone. Once the environment was target-rich enough for him, Jenkins gave the eagerly-anticipated order.
“1st Platoon, engage.”
Artillery thundered as eight and fifteen-kilo guns dropped HE rounds on the advancing enemy. The first strike was delivered by Roy, and it sent up a plume of glassy dust with the HE shell shredding thirty Arh’Kel and wounding twice as many more.
Roy’s long guns cycled as fast as they could, sending shell after shell down-range while the rest of 1st Platoon’s did the same. Short-range rockets whooshed from 1st Platoon’s mounts in perfect coordination, with fifty strikes rippling across the advancing line in a span of two seconds. No fewer than two thousand rock-biters were laid low as the short-range rockets cleared a gap nearly two kilometers long in the densely-packed enemy line.
A gap which the rock-biters quickly filled.
A flashing icon to the north drew Jenkins’ attention to that quadrant, where the enemy line was also beginning to encroach. Another handful of railgun strikes pulverized the northern wall, killing three nests full of Pounders and spraying jagged stones across other positions. Some of those stones struck Elvira’s hull, but as the second-most-heavily-armored vehicle in the battalion, she was barely even scratched.
