He sketched a salute and raced away. Laszlo was left alone in the midst of the near panic infecting the command center at Tharsis Spaceport. He grunted with irritation.
These people don’t know what a real battle is, don’t know how to fight when the chips are down. It takes bravery and guts. Not flying so high they can’t even see what they’re shooting at. They’re corporate soldiers, little more than mercs with no passion for war, and no loyalty. What would I give for just one battalion of Lifers right now?
He focused on the nearest monitor and increased the magnification to view nine gunships move into formation and head for the landing ground. They swooped low, and he nodded his approval as they zoomed across the surface, churning up a rolling dust storm in their wake. He swung around as the flight leader’s voice echoed from the command center speaker.
“Control, this is Eagle Leader. I detect multiple missile launches moving in fast.”
Laszlo nodded to himself as he watched the dots coming closer. They came from the left, while to the right the long shapes of the massive landing ships were already on the surface. As each second passed, more and more Titans deployed, though so far he couldn’t see any vehicles. Instead, they deployed more weapon systems, artillery, and missile batteries. It was an old tech way of fighting a battle, and to his astonishment, it was working.
“All gunships launch countermeasures and get in fast. We won’t last long out here.” His voice rose to a panicked scream, “We’re too close, can’t get lock…taking fire!”
All eyes stared at the screens as streams of gunfire lashed the sky. Motorized gun mounts filled the sky, while missiles raced back and forth through the formation of gunships. The lead craft exploded, and chunks of debris spiraled to the surface. Missiles flared up from the ground, and counter missiles spat out from the incoming craft. Uselessly. Some of them raked the ground with their railguns, but for every limited success, another was shot down until finally the last three staggered back, all trailing black smoke.
It was over in less than a minute. The order to send them in low, in a vain attempt to beat the missiles, had failed. The sky was suddenly empty, save for a pair of anti-aircraft missiles, which for lack of a target were climbing ever higher into the sky.
The officers and corporate executives watched him in stunned silence. No one spoke, but all eyes were fixed on one man. Laszlo. He shrugged. “We have more gunships, many more. Captain, is the next flight in the air?”
He didn’t reply at first. His eyes stared at the Director, like they all did. Finally, he sighed. “They’re still on the ground, Director. Some of the pilots are refusing to launch.”
“Get them up, for Christ’s sake. We need fighting ships, not useless damned ornaments on the tarmac. Get ‘em up or put a bullet in their brains. This is war, dammit!”
“Yes, Sir. What do I tell them? If they fly high, the Titan missiles will destroy them inside of a few seconds. If they fly low, it’ll take longer, maybe a minute. What do you want me to tell them?”
His mouth moved, but no words came out. He regarded the screens, and then the men and women manning the command center. Finally, he stared through the viewports at the vast spaceport outside. Then he swung around, his face was a kaleidoscope of colors, pale and mottled, with all colors in between. His eyes dilated, and men noticed a tremor in the left arm. “Get them in the air. Attack the Titans, and keep attacking them till we win.”
“Yes, Sir, high or low level? Your orders, Sir?”
The eyes flared even wider. “Am I a bloody pilot? Tell them to use whatever tactics are relevant to the situation. And get Alpha Flight up to lead the attack.” He smiled, and a drop of phlegm escaped down his chin, “I want our polar reserves launched. The bombers are exactly what we need. Get them into action, and fast.”
He didn’t move. Men looked at him with nervous expressions. He stared at the Captain. “I gave you an order, Mister. Get on with it!”
“Director, the Titans destroyed them in the first attack. They bombed our positions before landing here. Everything we have left is already engaged.”
He looked from man to man, saw the panic and fear in their faces, and walked quickly toward the door. “Get on with it, all of you. You have a job to do. Now do it! You have your orders. Either we win today, or we face Titan death camps tomorrow.”
He left, and the door hissed closed behind him. After a frozen pause, people scurried to their stations, wondering about their homes and families.
Chapter Twelve
Tharsis Landing Ground, Mars
General Marius Hartmann shook his head in astonishment as he watched the battle rage on a bank of monitors. The last time there had been such a fight it had been his people, the legions of Earth soldiers spearheaded by the Lifer platoons. This time it was the turn of the dreaded Titans. Their ships continued to wait in the sky, orbiting the planet like carrion birds waiting for their next meal. Black, massive, and seemingly impregnable landing shuttles dropped through the thin atmosphere and toward Tharsis, the richest and most critical inhabited location on Mars. They came in fast, ignoring the defensive fire of the remaining Martian fighters and gunships, hitting the ground to deposit yet more soldiers. It was a brutal invasion, and with every passing minute the numbers grew by the hundreds.
Why did we not see this coming?
Hartmann had ordered his MPs into action with the RedCorp ground assault troops and any of the corporate militias he could muster. Now a single soldier attended him. Master Sergeant Diego Guzman, a few meters away, looking at another part of the surface. Several kilometers from the spaceport, a ground battle raged. Black armored Titan assault troops marched in lockstep, grim, unstoppable, and sweeping all before them.
“Jesus Christ!” he blurted, “General, do you see this?”
Hartmann joined him and regarded the confused images on the screens, Titans, hundreds of them, as many as a thousand. They faced twice as many defenders, mainly RedCorp troopers, with units from other corporations bolstering their ranks. The red-suited troops had formed a strong, defensive position, with their carriers dug in, hull down. They fired long bursts at the black ranks as they moved from the landing grounds toward the spaceport buildings, and the invaders were suffering a heavy toll. Guzman wore a triumphant expression.
“They’re gonna kick ass, General. Look at ‘em. They’re cutting the enemy to pieces. The silly bastards are not even shooting back.”
Hartmann didn’t reply. His experienced eyes told him a different story. The Martians were giving the Titans hell, no question. But the storm of fire wasn’t slowing them, and still on they came like a juggernaut. More fell, swamped by the massive incoming fire, but not enough. He estimated they’d sustained around fifty casualties. Many were merely wounded and would fight again, but hundreds more marched into the maelstrom. It was like a dam had burst, and the torrent poured through the gap. Their grim, slow pace at last accelerated, and now they moved at a jog. No Martian could have run at that speed, not when burdened by such massive armor and heavy weapons. Nonetheless, they jogged as though they were an army of Lifers. The black tide of armor kept on coming until they were just a hundred meters from the dug-in and confident Martians. A second later, they opened fire, and the cyclic rotary cannons spoke.
Martians fired back, matching shot for shot, and their numerical advantage should have made all the difference. It didn’t. For every shot fired by a RedCorp soldier, ten came back, slamming into the defenses, destroying vehicles, and wiping out soldiers. The incoming fire increased as the black troopers neared their lines, and Hartmann saw the first signs of a rout. Troops began to detach from the rear of the red lines, and they stumbled back toward their armored carriers. More joined them, and the line shivered, bent, and ruptured. A huge gap opened, and the black enemy, sensing the end, picked up the pace. One platoon turned to run and was gunned down from behind. More broke away, and then unit-by-unit soldiers ran for their lives. The hitherto invincible Martians had faced their
greatest military challenge and were found wanting. They fell back in disarray, running.
“Bastards.”
He gazed at Guzman. “They didn’t have a choice, Master Sergeant. How can they stand up against soldiers like that? If they didn’t run, they’d all be dead. I guess it’s up to the gunships now, assuming any are left.”
A shattering explosion blotted out the scene. Smoke and dust rose in the air, and for several seconds, they thought the camera feed had died. The smoke cleared. The Titans had exploded an airburst weapon over the battlefield. Scores of Martian bodies lay strewn over the ground, their red biosuits reduced to ruined tatters. There were no black-suited bodies. Their heavy armor had protected them from the devastating explosion, and they continued chasing down the fleeing Martians.
“God help them all,” Hartmann repeated, “If the gunships don’t hit them hard enough, they’re in danger of losing. Where are the gunships?”
Guzman stared at him, his face creased with worry. “But, General, this Martian technology is invincible. You told me they had the finest military equipment in the Solar System, that this planet was impregnable. Now it’s all falling apart. What do we do…Sir? How will we get home?”
Hartmann noted the rising panic, and he had no answer for his loyal henchman. Save one. “Master Sergeant, we do what we came here to do.”
“Sir?”
“We find Lieutenant Noah Cage. And then we kill him. At least we can do one thing right before this all turns to hell.”
As if to emphasize the danger, the emergency storm klaxons activated. They rarely came on, except during times of extreme danger, like when the planet was about to explode from a colossal meteor strike. Just hearing the sound would send the settlements and cities into panic and flight.
Now it falls apart.
* * *
It was a high point above the RedCorp Research Center, and Cage increased the magnification of the lenses to observe the opposing armies. The failed battle reminded him of his last moments with Recon II, the strike on his men, their deaths, and the death of his best friend and second-in-command, Rob Romero. After that, the long years of torture and imprisonment, and he now knew his own side had orchestrated everything. General Hartmann and his son Joshua were the architects. All in the name of profit and betrayal. Joshua Hartmann was dead and beyond punishment, his only saving grace that he’d kept Cage alive on Mars against the demands of his father. Cage didn’t quite see that being a major redeeming feature, but had to admit, it was nice to be alive, even in the pain he now found himself in. Somehow, he had to finish the task that began all those years ago, to find justice for his men. That was what mattered. Just like for the rebels, after their years of suffering. Justice.
Even though the evidence had gone, the wreckage of their destroyed vehicle disappeared, vanished over the years. No evidence of the bodies, not even pockmarks in the rock where gunfire had chewed it up. Just dust and rock, scoured smooth by the nightmare storms characteristic of Mars. Yet it was coming, after the passing years, the souls of the dead still cried out, for justice.
He watched the advancing soldiers from Titan still several kilometers away, and then saw RedCorp make its final throw of the dice; a new, overwhelming ground assault, with masses of skiffs, PDX carriers, and air cover by the remaining Ares gunships. Scores of vehicles raced across the surface, hurtling into action to blunt the enemy attack. Aircraft zoomed overhead, and this time, it wasn’t just gunships. The Martians had thrown everything that could fly into the air. It was a bold counterattack, but deep down he knew it wasn’t enough.
Jamison tapped him on the shoulder and grinned. “They can kick the crap out of each other for as long as they like. Less for us to deal with afterward.”
He nodded. “Roger that.” A movement at his side diverted his attention, but it was Rose, emerging from cover to survey the landscape. She dropped next to him.
“What do you think? Can you make any sense of this?”
He increased the magnification again and watched the unfolding fight. The Martians were already in trouble. Their mass attack had taken the Titans by surprise, but the invaders rallied fast.
“They thought they were invincible, but the Titans are kicking their asses. Christ, it’s like they’re trying to stop an avalanche.”
He spotted a renewed series of flashes along the front lines as both sides unleashed rockets and gunfire at close-range. A group of rebels edged away from the fighting and were ignored by the RedCorp soldiers, even though they passed close by. Then a unit of Titans spotted them and gunned the rebels down in a brutal onslaught of mass fire.
Rose gasped as she saw so many go down. “They’re mowing down anything that moves. We can’t let them win.”
The odds were grim, their numbers seemingly inexhaustible. For every black-suited figure that fell, five or ten more took their place, relentless, all-powerful, and impossible to oppose. A new barrage of missiles flared out from the Titan side, and then the railguns spoke with their terrible power. High in the sky an aerial ballet continued as fighters, gunships, and drones battled for dominance. Occasionally, one would explode, or fall down and strike the ground; some even smashed into the domes on the outskirts of the city, killing hundreds sheltering inside.
The high-energy projectiles slashed through both armies, and it was obvious the conquest was unequal. For too long, the Martians had been comfortable in their assumed superiority over every other colony, a big mistake. Titan was just one of the sixty-two moons that orbited Saturn, a mere pinprick in the Solar System. But they’d clearly grown powerful beyond belief, and with a fierce, homicidal motivation. Their technology was not particularly sophisticated, but their people were the stuff of nightmares. For every Titan trooper that fell, ten or more Martians bit the dust as they broke and fled the violence. This wasn’t a fight of firepower or technology; it was a battle of willpower. Ships exploded, and others cartwheeled to the surface, blasted from the sky by the undreamed of power of the missiles. Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, the Martian units eased back. Cage didn’t need to know more. They’d lost.
The Titans can’t be stopped, can they?
He glanced at Rose. “Can’t let them win? I don’t know. It’s all up to Colonel Travers. If he can’t activate those Janissaries, we’re done. They’ll reach the spaceport soon, and we won’t even be able to get off the planet.”
“You think they’ll take us prisoner, and we’ll become slave labor.”
“Who knows their plans?” he murmured, even though he knew the answer, “All we know about them is they have a burning hunger for victory, and they might just get it.”
“Dear God.”
He smiled at the absurdity of it all, first the Martians, and now the Titans. “I don’t know who would be worse. RedCorp and their corporate allies trying to murder the rebels, or the Titans and their domination of every living thing on the planet.”
Rose shook her head, but said nothing.
“We’d best get below. Travers is working in the fabrication plant, and he’s our last hope. Without the Janissaries, we don’t stand a chance.”
He knew that beneath the ground, Travers was working feverishly to activate the programming on the cybernetic organisms he’d created. One hundred super-powerful humanoid creatures capable of enduring the worst anyone could throw at them. And that included the Titans. As they climbed down through the tunnels that threaded through to the fabrication plant, he thought about what he’d seen.
The Titans show no fear, and their strength is prodigious. The same could be said of the cybernetic organisms we hope to throw against them, although the enemy possesses fleets of gunships and formidable anti-aircraft batteries. It’s going to be close, too close.
If the cybernetic soldiers could fly gunships, their astonishing reactions and lightning fast tactical perception could make the difference, but they couldn’t fly gunships. Physically and mechanically complete, there were programming problems still to resolve befo
re they could operate and fly the complex craft; which meant they had to rely on the ground assault succeeding in one massive blow.
They entered the laboratory through the airlock door and removed their helmets. Travers was working feverishly at the workstation, his hands flying over the keyboard, while simultaneously he rattled out commands to the speech recognition microphone. He turned as he saw them enter, and his expression was grim.
“It can’t be done, Cage. I can’t even complete the programming for a single Janissary. I need time, lots of time. Rob was the prototype, and it will take months to adapt his data to prepare the others. They are dumb drones, without intelligence or the ability to solve problems.”
“Time we don’t have, Colonel. You have to find a way.”
He frowned, and his eyes were tired. He’d been working at full speed and without any sleep, and it showed. “I know that. There is Rob, of course. His programming was completed, after a fashion. And he can act and think independently. So far, he’s all we have.”
He stared at Travers. “Rob functions, I know that, but what problems are left to resolve?” He had an idea, and a lot depended on the answer.
The Colonel pursed his lips. “Well, there is a question mark about his programming. You’ve noticed what appears to be his attachment to Rose. I can’t account for it.”
“Yeah, I noticed. She’s convinced there’s something of her late husband inside that creature’s head. Is it possible?”
He waved his hand around the laboratory at the one hundred still and silent humanoid figures standing there, like the Chinese Terracotta Warriors. Watching, immobile, frozen for all time. Then he looked at Rob, and the creature appeared to stare back at him for long seconds. Travers shook his head.
“He could go rogue at any time. It may be there is some residual brain matter inside his head that belonged to her husband, although the brain was wiped. That’s how the program works. Essentially, each of them begins with a clean slate.” He smiled, “No bad memories.”
Last Life (Lifers Book 1) Page 30
