by David Weber
Someone should have seen it coming, she thought grimly. Sure, they had to send in the equivalent of an entire fleet to pull it off, but the tempo of this war’s done nothing but accelerate from the very beginning. And both sides are getting more desperate as the casualty totals go up. We should have realized that, sooner or later, the Puppies would roll the dice like this. If they can pull it off—establish a sizable Fleet presence this far into our rear—at the very least, it would force us into major redeployments until we could deal with it. That was probably worth risking the loss of their entire force all by itself, and that doesn’t even count taking out Chartres’ population and industrial base.
But at least the system’s defenders had been given enough warning to execute their evacuation plans. Maneka had no way of knowing—and didn’t want to know—how many citizens of those butchered cities had failed to get out in time, but the glowing green icons of scores of huge refugee centers, all of them with at least rudimentary previously prepared defenses, burned in Benjy’s strategic plot. In addition to the fixed defenses, most of them were ringed by the additional icons of planetary militia and the remnants of the detachments of Regulars deployed to the planet. And those defenses appeared to be holding against the aerial bombardment raining down upon them, now that the fleet units which had been providing the Melconian attackers with fire support from orbit had been dispersed. But there was no way any of them could have hoped to hold more than briefly against the terrifying concentration of ground-based firepower the Melconians had managed to land on the planetary surface before the Concordiat relief force arrived.
It was silent on Benjy’s command deck, despite the hypervelocity hurricane howling about the assault pod’s hull as it blazed deeper and deeper into the atmospheric envelope, and Maneka felt her heart sink as she studied the available data.
The planetary reconnaissance system had been largely destroyed, but a few of its satellites still survived, and now that the Thirty-Ninth Battalion had arrived, they had someone to report to once more. It was an advantage of which she knew Colonel Tchaikovsky meant to take full advantage, but very little of what they had reported so far was good.
The Melconian planetary assault had been led by five of their heavy assault brigades, each composed of two armored regiments of thirty mechs each—twelve Heimdall—class light reconnaissance mechs and six of their “fists,” with a total of six Surturs and twelve Fenrises—plus one infantry regiment and an air cavalry regiment, supported by an artillery battalion. That was bad enough, but the initial assault wave had been followed up by two full infantry divisions and at least twelve strategic bombardment regiments, with their long-range missile batteries, and a matching number of space-defense missile sites. They had also deployed at least four additional antiarmor regiments of Loki tank destroyers—each of them basically little more than a single 60-centimeter Hellbore mounted on an unarmored ground—effect or counter—grav lift platform. They were fast and packed a punch which could be dangerous, especially if they could get into a flanking position, but they were relatively easy to kill once they revealed their positions.
That, unfortunately, wasn’t something the Battalion could count on them doing. The Melconian advantage in stealth technology applied to their ground systems, as well as their space-going platforms. Human sensors were better than their Melconian equivalent, which tended to level the playing field somewhat, but Melconian platforms like the Lokis could be extremely difficult for even a Bolo to spot, especially if they’d had a few hours in which to perfect their camouflage.
Still, it appeared from the reconnaissance satellites that the Puppies had opted for more of a brute force approach than sneakiness. Either that, or their campaign plan had accepted from the beginning that a Concordiat relief force was likely to arrive before they could set about the business of properly exterminating the planetary population.
Whatever their reasoning, they had avoided dispersing their forces in smaller concentrations the Thirty-Ninth could have chopped up in detail. Instead, the vast majority of their ground units were concentrated in a single, roughly semicircular defensive perimeter near the southern end of Lorraine, the planet’s single heavily populated continent. The ends of their perimeter’s arc of fortified positions were firmly anchored on the ocean, which provided at least some protection to their backs, and while concentrating their forces that tightly might make them a tempting target, it also allowed them to concentrate all of their defensive firepower. What they had assembled there would have been sufficient to make a battlecruiser squadron think twice about closing in to engage them from space, and it was obvious that despite the relatively short time they’d been in possession of the planet, they’d dug their ground combat elements in deeply.
Maneka’s command couch jolted her suddenly, as the assault pod hit the surface of Chartres.
At least we got down unopposed, she told herself, and felt more quivers as Benjy released the docking latches, threw power to his drivetrain, and ground free of the pod. The Bolo was monitoring Captain Belostenec’s communications channels, and she heard the Marines’ clipped, tersely professional combat chatter as their own vehicles whined out of the pod’s vehicle bays.
Benjy’s starboard infinite repeaters fired suddenly, knocking down an air-breathing Melconian recon drone as it popped up over a nearby line of hills. The drone disintegrated into a flaming, fragment-raining ball before it could possibly have gotten off a contact report, and Benjy’s secondary turrets swung smoothly, rotating back and forth as he waited for additional targets.
Captain Harris and Allen had brought their pod in less than two kilometers to the west of Benjy’s current position, and the remainder of Tannenberg’s assault load was rapidly assembling around them. Tannenberg herself, and all seven of the other transports, had never even approached atmosphere, and they were already streaking directly away from the planet and the ferocious battle raging between Commodore Selkirk’s outnumbered task force and the remaining Melconian warships in the system.
Maneka knew the unarmed, agile transport vessels had no business anywhere near anyone who could shoot at them once their Bolos had been landed. “Drop and scoot” had been standard doctrine for the Brigade’s supporting Transport Command for centuries, after all. But that didn’t prevent a chill sense of abandonment as she watched their transportation racing to get far enough away from the planet to drop into hyper.
Talk about burning your bridges behind you, she thought wryly, as Allen knocked down a second recon drone, and surprised herself with a desert-dry chuckle of amusement.
“All right, people,” Colonel Tchaikovsky’s voice came over the Battalion command net from Unit 28/G-740-GRG. “We’re down, we’re in one piece, and we know where the Dog Boys are. And, unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of time. Commodore Selkirk is still wading into them, but it doesn’t look good for his task force. So we have to break into the Dog Boy position before any of their starships get loose and turn up to start dropping missiles on our heads as we advance. That’s going to limit our tactical options, and we have to assume the Dog Boys will manage to localize us and bring us under fire before we get into attack range. Gregg is loading movement orders to your Bolos now, and General Hardesty’s Marines will conform to our movements.”
Maneka watched the intricate pattern of lines and arrows representing the movement of the Battalion and the four Mark XXVII reconnaissance Bolos of the attached 351st Reconnaissance Company appeared on her secondary plot. The Battalion had dropped well within the Melconians’ theoretical engagement envelope, but the combined destruction of the warships which had been giving them firepower support and the loss of their orbital reconnaissance platforms had at least temporarily blinded the Puppies. No one could hit what they couldn’t see, so until the Melconians could positively locate the Battalion, all their firepower was useless. Which, of course, explained the drones Benjy and Allen had knocked down.
Colonel Tchaikovsky’s Bolo, Gregg, was feeding the Battalio
n’s movement plan simultaneously to the Marines, Maneka knew, and watched the blue icons of the Ninth Division flowing into formation behind the Battalion. Well behind the Battalion. Their infantry carriers and light supporting Whippet tanks, unlike those used by the Melconians, were all counter-grav supported, with a sprint speed of well over five hundred kilometers per hour. They would lie back, far enough to stay clear of the tornado of fire the Battalion could expect to draw as it advanced against the Melconian position.
If the Battalion succeeded in breaking that perimeter, the Ninth would come screaming in behind them, and Maneka had a very clear mental image of what the heavily armed Marine troopers in their individual powered combat armor would do to the Puppies if they could ever get to grips with their more lightly armored infantry adversaries. But unless the Battalion could open a breach for them, any attempt by the Marines to close with the enemy would be suicidal. So if the Battalion failed, instead of racing to exploit success, the Ninth’s troopers would use that same speed to fall back to the Chartres refugee centers where they might at least hope to kill a few more Melconians before the Puppies’ combat mechs ground them into the mud.
“All right, people,” Colonel Everard Tchaikovsky said as the final movement orders were acknowledged by all units. “Gregg estimates ninety-seven minutes to contact with the enemy. Let’s go.”
Green, rolling woodland spread out before Maneka in the panoramic view from Benjy’s forward optical head as the Battalion thundered towards the enemy. At least some of the Puppies’ recon drones had lasted long enough to spot them now, and she felt her hands sweating, the dryness in her mouth, as the first Melconian long-range fire screamed towards them.
She tried not to think about the odds. Sixty Surturs and twice that many Fenrises would have been heavy odds for a battalion of modern Bolos; for the Thirty-Ninth, they were impossible, and every human and Bolo in the Battalion, from the Colonel down, knew it.
“Melconian warships are entering range of the planet,” Benjy announced, and Maneka responded with a jerky nod.
Commodore Selkirk’s task force had paid the price of its gallantry. Not a single one of his ships had survived, but they’d ripped the guts out of the Melconian fleet before they died. None of the Puppy battleships or battlecruisers remained. Neither did any of their heavy cruisers, but nine light cruisers and eleven destroyers had been screaming towards Chartres at maximum for over twelve minutes now. She’d hoped the Battalion would win the race, get to grips with the Puppies’ ground forces before their surviving fleet units could intervene, but the numbers blinked on Benjy’s plot in grim confirmation that they would not.
The missile batteries the Melconians had dug in at the heart of their ground enclave vomited fire, and high-trajectory missiles rained down on the Battalion. More fell like cosmic flails, fired from the approaching warships to support the ground-based systems. Their flight profiles gave the Battalion easy intercept solutions, but they’d never actually been intended to get through in the first place. Their function was solely to saturate the Bolos’ defenses while the real killers broke through at lower altitudes.
“Remote platforms report cruise missiles launching all along the Enemy front,” Benjy’s resonant baritone told her. “Current estimate: approximately four thousand, plus or minus fifteen percent.”
“Understood,” Maneka rasped tautly.
“Colonel Tchaikovsky advises us that Enemy cruisers and destroyers are altering course. On the basis of their new heading and speed, I estimate a probability of 96.72 percent that they will endeavor to enter energy range of the Battalion simultaneous with the arrival of the low-altitude missile attack.”
“You’re just full of good news this afternoon, aren’t you?” she responded, baring her teeth in what might charitably have been called a smile.
“I would not call it ‘good,’” Benjy replied, with one of his electronic chuckles. “On the other hand, the Enemy’s obvious desire to mass all available firepower at the earliest possible moment does offer us some tactical advantages, Maneka.”
“Yeah, sure it does.”
She shook her head.
“I am serious,” the Bolo told her, and she stopped shaking her head and looked up at the internal visual pickup in disbelief.
“Just how does their piling even more firepower on top of us improve our chances of survival?” she demanded.
“I did not say it would enhance our survival probability. I merely observed that it offers us certain tactical advantages—or openings, at least—which we could not generate ourselves,” the Bolo replied, and there was more than simple electronic certitude in its voice. There was experience. The personal experience of his hundred and twenty-six years’ service against the enemies of mankind. “If their warships had opted to remain at extended missile ranges, rather than bringing their energy batteries into play, they would have remained beyond the range of our energy weapons. As it is, however, analysis of their new flight paths indicates they will enter their own energy weapon range of the Battalion 16.53 seconds before the arrival of their ground forces’ cruise missiles.”
Maneka Trevor’s blue eyes widened in understanding, and the Bolo produced another chuckle. This one was cold, without a trace of humor.
“They’re giving us a shot at them before the missiles reach us?” she asked.
“Indeed. They have clearly attempted to coordinate the maneuver carefully, but their timing appears inadequate to their needs. Unless they correct their flight profiles within the next thirty-eight seconds, the Battalion will be able to engage each warship at least once before their cruise missiles execute their terminal maneuvers. If they had been willing to wait until after the initial missile attack before closing, or even to remain permanently beyond Hellbore range, they would eventually have been able to destroy the entire Battalion with missiles alone.”
“Instead of giving us the opportunity to take out their orbital fire support completely!” she finished for him.
“Indeed,” Benjy repeated, and she heard the approval—and pride—in his deep voice. Pride in her she realized. In the student she had become when the Colonel gave her her first Bolo command… and, in so doing, committed her into that Bolo’s care for her true training. That was what put the pride into his voice: the fact that his student had grasped the enormity of the Melconians’ error so quickly.
The plunging thunder of the incoming high-trajectory missiles howled down out of the heavens like the lightning bolts of crazed deities, but the charging behemoths of the Thirty-Ninth Battalion didn’t even slow. Ancient they might be, but they were Bolos. Batteries of ion-bolt infinite repeaters and laser clusters raised their muzzles towards the skies and raved defiance, countermissile cells spat fire, and heaven blazed.
The Battalion raced forward at over eighty kilometers per hour through the thick, virgin forest. Not even their stupendous bulks could remain steady over such terrain at so high a speed, and the shock frame of Maneka’s command couch hammered at her as Benjy shuddered and rolled like some ancient windjammer of Old Earth rounding Cape Horn. But even as his mighty tracks ground sixty-meter tree trunks into crushed chlorophyll, his weapons tracked the incoming missiles with deadly precision. Missile after missile, dozens-scores-of them simultaneously, disappeared in eye-tearing fireballs that dimmed the light of Chartres’ primary into insignificance.
Despite her terror, despite the certainty that the Battalion could not win, Maneka Trevor stared at the imagery on her visual display with a sense of awe. The Melconian missile attack was a hemisphere of flame, a moving bowl above her where nothing existed but fire and destruction and the glaring corona of the wrath of an entire battalion of Bolos.
“Enemy cruise missiles entering our defensive envelope in 21.4 seconds,” Benjy announced calmly even as the display filled with blinding light. “Enemy warships entering engagement range in 4.61 seconds,” he added, and there was as much hunger as satisfaction in his tone.
“Stand by to engage,” Mane
ka said, although both of them knew it was purely a formality.
“Standing by,” Benjy acknowledged, and his main turret trained around in a smooth whine of power, Hellbore elevating.
Maneka’s eyes strayed from the visual display to the tactical plot, and her blood ran cold as she saw the incredibly dense rash of missile icons streaking towards her. The Battalion’s reconnaissance drones were high enough to look down at the terrain-following missiles as they shrieked through the atmosphere, barely fifty meters above the highest terrain obstacles, at five times the speed of sound. The atmospheric shock waves thousands of missiles generated at that velocity were like a giant hammer, smashing everything in their path into splinters, and when they reached the Battalion, it would be even worse. At their speed, even Bolos would have only tiny fractions of a second to engage them, and their defenses were already effectively saturated by the ongoing high-trajectory bombardment.
Between the missile storm and the main body of the Battalion was the 351st Recon’s four Mark XXVIIs. Twenty percent lighter and more agile than the Mark XXVIII, the Invictus Bolos were much more heavily equipped with stealth and ECM, and they had sacrificed the Mark XXVIII’s extensive VLS missile cells in favor of even more active antimissile defenses. It was their job to fight for information, if necessary, and—with their higher speed—to probe ahead of the Battalion for traps and ambushes the enemy might have managed to conceal from the reconnaissance drones. But now their position meant they would take the first brunt of the cruise missiles, unless their sophisticated electronic warfare systems could convince the Puppy missiles’ seekers they were somewhere else.
