by John Lumpkin
But as the plane descended, Neil caught a faint whistle at the back of his hearing. Not a normal operating sound. But I guess if the ship thinks it’s okay –
The dropship bounced hard against Kuan Yin’s air, and new alarms sounded.
“Ram’s gone Tango Uniform! We’re going in!”
CSS Qinglong, Sirius
ROUTINE MESSAGE
SECRET
1830Z14OCT2141
FR: SSGT DEAVER, JIRC, FORT BELVOIR
TO: LTJG MERCER, USS APACHE
CC: 1LT SINDORF, DIA
APOLOGIES FOR THE DELAY IN PROCESSING YOUR REQUEST. THE SERIAL NUMBER YOU PROVIDED DENOTES A CHINESE CW-6 130MM SHORT-RANGE SEMI-GUIDED LASER SUPPRESSION ROCKET. THESE ROCKETS ARE USED BY THE MILITARIES OF CHINA AND KOREA.
PRODUCTION: THIS SPECIFIC ROCKET WAS PRODUCED AT PEOPLE’S LIBERATION ARMY MATERIAL FACTORY NUMBER 12, IN HANGZHOU, ZHEJIANG, CHINA.
USE: THE CW-6 IS USED TO SUPPRESS GROUND-BASED TACTICAL HIGH-ENERGY LASER DEFENSES AND ALLOW CONVENTIONAL BALLISTIC, SEMI-GUIDED OR GUIDED WEAPONS TO REACH THEIR TARGETS. IT IS TYPICALLY LAUNCHED FROM VEHICLE-MOUNTED OR TOWED MULTIPLE ROCKET LAUNCHERS.
CAPABILITY: THIS WEAPON MUST BE TUNED BEFORE LAUNCH TO THE FREQUENCY OF THE LASER IT IS ATTEMPTING TO SUPPRESS. IT MAY BE SET TO DEPLOY AT A PREDETERMINED POINT IN ITS FLIGHT PATH OR WHEN IT IS STRUCK BY A LASER OF SUFFICIENT POWER. IT RELEASES A PLUG THAT RAPIDLY DISINTEGRATES INTO A PLUME OF MICROSCALE ATTENNAE WITH SIGNIFICANT LASER-SCATTERING PROPERTIES. IF WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE RIGHT, THIS CLOUD MAY REMAIN SUSPENDED OVER A TARGET AREA FOR SOME TIME; HOWEVER, A LARGE BARRAGE OF THESE ROCKETS IS REQUIRED TO CREATE A CONTINUOUS PLUME AND SUPPRESS MULTIPLE LASERS. IT IS MUCH MORE EFFECTIVE WHEN USED IN CONJUNCTION WITH GUIDED WEAPONS CAPABLE OF DETECTING AND REMAINING WITHIN THE PLUME FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE.
NOTE: THIS PARTICULAR WEAPON WAS PART OF A SUPPLY CACHE RECOVERED BY ALLIED FORCES NEAR PUSAN, KOREA, IN FEBRUARY 2140. FURTHER DETAILS REDACTED – REPLY WITH DESCRIPTION OF NEED-TO-KNOW FOR ADDITIONAL EXPLANATION.
Why would an American Space Force intelligence officer at Kuan Yin inquire about one of the Army’s rockets lost when the Japanese landed near Pusan? Kao Tai thought. She almost ignored it, but, she decided, it was such an obscure and unusual request that it merited further investigation.
Her first line of inquiry was into the Japanese invasion of Korea, which was repulsed at such a cost to the Koreans that the Japanese claims that it was merely an extended raid to degrade Korean capabilities seemed plausible. And the Japanese made off with a good deal of weapons technology after overrunning several supply depots during the attack.
But Mercer’s request wasn’t about the weapon system, it was about a single round of high-tech ordnance. Obviously it had turned up somewhere. On Kuan Yin? No, the Americans hadn’t landed there yet. Entente, Mercer’s last station? Were they trying to supply these to the government on Tecolote? She ran more searches.
And there it is. A cable to Beijing, from China’s ambassador in India, reporting on some false accusation the Indians had dredged up. It’s been fifteen years since we ran weapons to the Punjabis, but the Indians claim to have evidence it is still happening. Did the Americans stumble on a Japanese covert operation, or is something else at work? And are the Indians complicit in the lie, or the unwitting but eager victims of it? She had to consider the possibility that she was receiving disinformation, but to what end? Her conclusion could only damage the American effort.
She notified her Second Bureau superior.
South of Sycamore, Sequoia Continent, Kuan Yin
The dropship had crash-landed well, digging a long furrow through the ragged chaparral. But they were well south of its intended landing zone.
No one was killed, but the craft had struck a boulder as it slowed to a stop. The nose crumpled, and the pilot suffered a broken leg, and the co-pilot had wrenched his back so severely that he could not stand. One of the SEALs gave them both an injection, and they became quiet.
Stay put, one of Grogan’s staff transmitted from orbit. Help is on the way.
Near Hill 2941, Sequoia Continent, Kuan Yin
“Anyone want to guess how long we have?” Rand asked.
“We’re pretty far out,” Patterson replied. “Unless they happened to have some air nearby, fifteen minutes until the first gunships, twenty-five for a rapid-response company.”
“Tell the team to start melting,” he said. Patterson saluted lazily and left.
Rand walked through the command bunker of Stoat unit. His troops had won the battle handily, and a dozen Chinese soldiers had surrendered. Gotta let them go, he thought, pausing at a still-functioning console. The notations on the screen looked somewhat familiar.
“Yo Hal,” Rand said. “Take a look at this.”
Aguirre stepped over. “Looks like one of our orbital tracking consoles back when we ran a laser battery.”
“Yep. See, those tracks look like friendlies descending to bombardment orbits.”
“Right.”
“And this for damn sure wasn’t the only Han Stoat unit on the continent. We did a little damage here, but the fleet doesn’t know what’s about to hit them.”
“Sir, we still don’t have any comms to warn them.”
“I know one thing we can do,” Rand said.
“Sir?”
Rand ran to the bunker’s exit. “Patterson! Leave that missile alone!” I wonder how you say “miss on purpose” in Mandarin.
USS Apache
I ought to fry you, Neil, for leaving without telling me, Jessica thought, looking at the images of the crash site of Ghost 23. She thought she could pick him out among all the people milling around at the crash site.
The sensor chief said, “Sir, Graves is imaging some Han heavy infantry moving toward the crash site. Estimate company strength, with contact with leading platoon imminent. There’s also some air en route.”
“All right, fire mission, Barrett,” Captain Howell said.
“Aye, sir,” Jessica said. “Three minutes to optimum firing angle.”
“Vampire! Vampire!” another sensor tech called. “Missile inbound from the surface.”
“Lasers, Fire Control, get the defenses in-line,” Howell said. “Did they build some silos and no one noticed? Or they get a suborbital up?”
“Negative, sir. Map says it’s coming from an empty area. The missile is pretty small, and … it’s going to miss us and everyone else by quite a distance, sir. This is a new one, sir, some kind of surface-to-orbit missile we haven’t seen before.”
“Why did they only fire one?”
“Can’t say, sir.”
“Sounds like they may have a few quality control issues,” Lieutenant Ortega snickered.
“Signal from the flag,” said the comm officer. “Admiral Cooper orders all ships to cancel bombardment runs and ascend to seven-hundred-kilometer orbits until we can assess the new threat.”
“Captain Howell, Lieutenant Mercer’s down there,” Jessica said. “They’ll be overrun without our help. At least let me take the shot we’re lined up for.”
Howell glared at her, before nodding slowly.
Sorry, Neil. The best I can do. She fired, tasting fear and helplessness together.
South of Sycamore, Sequoia Continent, Kuan Yin
As a red sun rose over the distant mountains, they spread out in the scrub, fearful that clustering around the dropship for cover would leave them easy targets. And sure enough, when the first mortars whistled in, they fell near the stricken craft.
They didn’t have enough rifles to go around, so Neil, Salter, and the engineering and techs hid well back from the loose perimeter the operators and Marines had set up.
Neil felt a brief surge of hope when he heard the thunderous crack of a bombardment laser burning across the sky. But it only happened once.
“Angels flyin’ away,” Lieutenant Costa, the SEAL team leader, transmitted. “Ground reinforcements are en route, but it will be a while. So hunker down
and pray.”
A moment later, a different crack resounded across the llano, and Neil heard a scream.
USS Javier Benavidez y Diaz
“Sergei Pavelovich, I need your help,” Donovan said.
Komarov looked up from his handheld and smiled gently. “Anything within my power, Mister Calvin, you shall have.”
“One of our special operations dropships has been shot down near the Russian area of operations on Sequoia. Everyone on board survived, but they are under attack by Chinese infantry. You have a KDV spetsnatz company near there, but your special operations commander refuses to release them to rescue our troops.”
Komarov blinked. “Those units have orders not to engage any Chinese forces. They are scouting landing areas for our infantry. Pulling them off that task puts both them and our primary forces at risk.”
“Sergei …”
The admiral held up a hand. “I haven’t said no. Tell me, how does a Colonial Affairs apparatchik know so much about our operations?”
Donovan paused. Every instinct, every ounce of training insisted on a particular response, one more strand in the web of lies. If Komarov or some other Russian has taken my picture on the Diaz, and they run it through their border police database …
But lying won’t save the boy.
Donovan said, “I think you know why.”
Komarov pursed his lips. “Ah. In truth, we had speculated, but didn’t know. What sort of secrets did you hope to steal from me?”
“Nothing in particular. My work really begins when we make planetfall. Sergei, we don’t have much time.”
“Tell me, why spend such professional currency over a downed special operations flight? You must know I am compelled tell my superiors about you.”
Donovan paused. Still no reason to lie. “A friend is on that drop.”
Komarov bowed his head slightly. “I am sorry to hear that, my friend. I will talk to Major General Lapidus.” He rose and pushed himself out of the galley, moving through freefall with the grace and ease of someone who has spent most of his life in space.
South of Sycamore, Sequoia Continent, Kuan Yin
Ruth Harkins crashed into the cluster of rocks where Neil and the others were holed up. Her fatigues were splashed with dark red.
“What happened? Are you hit?” Neil said.
“No, it ain’t mine,” she said. “PFC took a hit in the leg. I was carrying him back here when a Han sniper put one in his fucking head. I guess he was aiming for me.”
“How are we doing?”
She shook her head. “It’s bad. SEALs lost two, including Costa, and I’ve lost three Marines. SEALs have the suit legs to run for it, but they won’t unless they run out of people to protect. Start thinking what will happen when we’re overrun. Anyway, I’ve got a spare rifle. Second Lieutenant Salter, you’re welcome to it.”
Salter nodded and left with Harkins. Neil felt a little ashamed at his uselessness, but he wasn’t trained or equipped to go into an infantry battle. Salter was a pilot, but also a Marine, and they still held to their “every Marine a rifleman” credo.
So this is what it feels like to be part of the herd, Neil thought.
He heard the combined roar of several aircraft overhead, and he looked up. Their air is here. Maybe we should run in separate directions, or just …
One of the planes entered his field of vision. It was a small tilt-turbofan ground attack craft.
But it wasn’t Chinese.
“MiG! That’s a MiG!” Neil shouted. A small rocket on one of its wings lit and shot away, leaving a white contrail behind it, and Neil heard a distant boom. The intensity of gunfire picked up for twenty minutes, and then died down.
Harkins came back after that, but Salter wasn’t with her. As soon as she saw Neil, she raised her hand and waved to someone behind her. Two chameleon-suited troopers appeared. The older one, a gaunt, gray-haired senior sergeant, examined Neil’s rank badge and nodded.
“Lieutenant, you are too far south,” he said in thickly accented English. “You stay with us until we can find way to get you to American zone.”
Near Combat Supply Cache Condor, Sequoia Continent, Kuan Yin
It’s a wonder they never found us here, Rand thought as he trudged around the periphery of the abandoned mine. We kept the teams out in the field, rarely let whole squads come back, but if any of their guys had a tag on any one of us, we would have been as dead as everyone back at Falcon.
He shook his head. They have limits, too. And they probably care a lot less about a few guerillas when there’s tens of thousands of invaders in your low orbit.
“Hey, Captain,” said a voice behind him.
Rand jumped in spite of himself.
“Ruiz, you mother –”
“Sorry, sir. They do teach us a few tricks at Bragg.”
“What are you doing out here? Quite a long walk to take a piss.”
Ruiz shook his head. “No, sir. Came to tell you someone’s in your office. And he brought some friends.”
A lieutenant named Silva was waiting at the mine entrance for Rand.
“The general will see you immediately, Captain Castillo,” she said.
The lieutenant led him to his office. Unfamiliar faces – clean, confident faces – lined the hall.
Inside, the general was sitting at the desk … Rand’s desk. He rose. Rand remembered to salute, a touch slow. The man’s return salute was crisp.
“Captain Castillo, I’m glad to meet you at last. I’m Rev Grogan.”
“Sir.”
Lieutenant Silva said, “Brigadier General Grogan is deputy commander for special operations on Kuan Yin and the acting commander of the surviving forces from JTF Sequoia. He’s your commanding officer, Captain Castillo.”
Grogan. Right, the guy on the Vincennes who never talked to us. Our relief! Now we can get out of here. “General, sorry we didn’t tidy up, but you didn’t call ahead.”
The attempted joke made no impact.
“Captain, how many effectives do you have?”
“Sir, ninety-eight, plus four seriously wounded here at Condor. Some of the squads are out on strikes, and we don’t have consistent communications, so that number might be out of date.”
“Yes, the strikes against the enemy surface-to-orbit missile units,” Grogan said. “I’m told you’re responsible for firing that solitary missile into orbit last week. Good work alerting us to those. We know what they look like now, and most of my units are out hunting them.”
“Glad we could help, sir.”
“Until we establish communications between your squads and my troops, we’ll hold off on sending any more of your units out. In fact, I want to you send runners out and recall all of them here.”
Rand was confused. “Recall them here? You want us to move to an evac point as a unit?”
Grogan’s eyes narrowed. “Who said anything about moving to an evac point? Our campaign on Kuan Yin has just begun.”
Oh, no, Rand thought.
Grogan continued, “If you’ve told them they would be going home the moment I showed up, you have misled them and foolishly hurt morale. I can mitigate your error somewhat by upgrading your conditions here in the next few weeks – better food, hot water, that sort of thing.”
“Sir, these people may be the last free soldiers of an entire division that was stationed here two years ago,” Rand said. “Every single one of them has lost more friends than they can count. About half have been wounded at one time or another. They’ve held it together entirely on the basis that relief would be coming someday, and now it’s here. I can talk to them, ask them to volunteer to advise your people on the terrain around here. Hell, I’ll even volunteer myself, but – ”
“That’s enough, Captain. You’ll need to make clear to them that they are still fighting men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces, and their duties have not changed just because we’ve arrived. Nor have yours. As soon as we assemble enough of your personnel here, we’ll start pla
nning a raid against Sycamore.”
Rand said, “No, General, I don’t think I’ll be doing that. My people are done, and you can’t have them. They’re going home.”
Chapter 20
ALBUQUERQUE – Presidential allies in Congress are increasingly referring to the third planet from Alpha Mensae by its former name of “Jefferson,” instead of “Leviticus,” which rebels renamed the planet after declaring independence from the United States two decades ago, according to an analysis by researchers at the University of New Mexico. Micajah Scott, a spokesman for the Levitican interests section in Washington, claimed the statements were deliberate. “This is part of an orchestrated campaign by the Delgado administration to delegitimize the legal authority over the free republic of Leviticus,” he said. White House officials said they were unaware of any such effort.
Sequoia Continent, Kuan Yin
The alpine city of Sycamore has three approaches. The first is down a brutal cliffside road that leads to Sequoia’s western coast and the Port of Sycamore, which sits next to volcano-fed seltzer-water seas that occasionally emit deadly plumes of carbon dioxide, requiring humans to wear a rebreather to survive extended exposure.
The second approach is to the east, over a high bridge, through the town of Runneroak and along a narrow, winding pass; once the mountains flatten out, you are on your way to Cypress, Sequoia’s second city, some 650 kilometers away.
The third is through a wide, sloping valley to the city’s south, which contains the road and rail link to distant Cottonwood. It is by far the easiest approach, and it was here the Americans would focus their attack.
The landing was delayed a week because Admiral Cooper wanted to make sure General Grogan’s special operators had taken out most of the Stoat units. Once she was satisfied, her warships and transports descended to low orbit.
The Marines, of course, were the first to land in any numbers. Drop pods of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Space Assault Brigade fell south of Sycamore, in landing zones that had already been scouted and cleared by the special operations forces. MESABs were built to hit hard and fast; their armored drop pods were equipped to serve as firebases for the landing forces. The Marines pushed outward in many directions; their job was to create large enough spaces for the Army, which was much more capable of a mounting a sustained fight, to land safely.
