Vorpal Blade (ARC)

by John Ringo

  "Different needs, sir," Commander Weaver said.

  "Yes, we do," the CO said. "But by putting it in the mountain, it will do less damage. Less, not none."

  "I see," the queen said, nodding. "The Demons will wipe us out entirely. Do it."

  "Yes, ma'am," the CO said. "We also need three or four more boards. We're going to drop all our remaining Marines from up here."

  "You have them," the queen said. "I will lead this force."

  "No you will not," General Chuk-tuk said. "You will remain safe on this ship. I am your war-leader. I can be lost. You cannot. Your Daughter is still a Breeder—"

  "I am your queen—"

  "Ma'am," Weaver cut in. "The general's right, you're not. Don't go gettin' your fur in a fluff. And, General, with all due respect, I think you should send Lady Che-chee. She's younger, fitter and less important than you while still being of high enough station that you have participation."

  "Are you sure you want me to translate that?" Miriam said.

  "What did he say?" the queen squeaked imperiously.

  "You won't like it," Miriam said, then translated.

  The queen flicked her ears indignantly as General Chuk-tuk smoothed her whiskers in satisfaction, then squeaked in laughter when the general's nose went back in a snarl.

  "Yes," the queen said, still squeaking in laughter. "The commander has it. Lady Che-chee, do you accept this quest?"

  "With delight, Your Majesty," the Lady said. "But we must make haste. The Demons seem to have retreated for now, but they will be back."

  "Agreed," the CO said. "My Marines are suiting up now. Commander Weaver, defer most tactical decisions to Captain MacDonald. I hope we all agree that the ground commander is Commander Weaver?"

  "Agreed," Lady Che-chee said. "Your Majesty, could I take a contingent of guards?"

  "Ten," General Chuk-tuk said. "No more."

  "Problem," Miriam said. "I can't be in two places at once. None of the Cheerick, that I'm aware of, speak English. Someone is going to have to translate on the boat and someone is going to have to translate on the ground."

  "We try Ekish," the queen squeaked. "Ko fit."

  "Miss Moon is not a fighter," Commander Weaver pointed out.

  "Is fit," the queen squeaked. "Ko."

  "Miss Moon?" the CO asked.

  "I think I have to go with the ground force," Miriam said, standing up. "I'll meet you in ten minutes in the Wyvern bay."

  "I think she's going to go panic," Miller said as she left the room.

  "I think I'm going to panic," Weaver said.

  33

  We Got Bandits!

  "Keep the links straight!" Berg said. "If there's a kink, the gun will jam."

  "Got it," Sub Dude said, straightening out the chain of rounds. "Have fun."

  "This is not my definition of fun," Berg said, resetting his gun controls. On the last test they had been running about a degree off parallax. Most of this was probably going to be short-ranged, but . . .

  "Holy maulk," Hatt said quietly.

  "What?" Berg said, looking around. His eyes went wide, though, at the sight.

  It was hard to describe, even to himself, but Miss Moon had changed. Something in the walk, the face. Subtle but impossible to miss. She strode across the compartment, ignoring the looks and the sudden cessation of movement and walked up to Berg.

  "Two-Gun," she said, looking up at the towering PFC. "My Wyvern needs a gun. And I need someone to carry it."

  "Yes, ma'am," Berg said, popping to attention. All the "mission specialists" rated officer rank, but nobody really treated them that way. Until now. "I'll be right back."

  When he got back, Marines were falling all over themselves to ready the linguist's Wyvern. Two were loading ammo, another was checking the traversing mechanism, a fourth was doing a check of the circuitry. Miriam was standing watching the activity with her hands behind her back.

  Berg mounted the Gatling, nodded at her, then returned to his own system.

  He hadn't noticed Lurch follow him back from the armory but as he started to enter his Wyvern, the armorer walked up with two pistols in his hands.

  "You forgot your real guns, Two-Gun," Lurch said, holding them out.

  "Gatlings have done it so far, Lyle," Berg said.

  "Take the guns, Two-Gun," Top said, walking up. "I'll mount them."

  "If you say so, First Sergeant," Berg said, getting out. "I'll mount them. Lyle, I need my reloads."

  * * *

  "We've done some dumbass things in our time, buddy," Miller said, settling his Gatling in position. "But this about takes the cake."

  "I dunno," Weaver said. "I sort of thought almost blowing Earth off the map was worse than this."

  "I said dumbass," Miller replied, checking the traverse mechanism and running the feed into place.

  "It's not that bad," Weaver said. "They're not attacking right now. The tunnel could be clear. Besides, Runner found an entrance not far from the mountain. Couple of hundred meters and we're in."

  "These things tunnel like there's no tomorrow," Miller pointed out. "Which means they're going to be coming out of the walls."

  "You're such a pessimist," Bill said, grinning and pulling himself into his Wyvern. "What, you want to live forever?"

  "Absolutely," Adams said, lifting himself into place. "Got a problem with that?"

  "No," Weaver admitted. "But I also know how much you love derring-do."

  "God," Miller muttered as he closed his suit. "I could be doing flower arrangements right now."

  * * *

  "Surf's up, people!" Top yelled, standing at the edge of the open air lock.

  The elevator could be moved up and out of the way and it had been. The Marines were about to drop through the resultant hole.

  "I cannot grapping believe we're doing this," Hatt said.

  "What?" Berg asked. "Preparing to assault a mountain full of monsters that just wiped out half our company? Or getting ready to drop from nearly orbit on golden antigravity surfboards?"

  "Yes!"

  "Marines, this is the CO. Get this one done and we're home free. Two days and we're back in the World. Good luck and Semper Fi."

  "Oo-rah!" the first sergeant shouted. "On the Bounce, Marines!"

  His board lifted up and he dropped into the rushing wind.

  "Go!" Captain MacDonald shouted. "Go! Go!"

  "What the hell is 'On the Bounce'?" Hatt asked.

  "Oh. My. God," Berg answered, grinning inside his suit.

  "Top read that book, too?" Jaen said. "Cool."

  "What book?" Hatt snapped. "What the hell?"

  "Just shut up and drop, Marine," Jaen said. "On the Bounce!"

  * * *

  "What the hell is that?" the tactical tech asked.

  "What you got?" the tactical NCOIC said.

  "Neutrinos," the tech answered. "Lots of them. From the southeast about two hundred klicks. Wait . . ."

  "Boards," the NCOIC said, easily. "I've got the contact on radar."

  "But those are big signatures," the tech pointed out. "And the neutrino count is way higher than that many boards."

  "Going visual," the NCOIC said, punching controls for one of the tactical scopes. "And . . . zooming."

  "What?" the tech said, looking over at the NCOIC who was frozen at the scope.

  "Conn! Tactical! We got bandits at ten o'clock!"

  * * *

  "Ooo-RAH!" Berg shouted, the nose of the golden surfboard pointed at the ground.

  The surface must have generated some sort of sticky field. He'd started out fighting the thing but as the first sergeant nosed over and hammered it towards the ground, he had to follow.

  He wasn't sure if the thing was reading subtle clues from the armor or if it was actually reading his mind. But it was one hell of a ride. He could see the hole below, like a dark eye in the middle of a plowed field. He also noted that it was blazing with apparently random particles. Those Demon things might be biological but they
had some sort of high tech basis.

  "Next time," Hatt said, passing him and giving him a thumbs up, "we drop from orbit!"

  "Oo-rah!" Berg shouted, again, speeding up to catch up to the cannoneer. "Last one to the LZ buys the first beer when we get back!"

  "You're on, Rookie!"

  * * *

  "What in the hell are those?" the CO said, looking at the scope. "Are those . . . dragonflies?"

  The species had a superficial resemblance. They had long, vaguely torpedo shaped bodies, four long wings and compound eyes. They were also brightly colored, mostly blue with flashes of red, especially on the eyes.

  "I don't know, sir," the XO admitted. "But everything around here but the Cheerick has been pretty unfriendly."

  "The hell with this," the CO said. "Tactical. Lase them."

  * * *

  "Laser locked," the weapons operator said.

  "Fire," Souza replied.

  * * *

  The front rank of the oncoming hoard of dragonflies blazed bright orange at the laser fire but kept coming.

  "Did I just see what I think I saw?" he said.

  "Was that some sort of shield?" the XO replied.

  "Pilot, back us up into space," the CO said. "XO—"

  "ALL HANDS! ALL HANDS! GENERAL QUARTERS! PREPARE FOR DEPRESSURIZATION! MAN GENERAL QUARTERS STATIONS!"

  As he said that the group blazed red and beams of energy began slamming into the ship.

  "Pilot!" the CO yelled.

  "Heading for orbit now, sir!" the pilot said.

  "She backs up as fast as she goes forward," the CO said. "Keep the lasers on target! Tactical, as soon as we're out of atmosphere, hit those things with an ardune torp!"

  * * *

  "Marines," MacDonald said. "The ship is under attack. Hopefully, we can stop that by taking out this mountain. The importance of what we're doing just went up."

  "Maulk," Berg said. The ground was coming up, fast, so he flared out, taking the Gs with his knees, and settled next to the large hole.

  It had probably been made by one of the beetles, but if so the beast was nowhere in sight.

  "Okay, Marines," Captain MacDonald said. "By the numbers. Two-Charlie . . ."

  "Sir," Gunny Frandsen said. "We're getting low on privates. Why don't I take point?"

  "Lead on, Gunny," the CO said. "Everyone stay off the radio as much as possible. It's liable to attract these things."

  Frandsen dropped into the hole, followed by Berg, Hattelstad and Jaenisch. They stayed on their boards since the drop was over thirty meters.

  "Keep your eyes and ears open," the gunny growled, looking around. There were several tunnels branching off from the hole, but only two big enough for one of the beetles. One was headed towards the city so . . .

  "Heading left," Gunny Frandsen said.

  The tunnel bent almost immediately, then dropped sharply downward. Gunny Frandsen slid down the slope carefully and negotiated another bend as it bottomed out. The tunnel twisted like it had been made by a snake. Just around the corner the gunny stopped at the sight of one of the smaller Demons. It was lying on the ground, its head propped on crossed forearms, and appeared to be asleep.

  The gunny reached down and pulled out a bush-axe. He'd carried one ever since he was a teenager doing survey work in the arctic.

  Sneaking was not impossible in a Wyvern when the floor was reasonably flat. And this one had, clearly, been flattened by the feet of quite a few Demons. It was even easier on the boards.

  The gunny silently slid forward until he was looming over the Demon, then slashed downward, severing its spine.

  He levered the big axe out, wiped it on the Demon, tracked right and left with his Gatling then waved the team forward.

  * * *

  "Sir, the hull is overheating," the XO said. "We're up to a thousand degrees on the rear edges."

  "And they are gaining on us," the CO pointed out. "We'll chill as soon as we can. Right now, we're fighting for our lives."

  As the ship left the atmosphere, it could speed up. But, apparently, so could the dragonflies. Their wings had retracted and now projected as thin canards, tilted up and down and glowing faintly blue. And the laser fire hadn't reduced. The sonar-dome was melted through and the forward torpedo room had had to be evacuated, the torps jettisoned before they exploded.

  "What's the atmosphere outside like?" the CO asked.

  "Less than one tenth of a percent, sir," Lieutenant Souza answered. "We should be able to survive a short-ranged hit."

  The problem was that the dragonflies had closed to within fifty klicks. The ship probably could survive an ardune strike that close, but they'd taken enough damage.

  "Fire ardune torp into the center of their formation," the CO said. "Evasion course Charlie."

  "We'll have to turn," Lieutenant Souza said. "Otherwise the torp's liable to slam into us."

  "Pilot, prepare for skew turn," the CO said. "Rear torpedoes ready?"

  "Ardune torp up on four," Lieutenant Souza replied.

  "Prepare to fire on four," the CO said. "Pilot, skew turn!"

  The ship pivoted in space, continuing in the same direction but briefly presenting its rear to the oncoming dragonflies.

  "Fire!" the CO shouted as the torpedo came to bear.

  The skew had thrown off the fire of the dragonflies so the torpedo made it out of the tubes and, following its programming, went "up" from the ship and then forward towards the enemy.

  "Fire lasers when they bear!" the CO said.

  The laser to laser battle began again. By bearing on just one of the dragonflies with both lasers they'd found they could burn through its shields after a few minutes of continuous fire. Doing that, they'd dropped a few. But there were over fifty in the swarm and while their lasers were not particularly powerful, they concentrated, too.

  "Forward torpedo room breached!" the XO said.

  "Good thing we launched all the torps," the CO said. "Or we'd be in a right pickle about now."

  At that moment the torpedo dropped into the midst of the enemy formation and detonated in a flash that shut down all the visual systems.

  "All right!" Spectre shouted. "Eat quarkium you dragonfly bastards!"

  "Wait," the XO said, then let out a sigh. The area of effect of the warhead had been enough. Nuclear weapons don't propagate in space the same way that they do in atmosphere. In atmosphere, besides the immediate blast area effect there are various effects from atmosphere. The blast gets propagated by compression waves, destroying far beyond the "totally destroyed" area of the actual blast.

  In space, there was no way to do damage much beyond where the blast spread. But in this case, the dragonfly formation had been entirely in the blast zone. None of the dragonflies came out the other side.

  "Tactical, what do you have on the scope?" the CO asked.

  "We had to shut the radars down, sir," Lieutenant Souza said. "Otherwise we would have lost them to EMP. We're coming back up, now."

  "I don't see anything," the XO said, looking at the visual scope. It had only shut down temporarily, to prevent "blinding" the CCD camera.

  "Come on, Tactical," Spectre said impatiently.

  "Coming up now, sir," Lieutenant Souza said. "Stand by . . ."

  * * *

  "Nothing there," the NCOIC said. "Spread the scan."

  "Opening up on spread scan," the tech said, then gulped.

  "Oh, maulk," the NCOIC said.

  * * *

  "Conn, Tactical."

  "Go."

  "We have five . . . six . . . increasing groups of bandits approaching. They're coming from all over the world, sir."

  "How far?" Spectre asked.

  "Nearest is about two hundred klicks, sir, approaching from zero-one-eight mark minus five."

  "Pilot," Spectre said. "Get this tub out to warp point. Then punch it for 60 AU from the sun. We've got to chill."

  "Aye, aye, sir," the pilot said, backing away from the planet.

  "The
Marines are on their own," the CO said, shrugging. "Let's hope they can figure out a way for us to come back. If not, we'll be back some day."

  "Yes, sir," the XO said.

  "Damn this planet."

  "Conn, Tactical."

  "Go."

  "I've been doing some computations, sir," Lieutenant Souza said. "We're deep inside the grav well of this Jovian. I don't think we're going to reach warp before we're swarmed."

  "Lieutenant, you've got two torp tubes and four SM-9s at your disposal," the CO said. "Do something about that."

  34

  Beachhead

  Berg passed four kills for Gunny Frandsen before the latter's luck ran out.

  The tunnel had descended deep into the earth, the walls changing from stabilized earth to limestone, then back upwards. As they abruptly changed to granite and he negotiated another of the snaking turns, Frandsen stopped and then started to backpedal.

  "Dra—" he shouted over the team net. Then a head snaked around the corner and snatched the armor off the board. With a crunch that echoed through the tunnel, the gunny's armor crumpled like a beer can under a foot and splashed bright red.

  The head of the dragon was twice the size of a suit of armor and armored itself with heavy overlapping plates. The head was bright red, shading backwards through purple to a blue body with red highlights on shoulders and hips.

  That was about all that Berg noticed as he opened fire with his Gatlings. But as he had halfway come to expect, the rounds bounced off the bullet head of the thing, which slithered forward fast and low, snatching Sergeant Jaenisch off his board and crunching again.

  "JAEN!" Berg shouted, his hands dropping to his hips. "Hatt! Back, back!"

  "Grapp you!" Hatt shouted, backing slowly as he pumped grenades at the thing. The explosions were damaging some of the plates on the thing's head, but they weren't penetrating. Whether Hatt was cursing Berg's suggestion or the dragon wasn't clear since he was the next to go. The dragon snapped him off the board then hammered him back and forth on the granite walls.

  Berg fired three of the .50 caliber rounds in various spots, juncture of the neck and shoulder, throat, leg. All three sparked off the refractory armor of the beast.

  Then it was his turn as the beast charged down the granite tunnel. Its maw opened and for a moment all he saw was teeth and tonsils. Then he opened fire with all three guns.