Last Stand on Talos Seven

by Rodney Hartman

  “The admiral wasn’t kidding,” said Trinity. “The sentence for disobeying a direct order in time of war is death. You’re risking more than your career.”

  The special operations officer gave a half smile. “I can fight here as well as anywhere. The titanium ore’s important. As long as we’re in the area with the titanium dust, we can’t be teleported out. I’m here for the duration...or until I’m dead.”

  Trinity stared at the special ops soldier for several seconds. Finally she nodded her head. “All right then. That’s settled. Now it’s time to get down to business.”

  “So you’re staying?” asked Connor.

  Trinity gave a tired smile. “Looks that way.”

  Relief flooded over Anna. “What about us? What do we do?”

  Janet nodded at Connor. “I want you in the Crosoian Wingbat with me. You’ll drive. I’ll act as the gunner.”

  “And me?” Anna asked.

  “You’ll go with Ryan on the Donovan,” said Janet. “It was your parents’ hyper-drive energy core that got the Donovan running in the first place. It’s only fitting that you’re with her.”

  Anna glanced over at Connor. He was staring at her. Something in his eyes made her want to reach out and hold him tight and never let him go. She noticed his hands move toward her.

  “Any questions?” asked Janet, breaking the moment.

  “Uh, none, Sir,” said Connor. He gave Anna a smile before turning away.

  With a final glance at Connor, Anna looked at Ryan. She had her orders. She had things to do. Whatever she felt for Connor could wait. Everything else could wait.

  This was war.

  Chapter 26 – Bombardment and Assault

  _________________

  The first sign of attack was the multicolored beams of plasma energy striking against the shimmering shield above the pit mine. Anna watched from the relative safety of the copilot’s seat in the cockpit of the Donovan. Not that she was a pilot, but with only six trained personnel left from the Donovan’s old crew, Ryan had been forced to use untrained townspeople like her to supplement his crewmembers. Besides her, six of the more technologically oriented townspeople from the militia had been assigned to the survey ship.

  Switching the copilot screen from the aerial view of the pit mine to a zoomed image of the pirate fleet located a quarter of a light second to the Donovan’s front, Anna watched a score of missiles leave the light cruiser and streak toward the planet below. Fear for Connor rose in her mind. She turned to Ryan who was sitting in the pilot’s seat.

  “Are those nukes?” Anna asked, doing her best to keep the quiver out of her voice.

  “Hey,” Ryan said. “I’m the pilot. You’re the one operating the ship’s sensors and defensive shields. You tell me.”

  With her face growing warm, Anna tapped two icons on the armrest of the copilot’s chair. The score of missiles appeared in the tactical hologram between Ryan and her. All twenty missiles glowed a dull green. Anna sighed with relief.

  “See,” said Ryan. “None of them contain nuclear warheads. It’s just like Trinity told us. The pirates don’t want to have to deal with radioactive contamination when they start operating the mine. That would reduce their profit, not to mention mining in a high radiation area is downright hazardous to one’s health.” He turned in his seat to look at Anna. “But don’t think for one minute that their ‘no nuke’ policy applies to us. Both of those destroyers and the light cruiser will have nukes on them. They won’t hesitate to use them on us. The Donovan’s a tough old ship, but our engines can’t produce the energy output of the transport ship at the mine. Their force field could take a half dozen nuclear hits before failing. We can take one; two at the most. Then we’re toast.”

  Missiles from the two destroyers streaked downward following the paths of those from the light cruiser.

  “They’re killing our people,” Anna said, knowing full well they weren’t; at least not yet. The mine’s shield was holding. Nevertheless, the helplessness she felt watching the pirates attacking her home was hard to take. She had to do something. “We’ve got to stop them. We should attack.”

  “Negative. Listen, girl. You can bet those pirates know we’re here. They just don’t see one lone survey ship as a threat at the moment. We’ll have one chance and one chance only to make a difference in this battle. We’ve got to be ready when the time comes, but we ain’t a gonna budge until then. So simmer down. The townspeople are safe enough from the bombardment for now. Once the pirates figure out the force field is more powerful than they expected, they’ll start sending down ground troops and armor to knock out the transport’s generator. When you see landing craft leaving the pirates’ transports, that’s when things are going to get dangerous down below. Until then, calm down and watch the show.” As if wanting to temper his chastisement a little, Ryan winked and added, “You’re boyfriend’s safe enough for now.”

  Turning red, Anna said, “I don’t have a boyfriend. Connor’s just a—”

  Movement on the display screen showing the nine ships in the pirate fleet drew Anna’s attention. Dozens of yellow blips were leaving the six transport ships and heading for the planet’s surface.

  “Are those—” Anna started.

  “Yep,” said Ryan. “The ground assault’s started. Now is when the real fighting begins.”

  * * *

  If it wasn’t so scary, the aerial bombardment would have been beautiful in its own way. A shiver ran up Connor’s spine as he sat in the driver’s seat of the Wingbat stationed on the west side of the transport. The extra wide cockpit of the Crosoian UHAAV made the cat almost roomy. Connor glanced over at Janet. The special operations’ soldier sat in the forward gunner’s chair looking as calm as if she were out for a Sunday drive. An especially large explosion hit the shield over the mine. The Wingbat’s view screen blinked out. It came back on almost immediately.

  “Was that a nuke?” Connor asked.

  No smile showed on the woman’s face, but Connor thought he could see laughter in the special operations soldier’s eyes struggling to get out. Thankfully, it didn’t.

  “No,” said Janet, somehow keeping a straight face. “Believe me, if a nuke hits, you won’t have to ask me. You’ll know. If it had been a nuke, we’d still be bouncing around inside this hunk of metal. The transport’s force field will keep out the worst of a nuke’s blast, but not all. The ground pounders and the smaller cats will have it worse than us.”

  Connor shifted his gaze from Janet long enough to look out the glass-steel of the Wingbat’s forward windows. Daylight had come to the mine, and all was plain to see. Squads of the townspeople’s militia were stationed in hastily constructed bunkers along the rim of the pit mine. Others were huddling in concrete-reinforced holes littering the mine floor. The two Long Cat UHAAV’s piloted by Wizard Scouts Ostaris and Mikala were positioned on the north and south sides of the mine rim respectively. Although he couldn’t see it, Connor knew the six-legged Leviathan piloted by Wizard Scout Trevor was on the opposite side of the transport from him. He glanced at his tactical heads-up display and tried to find the locations of their Warcat and the Tomcat scouts.

  “I don’t see our scout cats,” Connor said, growing a little concerned. “Trinity’s in one of the Tomcat scouts. She’s the only fully functional wizard scout we’ve got.”

  This time a grin slipped past Janet’s guard. “Relax. Scout cats are designed to evade most sensors. Trinity’s got her Tomcat next to the Leviathan on the east side of the transport. Wizard Scout Yardis is in a Warcat. He’s performing a recon past the force field on the east side of our defenses.”

  Connor stared at Janet. “He’s outside the shield?” Several more large blasts struck the mine’s force field. “He’ll be killed.”

  Janet shook her head. “Doubtful. I mean, at least not as long as the pirates don’t use their nukes. Warcats are designed to operate in less than cordial conditions. Besides, Wizard Scout Yardis is a shifter. If things get too r
ough, he can shift into the void between dimensions to get out of danger.”

  A dozen massive blasts struck the shimmering dome over the mine. They were followed by high-energy beams of red, green, yellow, and purple striking against the defensive shield. Jagged lines of plasma energy deflected by the mine’s force field shot up into the sky. None of the beams from the pirates’ warships made it to the mine floor.

  “Yardis is medically disabled,” Connor said, doing his best to ignore the blasts overhead. “Trinity told me that his Power reserve’s damaged. He can’t stay in the void long if at all before his reserve gives out.”

  The special operations officer turned to stare at her gunner’s console. “Trinity’s right. Nevertheless, he had to go out. That ravine where the Crosoian scout got picked up is the best cover for any strike force within twenty kilometers. If the pirates get armor there, we’ve got to know it. Someone had to go. Wizard Scout Yardis was that someone.”

  Connor said nothing further. He knew full well that no one was safe in this battle. He thought of his friends Artrim and Dylan. They were both acting as tail-gunners on the Leviathan. He thought of his uncle up in one of the bunkers on the mine’s rim. He thought of his aunt in the depths of one of the mine tunnels trying to comfort the children. Most of all, he thought of Anna somewhere in space on a beat-up survey ship with the half-dozen semi-fossilized members of the Donovan’s crew waiting to take on a light cruiser and two destroyers.

  Keep her safe, Connor thought in silent prayer.

  Then came the giant drops of rain. Not droplets of water, but streaks of light coming out of the sky heading somewhere to the east side of the mine.

  “Here come the landing craft,” said Janet. “Fire up the engines. Our mission’s to protect the transport. Their assault troops are going to do all they can to knock out the transport’s generator. Our job’s to stop them. Got it?”

  Connor got it. He just wasn’t sure he could do it. An image of Anna appeared in his mind. Suddenly he knew he could do anything.

  He would do it because he had too.

  Chapter 27 – The Ravine

  ____________________

  A score of fighter-shuttles led the landing craft of the first wave as they came out of the east less than ten meters above the deck. The fighters weaved in and out among the jagged rocks of the foothills ready to pounce on any ground-to-air defenses foolish enough to open fire. When they were two thousand meters out from the ravine that was the first wave’s landing zone, the fighters released their missiles. Dozens of trails of ion energy from the missiles’ exhausts zigzagged through the sky as the missiles’ computers plotted independent paths to their targets in an effort to confuse any anti-missile missiles from the defenders. No opposing fire came. Explosions rocked the landscape as the warheads tore into the landing area, throwing up fifty-meter-tall plumes of rock and dirt.

  The fighters pulled up, circling around for another attack run if warranted. The lead elements of the main assault force came in low and fast. A dozen landing craft touched down in the ravine. When the two hundred shock troopers wearing power-armor exited their shuttles, the landing craft took off. The pirates’ second wave came in as the shock troops from the first wave spread out to provide cover. The second wave was the larger shuttles carrying the UHAAVs. Some of the landing craft touched down, opening their rear ramps to deposit the smaller scout cats. Other shuttles carrying medium and heavy UHAAVs on steel cables dangling beneath their landing craft slowed down above the landing zone. As the cats drew close to the ground, the lines were released. The Leviathans, Marcons, Devons, and Long Cat medium and heavy cats spread out to their rallying points. Lighter cats passed them by and took up overlook positions along the rim of the ravine.

  Wizard Scout Yardis took it all in from his position on a small knoll six hundred meters to the west of the ravine. His Warcat scout blended in well with the reddish rock as the recon cat’s camouflage unit did its job. The Warcat’s sensors picked up disturbances to the south, west, and north sides of the mine pit. Toggling views from the camera’s mounted on the front, sides, and rear of the Warcat’s upper torso, he noticed large plumes of rock and dirt being thrown up in a dozen locations around all sides of the mine.

  “Those others are fake insertions,” said his battle computer, Jonathan, in their shared space. “I calculate the ravine to your front is the main assault point. I have taken the liberty of informing the other battle computers. Uh... I assumed you would approve.”

  “Now that it’s done, do I have any choice?” Yardis said, smiling in spite of himself. After decades of working as a team, he was used to his battle computer using his own initiative. Truth be told, he didn’t mind. Jonathan had saved his life far too many times over the last forty plus years to start complaining now.

  “I would say you have no choice since the deed is done, Wizard Scout. So what are your orders now that we have pinpointed the location of the main assault? Do you want me to plot an escape route back to the mine?”

  “Negative. Not yet.”

  “Uh..., may I ask why not?” said Jonathan with more than a little hint of concern in his voice. “I fail to see what else we can accomplish here. Logic indicates returning to the mine would be our best choice of actions. I calculate remaining here is foolish.”

  Wizard Scout Yardis laughed. “Then call me a fool, but we’re staying. One lone Warcat isn’t going to make much of a difference at the mine one way or the other.”

  “And you think it will here?”

  Yardis smiled. “Actually, I do. I’ve got a hunch.”

  * * *

  As soon as Yardis’s report came in, Trinity kicked her Tomcat scout into high gear and headed toward the east rim of the mine. She sensed the massive Leviathan driven by Connor and Janet lumbering along behind her.

  “Jonathan says the pirates’ ground assault troops are unusually well disciplined,” said Jennifer in Trinity’s shared space. “I calculate it must be the pirates’ twenty-third heavy armor regiment from their home world of Cantor. That’s the best they’ve got. Too bad. My odds of us surviving this battle just went down another five percent.” Jennifer gave a canned laugh. “If it gets much lower, it will be in the negative.”

  “Not funny,” Trinity said. “Now stop trying to be a comedian and plot me the fastest route up the rim. The town’s militia will break at the first contact if I’m not there to help.”

  “Hmm,” said Jennifer. “Do you want to know the odds of them breaking even if you are there?”

  “Not particularly.”

  The fact that Jennifer didn’t give one of her usual smart-alecky replies told Trinity more than words the seriousness of the situation. Not that she’d had any doubts in the first place. She glanced at the Tomcat’s heads-up display. A green path zigzagged up the side of the cliff face. The plotted path partially used the mine’s normal rough-cut stairs and partially not. Trinity dutifully followed the path up the stairs taking them six at a time. While the Tomcat’s three legs might be awkward for inexperienced pilots, she’d had plenty of practice in all of the Empire’s light cats over the years. Maneuvering the UHAAV up the side of the cliff was no big deal.

  Leaving the stairs, Trinity jumped the Tomcat off to the side and grabbed hold of a protruding ledge with the grappling claw on the belly of the cat. The Tomcat’s flexible third leg, more a metallic tail than a leg really, made climbing up the remainder of the cliff easy. By the time she reached the top and stuck the cat’s windscreen over the ledge, the first of the pirates’ advance scout cats were popping up over the horizon seven hundred meters away.

  “Fire!” shouted a voice from the right.

  Trinity got her right-side view screen toggled just in time to see the mayor standing next to an antitank gun. The weapon belched fire and smoke as the gun crew fired an 88mm phase round at the nearest of the approaching scout vehicles.

  “They fired too early,” said Jennifer. “If you had gotten here a few seconds sooner, you could ha
ve told them that even computer-controlled weapons like that antitank gun have trouble hitting scout UHAAVs. They would have been better off waiting for the medium and heavy cats to get within range before firing. Now they have given their position away.”

  As her battle computer predicted, the light scout cat that was the gun crew’s target rolled to the left as the phase round drew near. The antitank round passed to the scout cat’s right and exploded on a boulder a hundred meters beyond, scattering shattered pieces of rock into the air but doing nothing to slow down the attacking UHAAVs.

  By now, a dozen small cats were visible charging at full speed for the east side of the mine’s energy shield.

  “I calculate two viable attack plans by the pirates,” said Jennifer. “Due to the physics of force fields, the energy output is weaker as the shield gets closer to the ground. High concentrations of energy weapons from the larger UHAAVs can potentially penetrate the shield at ground level. Vehicles and assault weapons can also get past the shield if an anti-energy generator is placed next to the shield.”

  “Understood,” Trinity said.

  “We can’t stop them!” shouted one of the members of the antitank gun crew. The man threw down the phase round he was carrying and took off for the mine’s rim. “Run!”

  Trinity spun her Tomcat to the right and pointed the quad plasma rifles on her left upper appendage as well as the 40mm phase cannon on her right appendage at the fleeing man. Making a split-second decision, she lowered the 40mm and fired a short burst of plasma rounds from the rifles in front of the fleeing militiaman. The spray of rocks and dirt kicked up by the plasma energy knocked the man off his feet. He started to get up, but Trinity fired a short burst of plasma rounds over his head.

  “Stay where you are,” she ordered using the Tomcat’s external speakers. Trinity faced the remainder of the gun crew and the mayor. “I’ll kill the next man or woman who tries to run.” She swept the barrel of her 40mm cannon to encompass the dozen fortifications along the eastern rim of the mine. She set the helmet’s external speaker at max volume “That goes for all of you. You’ve got a force field between you and the enemy. They can’t get their troops or vehicles through until they create a hole. Your job’s to stop them from making it. Their weapons can’t get through the force field, but yours can get out, so hold your fire until you get a clear shot.” She pointed her 40mm cannon at the antitank gun. “Get that thing moved to your alternate position. You can bet your last credit their scouts have already relayed your position to the heavier UHAAVs. The first thing those big cats will do when they get within range is concentrate fire on the force field in front of your position and try to get some rounds through. You’d best not be here when they do.”