by Jay Allan
Blanth felt the edginess close in, turn to fear. He cursed himself for the weakness, but he took Carmetia’s words to suggest that his period of humane captivity was almost over, that he would finally be taken to some dark cell somewhere, and…
And what? What is it you fear? Torture? Drugs? They won’t kill you, not yet, at least. And you’ve felt pain before, on the battlefield…
Carmetia seemed to pick up on his reaction. “No, Colonel, I am not threatening you…though the day may also come when I can no longer protect you. I am referring to the people of Dannith.”
“You occupy Dannith. You control the entire planet.”
She frowned for an instant, the only chink in her otherwise seemingly impervious armor of emotional control. “That is true in the sense that we occupy all useful territory and every significant population center, but, perhaps we could dispense with the pointless back and forth. You know very well that your Marines are hidden in various strongholds around the planet. No doubt, you planned the operations, or at least the basic structure that sustains them. You will be pleased to know that these attacks have been extremely successful to date, though not without cost to your people as well.”
Blanth felt a flash of excitement. He’d had no idea how the guerilla campaign had gone, and Carmetia’s cold poker face had given nothing away in their prior discussions. The direction of this latest talk suggested his Marines had indeed gained some considerable successes.
“I can see from your reaction, you are pleased your Marines have caused measurable damage.” A pause. “Do not be.” Her tone became colder, darker. “The campaign being waged on the surface has delayed our goal to integrate Dannith into the Hegemony. You perceive this as a good thing, because you think only in military terms. But, you must realize, your resistance, both on Dannith, and in any way it is emulated in the continuing struggles deeper into your Confederation, is pointless and wasteful. We have not come here to subjugate you…we have come to share our technology, and the prosperity of our society with you. The Hegemony is the rightful successor to the old empire, of which the Rim was a part, and once your people are integrated, together we will strive to regain all of the lost technology, and lead humanity to new heights.”
Blanth sat silently for a moment. He was angry, as he usually got when Carmetia told him how much better off his people would be if they surrendered to the Hegemony. But, she’d been civil enough to him, and, for what it was worth, he thought she was sincere, that she believed what she was saying to him.
“Carmetia…” He was glad the two of them were alone. She’d told him to address her by her name, but whenever there was one or more of the Kriegeri around, he got nasty stares from the soldiers when he did. He didn’t need that kind of provocation. He knew the farm-bred cyborgs were deadly fighters, more than a match one on one for him…still that didn’t mean he wasn’t ready to take one on if the chance materialized. “…my people will never surrender. And, certainly, my Marines will never give up, never stop. Not while there is even one of your Kriegeri monsters still on the surface.” He knew he should try to be less provocative, but it just wasn’t in him.
“Colonel…I have told you numerous times, I am no more at the top of my ultimate chain of command than you are of yours. Indeed, I suspect you had far more latitude on Dannith than I do now. However, your Marines have caused considerable damage, and that has provoked a response. It is one of which I do not approve, but it is also one I cannot stop. Nothing can stop it, or ensure the prevention of future escalation, save for the immediate and total pacification of the planet.” She held a small device in her hand, and she pressed her finger down on it, activating a screen on the far wall. It showed an image, one Blanth recognized immediately as Port Royal City, or at least an outlying area just beyond the metropolis.
There were fences, at least ten meters high, surrounding large areas. Guard towers were placed at the corners, and every hundred meters along the wall, and he could see something moving above, dozens of small objects, flying back and forth over the space.
Drones.
“This is the crop your people have sown, Colonel, the response triggered by their actions.”
“What in the name of God is that?”
“It is a confinement center, Colonel, one that is even now commencing operation.” She touched the controller again, and the view zoomed in to a section of wall. There was a gate there, and a long line of people, moving forward under guard, through the entrance and into the vast section of open space beyond.”
“It’s a concentration camp.” There was disgust in Blanth’s voice, and renewed hatred. Carmetia had been humane to him, even reasonable when they’d talked. But, at that moment, he considered lunging across the table, and he wondered just what chance he had of killing her before the guards came in and finished him.
“You may call it what you wish, Colonel, however it—and the others like it—are a reality, and one as beyond my control as yours. They are also the result of your resistance campaign, and of nothing else. At this time, they are detention facilities only, and limited to those identified as potential sources of trouble, and, of course, anyone identified as related to your Marines and the others under arms.”
Blanth felt his stomach tighten. Most of the Marines had been shipped in from other planets, but at least a thousand of them had been permanently stationed on Dannith. He had no idea how many of those had families on the planet, but he was sure most of the local troopers and reserves did. What would happen when they found out their husbands and wives, parents and children, mothers and fathers, were imprisoned in concentration camps. Or worse?
He knew immediately that Carmetia—or at least whoever was in actual command of the operation now—was hoping they would come at the camps. It was hideous, a nightmare he could barely comprehend, but it could very well work. What would Luther Holcott do—assuming his old exec was still alive and in command—if the local troops insisted on attacking the camps, trying to liberate the prisoners? Any operation like that would be a death trap, doomed to failure, but would that stop the soldiers whose families were imprisoned there? Would Holcott hold the locals back? Could he? Or would he give in and commit Marines to the hopeless assault in the vain hope that would make success possible?
Blanth reeled at the horror, but then he began to think about the situation, what his people were doing. He was a Marine, and he couldn’t think in terms other than fighting to the end, of keeping the battle going as long as there was breath in his lungs. But, he’d seen atrocities before, and, if he was being honest with himself, worse ones than this. The Union had been quick to unleash Sector Nine on populations of occupied worlds, and he’d seen the empty, hollow looks in the eyes of the inhabitants once those planets had been liberated. The camps Carmetia had shown him were rough, the conditions moderately harsh. But, there was no sign of active mistreatment, nor of mass executions.
Yet.
He felt the urge to fight surging through his veins with renewed energy, the Marine inside him waxing hard and towering above his doubts and fears.
But, not above his guilt. He would fight if he could, die if he had to, and he knew his Marines would as well. But, should they? Risking their own lives was one thing, but what horrors might they bring down on Dannith’s civilians? Sector Nine had murdered children in front of their parents, forced prisoners to watch as their spouses were tortured. Would Dannith go down that same road…and if it did, would it be his fault?
It was war, and any battle against the enemy contributed to victory. Every transport destroyed, every patrol ambushed, was one step closer to driving the invaders off the planet. He could reconcile with the loss of his Marines that way, doing their duty, fighting the war in any way they could. But, how many civilian deaths could he justify, how much misery and suffering?
Was harassing the enemy—and, if he was honest with himself, he knew that was all his people could achieve—worth the lives of every man and woman on Dannith? Because, looking
at the screen, at the long column of stunned and bewildered people marching sullenly into the camp, he suddenly realized with stark clarity that the real question before him, before the Marines, could be just that one.
* * *
“It looks like the scouting data was accurate, Major.”
Luther Holcott was crouched down in the back of a burnt-out transport, debris still remaining from the fighting during the first few days of the invasion, when the Marines were openly battling the attacking forces. It was a decent place to hide, at least for a short time, and it was no more than two kilometers from the walls of the camp.
“It does, Captain.” It was all Holcott could manage to say. He knew what they were looking at. He’d known when he’d first seen the aerial reconnaissance, though the enemy had been so quick to shoot down the drones he’d sent in, he’d at least been able to keep alive some doubts, tell himself they were storage dumps or something similar.
And not concentration camps.
He’d come himself, with two of his senior officers and four other Marines. He had to see this for up close, get as much information as possible, whatever the risk. Because he would be making the decision about what to do next, whether to continue the resistance campaign, or to pull in, ease the pressure in the hope the enemy would respond in kind.
He shook his head…no, there was no decision. He was a Marine, and he had only one charge, to maintain some level of resistance on Dannith, to hamper and harm the enemy any way he could. He hurt for the people he could see milling about in the vast open spaces inside the fence, but, militarily, they were irrelevant. That sounded horrible, to him as much as it would to anyone else, but there were billions and billions of people in the Confederation, and the future of every one of them hinged on the outcome of the war. Dannith’s population was small, but the planet sat astride the enemy’s route home. It was a virtual certainty that the Hegemony would seek to establish a major base…and just as inevitable that Holcott and his Marines would do all they could to forestall that.
His Marines were mostly offworlders. It was a cold way to look at things, but when they found out what was happening, when they saw recon images, at least they wouldn’t be looking at their own friends and loved ones.
But, the planetary forces…that is a different story…
Most of the Dannith-based troops had surrendered after the initial fighting, but Holcott still had almost two-thousand of them in his scattered forces, all seasoned veterans by now. They’d fought alongside the Marines, bled with them, even died with them…but what would they do now?
They couldn’t force him to attack the camps—an operation that almost screamed ‘trap’—but what if they tried to do something on their own? They were technically under his orders, but he was far from sure that was enough to keep the citizen soldiers in line once the word spread that their families had been singled out for captivity.
If they made a move, if they violated his orders, what would he do? Would he sit, keep his Marines in their bunkers, and do nothing, while the Dannith troopers marched into ambush and death?
Could he do that? Could he sit in HQ and watch that kind of slaughter?
It was hard to imagine…but so was sending in thousands of his Marines, when he knew it wouldn’t make a difference.
“Let’s go…there’s nothing to be gained by staying here.” He waved to the Marines crouched down beside him. It was time to get back.
He had to figure a way to convince his local troopers to stay where they were, to follow his orders…because if he lost control, if any of them launched some half-assed attack trying to rescue their families, every one of them was going to end up dead.
And, if things went really bad, all the civilians in those camps could die, too.
Chapter Forty-Six
CFS Repulse
300,000,000 Miles from Planet Ulion
Venga System
Year 317 AC
The Battle of Ulion – Phase Two
“Move it…I want those ships ready to launch in ten minutes.” Jake Stockton was racing around Repulse’s bridge, screaming at any flight crew who didn’t run away at this thundering approach. He was furious, in a terrifying rage, and everyone on the ship knew why.
Olya Federov. His right arm, his comrade from the old days, before the Union War had torn through his list of friends like a scythe. His friend, one of the very few who remained.
He hadn’t believed the initial communications from her squadrons, the reports that her ship had been hit. Stockton didn’t underestimate the danger of the enemy defenses—his strike force had lost almost a hundred ships in the first assault. But, Federov had always been one of the best, and one of the luckiest as well. She’d come back from battle after battle, always there, like a block of granite he could lean upon, even as so many others were lost.
No, not Lynx…not now. There is so much fighting left to do.
There was still hope, of course. His reports suggested her ship had been badly damaged, not destroyed. There were even a few vague claims that she’d ejected. But, none of that mattered. There wasn’t much chance the Confederation forces would hold the system, and even if they did, the battle was far too large…it would go on for too long.
Every pilot out there will be out of life support before the fighting is over.
“I said get those ships ready to launch!” He lurched toward a pair of flight techs who weren’t moving as quickly as he thought they should be, and his hand dropped to his waist, resting on his sidearm. He didn’t know if the flight crews would believe he might pull out his pistol and start shooting them…truth be told, he didn’t know himself. He was pretty sure he’d pull the gun, at least—a little extra incentive never hurt—but he suspected it would take one lazy-ass tech to get him to actually pull the trigger. And, Repulse didn’t have any of those. Sonya Eaton had learned at the feet of Tyler Barron, and Stockton didn’t doubt any member of her crew who dogged it while the others were fighting and dying would get thrown out the same airlock Barron would have used.
“Yes, Captain…we’ll have the squadrons ready. If not ten minutes, no more than…”
“You’ve got nine now,” Stockton roared with an intensity that seemed to shake the very structural supports of the massive bay.
The terrified technicians ran off in different directions, leaving behind all kinds of ‘yessirs’ and ‘understoods.’
Stockton turned around and looked up at his own ship, and for a few seconds, he was lost in thought. Then, he had an idea.
The rescue boats. Why couldn’t they launch now, along with the second strike? Confederation tactics were based on the expectation that an enemy would have its own fighters…and even green pilots could blast those unarmed tubs to plasma. But, the Hegemony didn’t have fighters. It only had defensive emplacements on its ships…and, with over a thousand bombers bearing down, would any of those battleships or cruisers waste shots with their point defense batteries on unarmed rescue boats that were clearly not targeting them in any way?
He couldn’t be sure, of course. Enemy fighters had targeted rescue boats in the Union War. There had always been a certain mutual respect between the opposing corps of pilots, but there was no getting around the massive amount of time and resources it took to train a fighter jock. It was just too big of an advantage to cede to any enemy, to allow them to retrieve their ditched pilots. Another brutal reality of war.
And, it was one that just might not apply against the Hegemony. Even if it did…
Stockton wasn’t proud of himself, but he thought about what would happen if enemy batteries targeted rescue boats. They wouldn’t be firing at his bombers…and the armed ships would be able to get even closer, and plant their torpedoes deep into the guts of the enemy ships. It was a grim calculus, but Jake Stockton knew what was at stake, out in the space around Ulion, and in the war in general. It wasn’t a fight for territory, or for wealth. It wasn’t a battle for ideology or for honor.
It was a fig
ht for survival, and he knew, by the time it was over, if the Confederation endured, it would have paid a price he doubted anyone could even imagine.
We’ll do worse than use rescue boats as decoy targets before all this is over…
“Stara,” he said, as he tapped the comm unit on his chest.
“Yes, Jake?” She was clearly trying to sound calm, but he knew she wasn’t. She was scared to death, just as he was. Just like every spacer in the fleet. And, Stara was doubly terrified, for herself and for Repulse…and for him, about to jump back into the deadly maelstrom.
“I need your help. I want to get some volunteers.”
“Volunteers? You’ve got every pilot in the fleet about to go back out there, and…”
“Not every pilot. I want to talk to the rescue boat crews, and the shuttle pilots. I want them to come with us, right behind the strike. The enemy doesn’t have interceptors…with any luck, we can recover some of our people out there while the bombers are hitting their line, and…”
“You don’t know she ejected, Jake. That’s just a guess…”
“So what? You know we’ve got pilots out there. Even if Lynx is…gone…how many can we get back, men and women who otherwise don’t have a chance?” He paused. “I wouldn’t ask you to order them out, Stara…just let me ask for volunteers.”
Another pause. “Please.”
* * *
“I want all ships to launch a spread of drones. Put together coordinates, Commander, and transmit designated scanning areas to all vessels. I want every meter of the enemy formation covered, with an overlap of a million kilometers on each flank.” Sara Eaton had been alternating between long, unexplained stares at the main display, and equally quiet periods of focusing on her smaller workstation screen. She saw something out there. She couldn’t explain it yet, but she found it unsettling nevertheless.
