Croma Venture: (The Spiral Wars Book Five)

by Joel Shepherd

  “Liala, you have to put Hiro on!”

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible, Lisbeth.”

  “Liala, the Fortitude marines are phasing! They’ve seen this is a deepynine base, it goes against all the history they’ve been taught… it’s like when Aristan was killed by Major Thakur, his supporters fell about phasing like crazy, their psychologies couldn’t handle it, it’s a reaction to ideological stress! Look, tell Hiro this is why we have to back Gesul! It will work, Hiro, all the Fortitude warriors will phase rather than fight! If we get this information out, Gesul wins, it could be almost bloodless!”

  20

  Trace’s feed told her ‘Zondi System’. She blinked hard to clear her head, pressed back against the helmet to extend the water tube, and sipped hard. About her were the cocooning mesh of many acceleration slings in zero-G, clustered like a growth of seed pods on some prolific rainforest tree. Erik had expected incoming deep-space fire, so the marines weren’t riding this one in the shuttles. The shuttles weren’t armoured like Phoenix’s hull, and a lucky enemy shot could take out an entire platoon. Here in Midships, they had some protection.

  On the bridge, Trace could hear chatter. Second Lieutenant Geish’s voice, announcing contacts, possibly hostile, likely reeh. Second Lieutenant Jiri announcing that Makimakala was in behind them, then numerous corbi Resistance ships. Contact ahead was less than twenty seconds out — they’d jumped in real close to the splicer’s moon. Any second now those reeh ships would see their arrival, and respond.

  “Phoenix Company stand by,” Trace drawled, sounding comfortably bored as she’d learned early in her career from Phoenix’s assault shuttle pilots. “Looks like contact ahead, could be a hot one.”

  Waiting was bad enough, but waiting while under fire was the worst. Trace kept her breathing deep and calm, and busied herself studying the Resistance-supplied charts for Zondi’s nameless moon. The splicer was in polar orbit, and the moon itself went around a large mid-system gas giant… all things for spacers to worry about more than marines. The splicer itself was a standard model rotary station wheel — twin rims about a single axel, and puzzling in its location away from major space lanes. Croma-built, so it was rotating a little faster than the human standard, and was extra-tough to handle the Gs. Something to recall when making explosive ingress or egress.

  Without warning, her inner-ear flipped as Phoenix rotated — impossible to see, save for dozens of sling-encased marines bobbing and bouncing in unison. Then came the thrust, like a blow from a giant fist, smashing everyone sideways, the slings pulling tighter the more they stretched to hold them off Midships’ steel walls. Trace fought for breath, suit sensors detecting stress and pumping more air, her augments working double-time to keep oxygenated blood in her brain and assist her diaphragm with simple things like breathing.

  Her vision blackened, then straightened out as she squinted, resolving her assault schematic with determination. Doing assault pre-prep at nine-Gs wasn’t recommended, and mostly she did it to keep focused on something other than her utter helplessness. Weightless once more, then a brief spin and an even harder hammer blow then the one previous. Five seconds later, it stopped.

  “Gimme a break, Captain,” someone muttered.

  “That was a stealth ship,” Dale announced. “Didn’t see it on first scan, he was right in our way.”

  “Dead fucker now,” Jalawi said nonchalantly. Trace wasn’t the only one with access to the bridge-feed — all of her lieutenants got it too. “He’s a ball of mist.”

  “Kick ass, Cap,” said someone else. It was good that someone gave them a few updates on what was happening, but Trace left it to her Lieutenants.

  But she’d barely begun her post-jump analysis of plans she’d already gone over a hundred times alone and with her platoon commanders when Erik’s voice interrupted on coms. “All hands, this is the Captain. As you may have felt, we have encountered and destroyed one hostile vessel upon entry. The rest are running, it looks like they’re heading for jump. I’m expecting more trouble very shortly, but for the moment we look clear. Course correction burn will commence in twenty and go for eighty-five, marines will board their shuttles after that. Captain out.”

  “Phoenix Company,” said Trace as soon as he’d finished, “prepare to de-sling and board. Stay sharp, we are still expecting trouble.”

  It bothered her that the reeh were running. All this time in reeh space, sneaking the back-systems to avoid detection, hearing of all the fearsome things the reeh had done… and now they ran away? Well, no question this small defensive force knew itself outmatched, especially when they saw how easily Phoenix had dealt with their outlying picket. If it was just Resistance vessels, no doubt they’d have stayed, but the Resistance had nothing in the class of Phoenix or Makimakala. The reeh were reputed to be frighteningly smart, and they’d know something else was up. Besides, nowhere was it written that every homicidal species would be belligerently suicidal on the individual scale. Even sard would run away sometimes.

  It was still bothering her as Phoenix’s new burn shoved them all down once more — just a gentle six-Gs this time, positioning for approach on the splicer rather than manoeuvring in anticipation of space combat. Trace flipped to her command channel.

  “Guys, we’re progressing on the assumption that it’s a trap,” Trace told her Lieutenants. “I don’t like how they’re running away. This is supposed to be a key facility for them, they wouldn’t abandon it so easily.”

  “Unless the furry critters been telling us lies,” Dale said skeptically.

  “That’s possible too,” said Trace. “Something’s not right here. We’re going to treat this entire place as a biohazard, remember what we saw on Mylor Station. Reeh are real nasty work, be prepared for anything.”

  There were mutters of affirmation in reply. They’d find ways to pass her warning onto their platoons themselves. Better that they did — it wasn’t good for the Company Commander to creep everyone out with warnings about spooky aliens and past massacres. Jalawi at least would find a way to do it with a joke, and she had no idea if the warning would even translate well to Garudan Platoon. Better leave it to Karajin.

  Thrust cut and she hit the release, Command Squad exiting their slings in good order to hit the Berth One airlock, opening with the assistance of several spacers just now tucking their own slings away to the nearby wall. Trace went straight through both open doors, first in as the commander should always be, down the chute and into dorsal arrival in the shuttle, a quick turn and push brought her down to main level behind the sealed cockpit door. Her command post was just to one side, seats just a series of exposed frames in full armour, unlocked and open like steel jaws. She slid in, felt the steel teeth bite about her armour as she pulled them tight, then yanked the straps as the flow of marines came past behind her unabated.

  New graphics unfolded on her visor display as she interfaced with PH-1’s cockpit. “Hello, Major,” came Hausler’s cool drawl from up front, no doubt seeing she was locked in. “How you doing back there?”

  “Command Squad is locked in, Lieutenant,” Trace replied, seeing that confirmed on tacnet, new graphics segmenting, overlaying and vanishing as she blinked on them. “Bravo is loading, give us another thirty and we’ll be all secure.”

  “I copy that Major, thirty seconds and we are good to go anytime. Window is in seventy, Captain says we will dump at window-minus-five, the Captain is the god of small margins.”

  Trace watched her platoons load against the running clock. They were all-in on this one, Makimakala too. Marine commanders argued about the proper times and utility of a reserve, but all warships were expecting to be mobile and reserves weren’t any use if they could not be held in proximity to the target. Makimakala was all-in as well, another 240 karasai, plus fifty corbi off the Neelo. Those were lightly armoured and little use outside the station, but inside would be useful primarily as scouts and intelligence on their enemy.

  She’d briefed extensively
with the Resistance marine commander, and found him comfortingly realistic about his own unit’s capabilities. About the reeh, he’d been far less comforting, predicting a strong station defence force of at least a thousand reeh warriors. Reeh had many kinds, genetically and biomechanically augmented to the point that they interfaced physically rather than neurally with their suits. Their armour sounded advanced enough, but human and tavalai armour had advances Trace didn’t think had made it out past the Croma Wall, while reeh armour looked vulnerable to human or tavalai weapons. She’d been breaching stations for nearly ten years of her life, while the war between reeh and croma had been more or less static for several centuries now, with marine units on both sides operating at a far lower tempo.

  Garudan Platoon was the last loaded, twenty seconds slower than the others. That was predictable. Coms put Erik’s voice in her ear. “Trace, we’ve got many firebase targets, they’re putting out ghost rounds, could be shadow emplacements on that station and Scan says probably launch bases on the lunar surface. Their ships may be running but the entry’s going to be hot.”

  “Trace copies,” she said, feeling the old reflexes kicking in, the adrenaline surging, hairs prickling on her skin. “Keep it clear for us.”

  “You bet,” said Erik, distracted and disconnecting as he returned to the dozen other things he was doing.

  The count-to-window reached zero and Phoenix lurched into hyperspace, dumping V and pulsing back out dramatically more slowly. “Here we go,” said Hausler immediately as they emerged. “V match, we’re good.”

  Crash, as the grapples unlocked, and PH-1 pushed clear of the carrier, spinning fast to point its tail at the target, then the kick of a hard burn. Phoenix could have brought them in at a more sedate V, but pilots preferred a mismatch to allow them manoeuvring space on approach. Nearly a thousand Ks out, Phoenix had dropped all five shuttles on the target’s lap. As always, the lightly-armed AT-7 was the greatest concern — they’d flown it pilotless before with Styx steering from Phoenix, but reeh jamming threatened to make that impossible. Lieutenant Commander Dufresne was piloting AT-7 alone, her front seat empty, but the civilian shuttle had few enough weapons and additional systems that everyone figured she should manage.

  Trace’s readout said nine minutes. Pilot chatter was full of jargon and targeting numbers — the splicer had multiple firebases, all presently being destroyed by the two carriers’ ordnance. But the ghost rounds Erik had mentioned were now activating — delayed propulsion warheads that lay silent and undetected until you were nearly on top of them. Some of those accelerations were in the twenty-G range, which point-blank could give a pilot just seconds to react.

  Ensign Yun pumped out intercept rounds that turned sharp corners having been launched away from their targets, then a decoy launched thirty seconds ago picked up a pursuer, both accelerating away. “Five at thirty-seven point five,” Yun said coolly, tracking and tagging, Trace seeing new points illuminating on Scan. “Incoming at eighty-five, get me an angle.”

  “Angle,” Hausler confirmed, kicking the shuttle’s nose that way. Yun put another round that way. “Jersey, watch two at forty-one, max accel now.”

  “I’m on it,” came Lieutenant Jersey’s reply from PH-3. “Tify, pull it wide by another thirty, let’s make them stretch.”

  “Wide thirty,” Tif confirmed from PH-4. As Phoenix and Makimakala roared ahead through the space they were taking, defensive batteries blasting everything that tried to hide.

  “That’s a big, fat bitch,” Dale remarked from PH-3’s hold, looking at the station. Trace could only agree. It was a Class-B on the Spiral’s scale, holding anything up to five million people if fully loaded. In the war, attacking something this size with this few marines and little intelligence would have been suicide — the tavalai, kaal or sard could have had the place packed full of marines’ defensive systems, and would crush them once they got inside.

  Here she had a big advantage she hadn’t had during the war, namely that no one cared what mess she made of the station in the process. She wasn’t here to capture it, she didn’t have a conga-line of Admirals breathing down her neck demanding a place to dock their ships, and an even longer conga-line of planet-bound Generals demanding a place from which to operate an orderly base of supply to troops on the ground. The Resistance said they knew where the computer cores were that contained the data they were looking for, and so long as those cores survived she could trash the rest of it if she chose.

  With what appeared to be total surrounding space superiority, she didn’t even have to do that herself — she could simply direct Phoenix to put a round into whatever parts of the station she found objectionable and have them surgically removed without having to commit any marines to the job. In the war, of course, such stations were frequently occupied by many thousands of tavalai, kaal or sard civilians… and occasionally with humans, if the facility was one they weren’t so much taking as taking back. In the latter case, of course, external fire-support was out of the question, and with tavalai, too, efforts were made to keep civvie casualties to a minimum. With kaal, less effort was made, and with sard, none at all, repaying kind with kind what had been done to humans. None of the spacers thought it likely that there could be more than a handful of non-combatant reeh on the splicer, given its remoteness from major systems, and the lack of observed transport traffic. But even were it full to the brim with reeh, Trace knew she was going to have no problem whatsoever blasting them all to fire and vacuum. There were no innocent reeh, that much was clear. Just the latest edition of Spiral’s nastiest, recurring zero-sum game — us or them.

  “Couple of shuttles running to the lunar surface,” Yun observed on her scan. “No other local traffic, place is locked down.”

  Plan was that Phoenix Company would get the bridge, while Makimakala’s karasai would take the adjoining research facilities. The corbi weren’t entirely sure from where the computer cores could best be retrieved, but they were pretty sure that control of both the station bridge and research command would be required. From there a defensible perimeter would be established, counter-attacks destroyed with direct and indirect fire, the cores recovered with all other relevant data, followed by extraction.

  Marine commanders on assault missions were different from any other branch of the services in that during this initial phase there was actually very little to do. Trace was concentrating so hard she nearly bled sweat, but unlike in some units where the commander would constantly give directions to initiate different parts of the plan, marine units worked on a timer. Things would happen on the time that they’d been planned to happen, and if all went well there was little Trace needed to do or say until something went wrong. During the war that had meant most missions soon required her to do and say plenty.

  She watched tacnet as Phoenix and Makimakala’s shuttles wove through the diminishing resistance of ghost rounds, saw PH-4 put missiles through an on-station gun platform that was destroyed before it could fire, heard the pilots talking each other through the approach phase, trusting the carriers and now the enveloping wave of Resistance ships to keep the perimeter clear and watch for proximity horizon threats. Target fixes were obtained on various parts of the huge station rim, a tight cluster of entry-points, then armour-piercing missiles fired.

  “Good hits,” said Yun. “We have good penetration. Bravo Platoon, stand by for insertion.”

  “Bravo copies,” said Lieutenant Alomaim from one row back. Trace’s Command Squad was attached to Bravo, so PH-1’s directions would be aimed at him. From a manoeuvring standpoint Alomaim was in charge of everything she did, as Command Squad could not safely function as an autonomous unit without risking the Company Commander’s safety. It suited Trace fine — she had the entire Company to command, and leading Bravo’s platoon-sized manoeuvres as well would be a needless distraction.

  Gs pressed them down as Hausler kicked thrust to take them in. Trace watched the others approaching, and the timing looked good — GR-1, the G
arudan Platoon shuttle, was heading for the top of the station rim and the hole one of its missiles had made there. Sounds from the surrounding hold faded as PH-1 sucked air back into its vents, reducing the hold to a near-vacuum.

  “Thrust check,” Alomaim reminded them all. “Watch your departure vectors. Remember this is one-G-plus rotation, watch your wingman and don’t crowd the lanes, plenty of room for everyone.”

  “Approach looks clear,” Yun announced, watching that fast-moving wall of steel for surprises, like airlock-mounted gun emplacements. “No movement, clear for now.”

  A quarter-turn around the station wheel, a little more than three kilometres away, Makimakala’s karasai were approaching just the same, vacating more station rim to space. Trace barely noticed as the seat racks lifted up and away, marines holding steady by ceiling harnesses that also retracted as they released and fired attitude thrusters. The hold filled with eruptions of white mist, then a glance showed Trace the line behind her was leaving and she kicked, careful not to catch her shoulder-mounted rifle and straight out the back into empty space.

  It was always a shock, from claustrophobia to agoraphobia, cramped steel confines replaced by the black, endless nothing, the steel rim of the station fast approaching like a giant steel cliff, the wheel curving overhead with that impossible clarity that only objects in space attained, free from atmospheric interference. This croma-built monstrosity was nearly ten kilometres side to side, and the far rim was as distant as the middle suburbs of a small city from someone standing in the center. The whole thing spun, slowly at first glance, but with alarming speed at the approaching rim… and already Third Squad were off chasing the hole that PH-1 had blasted, thrust burning out behind as rifles were unslung.

  Trace kept Staff Sergeant Kono on her immediate side — her wingman for this flight, kicking thrust in turn to follow the long stream of marines heading for the hole. A year ago it wouldn’t have been possible, marine suit thrusters not generating sufficient power to chase a one-G rotation through open space. But lately Phoenix was not the only vehicle to have undergone power upgrades. The enormous face of the orbited moon filled an entire region of space to one side, dull grey and cratered, unremarkable yet still striking after so long indoors.