by Ian Douglas
DuChamp paused, a lecturer surveying his class. "That concludes my discussion on DalRissian surface conditions," he said. "Are there questions?"
"How much longer are we going to have for precombat?" Dev asked.
The invisible audience chuckled again. For five days now they'd been in orbit, waiting as negotiations proceeded between members of the expedition's command staff and the DalRiss. Either no one in the military chain of command knew how much longer the negotiations might last, or they were unwilling to speculate.
By asking Dr. DuChamp's AI personality, Dev was trying to bypass the command staff and get some useful information from another source. There might be rumors among the science staff, for instance, that had not filtered across to the troopships yet. Even if he wasn't supposed to talk about it, he might make a slip. AIs often failed to recognize the significance of seemingly unimportant tidbits of information; one of the few things that separated human minds from AIs was the human ability to jump to conclusions—sometimes accurately—from some seemingly unrelated bit of data.
But DuChamp's AI image only smiled. "I'm afraid your guess is as good as mine, Lieutenant. The situation down there sounds pretty fluid. It may take a while to assess just where your troops and striders could do the most good."
Which was no fuzzier an answer than Dev had expected. From what he and the rest of the regiment had heard so far, IEF leadership was still divided over what they were going to do. Hell, there were rumors that Aiko and Howard had come to blows over the question, though Dev doubted that either the reserved John Howard or the imperturbable Kazuo Aiko could get that excited.
But the split between Imperial and Hegemony units was definitely a problem; Admiral Yamagata, insisting that the fleet represented the Emperor, had publicly suggested that the Hegemony gaijin remain in orbit. Their presence could upset the delicate diplomacy necessary to establishing relations with a new, starfaring species. His personal troops, the black-armored Imperial Guard, were better-disciplined, less likely to disrupt the negotiations.
General Howard and the other senior Hegemony staff officers, naturally enough, objected. They had not tagged along with the Japanese across 115 light years simply to remain in orbital reserve, and the consensus among the non-Nihonjin of the IEF was that Yamagata was trying to grab the benefits of DalRiss contact for Japan's Empire.
It was two more shipboard days before the waiting ended.
There'd been a sharp skirmish between Imperial troops and the mysterious enemy the Translators called the Chaos. It confirmed what everyone in the regiment had assumed ever since they'd first heard the name. The Chaos and the Xenophobes were the same. They'd appeared on ShraRish two standard years before, with different forms and different weapons than they'd used on the worlds of the Shichiju, but there was no doubt about the identification. Three Guards striders, two Tachis and a big Katana, had been lost in the skirmish, and an attempt to use a penetrator nuke had been botched. Though the reports from Aiko's HQ had claimed a victory, it looked as if the landing party had been lucky to get off as lightly as that.
The who-was spread through the Thorhammer modules at light speed. It would be a combat drop; they'd be going in to clear out Xeno surface structures, then plant penetrators where they would do the most good.
When the word came down officially through the ship's speakers, less than ten minutes after the rumors had begun circulating, the Assassins in A Module broke into ringing cheers. Dev cheered with them, then laughed when one of the Commandos observed that anything was better than dying of boredom in orbit.
After that, they were too busy to cheer. Final checks were run on each strider, and the big assault shuttles were prepped and given their final assessment: go, up-gripe, or down-gripe. Weapons were unpacked, stripped, cleaned, and reassembled in grim ritual. Power packs were charged, environmental systems tested, AIs queried and shunted into self-diagnostic routines.
Forty hours after the alert, a final mission briefing was held, a ViRconference of Platoon and Company COs and the Regimental command staff.
Dev was invited as well, somewhat to his surprise. Though he was not a platoon leader, his CAG ideas had received some attention at the higher echelons, thanks largely to Katya's intervention. The decision had been made to let the Commandos drop with the Thorhammers, tasking them with a special mission. Dev linked in with the meeting, said nothing, and took mental notes. This would be his opportunity to show what properly supported infantry could do.
The briefing was conducted by Major Gennani, the senior regimental intelligence officer. After laying out the planned deployment of the Thorhammers at a place the cartographers had dubbed Regio Aurorae, Gennani described what was expected of Cameron's Commandos.
Mindful of the benefits of the Xeno technology captured at Norway Ridge, the Commandos would enter the target area after it was secured by strider assault, searching for anything that the IEF's intelligence people might be able to use. Of special interest were the "greaseballs," the gray, sluglike organics that had been observed emerging from the ground in travel spheres.
Current thinking was that these were the Xenophobes themselves, though how they could manipulate technology like stalkers and Xenozombies was still not known. They seemed to be somehow intermingled with their technology, to the point where it was impossible to separate the two. Greaseballs had been discovered inside wrecked Xeno machines; they'd never been noticed before because they looked so much like lubricant or waste. Submicroscopic scans and N-tech probes had demonstrated that the greaseballs themselves were made of both organic and inorganic cells—part organism, part nanomachine. That seemed to explain their tolerance for a wide variety of environments—environments as mutually alien as Lung Chi, Loki, and ShraRish.
For centuries, most humans had been cybernetic blendings of man and machine. The Xenophobes had carried that meld much further, so far, in fact, that they probably had little in common with the full-organic creatures they had once been.
The DalRiss had never gotten close enough to the invaders to study the slugs. Xeno nano-Ds did nasty things to living tissue, no matter how well armored it was. With the Commandos' help, though, that would change. DalRiss biologists, their Lifemasters, were already growing organisms to receive and duplicate living Xenophobe specimens, a first step toward learning how to communicate with them.
The drop zone on ShraRish would be only a few kilometers from DalRiss lines, and local forces would be available for support. The new meson imaging gear aboard the science ship Dirac had begun mapping the Xenos' crustal lairs, and a large concentration of tunnels had been discovered close to the surface at Regio Aurorae.
The meson scans suggested an explanation for why, after almost two years, the Xenos weren't more widely established on ShraRish. Almost three billion years younger than Earth or Loki, with a thinner crust and a hotter interior, the planet was far more tectonically active than any world of the Shichiju. As the original infestation tunneled out from its first landing site, the SDTs must have been disrupted time after time by seismic quakes, slipping fault lines, and intrusions by pockets of magma. Now, according to the scanners, there were three main pockets of Xeno activity on the planet, and their expansion was still quite slow.
Not that that could save the Alyans in the long run. According to the DalRiss themselves, GhegnuRish, with conditions almost identical to ShraRish, had been completely overrun, slowly but inevitably, within a few hundred years. The knowledge that the same would happen to ShraRish had prompted the desperate search that had ended at distant Altair.
"Your force will be supported by A Company, Lieutenant," Major Gennani told Dev after laying out the overall plan. "Do you anticipate any special problems?"
"No, sir," Dev replied. A three-D graphic of the planned battlefield revolved slowly before his inner vision, showing subterranean tunnel complexes and company deployment zones on the surface. "We'll need enough airlift assets to get us off the ground fast, in case something goes wrong."
"Just the time for the assault, Major."
"Six hours," Gennani replied. His image grinned at the others. "I think the general's a bit anxious. Wants to show Aiko and Yamagata how it's really done."
"Just one more question, sir," Victor Hagan, First Platoon's CO, said. "That botched penetrator drop. Is anything more known about that?"
"Just that the thing didn't go off. We don't know why."
"Could have been a timer malfunction," Colonel Varney put in.
"Or it could be something else," Hagan said. "Back in the Shichiju, you know, the Xenos have a nasty habit of turning our own weapons against us. If they have an atomic warhead now . . ."
He didn't finish the thought. He didn't need to. The meeting ended on a somber and reflective note.
Chapter 26
Humans long for order, for rationality, for logic. Yet with each step in our understanding of the universe, somehow the universe persists in defying us.
—Hearings on the DalRiss
Terran Hegemony Space Council
Dr. Paul Hernandez
C.E. 2542
Katya found Dev in the spin module's number three equipment bay, as the Commandos were boarding their ascraft. He was standing next to his RLN-90 Scoutstrider, going over last-second instructions with Sergeant Wilkins and Corporal Bayer. The sergeant had a Hitachi Arms subgun slung over her back and a bulky flamer cradled in her arms. Bayer's plasma gun was folded in its steadimount, muzzle up. Above them, the ascraft crouched in the shadows like a huge, black insect.
"I'll want a fast dispersal," Dev was saying as Katya approached, "fast and clean. Tell your people that if they trip coming out the door, there won't be time to stop for them. We're supposed to be hitting a cleared DZ, but—"
"Don't trust us to do our job, Lieutenant?" Katya asked as she joined the trio.
Dev grinned at her. The self-confidence she saw there was reassuring. He'd gone through some major changes over the past few months. "Just taking Murphy's Law into account, Captain. Anything that can go wrong—"
"Will," she finished for him. "I approve. Lieutenant, can I talk to you for a moment?"
"We're about finished here," Dev said, looking at the others. "Any other questions? Okay. Get on board and check your people. I'll link with you soon as I jack in."
Katya waited as the two leggers saluted, then turned and headed up the ramp into the ascraft's brightly lit interior.
"You wanted to see me, Captain?"
She touched his arm lightly, and they started walking across the deck toward the line of First Platoon's warstriders. The combat machines were moving, one after another, into the waiting ascraft, where men in bright orange armor attached the clamps and feeder lines that connected them with the ascraft's systems. The equipment bay rang with the clatter of heavy equipment and metal striking metal. Technicians huddled over flaring torches as last-second repairs were made, and yellow-painted bugs scurried among the hulking striders and ascraft, carrying men, ammunition, and stores.
Katya nearly had to shout to make herself heard above the racket. "I wanted to tell you to be careful down there. This has all the markings of a real, old-fashioned hema." The word was another Inglic borrowing from Nihongo. It meant a bungled mess.
"Anything I should know about?"
"The Imperial-Hegemony politics are getting pretty bad. I gather Yamagata threatened to have General Howard relieved of command."
"That is bad. Who would replace him?"
"Aiko."
"Bad timing. My people are already upset about Yamagata's crack about us gaijin screwing up the diplomatic works. I don't think they'd like working for the Japanese one bit."
"Agreed." They reached Katya's Warlord. Sergeant Reiderman, Katya's crew chief, dropped off the access ladder next to them, wiped his hands on a rag tucked into his coveralls, then gave Katya a quick thumbs up. "She's hot, Captain."
"Thanks, Red." She turned again to Dev. "I guess I'm still not convinced you can count on the leg infantry," she said.
"I'm leg infantry," Dev said. "And strider. We'll get 'em what they need."
"Just so you get in fast and . . . get out safe. Promise me?"
He gave her a wry wink. "Promise. Just so I have First Platoon to keep the bastards busy."
"That's something I can promise you." Leaning forward swiftly, she brushed his lips with hers, then turned and started pulling herself up the Warlord's ladder, leaving him standing alone on the deck.
As always, she had to steel herself to slide into that narrow, black crypt in the Warlord's side. As soon as she'd jacked in, though, her crew welcomed her aboard. Sho-i Torolf Bondevik was in the pilot's module, and Jun-i Muhammed al-Badr was handling the weapons.
Engaging her external view, she picked out Dev Cameron's tall frame as he climbed aboard the single-slotter RLN-90.
Dev's Destroyer. The name made her smile. She remembered when he named his new strider, declaring that at last he had command of a ship of his own. He never had asked for a retest, or a transfer to the navy.
She still hadn't sorted out her own feelings for the man. He was sensitive, fun to be with, and superb recreation. She suspected that her first attraction had been less sexual than it had been her penchant for picking up strays. He'd seemed so vulnerable. . . .
Well, he wasn't vulnerable now, and she still felt . . .
Damn. As if she didn't have enough on her mind right now with a company to run.
"Status check," she called.
"Piloting systems green," Bondevik reported. "We're hooked into mother-bird and ready for drop."
"Weapons are safed and locked," al-Badr added. "But all checked out and go."
"Eagle-Three, this is Hammer One," she said, switching channels. "We're ready for hookup."
"Come to Mama, Hammer One." The ascraft was jacked by Sho-i Lena Obininova, a Russian national from Earth.
Technicians guided the Warlord into position as the ascraft's clamps descended and hooked on. Her view of the outside world was blocked off as power grippers slid a thin durasheath shell over the ascraft's belly, sealing the loaded strider slots off in the darkness.
Fear twisted in the back of Katya's mind for a moment. Then she went on-line with Lieutenant Obininova, watching the bay through her electronic eyes. Easy, girl, she told herself. You've done this before. There's no call to lose it before you even get clear of the transport!
She thought of Dev's easy grin, and that steadied her. Time dragged on, one long second after another. Eventually klaxons sounded and red lights flared, clearing the equipment bay of all personnel. Air was being bled from the deck into holding tanks, preparatory to drop. Finally there were only the strobing warning lights. The deck was in vacuum, rendering the klaxon voiceless.
"Coming up on the drop point," Obininova said. "Deck panels opening."
Silently in the hard vacuum, hinged panels beneath each of the waiting ascraft swung open. At first Katya saw only a giddily endless hole filled with wheeling stars. Then she was looking down at a mottled red and gold and white-streaked landscape swinging past the opening. Vertigo tugged at her. The spin module was still rotating; the open drop hatch alternately looked down onto planet and stars as it continued to turn.
"Everything's green," Katya said, as much to reassure herself as anyone else. "Power's up. Systems go."
"Release in five seconds," Obininova said. "And four . . . and three . . . two . . . one . . . drop!"
Clamps securing the ascraft released their hold. The habitat's spin gravity, assisted by a nudge from maneuvering thrusters, kicked the ascraft clear of the Yuduki and into space.
Then retros fired with silent thunder, and the long drop began.
For the next thirty minutes, Katya was too preoccupied with the steady flow of data from Obininova's control systems to worry.
The ascraft hit atmosphere with a jolt like a kick in the pants, and soon the view outside was obscured by the pink-orange haze of reentry. When she could see beyond the ascraft's hull again, clouds were billowing toward her from the red-brown landscape, and the deep violet curve of the planet's far horizon was flattening out.
Lightning flared, illuminating rain-swollen thunderheads. A volcano brooded beneath a wind-scrawled track of white ash. Two other ascraft from the Yuduki dropped on parallel tracks, five kilometers to the north—Second and Third Platoons, on final approach. Obininova opened mental windows displaying flight corridors and surface detail in glowing, AI-generated graphics. Their destination was the gathering storm ahead.
The ascraft's reentry shields fell away and Katya corrected her earlier impression. It was not lightning that was illuminating the clouds ahead, but the steady stroke of lasers fired from orbit. They continued to fire until the entire target area was so masked by a spreading umbrella of smoke that the bolts were no longer getting through to the ground. With a hard jolt of wind-battered control surfaces, the ascraft flew into the cloud, and Katya was plunged into wet semidarkness. When she emerged, the land beneath the ascraft's belly was a fire-tortured hellscape. Katya saw the same sort of twisted architecture and crystalline growth she'd seen at Norway Base, but it appeared to be built here on a grander scale, and with greater complexity. The laser barrage from the orbiting fleet had slagged much of the alien-grown architecture to the ground, but enough remained to create the impression of an eldritch fairyland . . . a fairyland with just a taste of black nightmare hidden in the fantasy.
"Hang on," Obininova warned. "Ventral shields coming off!"
With a bang, the duralloy armor was whipped away, and Katya's Warlord was exposed for the first time to the local atmosphere. She checked her external sensors, watching the data fill block after block on her visual field. Temperature . . . atmospheric composition . . . acid levels . . . all as expected. Dust levels were high, but that was to be expected after the bombardment. There were no detectable traces of nano particles.
