The True Measure (Terran Armor Corps Book 3)

by Richard Fox

  “Do you know what we went through to build this place?” Etor asked. “Weeks of twenty-hour days. We just sent the first gallon or potable water to Balmaseda yesterday and now you’re going to wreck it? Why? Spite?”

  “They are in no position to negotiate,” Cha’ril said.

  Etor looked at her in disgust.

  “That’s no human in there,” he said. “Is Earth so weak they have to bring in aliens to do their dirty work?”

  “Should I take that as an insult or a compliment?” she asked.

  A door on the hauler burst open and a woman jumped out. She held a canvas sack bulging with denethrite explosives in one hand…and a detonator in the other.

  “Loordes, stop!” Etor shouted.

  Cha’ril’s rotary cannon spun up.

  “This is our home!” Loordes reached back with the satchel charge and swung it forward.

  Cha’ril fired a single bullet and it ripped through Loordes’ throwing arm just below the elbow. The satchel and the severed limb landed next to her and flopped in the dirt. As she looked at the blood spurting from her ragged stump, Loordes stumbled to one side.

  Cha’ril charged forward, raised a foot in the air, and stomped down, mashing the satchel charge into the ground.

  “Secure the detonator before she loses consciousness,” the Dotari armor said.

  “Txortalari!” the woman slurred and fell to her side, blood gushing across her clothes and staining the earth. The Ibarrans screamed in dismay.

  “My kit!” A man waved his hands in the air and pointed to an open door. “My med kit!”

  “Go!” Gideon pointed at the man and tracked him with his rotary cannon as he raced to the shed and hurried to Loordes. The medic slapped the detonator out of her hand and pulled a tourniquet from his pack.

  “Anyone else?” Gideon asked. “Anyone else want to be a hero?”

  “She’s the last one,” Etor said. He looked on as the medic pressed a hypospray to her neck and she went limp. “She’s…my sister. Please, sir, let me—”

  Gideon motioned with a flick of his hand and Etor rushed over.

  “Aignar, Dismantle the pump stations,” Gideon sent over the lance’s IR channel so the colonists couldn’t hear. “Cha’ril, hold your position until they move the casualty. That charge might cause minor damage to you, but it will hurt them more, and we aren’t equipped to handle more injuries. I’ll prep a pigeon drone and get evac on the way.”

  “Should I have killed her?” Cha’ril asked. “Her intent was lethal. Restraint seemed reasonable.”

  “You handled the situation better than I would have,” Gideon said. “If this is the worst we have to deal with today, then I’d call it a success.”

  Aignar stopped next to the glacier wall and looked up the sheer cliff. The pipes thrummed with moving water. When he gripped a control panel with his hand and crushed it, moans and a number of hand gestures he’d never seen before came from the settlers. He kicked over a battery stack and one of the pumps ground to a halt.

  “What Gideon means, Cha’ril,” he said, “is that this is a shit sandwich. And we’ve all got to take a bite.”

  Chapter 20

  “For the third time, what I’m telling you, Governor Thrace,” Lettow said, keeping his expression level as he looked at the other man in the holo tank, “is that I’m dismantling your outlying stations and removing the personnel myself. Your city won’t need water or power twelve hours from now and I will not leave anything behind to encourage resettlement of this planet.”

  “This is outrageous!” Thrace shouted. Had they actually been face-to-face, Lettow was fairly certain he’d be wiping the Ibarran’s spittle away. Lettow muted the governor and glanced at the map of the high mesa with Balmaseda City.

  Blue icons for the armor and mounted Ranger elements were still several miles from the city. He tapped in to their camera feeds and saw the tops of buildings and the bulk of the cargo landers at the city’s center.

  The 14th and 30th fleets were closing in on Balmaseda but still an hour away from taking their positions over the planet.

  “Colonel Martel, what’s your read?” the admiral asked.

  A panel with the helm and shoulders of a suit of armor came up and Lettow was glad he didn’t have to see the man inside the suit. The idea of floating in goo with plugs in one’s brain sent a shiver down his spine.

  “No resistance encountered. No sign of any heavy weapons,” Martel said. “We shall see if a deliberate advance on the city proves to be a better move than an assault drop to seize key facilities.”

  “You convinced me that landers full of Rangers and armor showing up out of the blue would not minimize civilian casualties.”

  “We are here to remove them, but we come with peace in our hearts. Planning on the Ibarrans understanding that once they realize we’re in their city but before they grab their weapons requires hope. And hope is not a method. We’re ten minutes from the city’s edge. Armor will lead the way. The Rangers aren’t happy about that, but they aren’t stupid either.”

  “I’m still working on the governor. He’s angry but reasonable, Ardennes out.”

  Lettow unmuted Thrace.

  “—but there’s no proper English translation for what I just said about your mother!” Thrace took several deep breaths as he stared daggers at Lettow.

  “You’re done, Governor.”

  “Hardly! As for your father, he—”

  “You. Are. Done. You have one easy choice to make, and that is how many of your people will die for your worthless pride. By now, you can see the dust rising to the south. My ground forces will be there soon and they are led by armor.” Lettow felt a bit of pleasure when Trace flinched at the word.

  “You ever seen armor fight, Governor? My father served in Australia. The only nightmares he ever had were from seeing four suits tear through a Chinese infantry battalion. I don’t want that to happen. They don’t want that to happen. If you’re a governor, then you care about every last man, woman, and child that looks to you for leadership…and I don’t think you want bloodshed either.”

  Lettow caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Several officers had clustered around the astrogation section and the conversation was growing heated. The admiral locked eyes with Paxton, then flicked his hands toward the disturbance. She nodded and rushed over.

  “And if you do insist on spilling blood this day,” Lettow said, “I know where your office is and will turn it into a smoking crater as a monument to futility and find someone else to talk to. Do we understand each other?”

  Someone leaned up to Thrace’s ear and whispered to him. The governor smiled.

  “I think, Admiral, that you do need to talk to someone else.” Thrace’s holo cut out.

  “Sir…” Paxton ran over so fast she used the holo tank to stop her momentum. “There’s a wormhole opening in the system—not through the Crucible. Has to be a one-way jump.”

  “From where? Kroar space?” Lettow zoomed the holo tank away from Balmaseda and searched for where the wormhole was forming.

  “We…can’t tell,” she said.

  In the holo tank, an alert icon popped up over Balmaseda. Lettow’s brow furrowed and he zoomed back in. It was notoriously difficult to plan exit wormholes for offset jumps through Crucible gates, but there, over the northern pole, was a wormhole.

  “That’s impossible,” Paxton said.

  “Ready the alert fighters. Load forward torpedoes across the fleets,” Lettow said.

  Admiral Ericson appeared in the holo.

  “Ardennes, are you seeing this?” she asked.

  “I am. And were it not with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe it,” he said.

  The wormhole faded away. Lettow zoomed in and found a Terran battleship with a white hull and red trim. Dozens more ships appeared and the telltale flare of landing craft breaking through atmosphere appeared. They were heading straight for Balmaseda City.

  “That’s…I’ve never seen tha
t ship before.” Paxton swallowed hard. “It’s not a Warsaw class. Similar build, but that’s a good hundred yards longer from prow to stern.”

  In the holo, threat icons appeared over the north pole. Hundreds of them. Lettow felt ice pulse out of his heart and through his veins.

  A hailing signal appeared next to the battleship.

  “We’ve made it through worse,” Admiral Ericson said.

  Lettow punched the side of his holo tank and opened the channel.

  A woman in her late twenties with night-black hair and wide Slavic features appeared. She bore five stars on a high collar.

  “Terran ships,” she said with a faint Eastern European accent, “you have violated Ibarra Nation space. As our colony is undamaged and the governor can cite only your belligerent attitude as a grievance, I am willing to be…merciful. Recall your forces. Leave through the Crucible and never return. This is your only warning.”

  A text message from Ericson popped up over her window: STALL. SENDING REQUEST FOR REINFORCEMENTS THROUGH CRUCIBLE.

  “Since Thrace has you up-to-date, we can skip the pleasantries,” Lettow said. “This colony is illegal. You have no legitimate claim to this system and I will remove it through whatever force I deem necessary. I am here under the authority of the Terran Union and New Bastion.”

  “An entire galaxy full of stars,” the Ibarran said, shaking her head. “World upon pristine world ready to grow new civilizations, and a bunch of squabbling bureaucrats think they own them all. Who gave you this authority? What right do you have to demand anything of us?”

  “Same tone, different voice from the last time I spoke to an Ibarran. You’re not Admiral Faben, are you?” Lettow asked.

  A smile crept across her face.

  “She said you were adept as a commander, but not that clever. I agree with the latter. I’ll learn the former myself. Do you think this parley will give you the chance to get word through the Crucible?”

  Lettow leaned back.

  A text message appeared over Ericson’s face: NO RESPONSE.

  “Your limpets are a good tactic,” the Ibarran admiral said. “We salted the Crucible with our own when we first delivered the colonists, though I think ours will be a good deal harder to find. Is it still Terran Naval procedure to send updates back to Earth every six hours? That’s a long time to go without help…”

  “Wormhole detected!” the astrogation lieutenant called out. The three admirals all let surprise break through their poker faces. “Coming from the far side of the moon.”

  “The Crucible?” Lettow asked.

  “No, the exit plane is too large,” the officer said, shaking his head.

  “Get me visual from the Crucible,” Lettow said to Paxton.

  “Our teams in three of the control nodes are off-line,” she said. “Delta sent a fragment. Sending.”

  A screen opened in the holo tank showing the interior circumference of the Crucible. The great crown of thrones was broken, the control nodes shattered. A flash filled the screen and the screen went to static before the whole video looped again.

  “Contact!” Paxton announced. A trace appeared behind an object as it slingshot around the moon and angled straight for Balmaseda. The ship’s computer estimated it would impact in tens of seconds.

  “What is that? The speed looks like a macro round.” Lettow snapped his head toward the gunnery commander. “Get a firing solution. Don’t let it through!”

  “Can’t be a macro, sir,” Paxton said. “Mass of the object reads barely more than a few hundred pounds. No radiation returns, not a nuke.”

  “Chance of us hitting it at this range are near zero, sir,” the gunnery officer called back. “All ships are engaging.”

  A curtain of fire poured out of the Terran ships tightening toward the object’s projected path. Lettow knew it would take a miracle for even a lucky hit…but still let out a curse when the projectile zipped through the point defense rounds.

  Lettow touched the icon for his ground commander.

  “Colonel Martel, the orbital situation has changed. You’ve got an unknown object coming in…projected point of impact near the equator.”

  “We’ve taken antipersonnel sniper fire,” Martel said. “Minor injuries to one Ranger. Building with the sniper was reduced by gauss cannon. Say again orbital situation?”

  This whole thing is falling apart, Lettow thought.

  “Unknown object on rapid approach to—” The object vanished from the plot and the channel to Martel cut out. Lettow double-tapped the icon and got an error message. He looked at Balmaseda, and the planet seemed no worse for wear…but over the equator was a swirling blue aurora.

  “We’ve lost all contact with the surface,” the communication lieutenant said. Lettow felt his heart slow as a realization hit him. He’d seen this before. On Oricon.

  “Admiral,” the Ibarran commander said, “the atmosphere is ionizing. It’s a tactic used by the—”

  “The Kesaht,” Lettow said.

  “New contacts coming round the moon,” Paxton said. “The-the targeting computers must be off. There’s no way it can be this many.”

  As a swarm of crescent-shaped fighters and blocky assault ships came around the moon, a tendril broke off from the main body, on a direct course for Lettow’s fleets. Larger Kesaht ships followed. Hundreds and hundreds more.

  “We’re getting a message from the Kesaht, Admiral,” the communication officer said. “It’s just three words over and over again: ‘Surrender and die.’”

  “It’s a trap,” Ericson said.

  “And we triggered it.” Lettow looked at the Ibarran admiral, who’d gone noticeably pale in the last few minutes.

  “Their message seems directed toward us both,” she said curtly.

  “I agree.”

  “I’m here for my people. Help me get them home and I’ll do the same for you,” she said.

  “I’m not in the habit of making agreements with people who won’t give their name,” Lettow said.

  “I am Fleet Admiral Ivana Makarov,” she said, nodding slightly.

  A sneer tugged at Lettow’s lips. He knew the Ibarras were using procedural technology, but he never thought they’d stoop to necromancy. An Admiral Makarov commanded the Lost 8th Fleet during the Ember War after earning distinction against the Toth incursion. The day Earth learned of the fleet’s loss became a day of remembrance, with Admiral Makarov honored for her leadership and valor.

  “Makarov?” Ericson asked.

  “My mother gave her life to save humanity against the Xaros. I chose to follow in her footsteps. Perhaps you will bring us some of that Breitenfeld luck, Ericson? I can push five squadrons to you. I need the rest to keep the evacuation corridor open from the main city…”

  TRUST? Appeared across Ericson’s screen.

  “Admiral Makarov,” Lettow said, “I now consider this a joint operation in all respects. We’ve got…seventy minutes before the Kesaht fighters reach weapon range. We need to figure out how to keep their troops off the planet. Get your personnel off and beat their capital ships. I’ve got some experience with the Kesaht.”

  “You’ve had more success against them than any Ibarran commander,” Makarov said. “Then again, this is the first time we’ve faced them with this much firepower. What would Captain Valdar say at a time like this, Ericson?”

  “Admiral Valdar…would say, ‘Gott Mit Uns.’” Ericson said.

  “Then let God be with us,” Makarov said. “There are a few more surprises in the system I wasn’t going to tell you about, but since we’re all friends now…”

  Chapter 21

  The white noise of a wormhole jump subsided and Roland’s stomach twisted into knots worse than the last three jumps the ship had made. He touched the inside of his womb and tried to activate his armor’s systems. A HUD appeared in his vision, fed through his plugs and cybernetics directly into his brain.

  The HUD blinked on and off for a few seconds, then collapsed into an err
or message. Again.

  He’d been in this womb for hours with no outside contact. It felt good to feel the totality of the amniosis fluid around his body and the closeness of the armored womb after so long, but being shut off from everything else was proving tedious.

  I wonder what Marc Ibarra is doing. Maybe he’s lonely. This will be an interesting story once I get locked back in the cell next to him. Though he’ll probably get pissed I didn’t try and break him out soon as I donned my armor.

  The interior of the womb lit up and Roland’s eyes ached. He felt a twinge through his plugs and a camera feed opened up. He saw through the helm optics of his armor, though he couldn’t move the armor at all.

  He was in a launch bay. Ibarran armor techs worked around him, guiding a trolley full of gauss shells and calling out silent instructions to each other. The crews were focused, working with the same seamless efficiency that Roland knew from his maintenance team of Brazilians that tended to his armor on the Scipio. Sound came on a moment later and Roland heard the techs talking to each other in Basque, catching the occasional English word for armor systems and weapons.

  Morrigan and Nicodemus walked into his field of view, both in their skin suits.

  “You awake in there?” Nicodemus touched a screen attached to his forearm and more of Roland’s systems came online. He looked around and found he was inside a drop pod.

  “Been ready since we left,” Roland said. He ran through a system check and found a new weapon mag locked to his back: an armor sized breech-loaded rifle with an underslung battery pack. Shells for the weapon were belted to his breastplate. He noted a sword hilt locked to a leg and was surprised Nicodemus had confidence in him to wield one in battle after Roland lost so many bouts in the dojo.

  “Mauser recoilless rifle,” Morrigan said. “Designed to punch through Sanheel shields with a single bullet. Haven’t gone through field testing yet. It’ll work wonders or we go back to the old standby.” She tapped her forearm where their armor carried double barreled gauss cannons.