The Gray Matter (Rebels and Patriots Book 3)

by A. G. Claymore

  “They hit the station first,” the sensor coordinator advised. “Just as they’d been ordered to.”

  That meant they still had a target worth seizing. “Initiate the Ixtab.”

  ***

  “Ixtab 42, you are cleared for separation.” The clearance was picked up by every Marine in every shuttle docked to the planetary assault ship. It was a mantra of the Nathaniel family that a well-informed Marine was a more effective Marine and so the men and women of the 488 were usually tuned into the command net before being committed to action.

  “About gods-damned time!” Skeat growled. He walked down the middle aisle of their assault shuttle, checking on his troops, grabbing each restraint and giving it a good tug.

  “The restraints are the one thing that never fails, Sarge,” Frizzel called out, raising his voice as the rumble of the cheap pulse engines of the main column kicked in. “Every time you check ‘em, but it’s the suits that’ll kill us.”

  “Maybe I just like to give you the impression that I actually care about your booze-soaked hide,” Skeat roared back, swaying slightly as the pilot maneuvered the assault penetrator away from the Xipe Totec. “Half of you squints are orphans; you gotta will your shit to somebody…”

  “You can have some of mine right now, Sarge,” Coleman shouted back. “After all this time waiting to deploy…”

  Skeat laughed as he staggered to his own seat, near the back ramp, and dropped heavily into it. “Just keep it between your ears with the rest of it. Now, shut your festering fist-holsters so we can hear what’s going on out there.” The restraint-arms rotated into place, magnetically attaching to his armor, locking him in place as he looked right to see Obaid, the leader of Second Squad giving him a thumbs up.

  Franklin skidded into view as the vessel gave another lurch. She managed to turn it into a graceful turn, dropping her backside neatly into the seat reserved for Third Squad’s leader.

  He sub-vocalized a command, reporting his squad ready for the assault and First Lieutenant Valeriya Nevsky’s acknowledgement icon appeared next to it almost immediately. Skeat and the other two squad leaders in the platoon heartily approved of their new officer. She looked after her Marines when they needed her influence and she didn’t play little games.

  Their last platoon leader would have waited to acknowledge any input, trying to give the impression that he was busy with something more important. In Skeat’s opinion, it was a bad habit that carried over into combat where delays were often fatal, as in the case of their illustrious leader, who managed to get himself trampled by an angry mob of secessionists on TC34553.

  At least, that’s how the report had been worded.

  The order of battle report showed one enemy frigate remaining and it was turning to line up a desperate attempt at a jump out of the system.

  “Come on,” Skeat hissed. “Tell the pilot we can go. We don’t need to wait on…”

  “Cutpurse, this is orbital control. You are clear to start your insertion run. Be advised, the enemy defense grid is damaged but still active, over.”

  The column pilot’s response was drowned out by the ironic cheers and the grinding thrum of the engines as they built up their first pulse. They all lurched back inside their armor as the engines dumped the first pulse of gravity ahead of the ungainly ship.

  Ixtab class craft were long columns that usually rode docked to the underside of the Marine carriers. It was long enough to dock every assault shuttle and Iron Hand aboard the Xipe Totec. The pilot sat in an Iron Hand at the very front of the column, its forward shielding enhanced to deal with the superheated shock-layer of atmosphere as they plunged down toward their target.

  In planetary assaults, speed was life but the aviation assets of the Xipe Totec couldn’t handle shock-layers. They either had to ride down slowly and risk defensive fire or lock themselves to an Ixtab column and ride the thundering freight-train down to the planet.

  “Shock-layer building,” the column pilot advised, though the buffeting was more than enough clue.

  “The mess was serving shepherd’s pie tonight,” somebody groused.

  A twangy noise, like somebody hitting a high-tension steel cable with a bat, announced they were now taking enemy fire, but it was unlikely to penetrate the shock-layer and the shielding.

  “Taking enemy fire,” a mocking voice announced from somewhere to Skeat’s right.

  “Taking enemy fire,” the column pilot announced.

  Another ironic cheer.

  ***

  “Contact forward,” the vizier warned. “Enemy frigate entering the far end of the wormhole.”

  “Lead cruiser is engaging,” the tactical officer added. “The Human shielding is notoriously strong, at least for the Imperial vessels. I estimate a collision will occur inside the wormhole.”

  NGark knew what would need to be done. “Order the second cruiser in the line to fire immediately after the collision. Load enhanced nuclear warheads.”

  The tactical officer showed the slightest of pauses before passing the order.

  As predicted, the first cruiser failed to destroy the frigate and simply ploughed into the enemy ship, both taking heavy damage, but the frigate, at a third the tonnage of the cruiser, was pushed back and both ships lost their shield generators as well as many of their secondary systems.

  Not that it mattered, because the second cruiser in the line fired two rounds from her main guns into the stern of her sister ship. The rounds burrowed deep into the vessel before sensors in the warheads decided the center of mass had been reached and they detonated.

  A nuclear warhead detonated in the vacuum of space yielded little more than radiation. That same warhead going off in the center of an enemy warship had far more matter to push around and the two weapons shattered the cruiser, taking the front third of the Human frigate along with her.

  The walls of the wormhole rippled alarmingly and a hail of debris, confined by the narrow conduit of space, raced past the Gray ships, shattering almost all of the escorting fighters.

  Two more rounds now streaked toward the frigate and easily burrowed in through her shattered bow. The explosions sent more debris toward the escaping Gray ships and some of the heavier, Human-built fragments were penetrating shields and causing damage.

  “All ships remain operational,” Tactical assured.

  “The wormhole appears to be destabilizing,” the vizier said in an oddly calm voice, as though he was simply interested in the phenomenon.

  NGark could sympathize. He was also curious about the effects of explosions inside a wormhole, especially because the results would determine whether he survived the next few moments. Still, they had to concentrate on escape.

  “The exit approaches,” the vizier added.

  ***

  The roaring vibration caused by the shock-layer had faded now and Skeat knew it was time to say goodbye to Ixtab 42. “If you’ve got gods,” he shouted down the aisle at his twelve Marines, “now’s the time to bend their ears!”

  “Want me to put in a good word for you, Sarge?” Waters shouted back. “I doubt the Bull Slayer wants you offering him green blood.”

  The other Marines heaped a torrent of good-natured abuse at Waters. The cult of Mithras had been the primary faith of the Corps for centuries and they could afford to take insults in good humor.

  “Mithras likes variety just as much as the next man… or deity,” Skeat shot back, “though I can always find him a cup of red, if you’re willing…” He raised an eyebrow at Waters, who chuckled at the threat.

  “He can have plenty from those colonials that are assaulting in their light shuttles but, if you want the personal touch…”

  “Stand by for separation.”

  “Only if I can skip some of the degrees…” Waters stopped talking abruptly as their combat shuttle ejected from the central core of the Ixtab. The grav plating in the deck couldn’t quite hope to counter the sudden acceleration but it could, at least, keep the Marines from blacking ou
t.

  The sudden roar of Govi Darkhan’s battering atmosphere was a welcome s0und because it meant they hadn’t been smashed during separation, which happened three percent of the time. The sound eased as their own shuttle pilot brought the craft under control and vectored toward their landing zone.

  The central column, true to her name, would be left to smash into the surface. An Ixtab never returned from deployment.

  “If I’m gonna be on such an intimate footing with Mithras,” Waters resumed his theme, “I should at least be made a Heliodromus.”

  Before Skeat could think of a suitably witty retort, the green lights above them went to red. “Weapons!” he shouted.

  They all reached up to the mag plates on the stanchions that held their seats. When their armored hands touched the hand-grips, the plates went to half power, allowing the weapons to be pulled down.

  They checked their weapons without having to be told. They knew all too well that their lives depended on finding the problems before the problems found them.

  The red lights began to blink and the rear ramp cracked open. Everyone lurched to the side as they banked.

  “Tip for the driver,” some wag called out, just before the sudden deceleration of the final landing cycle. Forty weapon muzzles rattled against the decking as their effective weight was suddenly boosted.

  A quick series of thumps as the landing points hit dirt and then the restraints released, a chime sounding in everyone’s helmet on the off chance they couldn’t figure out they’d hit the ground.

  Skeat followed his squad down the ramp, through the hazy air under the heat-sinks in the tail, and out to the sector assigned to his three fire-teams. They were twenty meters out from the shuttle and watching their third of the perimeter as the shuttle lifted off to link up with the rest of its squadron.

  Until the time came for his Marines to leave, the assault shuttles would serve an air support role, firing on hard targets and keeping any enemy craft at bay.

  “Skeat,” Nevsky’s voice crackled in his helmet, “your boys will provide the overhead for the approach.”

  “Rhodes, Ramsey, Klein,” Skeat said over the prox net, “birds up.”

  The three Marines held still while a cluster of small drones detached from their back armor to ascend into the evening sky.

  “Crom Dubh!” Ryan whispered. “Would you look at that…”

  Skeat turned. The massive station, shot up by the Grays so it wouldn’t fall into enemy hands, was now visible in the atmosphere. Its underside was wreathed in flames as it fell, hazy in the distance but an impressive sight nonetheless.

  “Get your heads out of your asses,” Skeat snarled, “or I’m gonna kick your teeth in and that’ll involve a helluvalot of tearing. We came here to do a job, not to go sightseeing. Eyes on your arcs!”

  The tactical map holo was filling in with all the detail from the platoon’s drones and Skeat could see waypoints appearing as Lieutenant Nevksy began planning their approach. He grunted in approval. She’d only been with them for five months, and straight from the Twenty-Nine Moons, at that. He’d never known a new officer to be so sensible when it came to advice from her senior NCO’s.

  He grunted again as he watched the waypoints populate his map holo. She had a damned good eye for terrain, too.

  ***

  “We are clear of the wormhole,” the vizier announced. “We can now form a stable distortion field.”

  “Standing by to jump,” the helmsman advised. “Initiating the precursor…”

  “Belay!” NGark set a targeting reticle on one of the three Human carriers they’d found among the ships on this side of the wormhole. It was crewed by Humans but it had been built at Tel Ramh.

  “The rest may jump as they come out, but I want us swung around to bear on this target.”

  “The wormhole is collapsing.” The vizier brought up a list. “We lost two thirds of our ships in there. What remains is mostly on the other side with the bulk of the Human fleet.”

  NGark suspected there was a note of censure in the vizier’s voice, but that was now the least of his concerns. He’d lost Govi Darkhan, along with quite a few ships, but he could still give his people a victory if he could deprive the enemy of their greatest tactical advantage.

  “Initiate the jump sequence,” he ordered. There would only be time for a single salvo. After that, they could either run or die and he had plans for a shakeup of the Quorum.

  ***

  The last two Gray contra-gravity tanks turned right as small-arms fire began to bounce off their turrets. The turrets swung around, aiming at a point triangulated by impact sensors in the armor, and they fired nearly simultaneously.

  “Come on,” Skeat urged. “You know you wanna run the monkeys over, instead of wasting HE rounds. Just hit the damned throttle already!” He wasn’t terribly worried about casualties. Standard Gray tanking doctrine insisted on high explosive when engaging infantry. The problem with doctrine is that it fails to consider HMA.

  The Grays must have been listening because they lurched forward, their low pitched whine rattling his bones and causing interference in his heads-up holo. The effect was short-lived, however, as three loud chirps announced the firing of Ice-Pick anti-armor weapons.

  Propelled by the hydrogen launch-charge, the weapons used a thermodynamic precursor warhead to reduce the temperature of the targeted area, making the armor incredibly brittle. The secondary warheads penetrated easily and, suddenly, there were no more enemy tanks between the Marines and their final waypoint.

  At least no operational ones.

  ***

  “They’re turning toward the Sucker Punch,” Tactical warned. “A full salvo from a cruiser’s mains might be enough to knock her out of commission.”

  Robin had seen the Humans in the stasis pods. She’d seen the bodies at Uruk. “Put us in front of her,” she ordered. “Load shake-and-bake.” The colonies were on the verge of gaining the upper hand and she wasn’t going to let the Grays destroy Humanity’s greatest military asset.

  “Half kinetic, half nuke, aye, ma’am.”

  She closed her eyes, but the same old image of her daughter’s face among the dead of Uruk came back to her and so she opened them. Those bastards wouldn’t get her.

  “Failure in the portside ventral conveyor,” Tactical advised. “Ready for the other three mains. Enemy in the envelope.”

  “Fire.”

  The howl sounded like a fleeing soul and the decking rattled.

  “They’re firing.”

  “Weapons free, intercept mode.”

  The batteries of their frigate screamed in response but they were in a captured Gray warship and her secondary and tertiary batteries were fewer than those of her Human counterparts. The hail of ordnance was unlikely to stop all of the incoming rounds.

  “The target has jumped.”

  “Intercepted one projectile…”

  “Brace!” Robin shouted, forgetting to follow her own advice as the three enemy rounds hammered into their forward shield. She was thrown forward fetching up against the side of the helmsman’s terminal, the hard edge breaking the ribs on her right side.

  The impact should have killed her and she knew that meant the shield generator had torn loose, rather than having translated all the force of the impact into the ship. All of this registered in her mind in a heartbeat and she looked up just in time to see the remnants of one of the enemy rounds tumble through the upper part of the compartment’s hull plating and pass on down the length of the ship.

  The edges of the ragged hole bloomed with expanding metal gel but it was too wide and the seal never closed. She’d always assumed her last thoughts would be of her little Sarah, but her mind spent the last few moments fixated on the cold.

  That hideous cold…

  ***

  “I’d recommend against it, ma’am,” Skeat urged. He was watching the enemy bunker while arguing over the unit prox. “We’ve already burnt three drones trying to crack th
at bastard. The missiles can’t get through the shielding and the drones just die the instant they try to slow-dance their way past.”

  It was frustrating. They’d made it to the facility with light resistance but they and every other platoon down here had been balked at the entrances. Bunkers guarded every way into the underground facility and they had heavy shielding, at least on a par with what a capital warship would use.

  The Grays inside those bunkers may not be proper infantry, but they could shoot out and the Humans couldn’t shoot in. “Too close for shuttle fire too,” he added.

  “Agreed,” she sighed. “They’d destroy the whole damned place.”

  “Well,” Skeat mused, “what if we…”

  A blur streaked toward the shielded bunker from somewhere to his left. A small explosion sounded just before it impacted and, somehow, the missile slipped right through the shield to smash the defensive structure.

  “Shit!” he exclaimed.

  “I know, right?” Nevksy chuckled. “And we thought those pirates were just cannon fodder. I’ll get on the net – let the others know we’ve got a way in over here.”

  Skeat looked to his left and saw an enthusiastic but unarmored group of colonial privateers advancing on the wrecked bunker in pairs, one covering while the other moved up. Several of them had very strong upper bodies and carried the heavy recoilless rifles he’d heard about.

  But how did they get through the shield?

  “Forward!” he got up and led his squad to the bunker where the privateers were trying to lever a large piece of carbon-crete away from the tunnel opening. “Hubbard, Cook, Larsen!” He chopped a hand toward the debris.

  The colonials stepped back as the three Marines stepped up in their HMA. The three of them were just able to shove the large piece out of the way and the privateer troops poured in past them.

  Skeat retracted his helmet and nodded to one of the colonials with the heavy rifle. “What kind of round was it that got through the shield?”

  The man grinned, leaning the weapon against a heavily muscled shoulder. “Ringworm,” he explained. “Fires a metal ring at the shield, just before impact, and it slips into the energy field, making a hole for the warhead to get through.”