by Richard Fox
“They must have missed my memo about the acronym,” Aignar said. “Or the one where I said I’d rather crash land in a Mule than—”
“Target sighted,” Gideon said. An outline of several buildings nestled against a massive glacier and a mountain range appeared on Aignar’s HUD.
“No weapon emplacements,” Cha’ril said. “All I’m picking up are utility vehicles.”
Aignar tagged movement amongst the buildings and shared it with the others.
“They know we’re coming. Granted, there was nothing subtle about our arrival,” he said.
“Remember the rules of engagement,” Gideon said. “Lethal force authorized only if we’re threatened or attacked with lethal force.”
“Will they fight us?” Cha’ril asked.
“God, I hope not,” Aignar said. “Miners against armor? It wouldn’t be a fight—it’d be a massacre. I don’t mind crushing Vish or Kesaht all day…but people?”
“Stay alert and stay aggressive,” Gideon said. “We’re here as an overwhelming force so there is no fighting. Ten Rangers drop in on them…they might think they’ve a chance in a fight. Loose V formation at two hundred meters. Weapons free.”
Aignar brought his rotary cannon up onto his shoulder but didn’t activate the spin. He had rounds chambered in his forearm gauss cannon, which would be overkill against an unarmored human. As they drew closer, he scanned the buildings, wary of any Ibarra armor that might be lurking within. He wouldn’t get caught flat-footed again.
As they crossed into the shadow of the mountains and the tall ice cliffs of the glacier, he angled to the right of the small settlement, a half-dozen prefabricated buildings and water pumps connected to massive pipes boring into the deep-blue glacier. The pipes led around the slope of a mountain and disappeared into the shadows.
The pathways between the buildings were deserted, but Aignar saw movement around window edges.
“Come out!” Gideon bellowed through his speakers. “We are Terran Armor Corps. You will not be harmed. Come out!”
Aignar’s rotary cannon mimed the movement of his helm as he scanned the buildings. He looked over at a hauler vehicle, the metal surrounding the cab proving too thick to detect what was inside. He marked it as a danger zone and sent the warning to Cha’ril, who was much closer to the truck.
“There are eight individuals in the building directly in front of me,” Gideon said. “If you do not come out with your hands up, I will rip the roof off and take you out. You have ten seconds to comply. Ten…nine…”
The door to the prefab building opened and a tall man in worker’s overalls came out with his hands up, his blond hair and beard marred with dirt. Across his back was a worn-looking rifle, an underpowered civilian version of what Aignar carried back during his Ranger days.
Seven more men and women followed.
“Three in the shower unit,” Aignar said, loudly enough for the colonists to know they couldn’t hide.
“Everyone out!” the blond man said. “It’s no use.”
Another dozen adults filed out from the rest of the work site, all looking like they’d worked long days with few breaks for months. They formed a loose gaggle behind the foreman.
“Name?” Gideon lowered his gauss cannons to one side.
“Etor. I’m the foreman on Pump 4. What the hell are you traitors doing here?” He lowered his hands to his side.
“Removing you,” Gideon said. “How many at this station? You’ll be taken to a transport ship in orbit.”
“This is our home,” Etor said. “What right do you have to come here and take us away?” The rabble behind him echoed his sentiment.
“I’m not here to explain anything. Again, how many people at this station?”
“Putaseme! What happens after we board your transports? You send us back to Navarre?” a woman shouted from the crowd.
Gideon hesitated and Aignar snapped his helm at his lance commander. Aignar would have bet a month’s pay that all these Ibarrans were new proccies. What would happen to them if the Omega Provision was enforced?
“My orders are to remove every person and destroy this pumping station.” Gideon motioned toward the pipes dug into the glacier. “If you’ve got someone hiding in the mountains, they won’t survive once you leave. Don’t kill them out of spite.”
“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 spitt
le 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 that 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 of
ficer 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.
