Crimson Worlds Collection III

by Jay Allan

  He glanced at the expanded display projected on his now blacked out visor. Ten detonations now…no, twelve. All along the eastern edge of Weston. Tiny symbols continued to appear. Sixteen. Twenty. Then it stopped. Twenty-four nuclear detonations, all along the eastern perimeter of the capital. My God, Worth thought grimly, imagining the devastation the enemy bombardment must have wreaked on the defending Columbian forces.

  There was something else in his mind, though. Another possibility. He wondered, could this be us? General Tyler was the toughest man he’d ever met, but would he really sacrifice the capital city to total destruction to spring a trap on the enemy? Worth dismissed the thought summarily…or he thought he did. But it crept back, lingering on the edge of his mind. Was that them? Or us?

  Chapter 27

  Alliance Intelligence Facility Q

  Dakota Foothills

  American Sector, Western Alliance

  Earth – Sol III

  It was the stupidest plan he’d ever heard of…blunt, unsophisticated, with a pitiful chance of success. He’d probably have busted anyone with the nerve to suggest it all the way down to private…if it hadn’t been his own piece of work. But Steve Garth was going to do it anyway. It was the only thing he’d been able to come up with, and he was more convinced than ever that Roderick Vance’s concerns were valid. Whatever was down there, under square kilometers of scrubby Dakota grasslands, it was extremely dangerous. If there was any chance, any way at all, to find out what it was, he had to take it.

  Tobin’s scanner had given them the approximate size of the enormous facility, but that was about all. The shielding was blocking everything else; it was only the experimental new scanners that detected anything at all.

  Tobin was standing two meters away, looking right at his CO. They both had their visors down, but Garth imagined the expression on the lieutenant’s face…a mix of horror and sympathy. Surely he must be thinking Garth had lost his mind.

  “The device is in position, sir.” Tobin was a cool operator, one of the best elite commandos Garth had ever seen, stone cold in every situation the two had faced together. But the worry was still there in his voice. Garth knew he was trying to hide it, but this time his stony resolve failed him, at least partially. Garth understood. The chances were slim his plan would get them any useful intel they could transmit to Vance. They were almost non-existent that any of them would make it out alive.

  “Very well, lieutenant.” Garth didn’t have any illusions about the chances that any of his people would get out of this. But he couldn’t forget the image of Vance’s face during the briefing, the shakiness in his voice. Anything that could scare Roderick Vance was certain to be catastrophic…and if the team could get any additional info, they simply had to do it. No matter what the cost. “Arm the mine. Detonation in 120 seconds.”

  “Yes, sir,” Tobin croaked.

  “Attention all personnel…clear the blast zone immediately.” He’d already pulled everyone back, but he wanted to be sure. The 5 kiloton burrowing mine had a danger radius of about 0.5 klicks for fully-armored troops. It would be a dirty explosion, and his people would be covered with contaminants. Their armor would be a lost cause, too radioactive to salvage, but they’d be safe inside, for a while at least. Long enough to gather their intel and escape…or die in the fight that was almost certain to follow the explosion.

  “Detonation in 60 seconds.” Tobin’s voice was louder, a little firmer. Garth smiled. The kid was hardcore, he thought, chuckling at himself for calling a decorated elite soldier a kid. Everyone seemed like a kid to him…he’d been in too many fights, seen too many things he couldn’t make himself forget.

  Steve Garth had given all to the service. He had no family, no one waiting for him at home. No home, even, outside a military base. If he died here, he knew it would just be a hole on an OB. His life was likely measured in minutes now, but he regarded that more as an odd fact than a source of concern. It was his men that troubled him. They were going to die with him, all for the faint hope of getting a scrap of information to Roderick Vance. And if they failed, they would die for nothing. Nothing at all.

  Anderson-17 cursed softy to himself, shaking his head. He’d ordered intercepting forces to the surface, but he knew he’d waited too long. He’d let his hope the intruders were a group of lost locals last too long. Now he knew it was some sort of incursion…spies, probably. He didn’t want to think about what would happen when Gavin Stark found out. Anderson-17 had never actually seen Shadow One, but he’d heard enough to know things were going to be bad. Very bad.

  His people would wipe out these invaders…he was sure of that, at least. But his scanners had picked up the nuclear mine, and he was far from sure his forces would arrive before it blew a hole leading right into the most sensitive part of the facility. And that would be a mess of epic proportions.

  “Colonel, Captain Jarvis-789 reporting. We are emerging from access tubes 7 and 8 and engaging the enemy.” Anderson-17 could hear the sounds of battle in the background, the speaker feed from Jarvis-789’s armor. “We have located the enemy mine and are…”

  The speaker screeched loudly and, an instant later, the floor shook hard, knocking half of the control center crew from their chairs. A dozen alarms started going off, and the com panel went crazy. Anderson-17 was almost tossed to the ground, but he gripped the armrests of his chair tightly and held on, a harsh frown on his face. So much for getting to the mine in time, he thought with disgust.

  “I want Sector 34 sealed off immediately.” Things were bad enough without letting enemy troops get loose inside the whole facility. Sector 34 was already a problem, but he didn’t intend to spend the next few weeks hunting down rogue invaders hiding in the crèche chambers. “Reserve forces to the surface and the affected areas.”

  “Yes, colonel.” Lieutenant Jackson-315 was furiously working his control pad, sending out a flurry of orders.

  “I want these invaders wiped out to a man!” Anderson-17 took a deep breath, slowly regaining his composure. “Immediately, lieutenant,” he said, far more calmly. “Immediately.”

  Garth was crouched down behind a boulder, beads of sweat pooling at the edge of his hairline, sliding slowly down the side of his face. For the tenth time his arm twitched, a natural urge to wipe his forehead. The impulse was quickly squelched by the recollection that such an act was an impossibility in powered armor. He could hear the enemy rounds slamming into the other side of the giant rock, sending shards of stone scattering all around. It sounded like a whole squad was shooting at him.

  The enemy had sent a force to the surface just before the mine blew, and now there were more armored troops pouring out of hidden egress points. His people were almost surrounded, outnumbered 10-1, 20-1…he couldn’t even guess. He’d ordered them all to make for the crater the mine had left behind, but most had taken cover where they were and started returning the enemy’s fire. It made tactical sense, but it was pointless. Red Team Beta was finished, as good as wiped out. The fact that though most of them were still alive was a passing technicality. There wasn’t a chance any of them were making it out of this mess. All they could do now was gather the intel Vance needed…the information that would make their deaths mean something more than senseless waste.

  “Let’s move it out, boys and girls.” Garth’s voice was calm, steady. He could have been ordering his people to line up in the mess hall. It was pure fiction…Garth was so scared he could barely keep his hands from shaking. But it was what his people needed now. “Into the crater.” He gulped a big breath of the oxygen-enhanced air his suit was pumping out and ran hard for the edge of the smoking pit the mine had dug into the rocky ground.

  Major Anderson-89 stared at his display. He was in command on the surface, trying to organize a dozen disparate units that had been rushed into the battle. The enemy troops were making for the crater…exactly what he was here to prevent. His orders were clear…keep them all on the surface until they were wiped out. But orders
were easier to issue than execute. These were elite troops, commandos of some sort, he was facing. Not so easy to kill.

  “Blue Company, advance to the crater. Attack the enemy troopers attempting to access the facility.” He had to cut the invaders off from the crater. Three or four of them had gotten in already, at least into the pit itself, and at least ten more were dashing for it now.

  The troopers of Blue Company obeyed without complaint, of course, though doing so exposed them to the deadly accurate fire of the dozen or so commandos covering the advance on the crater. Anderson-89 watched on his display as Blue’s troops went down in clumps, raked by the invaders’ two auto-cannons. Both guns were dug in behind large boulders, shielded from his own fire. He had two platoons working around the flank, but that would take time, and he needed men in that crater now.

  At least half of the company was down by the time the Blues reached the lip of the crater…and another four or five enemy commandos had made it down by then. Anderson-89’s troops slid down the sides of the still-smoking pit, following the invaders into the bowels of Facility Q.

  Anderson-89 was distracted by another report…one of the enemy auto-cannons had been taken out. There was just one strongpoint – and maybe 3 or 4 commandos left. Every other enemy combatant still on the surface was dead. He knew he’d have the area secured in another few minutes. No more than 8 or 9 of them had made it into the crater. They’d be hunted down and killed before they could cause any harm, he thought, not as convinced as he wished he was.

  Garth was running as fast as he could. It wasn’t easy to move quickly indoors in powered armor without smashing into walls and ceilings. His people were all dead…he was fairly certain of that. All but the two posted on the hilltop with the satellite uplink…the ones he had to contact before the enemy caught and killed him.

  My God, he thought…Vance was right. Garth knew now that the intel he had gained was worth his whole unit. It was worth ten divisions. He still couldn’t believe what he had seen. Rows and rows of tanks…and in each one, suspended in some kind of yellowish fluid…it was almost too much to absorb.

  He pushed hard. He had a wound, more than one. He knew he’d taken a slug in the side, but it didn’t seem too bad. His shoulder was throbbing too, and he could feel a strange sensation, like tiny bugs crawling all around the wound. It was the nanobots from his suit’s med system, he realized. Beyond stopping the bleeding and buying him an extra minute or two of life, he knew their work was in vain. Still, they were hard at work, trying to repair the damage. Just as well, he thought…that minute might make all the difference.

  The surface would be crawling with enemy soldiers, and there wouldn’t be any cover…not like in these catacombs. He wouldn’t live more than a few seconds when he got out. Maybe, just maybe, he’d get lucky. He was going to jump out of the crater, as high as the leg servos on his damaged suit could propel him. He’d overload the small motors, burn out the circuits. He didn’t need to worry about how he’d land…he’d probably be dead, or at least mortally wounded, before he hit the ground. But if he could just get off a transmission, the two troopers manning the satellite uplink might pick it up…and get it transmitted before they too were located and killed. He was going to die…and his men were already dead. But he could give meaning to all of that, make their sacrifices something noble instead of futile.

  He realized he was scrambling up the sides of the crater, trying to get near the top. There were enemies here…they were shooting at him. He felt the impacts. More wounds. There was pain, but it wasn’t bad. The suit had already flooded his bloodstream with painkillers. His mind was focused…only one thing mattered.

  He was near the top. It was a ledge. It felt solid, firm enough for him to launch off. He flexed his knees and jumped.

  He was hit. This time he felt his head snapping hard to the side, and his consciousness quickly faded. Blackness covered his eyes. His last thought was that the AI would transmit the message, even if he was already dead.

  Chapter 28

  North of the Midland Sea

  Arcadia – Wolf 359 III

  “They’re retreating to the north, General Holm.” Thomas’ voice was deep and gravelly, but Holm could hear the fire in his tone. The old Marine was energized, focused. His last battlefield had been 40 years before, but his combat reflexes were already coming back, and he was pumped up. Holms’ Marauders, as the relief force had spontaneously started calling itself, had decisively beaten back an enemy attack against their LZ. Losses were fairly light, but it had been jarring to Thomas when the first of his people had been killed. Watching friends die was the one part of being a Marine Thomas hadn’t missed over the past four decades.

  “Excellent, colonel.” Holm still felt odd addressing the older man formally, but Thomas had already scolded him twice. The old Marine didn’t have the slightest problem following his former protégé’s orders…it was Holm who was struggling with it. “Pursue, and don’t give them a chance to regroup.” He’d almost ordered Thomas to stand fast. He was struggling with the guilt of bringing these old veterans to fight on Arcadia, and his first impulse was to hold them back and avoid unnecessary casualties. But they were here to link up with Teller’s Marines, and they had to push the enemy back to do it.

  Holm had been relieved when Teller answered his initial communications. He’d been afraid there would be nothing but silence in response to his query. His joy was soon tempered when he realized just how badly the Marine general and his force had been shot up. The relief expedition hadn’t arrived a moment too soon…assuming they were able to make a difference. Even with the new forces, the Marines on Arcadia were still heavily outnumbered. Holm wasn’t sure if he’d end up relieving Teller…or if he’d just lead another thousand Marines to their deaths.

  There was one unexpected surprise, however. The fleet had made contact with a friendly force up in the far northern mountains, dug in and tying down considerable enemy strength. It could only be the native army, or whatever was left of it. Holm hadn’t dared to hope the Arcadian forces were still in the field, but now he realized that Teller’s intervention had come in time to prevent the enemy from focusing their full strength to pacify the planet. The two forces were thousands of kilometers apart, but each had effectively prevented the enemy from concentrating enough strength to destroy the other.

  Holm took a deep breath and exhaled. Time to get moving, he thought. He turned and walked down the hillside, heading toward Thomas’ column, half a dozen armed Marines falling in behind him. The bodyguard wasn’t his idea, but the rest of his officers – to a man – had insisted. The Commandant of the Corps had no place marching around a planet’s surface with 1,000 Marines, hopelessly outnumbered by the enemy. A number of officers had suggested Holm stay behind on the fleet, and each of them had been treated to the full fury of the titanic temper Holm usually controlled so well. Nothing was going to keep him from leading this campaign personally. Nothing. The Corps was staring off into the abyss, its last veterans dusting off their arms and answering the call. There was no way Elias Holm was going to sit at a desk on one of the battleships while his Marines faced this battle. No way.

  “Still only ten landers, commander.” The comm officer was staring at the display, as she had been since the incoming landing craft had been detected, and Kara was looking over her shoulder. “They should be on the ground in 3 minutes.”

  Kara nodded then realized the officer couldn’t see her where she was standing. “Very well,” she muttered. She had no idea what was coming down. There had been no further communication from the newly arrived fleet since the supply drop two days before. That had been enormously useful, providing her beleaguered forces with weapons, ammunition, food, and medical supplies. Whoever was in orbit, they certainly appeared to be friends. But Kara wasn’t going to take any chances. Her suspicion was keen, and she’d had the food checked for contamination and poisons and the weapons for booby traps. Her people hadn’t found anything out of the ordinary
…and if this was all some elaborate trick, the enemy had vastly strengthened her defenses in the bargain.

  “Get Colonel Calvin on the line.” Kara spoke softly, slowly.

  “Yes, commander.” A brief pause, two or three seconds. “Colonel Calvin is on the line.”

  “Ed, are your people in position?” She knew they were…this was the third time she’d checked.

  Calvin stifled a small chuckle. “Yes, Kara.” He was amused by her persistence, but also impressed. Kara Sanders was like no one he had ever known. There was a pool of strength in her that ran deep. He knew he’d only seen tiny flashes of it. He was fond of her – loyalty to Will Thompson wouldn’t let him admit to himself he loved her – but he also felt she was something above him, almost a living legend, at least to the people of Arcadia. “We’re still in position. We’ve got visuals on the landing craft.”

  Kara had Calvin and 300 troops positioned to meet the landers. If this was some kind of enemy force trying to catch her by surprise, they’d have a rude welcome waiting for them. The landers were Marine Gordons, but that meant nothing; the invaders had come in the standard Alliance landing craft as well.

  She watched quietly, hoping her caution was misplaced, that these ships weren’t landing enemy commandos or a 500 kiloton warhead. Her force didn’t have any appreciable surface to air attack capability, but she wondered…if you had it, would you have used it? She didn’t know, one minute thinking yes, the next, no.

  “Enemy vessels landing, commander.” The tension in the com officer’s voice was increasing. In a few seconds they’d know if they were dealing with friends or enemies.

  Kara stared at the screen, listening, waiting. The seconds passed, then a minute…two.

  “Kara!” It was Calvin, and she could tell immediately from his voice the news was good. “I’m standing here with Captain Mandrake and a platoon of Marines. And they just told me some very good news.”