Crimson Worlds Collection III

by Jay Allan

  She was trying to ignore the pain in her side. The doctors had almost physically restrained her when she tried to leave the hospital, but she had work to do, and lying around in a makeshift bed wasn’t going to get it done. The wound had been fused shut and the lost blood replaced with a synthetic. She might be sore, but she was patched up enough to do her job. At least in her own judgment…which was all that counted as far as she was concerned.

  The early fighting had been bloody, but her people quickly gained the upper hand against their outnumbered foe as they drove into the city’s center. But then the enemy diverted reserves from the south and counterattacked, pushing her forces back…and almost expelling them entirely. She’d managed to rally the army and lead them back one more time, fighting their way block by block toward the Capitol.

  She’d been wounded during that fighting, and she missed the final assault on the Capitol. It was the climactic struggle of the battle, and there were only a handful of enemy survivors left when it was over. They fled the city and retreated south. Arcadia City was Arcadian again, a victory the cold and suffering citizen soldiers couldn’t have imagined just a few weeks before when they were trudging across the frozen wilderness.

  But victory was rarely without cost, and this time that loss struck close to home. Among the hundreds of dead and wounded from the final assault was one very dear to Kara. Ed Calvin had led the final charge, bursting into the Capitol itself and driving the enemy out room by room. The battle was almost won, and he was one of the last to fall…at least that’s what Kara had pieced together from the multiple versions of the story already circulating.

  He’d been pulled out alive and brought back to one of the aid stations. When Kara found out, she leapt out of her bed in the field hospital, practically assaulting the doctors and nurses who tried to stop her. She rushed over to see Calvin, but he died before she got there.

  Ed Calvin had been a loyal compatriot and a dedicated friend, and the pain of his loss hit her hard. He’d loved her, of course. She’d known that for a long time. She had even tried to return the feelings for a while. But they just weren’t in her anymore. Kara could be a friend, a confidante, a comrade in arms, but she knew in her heart she’d never love anyone again. Not like she had Will Thompson.

  She would give all she had to see Arcadia free, fight each battle with everything she had. But, apart from her son, she knew she would never truly love again. Her passions existed now for her country, for Arcadia, and that was where she would channel them.

  She stood in the center of the street, near the spot where her grandfather had been gunned down early in the war. She wanted to cry for him…and for Ed Calvin. For the thousands – soldiers and civilians – who had died in the fighting. But there was nothing there, only a cold numbness.

  She turned away from the wreckage of the building, looking over at Independence Park. It was still there…the statue of Will Thomson, standing tall in the center of the small square. She’d half expected it to be gone…torn down or defiled by the enemy, but there it stood, proud and defiant. She gave herself a minute to stare at the statue and remember her lost love. Then she turned and walked back toward headquarters.

  Her army had fought itself to exhaustion, but now she was going to ask more of them. There was elation over the liberation of the capital, but the fight for Arcadia wasn’t over yet. It was time to wake her people from their exhausted slumber, to pull them from well-deserved celebrations. They were heading south…back into the battle. It was time to help the Marines in the final struggle to drive the invaders off Arcadia.

  Catherine Gilson stared at the large ’pad on the table, nodding in satisfaction as she scanned the glowing symbols spread across the display. There were blue triangles extending in a semi-circular formation across a 10-kilometer front…her forces, pushing back the enemy on the flanks. Behind the main line there was another, smaller cluster of triangles…Holm’s and Teller’s exhausted Marines, now forming a tactical reserve while they rested and reorganized.

  Red squares denoted the positions of enemy formations. There were more red symbols on the screen than blue, but the small squares had been moving back, as the enemy abandoned position after position under the relentless assaults of her Marines.

  But now there was something else, a small cluster the AI had arbitrarily chosen to display as gray ovals…Kara Sanders and the Arcadian army. The group of gray symbols was the smallest of the three forces, but it was right behind the red line, marching directly on the enemy rear.

  Gilson’s face wore a narrow smile. She’d never met Kara Sanders, but she still had a healthy respect for the Arcadian leader. Erik Cain had mentioned her a few times when he returned from Arcadia after the rebellion…and anyone who could impress Erik Cain was worth taking a look at.

  “General Sanders is quite a leader, wouldn’t you say, Cate?” Elias Holm walked into the command tent, his armored helmet retracted, and his filthy, matted hair blowing softly in the breeze whipping in through the open door. “I would say she is offering us a chance to end this now.” There was satisfaction in Holm’s voice, but exhaustion too. The fight on Arcadia had been long and brutal, and it wasn’t over. Not yet, at least. But the enemy army was bracketed between two forces. It was time to finish things.

  “She is very impressive, sir.” Gilson was one of the toughest screws in the Marine Corps’ tool chest, but her voice was soft, pensive. “I can’t imagine what her forces have been through, General. I can’t begin to understand how she held them together. They’re only militia, after all. At least most of them.”

  “I think we sometimes underestimate what good men and women can do when they’re fighting for something important, don’t you, Cate?”

  She looked over at Holm and nodded gently. “Perhaps, sir.” Gilson wasn’t quite the cynic Cain was, but she was close. She didn’t tend to expect much from most people…outside the Corps, that is.

  He smiled. “Don’t get me wrong, Cate…there is nothing like the Corps, at least not anywhere I’ve seen. But I think sometimes true patriots tap into the same sources of strength our people do.” He took a few steps and pulled out one of the low, stubby stools that passed for chairs for powered armor. “Look at Kara’s people. They spent almost a year in the field, low on weapons and supplies. They marched halfway across the planet and then back through a polar hell. They suffered thousands of casualties, but they stayed together…and when they had the opportunity, they liberated the capital and immediately marched down here to help us.”

  “It’s still going to be a brutal fight, sir.” She looked toward Holm as he slowly eased his armored bulk onto the stool. “And not the least for her people, unarmored and poorly equipped as they are. I don’t think any of us expects the enemy to give up without one hell of a fight.” Her eyes moved involuntarily upward. “And there’s no escape for them…not with Camille’s ships up there. So if they aren’t going to surrender, they’re going to fight to the bitter end.”

  “No, they won’t surrender, at least not right away…” – Holm glanced across the table at the ’pad – “…but we have them caught between two lines. They’ll fight like hell, but I think we’ve finally got them.” He paused for a few seconds. “You’re right that Kara’s people will probably take heavy losses, but they’re fighting for their homes…and if we win this last battle, they’ll have taken their homes back, driven the invader from their world.

  “Victory within our grasp?” Gilson wondered if there was truly any such thing. She’d won her share of battles, but the triumph had always been fleeting, without permanence. Every battle won just seemed to lead to another, harder, more costly one. “How many more of our people – of General Sanders’ soldiers – will die before that victory is won?”

  “You’ll know the answer to that when the fight is over. You know that, Cate.” Holm looked over at his longtime subordinate and nodded solemnly.

  An orderly ducked his head through the open door. “Excuse me, sirs, but General
Sanders has sent a communique. Her people are ready to attack at any time.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” Holm answered sharply. “That will be all.” He turned back to Gilson and nodded again. “Well, Cate…” – he started to stand as he spoke – “…shall we go finish this?”

  Gilson stood up brusquely, pushing her doubts aside and snapping to attention. “Yes, sir.” The grim hardness of her battlefield persona was back, and it was clear in her voice. “Let’s end this now.”

  Chapter 24

  Outskirts of Nancy

  French Sector, Europa Federalis

  Earth – Sol III

  The heavy guns shattered the pre-dawn stillness, the echoes of their fire bouncing kilometers across the valley. Hans Werner, now major general of the CEL and commander of the south-central front, stood on a nearby hill and watched the shells smash into the fortified outbuildings near the city of Nancy.

  His forces had pushed their way across the Rhine and sliced deep into Europan territory. Nancy was on the line to Paris, and Werner’s orders were clear. Advance directly on the city, ignoring losses.

  Ignoring losses…that part didn’t sit well with him. He’d three times requested permission to pause in his advance and regroup his weary and strung out forces, but each time he’d been denied…and urged to push harder, faster into Europan territory. He was winning the CEL’s first victory of the war, and the high command wanted him to keep it going.

  He stood unmoving as explosions erupted behind and next to him…the enemy artillery returning the fire. The Europan batteries were weak…his forces had captured large numbers of their guns as they fled across the border. He looked to the east, where his forces were sheltering on the reverse slopes, waiting for the word to advance.

  The bombardment wasn’t going to last long; he was sending the attack in shortly. He had 300 Leopard Z-9s massed, the last of the front line MBTs. Behind them, there were 70,000 infantry in the first attack wave, and another 85,000 reservists after that. Even the troops of the first wave were mostly replacements and second-line troops, but they’d all been blooded, at least, in the advance across Lorraine. The reserves were pure rookies, just arrived at the front. He wondered for an instant how many troops from his original battalion remained in the line, but he decided he’d rather not know.

  Werner tried not to think about casualties, but that didn’t keep him from running a rough count in his mind. At least 100,000 soldiers had been killed or wounded under his command, and possibly twice that. It was almost impossible to accurately determine how many were MIA or AWOL. But losses didn’t matter. His sector had been the most promising when things were disastrous on the other fronts, and the high command kept feeding him more troops…meat for the beast.

  The enemy started pulling forces from the northern front, moving them to face Werner’s growing threat. Then the trapped CEL front line armies burst out of the Dusseldorf-Cologne pocket and launched a counter-offensive that put the Europans on the defensive in the north for the first time since the war began. Werner had heard rumors of the casualties in the massive northern battles. He didn’t want to believe them, but he suspected the reports of 2,000,000 lost on each side were accurate.

  The tide had turned, and the CEL was seizing the initiative, but they were paying for every meter with rivers of blood. He tried to imagine the countryside up around Dusseldorf. What does a battlefield look like after 4,000,000 men and women had been killed or wounded? What about the civilians? Had they fled eastward? He knew enough about the CEL and the way it was run to be sure the refugees were a low priority for supplies. Would the displaced civilians starve? Would they run wild across the countryside, rioting and stealing to survive?

  “General…”

  Werner had been so deep in thought, he didn’t hear Potsdorf running up the hill toward him.”

  “Yes, Captain?”

  “The forward elements are ready to go, sir.” Potsdorf had been running around all morning, and he was breathing hard.

  Werner stared out over the small valley between his army and the city. If his forces broke through the enemy defenses and took Nancy, the Europan lines would be compromised. His army would be one step closer to Paris. “Commence the attack, Captain.”

  “Yes, sir.” Potsdorf pulled up the unitwide channel. “Attention all units…attack.”

  “I want a full report, Captain. Any further progress on those subsurface contacts?” Admiral Young’s voice blared through the open com, and the impatience in his voice was obvious to everyone listening on Norfolk’s bridge.

  “No further sightings, sir.” Captain Harcourt switched to his private com link. “Not since the first two, sir.” Harcourt was not an officer who took his duty as seriously as Young did. He was another privileged hack from a political family but, unlike Young, he’d have been happy to sit around and spend his family’s money with nothing to do. But his father had been a naval officer, another younger sibling who’d only ended up taking the family’s Senate seat when his older brother died suddenly from the X-2 virus. He insisted all his younger children serve as he had, and so far, at least, Harcourt’s older sister remained perfectly healthy and ready to take the Seat. It was an unfortunate situation as far as he was concerned, but there was nothing he could do about it.

  Life as a naval officer had been barely tolerable before war broke out, but having enemies shooting at him was more than he could handle. And dealing with Admiral Young and his gung ho bullshit was really starting to wear on him.

  “Well, they’re out there somewhere, Captain, and I expect you to find them. If we lose any of those troop transports, I will hold you personally responsible. Do you understand me?”

  Harcourt almost felt Young’s eyes boring into him through the audio-only connection. He’d have tried to bully the fleet commander to get him off his ass, but Young’s family was even better connected than Harcourt’s, so that was a non-starter. “Yes, sir.” Harcourt tried to keep the whining out of his voice, with only marginal success. “I understand.”

  “Very well, Captain. I’ll let you get to it. Young out.”

  The com unit went silent, and Harcourt stared angrily around Norfolk’s bridge. His gaze settled on the officer at the scanner station. “Well, Commander…have you got anything for me yet?”

  “No, sir.” Commander Simorino started to look up from his scope when he froze suddenly. “Wait a minute, sir…”

  “What is it?” Harcourt’s tone was dripping with impatience.

  “Sir, I have eight enemy contacts.” Simorino’s voice was distracted, and his face was pressed against the scope as he spoke. “It almost looks like they’re preparing to launch…” His voice stopped dead.

  “Launch what, Commander?” Harcourt snapped.

  Simorino hesitated another few seconds. Then his head spun around, and he stared at the captain. “The enemy is launching cruise missiles, sir.”

  “What the hell do they think eight ships are going to accomplish…” Harcourt felt realization grab him like a cold hand gripping his spine. He poked at his com panel, connecting again with the admiral. “Admiral Young…I believe we have an incoming nuclear strike on the convoy.”

  The hypersonic missiles streaked rapidly over the roiling waves, heading for the Alliance fleet at eight times the speed of sound. They would cover the nearly 300 kilometers from their launch platforms to the convoy in less than 100 seconds. By the time the Alliance fleet could react and get any significant interdictive assets into the air, they would have closed most of the distance.

  Their flight pattern had been designed to bypass the escort ships deployed around the transports as much as possible, but the salvo couldn’t avoid them all. About halfway to their targets, the sky began to fill with clouds of metallic shards fired from the railguns of the Alliance warships. Missiles began to explode in midair. At almost 3,000 meters per second, it didn’t take much mass to obliterate one. But for every intercepted weapon, two made it through the defenses and continued
on to the targeted ships.

  The cruise missiles followed a zigzag pattern, trying to throw off the enemy defensive systems as they closed on the target zone. The random vectors were a highly effective defense mechanism during the early stages of the approach, but the Alliance commanders guessed that the troop convoy was the target, and they were able to get anti-missile ordnance up in a perimeter around the transports. The defensive rockets homed in on the approaching cruise missiles, knocking another 20 out of the sky while the target vessels submerged as quickly as possible.

  But a third of the 200 missiles made it through the defenses and dove into the water after the target ships. They slowed abruptly just before breaking the waves, and the weapons split into 6 super-cavitating torpedoes, each one tipped with a 500 kiloton warhead.

  The Alliance forces launched countermeasures and underwater interdiction systems, but it was too late to stop all the incoming warheads. They spread out, bracketing the target area and began detonating.

  A massive plume of water rose from the surface, followed by another a kilometer south. Then another…again and again, until 138 nuclear explosions had roiled the South China Sea. Underneath the massive waves, submerged vessels were buffeted by shockwaves and their hulls were breached. The troopships were armored, but not as heavily as warships, and one after another they were torn open, their rent hulls quickly sinking to the sea bottom, 4,000 meters below. Every one that went down took 122 crew and 1,040 soldiers with it.

  Damage assessment would be difficult to approximate at first, but two things were immediately clear. First, the CAC had seriously hurt the Alliance’s resupply efforts for the forces dug in outside Manila. And second…they had just massively escalated the conflict.

  Francis Oliver sat at his desk, his head resting in his hands. There was nothing but bad news, wherever he looked. The Cogs were running wild in half the cities of the Alliance, and it was just a matter of time before that became every metropolis. The economic crisis had shut down their food supplies, and the government simply didn’t have the resources to replace them…not while keeping supplies flowing to the Political and middle classes too.