The Fall of Valdek (The Unity Wars Book 1)

by P. L. Nealen

  But as the fight died away, Scalas became aware that not all the shooting had stopped. There was intense fire sounding from somewhere off to the east. And someone was calling him over the comm.

  “This is Cobb!” the Squad Sergeant was bellowing, trying to make himself heard over the cacophony of battle. “We need reinforcements, now! Breach at the junction with Section Nineteen!”

  Scalas keyed his own comm. “This is Scalas,” he said. “We are on the way. Where is Dunstan?”

  “No sign of him,” Cobb replied grimly, over the crackle and roar of weapons fire in the background. “It looks like the entirety of Century XXXIV is not in position.”

  Chapter 11

  It was a struggle to get back up the slope and through the tunnels to the other side of the Section defenses. The tunnels were narrow, and jammed with men coming and going from the fight. The wounded were being hauled away from the combat, while reinforcements were trying to get to the breach. Including more than a few armored Caractacan Brothers.

  The noise up ahead heralded a desperate fight. The thunder of powergun and hard-shot fire echoed down the tunnels in a continuous roar. Scalas held his powergun muzzle-up as he pushed through the passageways, trying to avoid burning any of their less heavily-armored allies with the still-hot muzzle shroud. He dreaded what he was going to find at the breach. Unless the wall had been broken completely, which he doubted, given that even over the noise of the earlier fight, they should have heard such a blast, there would be no rescue from one of Century XXXV’s tanks. This was going to be a pure infantry fight, outnumbered as they’d never been before.

  He came to the last turn, where the passageway zigged toward the next defensive position.

  He looked forward into a close-combat nightmare.

  The far side of the defensive position was just gone. Bodies, both Valdekan and Caractacan, lay mangled on the floor. Mixed in were the corpses of a lot of clones. More were trying to get over the dead, shooting as they came. Cone-bore rounds were smacking off every hard surface in the pillbox, ricocheting around the inside of the armored space with angry whines. If not for the hearing protection/enhancement in the helmet, Scalas would never have been able to hear them over the painfully loud, crackling thunder of responding powergun fire.

  He realized, as he dove to a knee behind the partially opened armored hatch, that there weren’t any Valdekans left alive inside the pillbox. Only the heavier-armored Caractacans had survived that storm, and even then, only a handful of Cobb’s squad were still alive.

  Cobb was on a knee just inside the hatch, firing into the swarming clones as fast as he could pull the trigger. That close, and with them packed that thick, there wasn’t even really a need to use the sights. Cobb was just pointing and shooting.

  Scalas added his own fire, dumping the remains of the BR-18’s drum into the charging clones with a strobing flash and roll of thunder that seemed enough to split the pillbox apart by sheer volume. The brilliant bolts did their job, ignoring whatever flimsy armor the clones wore, blowing charred holes through heads and vitals.

  Raskonesh was suddenly behind him, with Viloshen. The Warrant Officer had ditched the grenade launcher, Scalas noticed as he ducked back and reloaded, something which made the Centurion momentarily very glad. Those grenades would have buried what remained of the Caractacans as well as the clones.

  Raskonesh was back to carrying his powergun, and ducked out to fire on the clones as Scalas finished reloading. He suddenly was thrown violently backward with a loud bang, his helmet shattering. Scalas was sure he was dead, even as he returned fire. He could do no one any good by worrying about the dead when the living were still a threat.

  But in between shots, he heard what could only be a stream of vicious profanity in Eastern Satevic, coming from behind him. It seemed that Raskonesh was alive, after all.

  “This is not going to end well, Centurion!” Cobb barked between shots. “If we try to hold here, we’re going to be overrun!”

  Scalas knew it. He just didn’t have a solution yet. He had grenades on his belt, but there was a good bit of risk that they’d be just as effective as Raskonesh’s molecular grenades, but without the standoff. He ripped off another magazine at the swarming bodies in the breach. The clones were forcing the defenders back and pushing inside the pillbox by sheer weight of numbers. Before long, it was going to be knife work. And then it would be all over but the screaming.

  But Cobb hadn’t been looking for ideas. He’d been announcing his intentions, in the way only Cobb could. The Squad Sergeant was suddenly on his feet, still firing, and pushing toward the breach.

  “Cobb!” Scalas bellowed. “Get back here!”

  “Get clear, Erekan!” Cobb shouted over the comm. “And take any of the Valdekans with you!”

  He knew what Cobb had in mind. He watched his senior Squad Sergeant gun down a dozen clones in as many seconds, then take a knee beneath the growing rampart of corpses in the breach.

  He wanted to stop him. Wanted to run in there and drag the man who wasn’t quite a friend, but was closer than a brother, back from the breach, to say that there had to be some other way of stopping that inhuman swarm of men who didn’t seem to quite be men. But he forced himself not to feel. Only to think. They would be out of powergun charges by the time they killed all the clones in the breach. Maybe even well before. What he had seen already told him that more clones would be moving in toward the breach, toward the foothold. They’d been thwarted by Costigan’s tanks, but here the tanks couldn’t stop them.

  “Drop and get back here!” he yelled to Cobb, as he picked Raskonesh off the floor by his gear and flung him with abnormal strength down the corridor, back toward the rest of Section Eighteen. “You can still get clear!”

  “Just go, Erekan!” Cobb answered, as he primed the first grenade and tossed it over his shoulder, already pulling a second out. “Get out of here!”

  Scalas knew Cobb’s calculations. Knew that the other man had decided that the only way to stop the breach was to bring part of the wall down. And that the only way to do that was going to take every grenade he had.

  Scalas found Viloshen almost underfoot, and propelled the old corporal down the corridor in front of him. “Fall back!” he shouted, his exterior speakers making his voice boom even over the noise of the fight behind them. “Move!”

  The first grenade went off, the heavy thud of its detonation vibrating through the steelcrete of the wall. The next four followed in quick succession, and then there was no more gunfire behind them, only a catastrophic crash like the side of a mountain falling, as they were engulfed in billowing dust and smoke.

  Scalas took a knee at the turn, pointing his powergun back the way they’d come. Clouds of grit blasted at them, hissing against his armor. He squinted against the flying debris instinctively, even though it would have to be moving a lot faster than that to even scratch his visor. Raskonesh and Viloshen were huddled behind him, and the passageway was packed with more of his armored Caractacan Brothers, weapons either at the ready or pointed at the ceiling.

  Even with image enhancement, he could see nothing in the choking clouds that filled the passageway. He did not relax his guard; it was still possible that Cobb’s gambit had failed. If the breach had not collapsed, they could find themselves facing more swarming clones in another few seconds.

  But instead, the comm crackled with a strained voice.

  “Can someone come back and dig me out?” Cobb called.

  Scalas let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Moving up,” he called.

  ***

  Digging Cobb out was a job for Caractacans. Even if he hadn’t been one of theirs, the dust in the passageway was too thick for the Valdekans, without enclosed helmets, to be able to breathe.

  The Squad Sergeant had been buried up to his shoulder pauldrons in collapsed steelcrete. He was closer to the hatchway than he had been when Scalas had last seen him; he must have tossed all his grenades and spri
nted for the exit. Self-sacrifice was honored within the Brotherhood, but none of the Brothers were suicidal. If sacrifice was called for, they would rise to the occasion. But if survival with honor was possible, they would not throw their lives away.

  Gauntleted hands carefully moved blocks of steelcrete away. “I don’t know if this is such a good idea, Cobb,” Kahane gibed. “If we shift too much of this, it might collapse the whole thing on the rest of us, too. Then where would we be?”

  “Just get this off me, Kahane,” Cobb grunted. “There’s a slab that’s trying to crush my breastplate into a dinner plate.”

  Scalas held his peace as he worked alongside the others to uncover Cobb, even while several of the survivors of Cobb’s squad held security, in case the cascade of debris slid aside and revealed more clones. The Valdekans might have been numbed to it, but the Caractacans, as hardened as they were, were still uneasy from what they’d seen of the way the clones moved and fought. There was something disturbing about their hivelike swarming and utter disregard for their own lives. Something deeply disquieting. The question was on every man’s mind; at least it was on Scalas’ mind.

  What could make a man act like that?

  There were ancient horror stories floating around the galaxy, stories from even before the Qinglong Wars. Stories of mind control experiments, suicide cults, nightmare worlds with collectivist governments that brainwashed their people until they were little more than slaves in their minds as well as their bodies. And worse. Stories of alien environments and influences that had driven sapients mad. But as doubtlessly exaggerated as some of those stories had become across centuries of time and light-years of distance, none of the Brothers had ever encountered anything like this.

  The slab that Cobb had been complaining about was slowly and laboriously uncovered. Had he not been in armor, Cobb would certainly have been crushed to death. “Careful,” Scalas instructed. “Ovoyes, brace that side. Don’t let it slip. The rest of you, get over here and push.” He crouched down, bracing his boots against the pile, and grabbed Cobb’s gauntlets. “Can you tell if that slab is the main one pinning you?” he asked.

  “I think so,” Cobb answered. His voice sounded even more strained. Even through his armor, the pressure had to be intense. There was a certain flex to the armor, to keep it from shattering in such situations. It had enough flexibility that the slab must have been compressing his ribs painfully.

  “Well, hopefully I’m not about to rip your feet off,” Scalas said. “Stand by. Now.”

  The Brothers heaved, and the slab shifted. Scalas pulled. Cobb slid forward, then caught. “Push harder,” Scalas instructed.

  None of the Brothers complained. They just dug in and heaved. The pile of debris shifted dangerously, and Scalas held his breath as he dragged at Cobb’s arms.

  The Squad Sergeant slid forward, slowly and heavily. There was still a good deal of debris on top of him, but after four more pulls, he was free. The Brothers holding up the slab let it go.

  As the slab fell, the debris pile shifted, and part of the ceiling started to crack. “Out!” Scalas bellowed, getting a hand under Cobb’s arm and heaving him off the floor. “Move! Before it comes down on all our heads!”

  The Caractacans dashed for the hatch, as the cracks widened. They made it through the opening, dust sifting down around them, as the entire wall shook as if struck by a giant hammer.

  “The bombardment’s started again,” Cobb gasped, as he leaned against the wall for a moment. “Thank you, gentlemen,” he said. “I don’t know how much longer I could have held out under there.”

  “We don’t leave brothers behind,” was all Scalas said. He was vaguely uncomfortable. It was similar to the feeling he got when he talked to Costigan. He was already haunted by the nagging thought that Cobb should have been promoted to Centurion by then, even before him. The thought of surviving the other man’s self-sacrifice was a painful one, one that he didn’t want to entertain.

  Sometimes, in the quiet of the night when he couldn’t escape such thoughts, he wondered if his misgivings about being promoted ahead of Cobb were selfish. If they were more about his own self-image. If they were because he was worried that it would all come out that he shouldn’t have been promoted ahead of Cobb.

  He didn’t know. And right then, he was just glad Cobb was still alive. Too many others weren’t.

  He clapped Cobb on the shoulder pauldron, and got an answering buffet in return. It was Cobb’s signal that he was all right. Not to worry about him. But he didn’t say anything.

  Scalas knew that silence. He knew it from Venulia VI, where too many Brothers had died, all because the local commander had wanted the genocidal rebels wiped out without losing any of his own men. So, he’d understated the threat to the Caractacans, letting them do the fighting and the dying while he kept his own forces back and refused to commit them. They’d won. But they’d lost a lot of Brothers. And Cobb had been just as quiet then.

  As Scalas was starting to turn back toward the main pillbox, to determine just how many of his hundred men he had left, Cobb spoke. His voice was flat and weary and distant.

  “I lost my powergun.”

  Scalas swallowed. He knew Cobb well enough to hear the pain behind those four words. It wasn’t just about his weapon. But the Brotherhood stood for a certain stoicism in combat, so he simply said, “There are many that no longer have wielders, Brother.”

  He felt Cobb’s eyes on him, even through the visor. Then the Squad Sergeant nodded and heaved himself off the wall, straightening. Scalas studied him for a moment, then nodded in response and turned away.

  Cobb would recover. As much as any of them ever did.

  “Brother Legate,” Scalas called, as the wall shook again. “The east flank is secure for the moment.”

  “Acknowledged,” Kranjick’s heavy voice replied. “Fall back to the breach. It appears that the enemy has abandoned the assault and renewed the bombardment. Valdekan Command informs us that the next wave of starships is inbound from the L4 point. Valdekan armor will be moving to replace our tanks at the breach once the space-to-surface fire has passed.”

  Scalas checked that he was on the private command channel with Kranjick. It would not keep his words from the other Centurions’ ears, but it would keep the rest of the Brothers from hearing. “Sir, Century XXXIV was out of position. Centurion Dunstan was supposed to be on the east flank, and was not.”

  “I am aware,” Kranjick said coldly. “Dunstan is not answering his comms, either. But Valdekan Command informs me that his landers headed toward the far side of the spaceport, just after the artillery bombardment began.” Scalas realized that he had been too preoccupied with the fight to notice the dropships lifting off behind them. Apparently, the rest of the Brothers on the line had been, as well.

  It wasn’t a good thing. But given the shock of what they had faced, it was possibly understandable.

  “What are they doing over there?” Costigan asked.

  “Probably looking for Rehenek,” Soon replied acidly. “It seems like Dunstan’s contempt for the Code now extends to abandoning his position and disregarding orders in order to grab for glory.”

  “Enough,” Kranjick thundered. “Centurion Dunstan will have the opportunity to answer for his decision, should he survive. Until then, regroup your Centuries and take shelter. I do not need to tell any of you that our armor will not withstand a direct hit from a starship’s weapons.”

  “I am withdrawing my vehicles to the dropships and returning to the starport,” Costigan called. Which was wise. As overwhelming as those tanks might have been to the Unity’s armor, they wouldn’t stand up to a direct strike from a shipboard powergun, HEL, or kinetic munition, either.

  “Acknowledged,” Kranjick repeated. “I am ordering the dropships back to the spaceport as well.” That was only common sense; Caractacan dropships could withstand a lot, but not a direct hit from starship-mounted weaponry. “Be advised, Command has informed me that Unity forces
appear to be massing to conduct multiple assaults across multiple points following this bombardment. Time is running out, gentlemen. If we are going to retrieve Commander Rehenek and get offworld, we will have to move quickly.”

  The Centurions who had not gone rogue acknowledged. Then they had to start getting head counts and making sure everyone got as deep below the fortifications as possible.

  ***

  Being under a space-to-surface bombardment is a terrible experience.

  It wasn’t the first time for Scalas. Or for most of his Century, aside from the ten newly-minted Brothers. Or at least, the seven who were left. One had died in the breach. Two had died at Cobb’s side, trying to fend off that swarm of suicidal clones in close quarters.

  Cobb didn’t talk about it. He didn’t seem to notice that his squad was down to eight men, from its original twenty. Scalas knew that he noticed. And he knew Cobb well enough to know that he was thinking about more than just the clones and the men he’d lost.

  He was thinking about Dunstan.

  He wasn’t alone. Dunstan’s desertion was weighing on all of them, but most especially on Scalas, as he checked on his men while the ground shook and threatened to throw him to the floor. They were in the deepest parts of the defenses, fifty meters below the pillboxes, in the orbital fire bunkers. And still the pounding shook the ground under their feet.

  Kahane was trying to joke with his men, but Scalas could hear the brittle edge in his voice. Kahane was young, aggressive. And while he had lost far fewer than Cobb, he would be itching to take his rage and sense of betrayal out on Dunstan.

  Kunn was Kunn. Blank, impassive, he was good at giving directions, but not so good at connecting with the men in his squad. Scalas had heard him asking his men about their wounds, their ammunition, their equipment. He’d even said a few things that might have been inspirational, coming from anyone else. Except that Scalas was listening for long enough to hear the same sentences, in the same order, three times. It was a speech that Kunn had memorized. Nothing more.