by P. L. Nealen
Connors got the first one placed, and was scrambling to get the second one anchored, but the steelcrete, already damaged, crumbled as he tried to punch in the piton. The Valdekan worker already had the cutter running, and only a few centimeters from the hatch. He flinched as another rocket salvo came in from the outer defenses. Most were blotted out of the sky by laser hits, creating a rippling curtain of explosions only a few short kilometers away, but as always, a few more got through. The Valdekan ducked as three rockets snarled too close overhead, and put his cutter to the hatch.
Mor started to dash as best he could across the uneven top of the silo, trying to stop the Valdekan, visions of a half-ton of steelcrete falling and permanently disabling his ship flashing through his mind. He reached out to grab the local and throw him away from the hatch when Connors yelled at him.
“Captain! We’re set! Let him cut!” Mor snatched his hand away just before seizing the worker, who was now looking up at him, wide-eyed behind his safety goggles.
“Go on,” Mor said, waving at him to continue, convinced the man didn’t understand a word. But the Valdekan set the cutter to the hatch and began expertly—if a little sloppily—cutting the damaged hatch free.
Mor glanced out at the pall of smoke and dust that hung over the outer defenses. The infantry Brothers were out there, probably getting hammered by the bombardment, and there was currently only one ship that could even lift, that he knew of. The Sword of the Brotherhood was not answering comms, so he had to assume that she was even more badly damaged than the others.
We’re coming as fast as we can.
***
Kranjick leaned against the wall under the burned-out ceiling light, unsealed his helmet, and pulled it off. Faced with his mentor’s heavy-lidded, blank expression, Scalas did the same. If the Old Man wanted to talk face-to-face, he’d talk face-to-face.
Kranjick, as ever, looked kind of sleepy and bored. But he studied Scalas closely as the Centurion took off his helmet. Scalas knew the Brother Legate too well to ever believe that his seeming disinterest was anything but a façade. The Old Man saw more than anyone would ever expect.
“How are you holding up?” Kranjick asked, in that same heavy monotone he always did.
“I lost a lot of men,” Scalas admitted.
Kranjick nodded slowly. “Yes. You did take a heavy hit, didn’t you?” He continued to watch Scalas. “As I said, Dunstan will answer for it, in this life or the next.”
“Do you know where he is?” Scalas asked.
“I have some idea of the general area,” Kranjick replied. “Let me worry about that. You worry about your men, and the next moves we have to take.” His expression did not alter a whit, but it seemed as if his gaze sharpened, ever so slightly. “Do not let this drag you down, Erekan,” he said. “You did not fail them. Dunstan did, but the same could have happened even if Dunstan had held his post. It is appointed to each man his time to die, and those men died defending others. ‘No greater love,’ am I right?”
Scalas nodded, his eyes far away. “Yes,” he replied. “’No greater love hath a man, than he lay down his life for his brother,’” he quoted. He met Kranjick’s gaze again. “But if they did not need to die…”
“It does not matter if we see the needs or the causes,” Kranjick replied. “You know that. We do not see all ends. We cannot live on might-have-beens or should-haves. We can only act according to what is right, given what we know at the time. Those men who died today did that. And they stopped the assault. You can see that much good, at least.”
Scalas nodded again, though reluctantly. He knew why Kranjick had sought him out, knew that he wanted to hold on to the resentment, particularly against Dunstan. Kranjick had led him through many battles as Centurion, and knew his strengths and weaknesses. The Old Man knew what needed to be said, knew that his subordinate commanders sometimes needed that extra reminder, to get their heads clear for the fight.
“We will mourn the fallen when the time is right,” Kranjick said. “Remember that. Remember that they died as Caractacans, in battle, facing their enemies. As any one of us might at any time. And clear your mind, that you might lead the rest of these men properly.”
“I will, Brother Legate,” Scalas said firmly.
Kranjick nodded, his face as immobile as ever. He heaved himself away from the wall and replaced his helmet. “Good. I think we should go join the discussion around Father Corinus for a moment, but then we need to start getting the men back up to the defensive positions, at least those that are still intact enough to withstand the bombardment. There will likely be another assault coming soon.”
***
Mor hadn’t realized how much he’d been sweating under his armor as he’d worked with the work crews to clear the silo doors. Only as he clambered back into his acceleration couch did he catch a whiff of himself and grimaced.
He ignored the acrid smell and quickly strapped himself in. “Tell me we’re ready to lift!” he demanded.
“We are ready to lift,” Fry replied. “The hull damage won’t slow us down, and aside from some backlash when that umbilical port got wiped out, all systems are intact. The Vindicator, Challenger, and Boanerges are also ready to lift, though the Vindicator indicates she has taken severe damage and is at roughly seventy-percent combat effective.”
“Then we’re lifting in five,” Mor snapped, his hands dancing over the controls in his armrests. “Contact the ground force and tell them to be ready to move.”
Chapter 13
Four massive, spearhead-shaped starships rose once again into the smoke-shrouded Valdekan sky, for the second time in only a few hours. This time, they rose from within a pall of smoke and dust, riddled with the passage of rocket artillery and railgun rounds. But no sooner had the ships’ noses risen above the levels of their silos than their own point defenses went to work, helping the Valdekan lasers clear the rockets out of the sky, at least.
The thunder of their drives shook the ground for kilometers around as they accelerated up into the atmosphere. And then their powergun batteries opened fire.
Line-straight, blue-tinged lightning, that made the Caractacan infantry powerguns seem like little more than sparks in comparison, lanced out, seeking the artillery emplacements that were still hammering the defenses and the starport. Vehicles detonated with actinic flashes as powerful plasma packets impacted, dumping thousands of ergs of energy into materials that simply were not designed to hold up to them. In seconds, the incoming fire had slackened to almost nothing in the face of the power of the ships rising into the sky.
Tilting slightly, the starships drifted toward the battered section of defenses where the Avar Sector Legio had held the line. More powergun fire licked out, hammering at several assault columns that were already starting to crawl across no-man’s land, blasting armor into glowing scrap and reducing men to their constituent atoms.
The dropships, those that had survived relatively undamaged, began to launch, plummeting toward the inside of the wall on tails of roaring, blue-white fire.
***
The light strobing through the firing slits of the most intact surviving pillbox heralded deaths in the hundreds, if not the thousands. And yet Scalas could not help but feel relieved.
He turned to Raskonesh. “Some of the pressure should be off for a while,” he said. “I expect that the enemy commander, at least, will rethink matters after having two assaults destroyed in a matter of a few hours. If nothing else, we can hope that he does not have the assets left to launch a serious attack after this. At least not for a while.”
Viloshen passed his words along to the Valdekan Warrant Officer, who grunted.
“They have clones,” Viloshen translated Raskonesh’s reply. “They will only grow more.”
But Scalas shook his head, as one of his dropships settled only a few dozen meters away, on the other side of the wall, its drive vibrating the floor beneath them. “Even if they could grow them in a matter of days, they still have to
make the weapons and equipment, too,” he pointed out. “I can’t guarantee that we’ve bought you a significant breather, but maybe we’ve bought a few extra hours.”
Raskonesh suddenly smiled. If there was a certain brittleness, a bleakness in the expression, it could only be expected after what the man had been through. He held out his hand, and Scalas folded it in an armored gauntlet. He said something in Eastern Satevic and motioned to Viloshen. The older man protested in the same language, but Raskonesh held his ground. Scalas looked from one to the other, painfully aware that he was going to have to break away soon. The dropships were on the ground, and they had to move.
Viloshen, looking quite unhappy, turned to Scalas. “I am being reassigned,” he said slowly. “I am being your interpreter now.”
Scalas studied the man. “And you are not happy about this?”
“This is my unit,” Viloshen said. “I belong here. But Raskonesh says that they must protect old uncle, because I am too old to be here any longer.”
Scalas glanced at Raskonesh. The Warrant Officer’s face was grave, and in his eyes he could see little more than a distant hope that by sending Viloshen with the Caractacans, he might save one of his command, at least.
Scalas could not bring himself to warn the man that going with the Caractacans was no guarantee of survival. They were not going where the fighting was lighter, after all.
Raskonesh looked Scalas in the visor, and clapped a hand against Viloshen’s shoulder. He spoke as he did so, and his voice was simultaneously reassuring and gruff, even though Scalas could not understand the words.
“He says that you need interpreter,” Viloshen translated reluctantly, “and that I should not worry so much about leaving. He says there will be plenty of opportunities to die for Valdek for all of us.”
“I don’t doubt he’s right about that,” Scalas replied. “Well, if you’re coming, come along. The dropships are here, and they can’t linger. Sooner or later, those enemy starships will be back overhead.”
Viloshen spoke rapidly to Raskonesh. His voice was earnest, and it was clear that the thought of leaving his unit pained him a great deal. But Raskonesh replied in the same reassuring tone of voice, taking the corporal by both shoulders. Finally, Viloshen nodded, though he was tight-lipped and unhappy. He turned to Scalas and squared his shoulders under his dirty combat tunic.
“I am ready,” he said.
“Good.” Most of the Century was already out on the open ground of the landing zone, jogging toward the cone-shaped dropships. “Let’s go.”
It took some doing to get back out into the open; part of the stairs leading down the inside of the wall had been obliterated by the bombardment. Scalas was confident that his armor’s articulation would let him jump the rubble-choked gap without destroying his knees, but he wasn’t so sure about Viloshen.
Fortunately, that was what some of the gear they carried in the underside of the sustainment packs was for.
He reached back and pulled free the rappelling cable, securing it to Viloshen’s combat harness. “Hold onto this,” he said, putting the cable in Viloshen’s hands. “Otherwise, this is going to get very uncomfortable, just before you fall out of your harness.” There wasn’t time to rig a seat, and it wasn’t all that far to the ground, anyway. Far enough to break bones, but not enough to kill a man.
Viloshen looked momentarily confused, then looked down and nodded. He grabbed the cable, as Scalas braced himself against the wall and began to play it out. Viloshen must have rappelled at some point in his past, because he put his feet against the side of the steps and eased out, quickly disappearing over the edge.
Scalas held the tension, even as he watched the rest of his squads board their dropships. The squat, truncated cone-shaped ships could open their middle thirds like flower petals for rapid boarding or deployment. The sides folded down, steps set into the inner sections, stretching outward to reach the ground. Armored forms were swarming up those steps and strapping into acceleration couches, even as the dropship pilots could be dimly seen in the cockpits above them, preparing for a rapid takeoff. The ground still smoked and steamed beneath the thrust bells, which were showing faint blue glows; the pilots were keeping the drives hot, though not hot enough to cook the men boarding.
The cable suddenly went slack, then was tugged twice. Viloshen was on the ground. Scalas triggered the tiny winch to reel it back in, even as he started toward the gap in the steps. He cinched his slung powergun down tight to his back, got a running start, and leapt over the gap.
He landed hard, right on the edge of crumbling steelcrete over the gaping hole left by a projectile. If not for his armor, his knee might well have been crushed by the impact. As it was, he teetered on the edge before flinging his weight forward to regain his balance. Then he was running down the remaining steps, hitting the flats at a sprint, and heading for the dropship with XXXII-A in large red characters just below the cockpit.
He pounded up the steps and paused at the top, right in front of an empty acceleration couch. There were going to be quite a few of those, he realized. He keyed his comm on the Century channel. “Squad Sergeants, headcount. Let me know when we are ready to lift.”
As he spoke, he craned his head to look up toward the sky. There was little to see; the storms were still roiling above, mixed with dust and smoke kicked up by the titanic impacts of starship weapons and massed artillery.
But he knew, even without seeing, that there were more of those myriad white, pyramidal ships coming. They had plenty to throw at the defenders. Just the brief glimpse they’d gotten in space was enough to tell him that.
Time was running out. For the Valdekans, and for the Caractacans who had come to help them.
“First Squad, up,” Kahane reported.
“Second Squad, up. I have Viloshen, as well.” Cobb’s voice came right on Kahane’s. He sounded like a man walking through a graveyard.
“Third Squad.”
“Fourth.”
“Fifth Squad, up.” Volscius managed to sound arch even giving such a simple report. Scalas ignored the man’s tone. He was stuck with Volscius, and just had to deal with it. At least until they got off Valdek and back to the Sector Keep.
Presuming any of them made it off Valdek.
He threw himself into the acceleration couch in front of him, quickly strapping in. “Century XXXII, all go,” he reported to the pilots.
“Good copy,” came the reply. “Stand by for a rapid lift. Brother Legate Kranjick says we are going straight for the Sword of the Brotherhood’s last known location, so you had best replenish now.”
The dropships weren’t just insertion vehicles; they also carried considerable stores of food, water, air, medical supplies, and ammunition. And all were available through dispensers next to the acceleration couches. They could certainly run out, but Brother Lathan, the chief dropship pilot aboard the Dauntless, would have made certain that they were topped off before launching again.
Even as the dropship’s sides folded up, and the rumble of the drive intensified, Scalas began topping off his water and drawing fresh magazines from the dispenser just off his acceleration couch’s armrest. He had to hurry; dropships could take off with some considerable gees, and even with his armor’s articulation, it would not be a good thing to have his arm hanging off the armrest when that happened.
Lathan had the countdown on the overheads, flashing in bright red lights. Scalas hastily stuffed the fresh magazines into his ammunition carriers, then braced himself for lift.
The rumble rose to a mind-shredding roar, and then he was squashed down into his couch as the dropship leapt for the sky on a brilliant column of blue-white fire.
Almost immediately, Lathan had the nose of the dropship tilting over, pushing the lander’s trajectory away from the wall and toward their target. Scalas felt the hard kick of acceleration ease more quickly than he’d expected, even as the drive maintained its throaty roar, and realized that Lathan was trying to stay low, bal
ancing lift and forward thrust with the drive, a tricky maneuver in one of the ballistic craft. The dropships’ only lift came from their drives. They had no wings or rotors.
He found himself tilted backward, the blood starting to flow to his head, as Lathan skimmed the dropship over the battered defenses, toward the spaceport. He was all but blind; the dropships didn’t have windows in the troop compartments, and Lathan was too busy flying to worry about piping his sensor feed to the displays that could fold down in front of the acceleration couches.
Scalas momentarily wondered how Viloshen was doing. He didn’t know what all the older man had seen as a merchant spacer, but doubted that an experience like this was among his exploits. Still, it was a big galaxy, and one never knew. He decided the old corporal would, at the very least, be able to adapt. He certainly hadn’t seemed like the type to panic while they’d been on the wall.
The first sign that anything was amiss was a sudden rocking in the dropship’s flight. Then it suddenly dropped precipitously, before steadying again. That time, Scalas could dimly hear what might have been the crackling thunder of powergun bolts, or exploding missiles, just barely audible over the rumble of the dropship’s drive.
“We are taking fire, Centurion,” Lathan reported. “There appears to be a sizeable enemy force around the target landing zone. And that’s not all.”
Lathan paused then, as if uncertain how to say what came next. Scalas waited, though he started to feel the tightness in his chest that was the knowledge that whatever Lathan had to say, it wasn’t good.
“The target zone is right next to what appears to be a large impact site, Centurion,” Lathan said. “It is mostly obscured by smoke, dust, and weapons fire, but the size appears to be consistent with the low-level crash of a starship.”
That could only mean one thing. Scalas’ mouth was suddenly dry.
“It would appear, Centurion, that the Sword of the Brotherhood launched without authorization to support Century XXXIV’s dropships, and has been brought down by enemy fire,” Lathan said, his own voice strained by the combination of struggling to fly the dropship under difficult conditions and reporting that one-fifth of their ship strength appeared to have been destroyed. “Considering that there is no sign of the ship otherwise.”
