by Rod Carstens
Borges had distinguished herself on 703 by risking her life repeatedly to take care of the wounded. She was something of a legend among the Raiders. Borges stuck her head into the cockpit.
“Shitty, Lee. It’s as bad or worse than 703. The new armor medical system is helping us, but we're getting overwhelmed. We need more medics and docs. You want to volunteer?”
“Are you shitting me? No way. I just bring them to you. You do the miracles.”
“Bring them back alive,” Borges said. “I’ll take care of the rest.”
“Will do. Listen, you need anything from us SWCCs, you let me know. These are my guys. How does Annan look?”
“Wish he had a suit of armor on. We’d have a head start on his injuries. Hard to tell, but if you get them here alive, Zhad will keep them that way.”
“Roger that.”
“Gotta go.”
Borges disappeared into the crew compartment to move Annan into the casualty collection point. Lee waited for some time. Toland should have checked back in.
“Hey, Toland! You ready?”
“Sorry, Chief. I’m in my sling and ready to rock and roll.”
She didn’t sound like it, so Lee glanced back at the crew compartment. The deck was covered with blood. No wonder she didn’t sound right. She and Annan were friends.
“Toland, you ready for this?”
“Give me something to shoot at and I will be a lot more ready.”
“You got it, gunner’s mate.”
Lee pushed the throttles forward and the Mike boat took off. As he gained altitude, they took some random ground fire. Toland’s mini roared.
“That’s one less fucker,” Toland murmured.
Lee was turning to find new targets when he heard, “Mike Actual to Mike 79.”
“79, go.”
“79, the LZ’s are getting pounded. Can you break away for some runs to support them?”
Lee looked over at Odaka. “How are we doing?”
“We’re down four ships, but the fight has gone into the buildings. We could split the flight and still provide enough cover for the Raiders.”
“That's what I was thinking.”
Lee switched back to the command frequency. “Roger, Actual. We can split up and go to the LZs. Do you have the coordinates of the targets?”
“You won’t need specific target coordinates. You will find them.”
Lee looked over at Odaka and said, “That doesn’t sound good.”
“No, it sounds like things are going to get festive.”
Lee switched frequencies and said, “First flight on me. They need some help at the LZs.”
Lee banked the ship and increased speed. The two remaining ships from his flight followed closely. It was a few miles to the LZs, but as they approached, they could see them long before they reached them. APCs and other landing craft were making their final approaches while others were taking off. As they watched, a landing craft was struck by a plasma cannon and disappeared in a huge explosion. Green, red, yellow, and orange tracers were crisscrossing the LZs, punctuated by explosions.
“Where’s it all coming from?” Lee said.
“Under the ridgeline ahead.”
As if to punctuate Odaka’s observation, a five-incher from a destroyer struck just in front of the ridgeline, lighting up the night and clearly showing positions firing on the LZs. It looked as if the fortifications were more than a mile long. The five-inch rail rounds were making huge craters, but they did nothing to slow down the fire coming from the fortifications.
Lee tried to think how best to attack the huge fortification. If he took it on directly, it could concentrate its fire and knock him right out of the sky. The overhang protected fortifications from a stand-off shot from altitude. So they'd have to get up close and personal.
“We’re going to make a long run parallel to the ridgeline. I hope they won’t be able to track us easily that way. I’ll use the forward minis. Odaka, you get creative with your weapons systems, and Toland, you take care of the rear as we pass. Everybody good?”
“Yeah, sounds like a plan to me,” Toland said.
“Roger that,” Odaka said.
Lee switched frequencies and said to the others in the flight, “We're going to make a run parallel to the ridgeline. Orbit until you see if it works. If we get shot down, figure something out.”
“Better thee than me,” one of the other pilots said.
Odaka looked over at Lee. “He’s right, you know.”
“You got a better idea?”
“Negative, Chief. Let’s get this done.”
Lee banked the ship, pulled up, and reversed course to the west where the ridgeline started. He pitched the ship over into a dive and roared down parallel to the ridgeline at a hundred feet. He opened up with the metal storm, yawing so the rounds were raking the positions under the overhang. Toland was firing into the same fortifications as they passed, while Odaka was launching air-to-ground missiles at targets ahead of their position. The side of the ship was taking a pounding—not so much from aimed fire as from getting in the way of weapons firing on the LZs—but the ship was heavily armored enough to take the pounding without any significant damage. The metal storm was literally digging a trench into the rock of the ridgeline, and everywhere it did, Lee could see Xotoli positions destroyed. It was working.
They reached the end of the ridgeline, and Lee pulled the ship up and banked over the escarpment so the positions on the ridgeline couldn't fire on him.
“We got secondary explosions, Chief,” Toland said. “We ate their fucking lunches.”
“We’re not done yet.” Lee flipped his comm to the flight frequency. “Next in line.”
“Roger, Lee. Here we go.”
The next ship made the same run that Lee had, raking the ridgeline with more fire and rockets. They were actually making a difference.
LSD Tarawa
Tactical Operations Center
Combined Confederation Expeditionary Force
General Dasan Sand sat in his command chair watching the huge display at the front of the TOC. He did not like what he was seeing. His three LZs were holding on by their fingernails, and the Raiders were still trying to clear the spaceport. They were way behind the mission clock. He had to consider sending in his reserves. He had been holding them back in hopes of having them available for the taking of the rest of the planet. He wanted them fresh, but unless he committed them he likely he wouldn’t need them for the rest of the planet because he was about to lose his LZs.
“Battle captain, I want a battle-update brief. Now.”
A young captain stood but looked confused as he scrambled to pull together a BUB. Netis would have had one ready to go. I do miss Netis, Sand thought. It was still inconceivable to him that she had been a hybrid.
He forced that particular new understanding to the back of his mind. It would take a lot more thought to wrap his head around that fact. After close to a minute, the young captain began. He changed the display to show the LZs, then zoomed in to Sol first. Sand could see his Marines moving forward in small units. Fire teams or squads were moving off the LZ for cover.
“Sir, the Marines in LZ Sol have begun to solidify their positions. They have begun to move out of the LZ but now are receiving fire from a ridgeline to the left flank. Until now they have had little fire from that direction. It appears that the Xotoli had prepared positions and have moved troops into them as they are needed.”
“So they are under pressure from two directions now?”
“Negative, sir. While they are still receiving some fire from their right flank, the majority of it has moved to the Von Fleet and Rift LZs now. So their primary resistance is to their left flank and front.”
Sand studied the display. He could see small figures moving forward with covering fire from other units. As in most battles it came down to small units lead by NCOs. The Marines were making progress despite the losses.
“I need to speak with Colonel Y
ankas.”
“Sir, we haven’t been able to reach him or any of his staff. The only officer we’ve been able to reach is a company commander.”
“That far down the chain of command.”
“Yes, sir. He reported he could not find any other officers who were still effective. They were either wounded and out or dead.”
Sand was going to have to think about committing his reserves soon, but he wanted to wait and commit them to their original objective: the spaceport. The troops at Sol were going to have to hold.
“Go on.”
“Von Fleet continues to hold, but all of the tanks in the second wave were destroyed, as were the robotic weapons platforms. The Xotoli had a weapon that they used on the robotic weapons platforms. It reprogrammed them on the fly. They began attacking each other and the VF troops. They had to be destroyed.”
Sand had known that fucking technology was not going to work—and the tanks. When any individual in armor could carry weapons capable of destroying a tank, he had no idea why Von Fleet thought they could attack a fortified position with them. They had turned into big targets instead of the terror weapons of old. As for the robotic weapons platforms, he had argued with Von Fleet about them just on principle. The more dependent you were on technology, the more chance there was for something to go wrong.
“Have you got any good news? Have the penal-battalion units consolidated their positions?”
“Negative, sir. There are only pockets of them left. But the second wave of VF armored infantry have secured the crater and are beginning to move out of the crater itself. They are still receiving heavy fire from the ridgeline, but the Mike boats and the naval gunfire have begun to take out more and more of the positions. You can see it best from this angle.”
The captain pulled up a drone view of the ridgeline with an infrared filter that showed the positions in the ridgeline. Sand could see some of the positions still firing while others were a smoldering ruin. He made a mental note that they needed more of those Mike boats. The APCs were great at moving troops and equipment, but the more versatile ships like the Mike boats could drop off the troops then stick around and support those troops.
“Okay, continue.”
“LZ Rift is perhaps the most established of the three LZs. They have made significant progress and are now attacking the ridge.”
The captain switched to another view on the display. Sand could see that some of the troops had managed to make it to the fortifications in the ridgeline and were attacking them. He watched as a fire team entered the fortification after blowing it up with what had to be handheld weapons. They reappeared and moved to the next position. Leave it to the Wolfs and Rifts. At least something on the ground was beginning to make progress.
“Sir.”A young lieutenant at one of the drone stations was standing.
“Yes,” Sand said.
“I need to break into your BUB for this. It is a flash priority. I need to put it on the display.”
“Do it, Lieutenant.”
The display changed to the west in the dunes. He saw at first tens, then hundreds of tiny figures moving rapidly toward the beachhead. Between LZ Sol and the Von Fleet LZ. There were more and more of them appearing out of the base of the ridgeline.
“Sir, the Xotoli are making their push to split the LZss with this counterattack.”
Sand was stunned. He'd known the Xotoli would counterattack as soon as possible, but he had not expected it so soon and in such numbers. None of the intel had given him a hint of this many troops. As he watched, the wave of Xotoli continued to grow. Then he saw some of them drop, then more.
“Who’s out there doing that? Zoom in on those troops.”
The lieutenant zoomed in on a small group of troops in a U-shaped position firing into the approaching horde, standing alone against overwhelming odds, not retreating but making a stand. As they continued to fire into the Xotoli, he saw that more of the enemy were changing direction to attack the small unit that was taking out more and more of their troops. They were actually slowing the huge wave. The Xotoli couldn’t leave a unit in their rear that would continue to fire as they passed. Numbers didn’t necessarily stop a determined unit from damaging a much larger force. He continued to watch in amazement. That unit was giving him time to warn the Marines and Von Fleet.
“Advise LZs Sol and VF to reinforce their flanks immediately. Flash them this video. Now!”
Sand watched as the various communicators worked frantically to get the information to the units. He began to see movement in both LZs as they shifted their units to the proper flanks. The Xotoli were still coming, but they would now be attacking through fire from both flanks. All thanks to one small platoon that had stood when they could have retreated.
“Who is that? Who is making that stand? Do we have any Mike boats that could help them out? Something?”
“Sir, we’ve been having problems contacting the Mike boats since they began their runs on the ridge. We think the Xotoli have found that frequency and are jamming it. We can’t get them up on comm.”
A buzz erupted in the room as men and women tried to identify the small unit that was making so much of a difference at a critical time. Finally the Von Fleet captain stood and said, “I think that is a platoon from the 3rd Company of the 135th Penal Battalion. It was the 3rd’s assignment to take that flank. None of the other platoons are answering, so it has to be one of them.”
Sand stood there watching young men and women, conscripted because they were poor, make a stand that could very well save the invasion. They wouldn’t last much longer. Someone went to change the display.
“No, leave them up. We owe them the honor of watching their bravery.”
Sol System
Earth
Naval Headquarters
Admiral Raurk’s Office
Istas sat across from Usiche in her office. She had come directly from her questioning of Netis. She had just finished briefing her on what she had learned. Usiche sat back in her chair.
“That is a lot to absorb, Istas. Everything from the motives of the Xotoli to Raina Carroll being one of the leading hybrids,” Usiche said.
“Carroll left his first wife for her after Rift. That means she knew him before Rift, so Von Fleet was compromised even before Rift.”
“That is a big assumption to jump to. Von Fleet is the most powerful corporation in the Confederation. How could they have been compromised before Rift?”
“I don’t know, but Carroll was appointed as their senator immediately after Rift. So he became their conduit for information. He’s read in as a senator on some of the most sensitive information in the Confederation, and he tells Raina.”
“What makes you think that he would tell her anything? It would make him a traitor, not only to the Confederation but to his race.”
Istas told Usiche about how Raina had used Netis, and as she told the story Istas could see Usiche realize what that meant for Carroll.
“She either used sex, threats, real violence, or a combination of the three to control him. Remember he still has a former wife and children who can be held over his head.”
“The children?” Usiche asked.
“Of course. They would be the biggest threat,” Istas said.
Usiche stared at Istas for a long time before she said, “You’ve done something similar, haven’t you?”
“Yes, Usiche, I have.”
Istas could see her face change as she realized what that meant about who Istas was and what she was capable of should it be necessary. She also knew that realization was going to change their relationship from this point forward. Few outside the clan understood what being an Anjin truly meant, and those who did come to understand the real nature of their craft were rarely unaffected by the knowledge.
Usiche was silent for some time before she said, “What do you propose to do now that we know that Raina is definitely a hybrid?”
“For the time being, we watch and wait—”
&n
bsp; Suddenly the display on the admiral’s desk popped up. Usiche frowned. “I told you that I was not to be disturbed!”
“Ma’am, he insisted that he must see you immediately. It is urgent. He won’t take no for an answer.”
“Who is it?”
“It’s Dr. Moses, ma’am.”
“What could the chief scientist for the Navy possibly need to talk to me about that could not wait another hour?”
“Ma’am, I don’t—”
Then a male voice shouted, “Our wormhole to Chika is disappearing!”
Usiche’s face changed dramatically. She exchanged a glance with Istas. “Send him in.”
Dr. Darryon Moses came charging into the room, a long printout in his hand. He did not look like a typical scientist. He was huge, with broad shoulders and a tough broken nose of a face that made him look more like a rugby player than a scientist. Rugby happened to be his hobby, and he had had to choose between science and rugby for a career after school. He had chosen science.
“What the hell are you talking about, Darryon? What do you mean the wormhole to Chika is disappearing?”
He dropped a printout covered with sophisticated data on her desk. “It’s right there, Admiral. We first noticed a change in the dark matter in a routine sweep by one of our sensors. We thought it was a faulty sensor, so we checked all of the other sensors and they were reading the same. We thought, ‘Well, some sort of event corrupted all the sensors,’ so we sent out another set. The same readings came back with the new sensors. Something is closing the wormhole.”
“Is it natural?”
“No, definitely not. It’s the Xotolis. They are closing the wormhole to the Sui-Ren system and therefore to Chika.”
Dr. Moses was one of the few read in on the Chika operation.
“What happens if they close off that wormhole?”
“We lose the route to Ceti and therefore to Ross, Groom Bridge, Cygni, and the rest of the systems out there permanently, and they trap the majority of our Navy and Marines in a system with no way to get home in the foreseeable future.”
Istas had not thought she would ever see Usiche completely at a loss for words, but she looked absolutely lost as to what to say. Finally she looked at Moses and said, “Are you absolutely sure?”
