Books One to Three Omnibus (Armada Wars)

by R. Curtis Venture

  “Then you’d better get ready to retreat.”

  Caden dashed out through the rear doorway, into the square. He ran to Throam, and saw the back plate of his ammo can had been blown out. Black scorch marks covered the edges of a jagged hole in the plasteel casing, where something had forced open the incision left behind by the skulker fragment.

  “You okay?”

  “Winded,” said Throam. “What the fuck was that?”

  “Your ammo can,” Caden said. “Looks like a round exploded inside it.”

  He dropped to one knee by Throam’s side, raised his assault rifle, and fired several short bursts at the polybots on the left. The lead ‘bot lost a front leg, continued regardless, lost another leg. Throam threw a grenade in front of them, and the damaged one was taken apart. The second ‘bot was able to change direction in time, and it scuttled forwards more cautiously.

  “Help me with this,” said Throam.

  Caden unclipped the ammo can from Throam’s back armour plate, and the counterpart shrugged off the shoulder straps. The damaged can dropped to the ground.

  Throam grabbed hold of the feed chute, and ripped it out of the can.

  “This baby should still fire,” he said.

  He opened up with the mini-gun, and tore the cautious polybot to shreds. He kept firing until the rounds had been leached from the chute and the barrels of the gun rattled empty.

  “Bruiser,” said Caden.

  He whirled around to assist the Rodori, but it was too late. The last polybot was already within striking range, and Bruiser was in the line of fire. The polybot reared up, and launched itself at Bruiser.

  Caden was up and running before he had even decided what he would do.

  Bruiser smashed one heavy fist into the polybot’s head, knocking it sideways, but the ‘bot stayed upright on four of its legs. The other two limbs slashed across each other, one slicing Bruiser’s armour and the flesh of his forearm. The Rodori took a reflexive step backwards, pulled back his injured arm, and then launched himself forwards again.

  Bruiser grabbed the ‘bot around its body with both arms, pushing his whole weight forwards until it fell back against its hind legs. He tumbled to the ground with its long forelimbs wrapped uselessly around him, the sharp-tooled ends too far away to cause him harm. He grabbed its head in both hands, and twisted it clean off the body.

  The polybot tried to get up at the same time as him, still lashing out with its limbs.

  Caden riddled it with bullets. “Guess the control centre isn’t in the head.”

  “We’re getting pasted up here,” Daxon shouted.

  “Come on,” said Throam.

  Bruiser dropped the head, scooped his GPMG from the ground in one huge hand, and fell in beside Caden.

  “You okay?”

  “Just a scratch,” said Bruiser.

  “It’s more than that, Biggun.”

  “But I will live.”

  They passed back into the building, and Caden leapt for cover. The Viskr in the street opposite looked as though they had gained numbers, not lost them.

  “Reinforcements are on the way,” Bro said. “We just need to hold out for few more minutes.”

  Daxon’s voice came over the link. “What chumps are going to invite themselves to this party?”

  Bro sounded amused. “Crazy ones.”

  Caden moved forwards to gain a better position. With their rear no longer at risk of being taken apart by the polybots, his pillar was no longer a prime spot.

  He dipped out of cover and fired, alternating randomly with Norskine and Daxon, then with Bro and Throam.

  The Viskr were unwilling to give up the street. Some of them were firing from behind mounds of their fallen comrades, others had almost reached the junction. The skulkers rolled forwards in stages. With their flesh allies keeping to cover on each side of the street, they would have a clear run to the building when they finally decided to advance.

  “This is not good,” said Daxon. “Bro, where the fuck is our backup?”

  “I think that might be it behind them.”

  Caden risked a slightly longer moment out of cover to peer through his scope, timing matters so that Norskine and Daxon were both firing.

  A man he could only describe as a grizzly great monster was behind the skulker line, brazenly jogging towards the killers as if they were only large toys. He was carrying something in his hand. Caden caught a glimpse of what looked like a metal rebar, before it was whirled around, brought up in a two-handed grip above the man’s head, and driven like a stake through the heart of one of the machines.

  The skulker’s rings were immobilised, and it tipped over — uncontrolled — until the end of the rebar caught the ground and sent the machine wobbling helplessly towards a wall.

  Caden ducked back into cover.

  “What in the worlds did I just see?”

  “That was Bear Mtenga.”

  “You know him?”

  “Beardy black guy the size of a house, taking on skulkers hand-to-hand? Could only be him,” said Daxon. “Guy’s a fucking legend.”

  Caden realised the patter of bullets ripping through the walls and furnishings around their cover had ceased. He could still hear gunfire — in fact there was more of it now — but it was not aimed at them.

  A new battle had started out in the streets.

  • • •

  Captain Thande watched with building horror as the huge, battered hull of the Nakrikhul Srabir hurtled past their Guardian Shield, headed straight towards Mibes.

  “Impact point?”

  “Ground Zero will be the city of Naddur, Captain,” said Tactical. “It’ll be rubbed off the map.”

  “Helm; lay in a pursuit course. Full burn.”

  “Aye Ma’am.”

  “What are you hoping to achieve?” Commander Yuellen stepped to Thande’s side, his expression quizzical. “If we missile them, the capital will be pelted with radioactive debris.”

  “We’re not going to use missiles,” said Thande.

  “Engines are at capacity, Captain,” Helm called. “But they’ve got too big a lead. We’re losing them.”

  “Keep going Helm. COMOP, have the other ships cover us. We absolutely have to survive the next few minutes.”

  “Aye. Sending now.”

  “Helm, what’s the gap?”

  “One hundred klicks, Ma’am, and widening.”

  “That ship looks like it’s lost,” said Thande. “I think we should give them a hand finding their way.”

  “Captain?”

  “Spool up the GNGs. Make ready to open a wormhole right in front of them.”

  “Oh… yes Ma’am.”

  The helm officer smiled, her fingers dancing across her holo.

  “Opening a wormhole at full burn?” The XO looked both shocked and impressed. “That’s pretty desperate, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

  “I don’t mind at all, Commander. It is desperate.”

  “GNGs are ready Captain. Where should I send them?”

  “I don’t really care,” said Thande.

  “I hear the Tithian Nebula is worth a visit,” said Yuellen.

  “Works for me, Commander. Helm; the Tithian Nebula it is.”

  “Yes Captain,” Helm chuckled. “Opening wormhole.”

  On the battle map, Thande opened a pane to show the real-time view from the forward sensors. She saw the aft end of the Nakrikhul Srabir moving away from her, its engines flaring brightly, pushing it hard towards the planet.

  Ahead of the Viskr capital ship, just visible around the edges of its hull, she could make out the familiar spatial disturbances which heralded the formation of a new wormhole.

  “They’re trying to turn,” said Tactical. “Too much velocity; they won’t make it.”

  Thande watched as the wormhole’s aperture expanded, throwing out the apparent disc of its event horizon. The Srabir fired its starboard manoeuvring thrusters, killed its port engines, and — Thande figured
— was probably firing its forward retro engines as well. The ship began to turn, slowly, but continued to hurtle straight into the wormhole’s waiting maw.

  “They’ve clipped it,” shouted Tactical.

  Most of the Srabir vanished into the horizon of the wormhole, and was catapulted across the galaxy. But the prow — with its sensor arrays and cannons and blocky armour — was sliced clean off where it hit the conceptual edge of the event horizon.

  The front end of the ship tumbled off to one side, spinning away from Disputer and leaving a trail of debris and fading plasma fires behind it. Orange-rimmed lines were plainly visible to Thande as she watched it roll; the edges of bulkheads and decks which had been melted through by direct exposure to an energy boundary bordering on the infinite.

  A cheer filled the command deck, and she sat back heavily in her chair.

  “Tactical; what’s the level of threat from that piece?”

  “Negligible, Captain. It’s lost all armour integrity, being open at one end like that. And it’s now on a trajectory that will see it burn up in the atmosphere.”

  “Excellent.”

  “New updates from the fleet, Ma’am,” said COMOP. “Viskr forces are disengaging. Looks like they’re abandoning the fight now they’ve lost their capital ship.”

  “And abandoning their ground forces?”

  “It certainly seems that way.”

  “Also excellent.”

  • • •

  Mayhem was the only word Eilentes could think of to describe the scene in front of her. Absolute mayhem.

  The Viskr were now being pushed back from the building that sheltered Caden and his companions, pushed back by what Eilentes could only describe as a wall of fury. A platoon of Tankers seemed to have come from nowhere.

  “Holy shit,” she shouted. “Look at those guys go! Bro, why didn’t you tell us they were gonna roll out the tanks?”

  Eilentes knew of Tanker Regiment, of course. But wherever this unit had popped up from, she had had no idea any of their kind had been deployed to the surface.

  She felt almost sorry for the Viskr.

  Outside in the street, the second Gorilla from the square had also turned up. It trudged slowly but steadily toward the junction, chain guns sterilising the ground ahead of it, its head and shoulders almost level with her window.

  Opposite the Gorilla, on the far side of the junction, Tankers already occupied the first two floors of the buildings on either side of the road. The Viskr who were fool enough to try and retreat that way were shot from the windows and doorways.

  Across the junction from Eilentes, in the street where the skulkers had mustered, the majority of the Viskr unit was now trapped. The Tanker who Daxon had identified as Bear Mtenga was back with friends, and they had cut off any hope of retreat to the rear. The last of the skulkers whirred around in a panic, throwing up from the ground the broken remains of those which had already been smashed by grenades and rockets.

  “That is fucking beautiful,” she heard Throam say.

  She watched as the massive soldiers took the Viskr unit apart piece by piece. She had to agree; as brutal as it looked, it was certainly a sight to admire.

  Everyone beneath her downstairs had stopped firing. But then, with the armour-plated, muscle-bound fist of the Empire fighting on their side in the street, there was not much more that they could contribute other than wasting ammunition.

  She heard Caden’s voice over the group channel. “Hey, Throam.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Remember when I said you looked tiny next to Bruiser, and you said non-humans didn’t count?”

  “Yeah…?”

  “Those guys make you look tiny.”

  “Go fuck yourself,” she heard Throam say.

  She smiled before she could stop herself.

  Her face fell again when she heard a shrieking whine cross from right to left.

  “Blitzer!” Someone shouted from below.

  She caught a glimpse of a triangular wedge hurtling by, swooping low between the buildings, then in less than a second the drone was gone from her view. She popped her head cautiously out of an empty window frame and peered after it.

  Down the street, the drone finished its pass and stopped dead. It rotated, hovered for a second, then accelerated hard back down the street, the guns on its three points raking the ground and scattering the Tankers below. Eilentes saw three of the giant soldiers fall to the ground.

  “It’s going to cut them to pieces,” said Bro. “Those things look for organic bodies.”

  “What can we do?” That was Caden.

  “Too fast for rockets.” Daxon.

  “What about the Gorilla?” Throam.

  “Again, too fast.”

  Eilentes cradled Ambrast close to her chest, and patted the metal with her free hand.

  “Time to earn your name,” she said.

  • • •

  Throam saw Caden’s jaw drop, and the Shard pointed up past the top edge of the window frame.

  Throam followed his gaze. “Is that… Eilentes?”

  Caden nodded. “Uh huh.”

  “Did she just jump out of the building?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “What the hell is she doing?”

  “Just hitching a ride,” Eilentes said over his link. “Need a long, straight shot to take this thing down.”

  “She’s gone mad,” said Caden.

  This time it was Throam who nodded. He craned his neck, now losing sight of Eilentes as she clambered into position atop the Gorilla.

  “Actually, I think she’ll be okay,” said Daxon. “That Blitzer should ignore her, just as long as it thinks she’s part of the Gorilla platform.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Throam asked.

  “Well…”

  “Daxon!”

  “Reasonably sure?”

  Throam looked back to the Gorilla, and saw Ambrast’s long barrel appear over the top of its head. The Gorilla was still advancing, very slowly, and the barrel waved from side to side in time with the gentle rolling and lurching motion.

  “Can you make the shot, Eilentes?” Caden asked.

  “Just… a matter… of timing,” she replied.

  The drone screeched down the street again, passing over the Gorilla. Tankers fired futilely after it, their shots all missing. The Blitzer was far too fast for them. It reached the far end of the road, turned in a tight vertical loop, flipped over, and soared back for another pass.

  “Any moment now…” Eilentes’ voice came through the link. “Wait for it…”

  The drone reached the other end of the street, looped, and—

  Ambrast barked.

  “It’s a miss,” Eilentes shouted. “It’s coming back for another sweep.”

  The drone shrieked back again, reached the intersection, and again stopped dead. It hovered in the air, turned, then headed down the street opposite Throam and the others, searching for new targets.

  Throam leaped from the building, knocking fragments of broken glass from the window frame as he went, and landed on the street in front of the Gorilla.

  “Bruiser!” He shouted. The Rodori scrambled after him.

  He heard Caden shout. “What are you doing?”

  The drone was still heading away from them, battering the street with rounds. Throam ignored Caden and ran into the road, over to the fallen Tankers. He grabbed the nearest one under the arms, started to pull him back towards the building, and at once regretted picking the closest one instead of the smallest one.

  Bruiser grabbed a wrist of each of the others, and hauled them across the ground unceremoniously.

  “Careful, Bruiser,” Throam said.

  “They have armour.”

  “Hurry it up down there, you idiots,” Eilentes said. “It’s heading back again.”

  The whine of the Blitzer’s turbines was growing louder and louder, and Throam pulled with all his might. The heavy Tanker’s legs dragged along the ground, his armou
r catching on debris and making him even harder to move.

  Throam pushed himself beyond his limits.

  He collapsed through the window, and Daxon, Bro and Caden came to help. Between them they almost lifted the Tanker, dragging him off Throam and into the relative safety of the room.

  “Good job,” said Caden.

  “Heads up,” Eilentes said. “It’s nearly on you.”

  “Take cover,” Daxon said.

  Throam hid like the others as the Blitzer approached the building. It disappeared out of view, too high up to be seen from inside the ground floor, and he heard the change in pitch as it looped and flipped.

  “It’s off again,” Eilentes said.

  She went quiet.

  “Euryce…?” Throam asked.

  He heard a crack, and the drone jerked to one side. It rolled over and over, flipping as it sailed towards the ground, then hit the stone flags with a hollow crash.

  “Got you, you little bastard,” said Eilentes.

  “You beauty!” Daxon shouted.

  “Man, that is one hell of a woman you have there Throam,” said Bro.

  Throam smiled back at him. “It sure is.”

  “It’s looking clear from up here,” Eilentes said. “Think we’re good for the moment.”

  “Come on down,” said Caden. “I keep thinking you’re going to fall off that thing.”

  It was a good few minutes before she found a way to climb down safely and made it to the ground. By the time she was standing back with Caden and Throam some Tankers had gathered with them around the front of the Gorilla, and others were tending to their injured squad mates. They cheered her as she hopped off the machine. One of them stepped towards her.

  “Lady, that was some nice shooting.”

  “It wasn’t anything special,” she said.

  “Listen: I’ve seen some crazy shit in my time, and that was outstanding.”

  “It was an exceptional shot,” Caden assured her.

  “That made me horny,” said Throam.

  All eyes turned to him.

  “Just saying.”

  “I’m Sergeant Zolyn Feior.” The Tanker continued as if Throam had never spoken. “And this bunch of apes is Downfall One-Four.”

  Daxon gave them all a sloppy salute, and they stared back at him. Throam decided they were not the saluting type.