The Tetra War_The Katash Enigma

by Michael Ryan

  Finally, with all due respect, I must insist on priority status for the newborn Katash infants and their mothers, as well as those who are pregnant. You know my history, so I won’t belabor the point. If my mission doesn’t include saving the most vulnerable and innocent, I’m not interested in playing this game any longer.

  S/Ford, Avery (acting) Captain, Charlie Company, Fifth of the Seventy-Second, JFUA

  In theater, System CAT: ODY–277.4883.006

  I saved the personal message to Balestain, programming it to send simultaneously with the burst to Command scheduled for the next morning.

  “Are we going to be ready?” Callie asked me.

  “As ready as we can be,” I answered.

  “Avery?”

  “Yes.”

  “If we don’t save the babies…”

  “Understood. I’ve made General Balestain aware of this.”

  “I love you,” she said.

  “I adore you more than life itself, my love,” I said.

  I sent the burst the following morning.

  Command dropped two full companies of SDI infantry, four squadrons of heli-jets, and two rail-cannons with full crews. They also sent a dozen tanks, but most of them flew off course and landed in the mountains too far away to contribute in any meaningful way. Of the two that fell in the valley, one crashed and killed the crew, and the second sank uselessly into a bank of mud.

  The force also included an infantry legion.

  Five thousand five hundred and fifty-five men.

  Someone, probably a politico, had thought five a lucky number.

  During this period in the war against the Dreki-Nakahi, the standard JFUA infantry were equipped with heavy armor, but nothing comparable to fully contained TCI-Armor. Many of these brave soldiers were slaughtered by the thousands at the hands of the more advanced lizard units; however, as wars tend to go, the losses the Drekis sustained eventually forced them to also use less-than-ideal armaments. In time their leaders would also send tens of thousands of lightly armored reptilian foot troops to gruesome deaths.

  The presence of regular infantry meant logistical problems that suited units didn’t have to consider, such as food and water, first aid, and nonattached weaponry and ammunition.

  This would prove crucial to the survival of our non-armored group, as well as the cuddly dragon pups, which even I’d become attached to.

  If you’re wondering what catalyst was the cause of Command’s seemingly obscenely large rescue party, the answer was simple: the Drekis’ response to my outgoing sat-burst to the Kuznetsov.

  The reptiles sent an entire army.

  Heavy infantry, light infantry, tanks, transports, rail-cannon batteries, and squadrons of helis were approaching the valley in a methodical manner.

  “I guess we rescued something important,” Abrel said, observing the massive movement of the enemy.

  “And,” I said, agreeing with his assessment, “they want it back.”

  “And they want it back,” he repeated.

  “Golvin.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Death is the solution to all our inconveniences. No purvast – no problem.

  ~ Prime Minister Coj Falnzte

  As the sign above each of the interplanetary chain of Stavlagian brothels states, “There’s a first time for everything.”

  I’ve been in more than my share of battles.

  The engagement in the valley was the first time my primary mission was to save newborn alien babies, bat-dragon puppies, rodent slaves, and a reptilian prisoner of war.

  Another famous Stavlagian brothel motto is also true of warfare: “It only feels icky the first time.”

  Sadly, I know this to be true of killing.

  Soldiers grow insensitive to suffering.

  I know without a doubt I’ve grown callous to death. But in spite of my jaded perspective, as the Dreki forces began their initial bombardment, my primary concern was for the infants.

  Their presence also triggered Callie’s maternal instinct, as well as her grief.

  “You stay with them,” I ordered. The mothers and their precious offspring were hiding in the deepest cavern we could find. Unfortunately, it didn’t extend forever, but they were able to put two hundred and fifty meters between themselves and daylight. It was something.

  “You need me out there,” she said without conviction.

  “I need you more in here,” I replied. “If something goes wrong, I’m ordering you to de-suit and join them. Pretend to be a slave. Protect your life.”

  “That’s not a lawful order, Avery,” she said.

  “I don’t care.” I put my armored hands on her shoulders and sent her the last picture I had of us when our family was intact. “Do it for them. That’s an order, Callie. I might die out there today, and if I do, I want to know it meant something bigger than us. I want you to be part of rescuing lives instead of taking them.”

  “I can do that best by killing lizards,” she argued.

  “You’ll do it best here,” I countered. “Protecting the innocent. I’m not arguing this anymore. Please…I’ve always seen you as an equal partner, but this time I’m pulling a trump card. I’m…don’t fight me on this, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “I love you,” I said.

  I left her in the cavern with the unarmored members of our strange group. With the vast number of troops and equipment Command had sent, her absence wouldn’t tip the scales one way or another.

  Dozens of tactical actions and other strategic machinations happened simultaneously. In describing the battle, which lasted six days, I’ll attempt to offer a chronological account, but for the sake of completeness it can be assumed that timelines will occasionally jump back and forth in the telling.

  I hadn’t told Callie about my plan to create an avalanche of solid rock to enclose them in the cavern, but I knew she’d see the logical reason behind doing so. I instructed a combat engineer team to use structural Plastite-Webbing to create several snaking air vents along the floor at the cavern’s entrance. The zigzag pattern of the duct works would ensure no missiles or shrapnel could reach past the barrier while allowing enough air to keep everyone inside alive.

  Before I set off the explosion that would drop a section of cliff into place, I put two standard JFUA SP-100-10 tactical survival cases inside the sanctuary. One of the crates carried enough food and water to sustain a hundred men for ten days, so I assumed two would be more than sufficient. The crates also contained lights, blankets, heaters, first-aid kits, and other essentials for stranded soldiers, and the SP-100-10 also contained military-grade eTabs with books, movies, and survival tips…

  Being stranded in the wilderness, or being lost at sea or in space, can lead to boredom-driven stir-craziness. This can devolve into mutiny and other not-so-pleasant diversions. The inclusion of entertainment in the survival case was therefore not an altruistic luxury provided by Command, but an acknowledgement of harsh reality.

  I believed I’d done the best I could to protect my charges in the situation, and I put them out of my mind.

  The heli-jets had the best overall view of the battlefield, so I tuned into the Fier Squadron’s comm, hoping to gain intel on the expanding theater.

  “Fier Lead. Over.”

  “Go.”

  “I need a low-altitude sweeper into sector seven. Over.”

  “Fire, fire, look below. That was close.”

  “Moving to sector seven, Rio-two.”

  “This is Rio actual. Belay that…we need support for Tango Company.”

  “Fier-six, you have company. Portside, Fier-six. I can pick up some slack.

  “Roger, moving now.”

  “Look out!”

  “Bravo Company, you’re being bracketed.”

  I was near Bravo Company, so I patched into one of the rail-cannon battery groups.

  “Third Platoon, Leon Company, Rail-Cannon Kast,” I said.

  “Go.”

  “Can you
put some heat on this spot? Hold for coordinates,” I said, and sent the best picture I could.

  The Dreki army had put the bulk of their assets in a portion of the valley that was wide and heavily treed. Their closest troops were approximately two clicks from the edge of our position. At the extreme, they had heli-jet support crews fifteen to twenty clicks beyond that, set behind a ridge that put them out of range of our ground guns.

  “Roger that, Lieutenant,” the crewman said. “We’re sending packages now.”

  I switched through the infantry’s comms.

  By order of Command – I suspected Balestain’s influence – our platoon remained autonomous. I remained an acting field captain, but I kept the title of lieutenant and ran the squads as such. With Callie’s absence, we had thirty-three TCI-Armored soldiers, and I left the three platoons of ten each intact. They were Devil, Dragon, and Elefant, and I used them to back up and support the main force as I saw fit. Abrel and Mallsin acted as executive officers; I mostly gave them carte blanche to roam between our squads and help or command as required.

  It pays to work with the same people as long as possible.

  The more actions you survive together, the higher your survivability factor increases.

  Conversely, the more unfamiliar you are with the units you’re coordinating with, the more likely a snafu becomes a reality.

  On the second day, the Sixteenth Light Infantry Battalion was pinned down a few clicks from our camp. Light Infantry Battalions in the JFUA were comprised of six companies, each with one hundred to one hundred and forty troops. A lieutenant colonel was in command of battalions, and usually the top line officer and his staff would be stationed at a rear base.

  When enough of them were available, majors directed the companies in the field, but it wasn’t uncommon in rough periods of the war to see captains filling all the company commander positions. I’d even seen a few first lieutenants get field promoted after the deaths of their COs. If they did well, they were generally awarded the rise in rank permanently.

  Of course, they just as often followed their commanders into the abyss.

  The JFUA light infantry units in the war against the lizards were used up like sticks of kindling in a million campfires, so it wasn’t surprising when we received a call for assistance.

  “Abrel, take Devil Squad around the left flank. Mallsin, go right with Dragon. I’ll take Elefant up the middle,” I ordered.

  I patched into the lieutenant colonel’s leadership comm.

  “Lieutenant Colonel Wiquenzest here. Go.”

  “Sir, I’ve got three squads of TCI moving to assist the Sixteenth,” I said.

  The senior officer was monitoring progress from a command center bunker that was dug deep into the ground in the mountainous upper portion of the valley. While not entirely safe, if the command center was overrun or destroyed, it usually meant everyone was screwed. I sometimes wondered what it would be like to be a senior line commander moving battalions and companies around as if they were bishops, knights, and pawns. I’d probably be bored.

  I’m not sure if that made me saner, or less so, but I was addicted to the action.

  “Lieutenant Ford,” he said, “I was talking to the general about you just yesterday.” He didn’t have to mention which general. “He speaks highly of you.”

  “Thank you, sir,” I said.

  “Don’t thank me,” he replied. “I don’t have an opinion of you yet.”

  “Sir.”

  “I’m giving you access to my COs,” he said. “I’ve got three majors and three captains…check that…one of the majors didn’t move his ass out of the way of an HE mortar…I’ve got, let’s see. Oh, damn. I’m sending you the links; you figure it out. Do what you can. I’ve got a fire to put out. Over.”

  He ended the exchange.

  I patched into the comm shared by the six company commanders.

  “This is Lieutenant Ford with…never mind…I’ve got thirty-three TCI-Armored soldiers moving to assist you.”

  My display screen gave me a quick pop-up indicating the name and rank of anyone who messaged or pinged me.

  A captain named Rollings responded, “I’ve got a gap you could patch. Sending now.”

  I received a map taken by a heli flyover.

  I studied the topography and responded, “Roger, I’m moving a squad now.”

  “Acknowledged,” he said.

  “Elefant, move to the marked spot,” I ordered. I sent the map to the squad.

  “Moving now,” Sergeant Blaasever, the squad leader, said.

  I provided an overwatch to Elefant Squad from a tree branch that provided a good line of sight up the center of the skirmish. The Sixteenth Battalion had managed to get funneled into a box canyon that branched off from the central valley, and the Drekis were chewing them up. I locked down and turned on my camo. Barring a stray missile or bomb, I was relatively safe until I started firing APA rounds. Even then, in such a huge theater it would be difficult to trace a single shot back to a shooter.

  I secured my sniper coil-gun to a bipod mount and attached it to a branch. It wasn’t a perfectly stable platform, but there was only a slight breeze, and the branch was substantial. My targets weren’t more than a half click to three-quarters of a click out, so shooting slightly off target would probably still score a kill. Not that I planned on shooting off target, but I couldn’t control the vibrations that shook the tree occasionally or the shifting winds, which were light, but unpredictable.

  Looking through my targeting scope, I scanned for a kill that would make a difference.

  Killing an ordinary foot soldier wasn’t worth my expenditure of ammo, whereas getting the right command lizard could have a significant effect. They had leaders, even if we didn’t understand their rankings. Like our soldiers, Command assumed they had idiots and pawns. I wasn’t after a pawn; I wanted to eliminate a rook…

  After an hour of back-and-forth fighting, the JFUA troops stemmed the tide of the slaughter they’d been enduring. But they were still stuck, and unless they could rally or get more help, the lizards would eventually bring in reinforcements. I spotted a Dreki soldier lift a mono-scope to his right eye and then appear to use a communication device. It was partially speculation, but I hadn’t seen any other evidence of high-value targets besides this.

  I hovered the reticule over the alien’s head and allowed it to flash through yellow.

  Flash, flash, flash.

  Green.

  The coil-gun fired.

  The APA round’s kinetic energy is a thing of beauty when fired at armor, and when striking unarmored flesh, it carries enough force to travel through and kill again. The bolt bored through the Gremxula’s skull and struck another lizard in the chest. Both fell over dead before I took another breath.

  A two-for-one shot!

  I scanned for incoming missiles, but nothing was headed my way. There was a lot of ordnance flying around the battlefield, so it wasn’t a total shock I’d sniped without being detected. Nevertheless, it was a pleasant surprise. I prepared another shot. I didn’t expect to go unnoticed the second time around, so I made a mental note of an escape route.

  Callie depended on Kevin, who was still technically a sergeant under the complex rules developed by the JFUA when the armies combined. He acted as her liaison between the various races and species, and he helped her maintain order in the cavern. The Dreki prisoner was cuffed to a metal spike they’d driven into the stone cave floor, and Keven kept a two-man guard over the lizard.

  Avery had provided them with two small-caliber coil-guns of Mecko design. They weren’t weapons a soldier would choose to take into battle, but they worked perfectly for guard duty in a confined space.

  Callie, with Kevin’s assistance, had made a compromise with the muldvarps. The aliens appeared resigned to their new roles, so she allowed two of them to roam freely at any given time. The third was held captive near the Dreki. Callie instructed the guards to inflict serious injury on the restr
ained muldvarp if either of the two free ones misbehaved.

  By creating a degree of guarded trust with the creatures, she hoped to use their language abilities to communicate with the Katashie, who had limited Common English skills among their members.

  Using the interpreter, she asked the women about their home world, all the while fighting back the urge to de-suit so she could hold one of the babies.

  “Ask them if they can describe their lives before they were captured,” she instructed the muldvarp named Polloz.

  He relayed the story the best he could from a young woman with striking blue eyes, red hair, and pale white skin.

  I was only fourteen years past my birth when the Grems chose me.

  The lizard people came to where I lived every year during the winter.

  They put all the girls who’d had their first time of blood into the town center and picked the healthiest and tallest ones. There were many of us, perhaps several hundred, when I was picked. They took about half of the city’s maidens.

  We had to fly into the sky in a strange craft. I was terrified. They put herbs in our tea, and we fell asleep. When I woke up, I was here. That was many seasons ago; I think eleven or twelve. I’ve lost four sons and two daughters to the Grems.

  I hate the lizards. I will help you, metal warrior.

  Callie watched tears stream down the face of the young woman. She wished she could also cry, but her suit’s medical programming prevented such a strong emotional state.

  She set her external speaker to the most natural setting in hopes that if she ever got the chance to meet the woman in person, she might recognize her voice. “Tell her thank you,” Callie said to Polloz.

  The muldvarp spoke a few words to the woman.

  She replied in a strange language, “Ba mhaith liom arán.”

  “She requests bread,” the interpreter informed Callie.

  “Yes, of course,” Callie responded. “I’ll tell Kevin it’s time for a meal.”

  “Go raibh maith agat,” the Katash said.