Behind the Lines: Ganog Wars Book 1

by Chris Fox

Nolan hefted the comm unit from the body of his dead mech. The machine was extensively damaged--the cockpit shattered, an arm missing.

  "I'm amazed you survived," Burke said. The lieutenant stuffed his pack into Hannan's mech, and judging by the sour look on Hannan's face she wasn't pleased with Nolan's decision to give the machine to Burke.

  "So am I. I got lucky," Nolan admitted. He flipped the power switch on the comm unit, taking a deep breath as it whined to life.

  Burke looked around, then lowered his voice. "Nolan, why are you doing this, man? It doesn't make sense. You're the commanding officer. You don't go into danger. You send people like me or Hannan. At first, I thought you were the cowboy everybody made you out to be. Since then I've seen you command, and I know that isn't true. You're tactical, deliberate. So why the sacrifice play?"

  Nolan was a bit taken aback by Burke's bluntness, but decided to answer him in kind. He owed the man that much. "You were right when you said I didn't belong in the 1st Fleet. Right before he died, Reval said something that really hit home. He said that I couldn't follow orders, that I'd grown to used to being on my own."

  "I don't follow." Burke's eyebrows knit closer together.

  "Reval was right about me," Nolan explained. "Once upon a time I was the good soldier. I worked for OFI, and I followed orders blindly. That got me exiled to the 14th. I got to see how command treated us, how politics hamstrung us. First against the Tigris, and then the Void Wraith." It felt good to articulate what he'd been feeling. "After the UFC Johnston was destroyed, my squad was on our own. No resources, no help. We had to find a way to stop the Gorthians, and that's exactly what we did. I don't operate well in a command structure, Burke. Not like you. I don't follow orders. But you know what? My squad is the best there is when it comes to doing the impossible.

  "We need to stop that planetstrider. I could send someone else to do that, knowing it's a one-way trip. But what if you, or Hannan, or whoever I put in charge couldn't pull it off? Everyone on that cruiser would die, and I can't allow that." Nolan's mouth firmed to a tight line, and he clenched his fist. "I'm going to take down that planetstrider. I'm going to get you, T'kon, and that cruiser up to the fleet. My squad and I won't make it out, but if we're going down then this is how we want to go out."

  "I see," Burke finally said. He shook his head slowly. "I can't say I like you. I can't say I agree with you. But I do appreciate your honesty."

  Nolan extended a hand. Burke shook it.

  "Captain," Annie's voice boomed from her mech, "the Saurians are getting antsy. Want me to go outside and calm 'em down?"

  "Do that, Annie," Nolan called back. "Burke and Nuchik will be out in a minute, and you guys can follow Sissus into position."

  "Good luck, Nolan," Burke said. He turned walked to Hannan's mech.

  Nolan headed over to join his squad. They were a ragged bunch. Lena now wore a battered leather pack the Saurians had given her, with Edwards's core inside. Hannan's armor was battered and scratched, and her fatigue was gathered in the dark circles under her eyes. She gave Nolan a tight nod that said more than any number of words. T'kon stood a little ways apart, oiling the trigger on his slug thrower.

  "Okay, moment of truth," Nolan said. He set the comm device on the ground, and propped up the antenna. Inserting the chip in the side, he began broadcasting the automated message. "Let's hope Fizgig is out there, or this is going to go south really damned quick."

  Chapter 43- In System

  No matter how many times Fizgig witnessed the full fury at the heart of a star, she never lost the feeling of awe. The pressure was so intense that even atoms were crushed. Gravity itself was unstable; magnetic waves rippled and warped around the Mendez.

  Then the fury abruptly abated. She was in the eye at the center of the storm, the protective field generated by the Helios Gate itself. The Primo-constructed device broke many, many laws of physics. Fizgig was no scientist, but as she understood it the Gate created a wormhole between the center of this star and their destination.

  "Take us to Ganog 7," Fizgig ordered. Her ship moved toward the mirrored surface of the Gate, rippling through to a destination hundreds of light years away. There was a moment of vertigo, then they were emerging from an identical Gate, into a seemingly identical star.

  The ship moved toward the furious brightness, leaving the Gate's protective field. The Helios Generator harnessed the star's own energy, creating a very similar field around the ship. Lena had often lectured her about how such a field shouldn't be possible, though Fizgig had never paid enough attention to understand the process. What did it matter why it worked, as long as it did?

  Seconds stretched to minutes as they rose through the sun. Using any kind of sensors was impossible, leaving them no choice but to wait. They were blind until they reached the sun's corona; only then would Fizgig know what awaited them in-system.

  All she knew was that Nolan had sent the signal. He lived, and needed extraction.

  Finally, their agonizing ascent was over. They emerged into the sun's corona, towering pillars of nuclear flame undulating above. Many of those pillars were tens of thousands of miles high, their fury capable of destroying a ship with a depleted Helios Field.

  Fortunately, her pilot was skilled. He guided the Mendez around one tendril, then under another. The ship shuddered as all power was shunted to the engines. Even with the Helios Drive, escaping a sun's gravity took everything their ship had.

  "Give me a visual on the station orbiting the planet," Fizgig ordered. The viewscreen shimmered, revealing a 3D model of the enemy station, its spidery limbs pointed toward the orange-brown world below.

  A cloud of ships hovered around the station, appearing to be below the planet, though such distinctions were purely tied to her perspective, of course. Numbers large enough for everyone to read scrolled on the right side of the image.

  There were eighteen heavy cruisers, and six of the dreadnought-class vessels that had inflicted such catastrophic damage during their last encounter. As Nolan had noted in his report, the Ganog were not skilled at repair. The cannon was still shattered, the hull still pockmarked from explosions. These foes were formidable, but they could be overcome.

  The implications were wonderfully liberating. If Fizgig fought intelligently, and used her cloaking to good effect, she could damage the enemy and then melt away. She could retreat and repair, while it appeared the enemy could not. If they were careful, they might be able to win a war of attrition.

  Unfortunately, today's battle would prevent them from capitalizing on such a strategy. She needed to engage the foe and keep them busy while Nolan got off-world. That meant she couldn't melt away. She would have no choice but to stand and fight.

  "Open a Fleet-wide channel," Fizgig ordered. She found this next part distasteful, but one of the lessons she'd learned from Dryker was that morale won battles as much as strategy. She waited for Juliard to indicate the channel was open before she spoke. "We have arrived at Ganog 7. You can all see the fleet that waits there, between us and our people. Today, we have a responsibility to the entire Coalition. We owe them a victory. Today, we show our enemies why the Gorthians and their pet Void Wraith lost their war with us. If they could not stop us, then what are these Ganog?

  "I am broadcasting orders to all captains. We're creating fire teams. Each team will consist of two ships from the 2nd, and one from he 1st. Ships from the 2nd will use the new theta cannons to penetrate the dreadnought's defenses. Then, all three ships will focus their fire on the main cannon. Focus on the capital ships, until those cannons are disabled. Show them we have claws."

  Fizgig closed the channel, turning her attention back to the enemy fleet. She wasn't bothering to cloak. Let their enemies see them, and tremble.

  "Stand ready, Nolan. We come."

  Chapter 44- What Do They Feed That Thing?

  Hannan slipped instinctively to the rear, following Lena at a safe distance. She still didn't like bringing a non-com, but it was a smart play.
They had no idea what they'd find inside the planetstrider, and the Tigris was their best hope at disabling it.

  At least T'kon could fight, though she'd have preferred to keep Annie with them. Here, too, she understood the captain's logic. T'kon had been inside; it made sense to bring him. But every time they'd broken up the squad, someone hadn't made it back.

  Mills hadn't made it back.

  T'kon trotted around a skeletal spire, peering at the mound ahead of them. They had to cover about forty meters of open ground, then they'd be up against the side of the mound. T'kon raised a fist, then lowered it quickly. The captain sprinted across the gap. Lena followed a moment later. T'kon darted after them, and Hannan brought up the rear.

  There was no sign of movement, or that they'd been detected. The locals were gone, either killed by Krekon or fled to find a safer city. They were alone, except for the keening wind.

  "We are approaching the southern entrance," T'kon said, pausing against the wall, "one of only two ways inside the mound. There is a squad of four a little ways up the corridor." They were paralleling the mound, creeping toward a gap about twenty meters ahead. The mound was bigger than any stadium Hannan had been to--bigger than a Primo carrier--but it wasn't very well guarded.

  T'kon withdrew a black sphere from a belt pouch, then rolled it around the corner. He held up three fingers, then two, then one. He darted around the corner, and the captain followed.

  Hannan tapped Lena, nodding at the wall, then she followed the others. All four guards were already down. She didn't know what the black sphere was, but it had either knocked out or killed the red-scaled Saurians.

  T'kon and the captain were already sprinting up the hallway, single-file.

  Hannan waved Lena past her, then followed the Tigris up the corridor. They went for speed rather than stealth, their gear bumping and jingling as they sprinted down the dim corridor. Hannan was already winded, despite her conditioning. She hated heavy-gravity worlds.

  T'kon slowed ahead, scanning both sides of the corridor; he waved them forward, holstering his slug thrower. She glanced at the area as they passed. It looked like a metal door had blocked the corridor, right up until someone had blown that door up. There were still chunks of blackened metal along the floor. Past the explosion was a pair of cubbies where defenders would wait. They'd have made an excellent ambush point, yet they were empty.

  "T'kon, is this your handiwork?" the captain asked.

  "Yes, from my last incursion." T'kon confirmed with a nod.

  "Captain, why don't they have more defense?" she called. "They didn't even clean up the shrapnel, much less replace the door."

  "I'm thinking the same thing," Nolan replied. He came up short, panting through his suit. "T'kon, what gives?"

  "You do not understand the arrogance of the Imperium, or its inefficiencies," the Ganog explained. "The idea that someone would attack the same planetstrider in the same manner so soon after the first attack wouldn't even occur to them." He tapped a series of commands on his wrist pad, raising his gauntlet to conduct some sort of scan. "I believe the rest of the corridor is empty. We must press on. Just because there are no defenders here, doesn't mean there aren't more inside. Even if there are not, scaling Vkat will not be quick. Time is our enemy as much as the Imperium."

  "Lead on," Nolan said.

  T'kon started sprinting again, and the rest of the squad followed. Hannan didn't like the lack of defense, and she hoped the Ganog was right. It all seemed a little too easy, and any time she'd ever had it easy there had been a price to pay later.

  They finally emerged into blackness. Hannan couldn't see, but she could sense the immensity of the mound's interior. This place was huge. She thumbed a button on her helmet, shifting to low light. The room gained definition. It was completely empty, except for the mountain-sized planetstrider at the center.

  Lena gave a half-cough, half-sneeze. "By the goddess, the stench burns my eyes."

  "Good lord, what do they feed this thing?" Hannan said. "I'm surprised it's not eroding our armor." She crinkled her nose. Her suit's oxygen scrubbers weren't doing crap about the stench.

  The creature gave a low, subsonic growl. The sound came just below hearing, vibrating through her entire body. It even rattled her teeth.

  "Is that thing waking up?" she asked, resting a hand on her sidearm--not that it would help. This thing wouldn't even notice if it stepped on them. "This is the largest goddamn dinosaur that's ever lived."

  "We make for the control unit on its back," T'kon said. He started walking toward one of the feet. "I do not think it is waking. That is one of the sounds it makes while sleeping. If we were this close when it gave a war howl? It would liquify our bones."

  "Lovely," Hannan muttered. She fished the climbing cable out of her pack. "Let's hope it stays asleep until we reach the top."

  The captain withdrew the small drone that Aluki had provided. He clipped on his own spool of cable, then offered the end to Hannan. She clipped it to hers, extending the line. Lena withdrew hers, and T'kon did the same. When they were finished they had a thousand meter cable.

  Hannan stared up at the monster they'd come to scale. They should have brought a longer cable. A lot longer.

  Chapter 45- Engage

  The planet loomed ahead, growing larger as Fizgig's fleet approached. She wasn't nervous. Tigris didn't get nervous, not like humans did. But she was...focused on the outcome.

  The Ganog fleet was lazily drifting closer to the planet. It left their warp station undefended, but that station possessed dozens of massive cannons. Not quite the equal of the dreadnought cannons, but both lethal and numerous. It was possible, perhaps even likely, that she could overwhelm that station.

  Leaving it open invited that option, but if she took it, she knew that the fleet would return. It would hammer her on one flank, while the station hit the other. That left her no choice but to attack the fleet, but it wasn't accidental that they'd positioned themselves in high orbit.

  If she attacked them, she'd present targets to the planetstriders she knew were lurking below. It was a simple strategy, but the most simple strategies were often the most effective. Commanders who attempted complex tactics usually broke when they faced those who perfectly executed something simpler.

  "Keep the enemy fleet between us and the planet," Fizgig commanded. The techs on the bridge began relaying orders to the fleet. The move would keep the planetstriders from hitting them--for now at least. It exposed them to fire from the station, but it was distant enough that her ships could take evasive maneuvers.

  Still, it didn't solve the real problem. She needed to punch a hole in the fleet, if she were to have any hope of reaching Nolan. His signal had been just that: a summons. It hadn't included details of his situation, so other than clearing an escape route there was little she could do to help him.

  "Sir, the station is firing," Juliard said. "All vessels are scattering. We appear to be at their extreme range. As long as we monitor their firing patterns, we should be safe."

  "They'll stop once we engage their forces, I imagine," Fizgig mused. She fluffed a cushion, resting her back against it. "Keep all vessels close, for now. Don't separate until we're just outside firing range."

  Juliard nodded, bending back to her console. Fizgig settled into her chair, with no choice but to wait. Commanding a battle was nothing like commanding a single vessel. It was a dance, one that required foresight and planning. She needed to know what her opponent would do, to anticipate their tricks before they happened.

  Unfortunately, she knew almost nothing about her opponent, but, fortunately, he knew nothing about her. Nolan had confirmed that this was the first encounter these Ganog had had with the Coalition, and it was highly unlikely they fully understood her battle record.

  It was possible, but she was gambling otherwise.

  "Admiral," Juliard said, brushing her hair from her face, "Major Khar is requesting a channel."

  "Open it." Fizgig was a little surp
rised it had taken him this long to approach her. "What do you want, Khar?"

  "Mighty Fizgig, why have we not been deployed? All fighters have been barred from launching. I do not understand." Khar's confusion was total, and in that moment he looked so much like he had in life: young, and fierce, and eager. His golden fur looked natural, his feline eyes exactly as they had when he'd served on the bridge of the Claw of Tigrana.

  Fizgig fixed him with her best stare, allowing her tail to swish lazily behind her. "There was a time in the not-very-distant past when you wouldn't have questioned my orders."

  "That time has passed. I am a kit no longer, Fizgig, nor am I merely a warrior. I am a leader. My warriors wish to know why we have not yet been loosed. Give me something to tell them." Khar's impassioned plea wasn't begging; it was a request, warrior to warrior. If she refused, he would accept that.

  But honor dictated that she grant him something.

  "I wish to see how these Ganog will react." Fizgig licked her chops, dislodging a bit of meat from lunch. She ate it. "Our fighters are superior, and this clan leader Takkar knows it. If he sends his fighters to engage, our capital ships will savage them before loosing you and your brothers. So he has not sent his fighters. He waits to see when we will do so, because if he launches after us he can harry you with his own forces."

  "Ah, I see your strategy. Wait until we are close, then loose us on the capital ships. Thank you, Mighty Fizgig. Apologies for my impatience." Khar snapped a furry paw to his chest, bowing respectfully. "I will inform my fighters, and we will stand ready."

  The feed ended, and the screen returned to a view of the enemy fleet. They were close now, nearly in firing range. How would this enemy commander react?

  Chapter 46- Get Them

  Takkar was puzzled by the enemy commander's behavior. She'd brought more ships this time, but they seemed no more advanced than those she'd brought before. A slight numeric advantage would make little difference in the outcome of their battle, so what was she hoping to accomplish?