Drysine Legacy (The Spiral Wars Book 2)

by Joel Shepherd

  Tacnet lit up with motion as those forward positions saw the enemy, and moments later Trace could see them too — hundreds of approaching dots amidst the structures, weaving to avoid obstructions. Bigger than drysines, she reckoned even from this range, and recalling AT-7’s brief escort on the way in. A hundred flashes across that front as missile fire erupted, then accelerated… and Trace thought of TK55, and the deepynine commander’s rain of missiles.

  On one flank, tacnet showed her an entire formation of drysine defenders suddenly moving. Styx had some kind of clever plan, she thought, and glanced that way past her obstructing cover. Perhaps seventy or eighty drones were pulling off that side, darting away on hard thrust, leaving the flank exposed. But they weren’t curling about to make a flanking run on the incoming assault. They were just leaving.

  “Styx!” Trace snapped, as deepynine missiles tracked and dodged, engaged by defensive fire from drones and marines alike. Explosions darkened her visor, long strings of brilliant light. “You’re leaving our flank exposed.” No reply. The forward line engaged, a brilliance of chain guns and proximity detonations, drysines falling back with zigzagging bursts of thrust while firing. “Styx!”

  “It is a superior priority,” said Styx, with no more emotion than she ever said anything. “Focus on this defence.”

  “Follow superior instruction,” A1 added.

  Trace could have wasted time exclaiming that she didn’t take orders from a disembodied head in a human shuttle. “Corporal Penn,” she said instead. He was the only one of Charlie Platoon not in formation, having stayed behind in AT-7 with Styx and Romki for vehicle protection… and one other purpose too. “Point your weapon at Styx. If she’s deliberately getting us killed, she’ll go first.”

  “I copy Major,” said Penn.

  Immediately one of the nearby drones abandoned cover to face them, dual cannons humming in pre-fire warmup, legs withdrawn and body braced for recoil. Exclamations across Trace’s coms told her that all across her formation, other drones were doing the same.

  “If I wanted you dead, Major,” said Styx, “there is a far more simple method. You are an organic who appreciates a fact. This is rare. My fact is that you are not in command. You know this. Stop pretending and fight like a drysine, with purpose and method.”

  35

  Tif had never concentrated so hard in her life. All hopes of keeping her relative V to sane levels had evaporated once it became clear that the drysine uprising in this part of Tartarus had not been very successful. Fighting was ongoing, chaotic and scattered, random groups of drones and sard jetting back and forth, exchanging fire and killing each other. In this flying environment, too much speed was lethal, but too little speed was worse.

  Tif flew like a crazy teenager with a death wish, sliding, skidding and rolling through Tartarus’s impossible maze, burning hard for V and trajectory when she could, then braking harder and relying on her visor display to show what lay ‘ahead’ as she approached it tail-first and skidding. Jersey stayed with her, and it became increasingly difficult to remain in second spot like she was supposed to, as every time she hit thrust PH-4 was a little faster than her lead. The drysine escort kept up with some difficulty, their thrusters barely large enough for the 5-G burns a combat shuttle could pull. Frequently one or several would deviate from the shuttles’ course to swivel and shoot at something Tif was too busy to notice. Just as frequently, fire would snap back, and tracer would flash and bounce off steel structure. Jersey reported one hit so far but no real damage — if PH-4 had taken a hit, Tif was not aware of it. Coming out of one sliding burn her armscomp flashed red with visible enemy — several small armoured figures, sard warriors, caught in mid-dash between cover. Tif locked with her visor-target and fired, but they were passing too fast and no doubt even more startled to be nearly struck by a couple of suicidal human shuttles, as no return fire chased them.

  Then finally ahead some big structures, solid and enclosed within the maze like prey trapped in the grasp of an alien organism. A series of connected cylinders and spheres, surrounded by the web-like tangle of hacksaw habitation and smaller shipping docks. Solid structures meant organics habitation, Tif reckoned, as they looked to contain atmosphere. Hacksaws didn’t need it, and were quite happy in this kids’ climbing gym gone mad.

  Now Jersey was announcing something, and Lee was highlighting red targets on Tif’s visor as fire whipped past the canopy. Tif kicked the nose up, slammed thrust for evasion, then rotated back onto target, sighting a ship at the docks and firing. It was a small sublight transport, maybe three times the size of a shuttle, and pieces flew off as it flashed by. Larger explosions as Jersey’s missiles did more significant damage, and Tif hammered thrust again to push PH-4 through a narrow gap in the habitation tangle, then spun the nose before more thrust and a wide, skidding burn to circle around the cluster and back again.

  “Target Tif, target!” Lee was shouting from the backseat, and Tif noted her visor’s red highlight upon docking tubes and fuel canisters. She caught a brief glimpse of sard, and weapons firing, then more target highlights — on this orbital burn she was going to fly straight into their field of fire. She locked guns and jammed the trigger, saw one emplacement ripped to bits as steel framework disintegrated, then shifted to another as Lee fired missiles… her own guns blew a pressurised docking tank just before the missiles hit beside a habitat, multiple explosions blinding all forward view.

  More fire shredded sard defences further left — that was Jersey, now properly behind and following Tif’s lead. Tif repressed nervous tension — she wasn’t a trained military pilot and taking the lead in a shooting fight hadn’t been in the plan. She continued the burn, nose in toward the habitat cluster as she passed scattering wreckage from the explosion… and shouted a warning before even Lee did, seeing new movement on scan, at least ten marks incoming from further out.

  Even as she hit thrust, two disintegrated and the others broke off amidst heavy fire as the drysine escort hit them — sard powered armour, spinning and returning fire with precise coordination. Tif dove for the cover of a heavy power regulator wrapped around a cross-brace, thrusting with vision-blurring force to come to a complete halt, then let a pair of sard zip into her line-of-sight. She fired as both saw her and evaded, one was hit and spun like a top, the other fired back and Tif felt the jolt even as she let the autos guide her guns to target, and the second suit’s ammo blew with a brief flash.

  Scan showed her the drysines pulverising the rest, as Lee fired more missiles into another docked transport. It blew, as peripheral vision showed a drone running down an injured sard warrior, a flash from its saw-blade and the sard came apart at the waist.

  “We lost an escort,” Singh observed from PH-3’s rear seat. “Another’s damaged, better make this fast.”

  “PH-4, continue fire suppression,” said Jersey, pulling around for an approach run. “Sard know we’re here now, stay sharp. Delta Platoon, stand by for combat deploy.”

  “Delta copies,” came Lieutenant Crozier’s voice. All of Phoenix knew Crozier had been rattled by events on Joma Station. Tif hoped she didn’t play the dumb cub to restore her honour.

  Damage lights blinked at her as she recommenced her circular trajectory about the complex, warning of a nose thruster malfunction even as she noticed the controls responding awkwardly on that side. “They took out an attitude thruster, we’re leaking a little air but the sealant’s plugging it,” Lee told her. “Are we flying okay?”

  “Fry fine,” said Tif, mentally figuring what she’d have to do differently to yaw. Scan showed her PH-3’s position breaking into multiple blips on track to the complex — that was Delta Platoon deploying out the rear. A big relief for her personally, because marines outside the shuttle were a lot more use than marines locked inside, and this area of the Tartarus just got a whole lot safer.

  “Delta is clear,” said Crozier, followed by a lot of marine-chatter as the units agreed on which parts of the complex they were
going to hit, based on where they thought the prisoners were. They’d have to be fast, Tif thought, or the sard would just kill the prisoners to stop them from being rescued. Big risk though that was, she was certain that if she were held captive by sard, she’d prefer Phoenix marines to take the chance. Being held captive by the chah’nas had been bad enough. She was certain the sard would make the chah’nas seem gentle.

  * * *

  “They are flanking!” Trace announced as all holy hell broke loose across the marine-and-drysine defensive front. “Charlie Platoon, displace and manoeuvre! Too long in one spot makes you a sitting duck!”

  She took her own advice, broke cover and moved with a burst of thrust as missiles flashed in, her visor blanking dark from multiple explosions and a rain of shrapnel. Luckily for her the deepynines were more intent on killing drysines than humans, and now divided in dark-silver streams to flow about the defensive positions and through neighbouring gaps. The volume of fire between them and the drysine forward defences was insane, chain guns pouring like rain, autocannon bursts detonating like strings of firecrackers, drysines ducking back and manoeuvring to counter the aggressive thrusts and sweeps, like flocks of angry silver birds.

  Trace hit new cover and braced her Koshaim in search of a target, but more interested in tacnet than shooting. Command Squad repositioned with her, less restrained with precise shots at deepynines still rarely closer than five hundred meters. Fire sparked and snapped off Kono’s side and he swore — probably random fire, every bullet had to go somewhere. Incoming and outgoing missiles were less effective as jamming took its toll, but random high explosive could still get lucky.

  First Squad was now deploying outward along one flank, through the drysine ‘living quarters’ toward a factory complex as the deepynines looked to swarm around that side, sadly not stupid enough to charge head-on into strong defensive positions. Trace put fire onto several flashing deepynines, saw a hit, then a fast move-and-fire that shredded a drysine before a burst of hard thrust saw them escape amidst pursuing and covering fire. The deepynines were certainly getting the better of it. The drysines were worker drones, multi-purposed as all drones were, and well capable of effective combat, but not to the same standard as these deepynine specialists. Already there were many floating, spinning metal corpses, and for every one that was deepynine, two were drysine.

  “Major,” Lieutenant Shilu spoke in the chaos. “We count four of the picket vessels closing to dock directly behind your location, ETA four minutes. If they’ve got combat shuttles you can expect assault at your rear in barely ten, maybe twelve minutes.”

  A nearby explosion sent Arime tumbling. Chain gun rounds hosed across them, Trace ducking back as a shot clubbed her arm with a teeth-jarring rattle. Marine armour could take one of those per segment, maybe. Multiple hits and everything fell apart, including the occupant.

  “Makimakala’s coming in hot, no word on her intentions yet,” Shilu continued. “She won’t get there in time to save you from those sard in your rear.”

  “I copy Phoenix. It’s gonna be tight.” Truth was, if she couldn’t get past these deepynines, they were all going to be trapped here.

  “I’m okay,” Arime answered queries from his comrades. “Visuals off, systems wobbly… dammit, lifesupport’s out.”

  “Irfy, get your ass back to AT-7,” Kono told him between shooting.

  “It’s okay, I think I can…”

  “That’s an order Private! Now!”

  Arime hit thrust and went, muttering at his now-twenty-minutes of emergency air supply.

  “Breakthrough at 230,” said Trace as she watched it happen, tacnet showing a weakpoint in drysine defences suddenly fold and a deepynine thrust cut through. “That’s us Command Squad, follow me!”

  Staying inside the open-frame habitats was going to slow them down, so she accelerated through a gap, reoriented to keep most of the structure between herself and the fighting, then kept burning. The big structures extended relative ‘north’ of their forward facing, and Trace wove past supports, pipes and machinery as drysine fire converged on the apex of the deepynine thrust.

  Drones on neighbouring structures were hit by return fire, Trace saw one blasted sideways as its thruster pod exploded, another was shredded by chain guns… and then unarmed drones were zooming past, flying straight at the attackers. Those who had not managed to find weapons at the armoury had been holding back, and now committed themselves as a final, suicidal reserve, burning to full V.

  “It’s a suicide charge!” Trace told her squad. “Get open and find targets!” As she peeled sideways, away from the covering structures and into open space, still at considerable velocity as she selected full missile spread and fired, then lined up her rifle as the rest of Command did the same. Charging drysines were torn apart by oncoming deepynines, struggling to retain control and aim straight for their enemies even as they lost limbs, pods and lives. Explosions tore through them, but then the marines’ missiles were hitting, relatively unjammed amidst the drysine lines… and in the carnage Trace got a good sight on a spinning deepynine and hammered a ten round burst at ninety meters.

  Nine hit and the deepynine’s ammo blew, as her squad found similar preoccupied targets for similar results. Survivors ignored them, firing instead on drysines, killing several then smashing through a habitat structure ahead. Trace decelerated hard, pumped multiple grenades into the habitat, then plunged through a gap as other grenades followed, and drysine fire tore free-form steel to so much confetti.

  Inside was a whirlwind of explosive residue and debris, within which many-legged nightmare figures clashed, spun and fired. Armscomp IDed several as deepynine and Trace fired without question, blazing full auto and only hoping she didn’t hit drysines by mistake. More explosions, armoured limbs shattering. A deepynine decapitated a drysine and blasted through partitions to swing both chain guns onto Trace, and was hit by autocannon even as Trace dodged, then struck physically by a charging drysine that rammed a humming blade through its midsection in a flurry of scrabbling legs.

  Other shooting stopped, and the only thing in the habitat was humans, a few drysines, and dead, twitching drones. Trace checked her displays, and could barely believe that all her squad were still alive. Deepynines hated drysines so much, the homicidal bastards were flat out ignoring the humans, even as it killed them.

  The drone that had killed Trace’s attacker nimbly swatted some debris, checked a dead comrade with a fast probe, then fixed a red lasercom at Trace’s visor. “Human guns effective. Koshaim model, armour piercing. Good deepynine killer.”

  Trace frowned. The synthetic voice was familiar. “A1? Is that you?”

  “Yes. More breakthroughs at grid-114. Fight on, parren-successor.” A1 turned and jetted off. ‘Parren-successor’? The drysine’s parren alliance had ended twenty five thousand years ago. And now this drysine thought that Phoenix was their replacement?

  * * *

  “Incoming mark!” Geish announced from Scan One. “Right on the money, that looks like Makimakala.”

  “Transponder identification, Makimakala confirmed!” said Shilu at Coms. “She’s broadcasting wide and loud!”

  “Welcome to the party, froggies,” someone muttered. That was a ‘get out of my way’ signal, Erik thought. Anyone who didn’t would be identified as hostile and targeted for destruction.

  “Outer pickets are evasive!” said Jiri at Scan Two. “No change of course from the others.”

  Phoenix now hid on the far side of Tartarus, just ten klicks off its surface. The picket vessels seemed content to leave her there, knowing that the first one to poke its nose into view around Tartarus’s curving horizon would get it shot off. Four ships were now approaching Tartarus’s far side instead, presumably to drop off combat soldiers — deepynine drones or sard warriors, it wasn’t possible to tell what the picket ships were carrying. Only now they had Makimakala charging down on them from behind, high-V and hostile.

  If she fired a full spr
ead at that velocity, the impacts would be devastating, even to something the size of Tartarus. High-V ships could kill planets, and Tartarus was significantly smaller than a planet. The fire stations and picket vessels combined would have easily intercepted any such incoming fire, but the former were mostly destroyed, and the latter now out of position. Erik stared at the display across his visor and main screens, and saw the path was open. Damned if this might not actually work. But now his people in Tartarus were running very short of time.

  “Hello Makimakala, this is Phoenix. We have multiple operations underway in Tartarus, the schedule looks tight, can you make your approach V-variable?”

  And he watched the seconds tick by, counting the time to Makimakala’s most likely response. Upon Tartarus’s surface, or just below it, some very heavy fighting raged about one shipping and docking complex, with many explosions small and large. Occasionally Phoenix’s close range rail-cannon snapped fire at some identified target, and added a new ball of flame to the carnage.

  “Hello Phoenix,” came Captain Pram’s impeccable English. “We cannot become V-variable, we are engaging multiple targets and if we slow down they will hit us. Our timeline is fixed, we will strike Tartarus in… fourteen minutes plus a bit.” As he did some fast mental calculation to convert tavalai time-measurement into human. “Tell your people to evacuate before then, we cannot and will not change our approach.”

  A big flash on scan from that direction. “One of those damaged pickets just got blasted,” Geish announced. “That’s Makimakala, froggies mean business.” And Erik recalled having seen the same thing happen to human ships in the war, who got too close to ibranakala-class in combat.