“You have all been briefed regarding the Personnel CJ Gates used by the Denubbewa. We’ve recorded vids of supervisor cyborgs stepping into a booth, disappearing, and then reappearing a short time later. We believe they use the Personnel CJ Gates to travel to their home base for all communications with their superiors because there have been no radio communications capabilities on the bridges of the ships we’ve met in battle. While within the ships, cyborgs use personal communication capabilities rather like our CTs, except they can literally hear everything said by all other cyborgs within the ship at all times. Perhaps that’s why they don’t use radio communications with their base. Every cyborg aboard the ship would hear the exchange.
“I’d be very surprised if most of you haven’t heard the rumors of cyborgs working at the Lorense-Three shipyard. I tell you now that they are true, thanks to Commander Carver and her people.”
All heads swiveled to look at Christa for a moment. Her only response was a Mona Lisa smile.
“In fact, I understand she has one aboard her ship at present. The cyborg, Lucky by name, was an attempt by SCI to create a spy. It was successful, although the mission failed— through no fault of Lucky’s. We acquired Lucky when Christa’s taskforce discovered a Denubbewa vessel floating in space near a derelict ship. She sent a team into the vessel to investigate. They found numerous cyborgs in a suspended state of sleep, so they towed the vessel back to Lorense-Three where SCI took over. A number of the cyborgs aboard that ship hadn’t had their minds wiped because they were scientists and wiping their minds would have destroyed much of their usefulness. They claimed to have escaped from the Denubbewa, and following a careful screening, they came over to our side and now work with us. They form the nucleus of our Cosmic Jump Gate study and development programs, and their work has been invaluable. They’d spent many decades studying Gate artifacts and recreating the scientific data lost when the Denubbewa wiped the minds of the race that developed the travel method. That research has evolved to give us the ability to send a vid message from one end of G.A. space to the other in less than twenty seconds. It’s revolutionizing our communications systems. And one day we may be able to travel just as quickly via our own CJ Gates.
“I’m telling you all this so you’ll understand what I’m going to tell you next. We believe there may be CJ Gates on the surface of the planet below us. The Denubbewa couldn’t have transferred the entire population of Husteus using just three warships, but they could have sent all of the people somewhere else if they used the CJ Gates. One of our main objectives is to look for and collect Gates while we’re on the planet, so make sure the Marines assigned to each of your ships are well aware of that.”
“Captain,” Captain Stephen Wilcox of the Quartermaster supply ship, GSC-QD424 McHenry, said, “are you saying you want us to collect these Gates and bring them aboard our ships? I heard they were responsible for us almost losing one of our new Space Command Bases when cyborgs began pouring out of them.”
“All we want— initially— is for the people sent down to the planet to alert us if they find any Gates. They are not to damage them in any way, or even touch them. The Marine officers and noncoms have already received that order. We’ll then make a determination as to their disposition. We’ve learned how to disable them without damaging them since that incident aboard the base, so they can’t be used that way again.”
“Okay, Rebecca,” Captain Wilcox said, “we’ll alert you immediately if any Gates are found.”
“The specifics of your assignment will be sent to each of you aboard your ships after we finish up here. Each ship has at least one battalion of Marines trained for the GFI. The ships responsible for larger landmasses with more cities have multiple battalions. These Marines have been trained for exactly this kind of operation. Their officers know their stuff, so all you really have to do is transport them down to their sectors and let them go to it. Each ship will coordinate with their Marine commander on the ground.”
“Is that it?” Captain Wilcox asked.
“Everything is explained in the information packet sent to your ship. If you have any questions after studying the materials, my command center can answer them. Basically, this is a Marine operation. Deliver them to their drop zones and let them take over. The Marine officer in command of the Division is Brigadier General Peter Burr.”
~ ~ ~
At 0700 the following morning, shuttles filled with Marines who were representative of most sentient races in the G.A. began to deploy to Husteus, making trip after trip until every Marine was on the planet. While the command staffs established their main command base in each sector and then established forward operating bases near principal cities, companies of Marines began to spread out across the landscape. Checks of farms and farmhouses as the companies converged on cities from every direction yielded no signs of sentient life. The areas around the farms were littered with the corpses of domesticated animals, and wild animals could be seen feeding on the carcasses.
When the 4th Marine GFI platoon of Company Bravo in the 34th Brigade’s Second Battalion on the Remozzeon Peninsula began to enter the city of Anorpho, all was quiet. The Marines used whatever cover was available to its maximum advantage as they slowly converged towards the center of the city. There had been no resistance, and it had begun to seem like the city was deserted until the street suddenly lit up with laser fire. The Marines were all wearing their armor so laser weapons presented no danger. But where there were lasers, there were usually more dangerous weapons such as RPGs and mortars, so they moved forward even more carefully, returning fire as they advanced.
They had traveled two city streets without seeing their attackers when the first RPG flew at them from a building entranceway. All of the Marines on the ragged front line returned fire and no more RPGs came at them from that location. When it seemed clear, they moved in slowly, finally locating a cyborg soldier crumpled into a ball, still clutching his RPG launcher.
“At least now we know what we’re fighting, Sergeant,” Private Ewullo Wstaber, a Cheblookan, said. “They’re not Husteans.”
“It might have been— once. Dress it and take the rest back to the oh-gee sled.”
“Dress it?”
“That means cut off the head, arms, and legs, Private. We just want the torso.”
“Why are we bothering, Sergeant? This cyborg looks just like all the others in the pictures I’ve seen.”
“Outwardly, they all look the same, but the brains are different. SCI wants to know what species these brains came from, and the brains are in the torso. They also want to know where we encountered them. Now follow your instructions for this one and all others we locate. Dress ‘em, tag ‘em, and bag ‘em.”
“Understood, Sergeant. One bag of burnt cyborg torso coming up.”
~ ~ ~
The situation on the ground was the same all over the planet. The population centers seemed like ghost towns, but when the Marines entered the cities, they immediately drew fire from cyborgs. It was difficult to estimate how many cyborg soldiers they were fighting because the cyborgs usually retreated when the Marines advanced on their positions.
By the tenth day of fighting, estimates of cyborg deaths were approaching three thousand planet-wide. The Marines had lost eight of their people with twenty-six wounded, two of whom were listed in critical condition.
“Almost any biological soldier in their position would surrender,” Captain Rebecca Critarian of the Battleship Artemis said to the collected group of ship captains. “But these cyborgs keep fighting until they’re either dead or so disabled they can’t fight.”
“They never give up, ma’am,” Commander Christa Carver said. “We’ve seen that time and again. And the cyborgs that have come over to our side all tell us the soldier cyborgs have been programmed to complete their assignments or die trying. They can no more disobey that instruction than the main computer on this ship could suddenly decide on its own to take a month-long holiday.”
�
��Perhaps we should just fall back and crater each city with a WOLaR weapon,” Captain Caldwell said.
“That would take care of the cyborgs,” Critarian said, “but it would also kill any Husteans that might still be alive, whether prisoners of the Denubbewa or in hiding. Commander, of all the senior officers here, you’ve had the most experience by far with fighting these things. What would you do if you were in command?”
“With all due respect to Captain Caldwell, the one thing I would not do at this stage is destroy all of the cities with WOLaR weapons. Aside from the fact that it would probably end our chances of ever learning what happened to the Husteans, it would both anger and frighten the populations of every planet in G.A. space. They’d all be afraid we would do the same to them if the Denubbewa invaded their planet. I suppose that were I in command of this operation, I’d continue as we’ve been doing. Every Marine life is precious, but our casualties have been moderately light so far, and the outer perimeter of cyborgs in all the cities has been shrinking— rapidly. We have to make the message clear to the Denubbewa that we can defeat their ground troops as easily as we can defeat their space armadas.”
Captain Critarian took a deep breath and then slowly released it before saying, “We have one vote for destroying the planet and one for staying the course. Any other suggestions?”
“I might have one other suggestion,” Christa said.
“Toss it out for consideration, Commander.”
“We have a pretty good idea where the HQ operation centers are in every city, based on the fortified outer perimeters built by the cyborgs. How about if we send in a shuttle, cloaked in a double envelope, to reconnoiter the cyborg HQs? If they find an area large enough to accommodate the shuttle, they can drop their envelope and open fire on the cyborgs using the shuttle’s guns. Since the shuttles are sheathed in Dakinium, they can’t be damaged unless the cyborgs have some of those acid/nuclear missiles they use against ships in space. And we should be able to visually determine if they have any of them set up in or around their headquarters before the pilot drops the envelope.”
“I wonder if we’ll find any place large enough to accommodate the shuttle,” Captain Caldwell said.
“It can’t hurt to take a look,” Captain Critarian said, “even if the shuttle team finds it’s impractical to drop their envelope.”
“If one site proves impractical, they shouldn’t give up, Captain.”
“Of course, Commander. I’ll order them to examine the cyborg HQ in every city on the planet. In fact, I’ll send every shuttle in the taskforce down to reconnoiter and order them not to start anything until we have the data on all cyborg HQs.”
~ ~ ~
Over the next two days, shuttles from the taskforce visited every cyborg HQ on the planet and completed a report on each location. The commanding officers met again aboard the Artemis, this time in the planning center.
“We have a problem,” Captain Critarian said. “At the heart of each location, our pilots found that the cyborgs are using large assembly areas, such as arenas, warehouses, or convention centers, as internment centers. There are multiple pens full of Husteus civilians at every location.”
“Pens?” Captain Caldwell repeated. “Approximately how many Husteans are in those pens?”
“Here, I’ll put some of the images up on the monitor.”
A few seconds later, an enormous population of Husteus citizens, corralled in half a dozen makeshift pens constructed of wood, metal, and stone detritus, appeared on the screen.
“There must be five hundred Husteans in each of those pens!” Caldwell said.
“My staff estimates there could be as many as a thousand pens like that one in over a hundred locations around the entire planet. That means the current population is about half a million.”
“Good Lord! I’m glad my suggestion that we level every city on the planet wasn’t implemented,” Captain Caldwell said.
“It may still come to that,” Critarian said thoughtfully.
“What do you mean?” Caldwell asked.
“Our ship’s database puts the original population at fourteen million plus, so we have no idea where the rest of the population is. They may have died fighting and been buried, or they may have been processed already and we’re now fighting them on the surface.”
“And there’s nothing we can do?”
“We’re already doing it. But it’ll take weeks for our Marines to break through their lines and rescue the prisoners— if there are any left by then. And we might reach them only to find them opposing us— as cyborgs.”
“Let’s play a game of leapfrog,” Christa said.
“What’s leapfrog?” Captain Critarian asked.
“It’s a game played by children. One hunches down while another leaps over them.”
“So you’re saying we should leap over their lines to fight the cyborgs at the holding facilities immediately instead of pushing our way through to the captives.”
“Exactly.”
“But then the cyborgs will be in front of our Marines and behind them,” Caldwell said.
“I didn’t see any sign of those rockets the Denubbewa use, so let’s use the shuttles. They pop in, drop their envelope, and open fire on the cyborg guards. When most have been killed, the shuttle lands and cleans the remainder of the vipers out of the nest. The Marines can then protect the Husteus prisoners and keep them at their back while they prepare for a counter-attack. Another way to look at it is that we’ll be both in front of the cyborgs soldiers and behind them.”
Captain Critarian chuckled. “I like it. What do you think the cyborgs will do when they find themselves caught between us?”
“Technically, they’re already caught between us. It’s only a matter of time before we close the circles. The Miami destroyed their three ships and probably most, if not all, of their command structure with it. I would have expected them to bug out by now. Perhaps there’s no one left who can order them to leave. They can’t leave on their own, and they’re not allowed to report to higher ups.”
“Report how?” Caldwell asked. “We blew their ships into tiny pieces.”
“I’d be willing to bet they have some of those CJ Gates on the surface. There should be at least one in every HQ internment center.”
“But their ships were all destroyed,” Captain Wilcox of the McHenry said. “They have no ships to jump up to.”
“The CJ Gates aren’t limited to just ships in orbit, although I’m sure they travel to and from nearby ships often.”
“Where would they jump to then?” Captain Critarian asked.
“With adequate power, the jump distance of those Gates seems unlimited. They could possibly travel to the nearest base outside this planet or even outside G.A space to whatever base they came from originally. Even to another galaxy. The point is, I can’t imagine them being stranded on Husteus— not when they have the entire CJ Gate system at their disposal. It has to be the lack of a command structure that can give them permission to leave this planet.”
“If they haven’t already left, what makes you think they’ll leave at all, Commander?”
“There might be some last-ditch emergency plan in their brains that requires them to leave when certain conditions exist, such as if they’re completely surrounded, the opposing forces are closing in, and the situation is hopeless. But— and I’m stretching here— they might have an agenda we haven’t discussed today.”
“What agenda, Commander?” Captain Critarian asked.
“We strongly believe that the cyborgs are using the Husteus population to increase their cyborg population. They’ve obviously been on the planet for some time because it has to have taken many, many months to round up all the inhabitants and herd them into those internment center pens. I’m sure they don’t want to give up on that potential cyborg army now, but they also probably don’t have enough time to perform the complex work necessary to convert them all to cyborgs because our Marines are getting closer every day.
The cyborg bodies may be lined up and ready to accept host brains, but installing the host brain into the interface box has to be a delicate and time-consuming operation. And then every brain must be programmed to make the new cyborg compliant. I believe they lack the time to complete the process. So they might decide to transfer the Husteans to some other planet and complete the process there rather than losing all the work they’ve already done. Now— we know they can transfer up to three subjects every three minutes and forty-one seconds. That’s three point six-eight-three-three-three minutes, roughly. Assuming five hundred Husteans per pen, it will take at least ten hours to clear each pen once they start sending them if they only have one Personnel CJ Gate per location. We haven’t seen any sign that they’ve started yet, so they might be waiting for permission to begin the transfers. In any event, we can’t delay further. We must hit those pen locations as soon as possible if we’re to save at least part of the planetary population.”
“We don’t have enough shuttles to hit all of the pens at once,” Caldwell said.
“Then let’s hit all of the pens in every city we can where all pens get attacked at the same instant. To ensure the word doesn’t travel to other cities, we scramble all communication frequencies just before the first strike and maintain that communication noise until our people have hit every internment center and there are no more cyborgs left to sound an alarm. We’ll have everything scheduled before we begin so we won’t need communications.”
There was only quiet in the room as the senior officers in the planning center considered the attack plan Christa had suggested.
The Invasion Begins Page 26
