Columbus Day (Expeditionary Force Book 1)

by Craig Alanson

  With the inner door clear, the raiding party surged down the corridor, combots in front, then the six people in suits, followed by two combots as rear guard. They quickly ran into another door, which they spent the extra thirty seconds on to blow properly with explosives. After that, they were in the main part of the research base, and Skippy could open and close doors for them.

  Right away, we encountered a problem. Skippy by that time had infiltrated the base computer and searched the archives, archives that he said were an incredibly crappy mishmash of unidexed, uncataloged, random garbage. Regardless of his difficulties, he located the two items we wanted to steal; a wormhole controller module, and a sort of communications node that was associated with the Collective. The two items were stored in different compartments, fortunately neither item was considered a priority by the Kristang researchers, and they were both in low-security areas, away from the main research facilities. I had to make a decision quick whether to go after the items one after the other, or split the raiding party. Dividing a force goes against the principles of war that the Army had taught me, as I was thinking about it, the words of the US Army Field Manual popped into my head. Dividing a force, in a situation where were already outnumbered and outgunned, violated the principles of Mass and Economy of Force. No matter, the possibility of having to divide the raiding party has been discussed in advance, with Chang, Giraud, Simms and I in agreement. In this case, concentration of force was secondary to the principle of Surprise. Our raiding party could only succeed, could only hope to survive, if they got in and got out as fast as possible, before the Kristang could recover from their own surprise, figure out what the hell was going on, and concentrate their own forces against us. The longer the raiding party was in the base, the longer they were exposed to danger. I gave the order for Chang to take one group to get the comm node, and for Giraud to get the wormhole controller module. Unspoken in that order is that I felt Chang, being injured, was the weaker of the two, and I wanted the wormhole controller module a lot more than I wanted a fancy radio for Skippy to talk to ancient AIs. For a moment, I considered keeping a pair of combots at the point where the parties split, to guard a path for their retreat, until Skippy showed me a schemetic of the base, there were a lot of corridor intersections the parties would need to transit, guarding only one was a waste of firepower.

  From there, the raid proceeded fast and chaotically, according to plan for the most part. The Kristang were seriously off balance, their internal systems had been hardened in anticipation of attack by rival Kristang clans or Thuranin, they had not anticipated Skippy thoroughly infiltrating their systems. What systems he didn't have control of, he weakened, confused, shorted out or cut power to. The Kristang frantically called the military base on the other side of the asteroid, messages that Skippy intercepted, and Skippy sent back fake messages that the military base was under heavy attack and would send reinforcements when they could. Some extra quick thinking Kristang, no doubt runner up for Employee Of The Year, fired off a rocket flare that was supposed to signal the military base that something was seriously wrong, the flare made a grand firework when it cleared the horizon, and I had a moment of panic. Skippy calmed me down by assuring that although the Kristang sensor network saw the flare signal, he instructed the sensors to ignore it. The military base was buried deep beneath the rock, unless some Kristang was on the surface for some reason, no one would see the flare, and since Skippy was squelching radio traffic, a Kristang would need to be on the surface, see the flare, know what it meant, run back to the military base and knock on the door. I figured that was low risk.

  Skippy prevented more flare rockets from firing, by igniting the whole remaining canister of them without opening the silo door. The resulting explosion may have put a damper on the prospects of Employee Of The Year Runner-up ever getting a shiny plaque to put on his desk, since the explosion wiped out a pretty serious chunk of the base and likely killed him. Personally, I was Ok with that.

  The combots were having success, it helped that the Kristang security force had, according to their established protocol, retreated to protect the high security research center of the base, the most obvious target, they didn't realize that we were going after a different part of the base. Skippy reported the Kristang were thoroughly confused, panicked, in disarray, unable to understand what was happening, and why their carefully hardened systems weren't working or, were working against them. Power surges had burned out the door controls, lifts, lights, and life support in the parts of the base we didn't care about, many of the Kristang were isolated, trapped, slow to react and leaderless. The little resistance the raiding party encountered on their way in were lone individuals, or small groups of two or three, uncoordinated, ineffective. The Kristang's ineffectual efforts against us actually helped our combot operators gain experience with live fire, they learned real quick to use quick bursts, with the rounds dialed to minimal explosive force and on fragmentation setting. The high-explosive rock and roll the operators used against the first pair of Kristang tore the enemy apart, it also wasted ammunition and blasted the corridor, creating debris the raiding party had to maneuver around. Giraud was rightly pissed, he'd warned people not to go crazy with the advanced Thuranin weapons. They paid attention after that first encounter.

  Chang's team reached their objective first, only to find a disorganized room full of junk. Not junk stacked on shelves, helpfully labeled, not even junk stuffed into boxes. This was junk in piles, like the Kristang had opened, the door, tossed stuff in, and closed the door.

  "Oh, shit." Skippy groaned. "I didn't anticipate this. The database shows the communications node was last logged as being in that room, there are no sensors in the room, not even a camera."

  "Any magic you can perform?" I asked anxiously.

  "Doing the best I can," Skippy said defensively. "For secrecy, there are not a lot of sensors inside the research base, except for the access points and living quarters. Also, the base was specifically designed to make remote surveillance difficult. I'm mostly blind in there, not nearly as blind as the Kristang expect, more than I'm comfortable with. There are a significant number of Kristang security personnel that I have lost track of, I don't know where they are or what they're doing. There are also areas of the base the raiding party has shown on cameras that aren't in the schematics I have access to, I'm collating data to develop a true layout of the base. My earnest suggestion is the raiding party move as quickly as possible."

  Wow, what a great idea, I hadn't thought of that. That's what ran through my mind, not what I said to Skippy. "Colonel Chang," I said through the zPhone, "you'll have to dig through that pile to find the comm node. You know what the thing looks like." Every member of the raiding party had seen the models Skippy fabricated of the two items we needed to steal.

  "Yes, acknowledged." Chang said, his voice was strained, there was a rattle in his throat.

  On the displays, I could see Chang, Darzi and Asok Putri walk into the room and begin sorting through the pile. Chang was moving very stiffly, because of his injury he didn't get down on the floor, he started with the top of the pile. He kept them organized, keeping items they'd sorted through in one pile so they didn't lose track. It was efficient, focused, as fast as possible and way, way too slow. Chang's group was way behind schedule, it was a large room, with five piles of junk extending to the ceiling and after five minutes, they'd only sorted halfway through one pile. Giraud's team had reached their target, he had the luck that day, as the room with the wormhole controller module was as organized as Chang's target was disorganized. Giraud, Sergeant Thomson and Private Marsden raced down the aisles, showing the contents of the shelves to Skippy, who quickly deciphered the indexing system and directed Sergeant Thomson exactly to where the wormhole controller module was, sitting on a shelf.

  "Target acquired," Giraud reported. "Heading back now. Advise, should we proceed directly back to the docking bay, or help Colonel Chang's team?"

  Chang's team was
taking way too long. Crap, they expected me to make this call; send Giraud's team to speed up the search for the comm node, in hope of speeding up the search? Diverting Giraud's team risked exposing them to danger longer, that risked us losing the wormhole controller module. Did I consider bailing on trying to find Skippy's comm node, now that we had the wormhole controller module? Not really. I'd thought about that issue over the last week, it had kept me awake at night. We cared about shutting down the wormhole, it was all I cared about, it was the entire purpose of the mission, I would sacrifice anything to achieve it. We humans truly did not care whether Skippy I cared a little bit, because I liked Skippy and felt we owe him, and I sometimes thought I understood his terrible, ancient, aching loneliness. My personal feelings had to be put aside, as the commander I needed to focus on the mission and my people. What I'd decided ahead of time was that, regardless of my promise to Skippy, if there was any way we could shut down the wormhole without Skippy, I was not going to risk people's lives, and the mission, to get his magical radio. We had no way to shut down the wormhole on our own, making my decision easy, if hard to swallow.

  "Lieutenant Giraud, take your team to assist Colonel Chang, we need to move as fast as possible."

  Whatever Giraud thought of the wisdom of my decision, he didn't argue. "Acknowledged. We're on our way."

  On the display, I saw Chang, Putri and Darzi were sorting through the piles of junk as fast as they could, Chang had ordered a combot into the room, not to touch anything, but to use it's cameras, hoping Skippy could find the thing. It was all taking way too long. Skippy telling me he'd lost track of the Kristang, that even he was mostly blind, had me extremely anxious "Skippy, this comm node thing is for communications, right?"

  "Yeah, duh, so?"

  "So, can you contact it, use it to send out a signal that you can use to find the damned thing?"

  "Shit. Yes."

  "Duh." I couldn't resist, partly from nervous energy.

  "Damn it, I don't know what is wrong with me sometimes. Of course, yes. Have Chang, Putri and Darzi spread out so I can use their suit radios to triangulate."

  I did. Less than a minute later, Skippy found it, in the pile of junk way in the back. Chang had Darzi and Putri climb over the pile in between and toss useless crap out of the way, until they had uncovered the top third of the pile, then they proceeded more carefully. Darzi found the stupid thing, it looked exactly as Skippy said. On the display, I saw that Giraud's team was close to Chang's location, close enough that I judged it best for them to link up and support each other on the retreat, even though that meant having all our eggs in one basket.

  That's when things went to shit in a hurry.

  The first sign of trouble was not a warning from Skippy, it was not the combots encountering Kristang fighters in front of them. It was a hail of bullets hitting Giraud and Putri from behind, knocking them both down. Putri took several hits dead center and was killed instantly, the explosive-tipped rounds fortunately missed the wormhole controller module that was in a sling on his back. Giraud went down with a glancing hit to the side of his helmet, a hard blow to his lower back, and a round that hit his left arm and severed his forearm halfway between wrist and elbow. Darzi reacted exactly as he should have, as he was trained to do, he dropped to the deck, clearing the way for the combots to engage. Darzi crawled forward keeping low, and tore the straps off Putri's sling, Darzi saw Putri was beyond help and he correctly focused on keeping to the mission objective.

  Our combots swiveled to engage the six enemy soldiers who were wearing heavy armor, it was a vicious firefight and Darzi couldn't do anything to help, he had to keep his head down and shelter the vital module behind Giraud's unmoving form. On the display I could see Giraud was alive, unconscious and not bleeding seriously.

  "Skippy," I shouted frantically, "is there another way back to the docking bay?" Four of the Kristang were still alive and taking cover in doorways and side corridors, they had the combots fully engaged. Darzi, with the module, couldn't move without exposing the precious module. Chang's team was running to assist, they couldn't arrive for another two minutes, maybe less. Too long.

  "Yes, plenty of alternate routes exist."

  "Great. Combot operators, don't worry about damaging the corridor, we'll be taking another route back! Take out those Kristang, maximum force!"

  That was all the combot operators needed to hear, Three of them dialed their rockets up to maximum yield, shape charge, and blew the hell out of the corridor beyond Darzi and Giraud. Rockets penetrated two or three compartments deep, destroying the four Kristang, blasting walls, floors and collapsing the ceiling.

  "Darzi!" I shouted when my voice should have remained calm, "get up, Lieutenant Giraud is alive. Can you carry Giraud?"

  "Yes, sir." Darzi could easily carry Giraud in the low gravity, especially in his powered armor. He got the module slung over his back, tied the straps quickly, and picked up Giraud's unconscious body. The combots led the way, I warned them as Chang's team approached so the two groups didn't shoot at each other. They linked up and Skippy guided them on an alternate, roundabout route back to the docking bay, this time Chang had a pair of combots covering the rear to avoid nasty surprises. The convoluted route had me concerned about the additional time it took, Skippy assured me the path the raiding party was taking had the enemy confused and guessing where to go. Skippy still was mostly blind in there. This was the most dangerous point of the mission, before the enemy had to guess the raiding party's objectives, now the enemy knew where the raiding party was going; back to the docking bay. The party was two thirds of the way back, by Skippy's reckoning, when trouble struck. This time the enemy appeared not in armor, but with combots of their own, they blew a wall open and leapt into the corridor. The Kristang combots were heavy and clunky and slow compared to our Thuranin models, they made good targets. They were also controlled by much more experienced operators, and they had every advantage. Except one. As the firefight raged and the raiding party was pinned down momentarily, Skippy shouted excitedly that the clumsy movements of our combots was actually helping us, the Kristang had trained to fight the super-fast movements of Thuranin-controlled combots, and the slow awkward actions of our combots threw the Kristang's aim off.

  We lost three combots in the initial firefight, another was damaged and unable to use its primary weapons. Chang saw Darzi was hampered by carrying Giraud, he ordered Darzi to set Giraud down in the arms of the damaged combot. Private Marsden came forward to help Darzi get Giraud strapped in, they were almost done when Marsden took a hit to the head that shattered his faceplate, then a second round almost separated the helmet from his neck. He went down in a spray of flash-frozen blood, and on my display his life signs went flat-line. I notified Chang not to waste time assisting Marsden, he didn't bother to acknowledge, I heard and saw him urging people forward. There may have been other paths to the docking bay, and we have lose people moving forward into the firefight, Chang knew we'd likely lose even more people is they got pinned down and remained on the asteroid for a second longer than necessary. Speed and maneuver were all important, Chang saw that, even through the painful fog of broken ribs, the guy was an ironman, even without his powered armor suit.

  Behind a wall of firepower, the raiding party moved forward, combots clearing path. Once past that large group of Kristang combots, they hit scattered resistance from Kristang combots and armored suits. I was getting worried, we'd started with six people in suits and nine combots, by the time they'd fought their way back to the docking bay, there were two people dead, one injured and unconscious, and only three combots still functional. The three combots remained to guard the inner doorway while Chang got Sergeant Thomson and Darzi aboard one dropship, and carried Giraud aboard the other. Skippy had already partly retracted the outer door, and as soon as Thomson and Darzi were strapped in, he put pedal to the metal and surged that dropship out and away, I saw on the display he had the dropship pushing six gees and I ordered him to throttl
e down slightly once the dropship was ten miles away.

  Chang's dropship had a slight delay and he got Giraud strapped in, and that almost killed us. Thomson had the node and Darzi had the module, technically we'd accomplished the mission already, except for the people in the second dropship. And that's when a stray round came through the inner doorway, missed our combots, flew across the docking bay and hit the armored hull of the Thuranin dropship. The explosive tip erupted inward, creating a superheated jet of plasma that burned through the armor to the interior of the dropship. Once the plasma hit air, it exploded in all directions. US Air Force Staff Sergeant Joy Chung, who was operating one of the three remaining combots, was killed instantly, three others were seriously injured. Chang and Giraud were protected by their armored suits, everyone else was hit pretty badly. With people screaming in pain, blood flying around the dropship and air racing out the hole in the hull, Chang didn't hesitate, he ordered Skippy to get them the hell out of there. The dropship shot out of the docking bay and clear of the doors as Skippy took over the automated repairs systems to plug the finger-sized hole and get the air pumped back up.

  "Clear. Both dropships clear," Skippy reported in a matter-of-fact voice, "no pursuit. Packages secure. I'm guiding the dropships back here."

  "Great." I said, emotionally exhausted. "Pilot, I'll be in our docking bay."

  "No, sir." Desai said flatly. "Colonel Chang and Major Simms can handle people who need help. We need you here."

  She was right, and I knew it. I could be emotional later. Later, after we'd jumped away safely. "Captain, you're right." I looked down at my shaking hands in disgust. I hadn't been in danger at any time. It was a long eight minutes to wait for the dropships to return.