Eye of the Storm lota-11

by John Ringo

  “Is he in the Maccabeus, Feldwebel?” Hagai asked.

  “No,” Ginsburg said, taking a bite of weiner schnitzel. “He was killed by a Posleen when we were on a training patrol. He used to try to jokingly convert me. He told me all I had to do was cut off the end of my dick and I was in with God. And I’d point out that that was the God who got so pissed at you guys for bitching about being out of water in the desert that he made you wander for forty years in same. Adding cutting off my dick was a bit much.” He reached into his cargo pocket and pulled out a package.

  “It’s not much,” the Feldwebel said. “Just some rugelach. But you should have a good last meal before an operation. If you can’t eat it, though, hold onto it. You’ll find soon enough that you’ll eat snails if they’ll slow down enough. And be too tired to chase them.”

  “Thank you, Feldwebel,” Hagai said, looking at the small twists of dough wrapped around a filling. “I think I will just hold onto it. Now… is not the right time.”

  “Whatever,” Ginsburg said. “Don’t go crying on me. I can’t stand men who cry. The next thing you know they’re listening to emo music and then they might as well get an earring and move in with their best friend from school.”

  “Yes, Feldwebel,” Hagai said, grinning. “I will attempt to refrain from crying.”

  * * *

  “What the hell is that?” Frederick said as he clambered over Three Track to get to his.

  Additional equipment had been moved into the bay since they were loaded and, in fact, where there had once been an open area was now a continuation of the platform also filled with equipment. The driver was unsure how in the hell they were going to get the tank out of the bay. Certainly they were going to have to wait for the entire rest of the brigade to get out of their way.

  But the oddest part was that, somehow, someone had gotten a big platform installed under their tank. It looked like an aluminum loading pallet, but large enough to take the entire vehicle.

  “That, my fine yellow-shit, is a P-5297 loading platform,” Harz said, climbing up onto the turret and squeezing into the hatch. He had to duck and crawl because the overhead was just barely enough for the cupola to raise to full extent. “And on the rear of the platform, if you had time to look, you would find an M-3698 field generator.”

  “Thank you for the information, Feldwebel,” Frederick said. He recalled the conversation with Hagai about the devices — since he’d been in hibernation it was more or less yesterday — but hadn’t had time since to think about it.

  “Get in, get your shit secured and dog your hatch,” Harz said. “There’s a pressure check coming up. They’re going to evacuate the whole ship to unload us this time.”

  “Very good, Feldwebel,” Frederick said, scrambling in quickly and setting his gear in place. There was no room in the driver’s compartment, but he managed to slip in the few items he’d chosen to take with him for the initial landing. There was an issue sleeping bag, which fortunately was very small, a small amount of ‘comfort food,’ a spare pair of socks and a picture of Marta. Even those few items squeezed the space uncomfortably. He might have to ditch the socks.

  He dogged his hatch and did a pressure check. His ears popped as the pressure in the compartment climbed and he worked his jaw to clear them.

  “Seals are nominal, Feldwebel,” Frederick said.

  “God help anyone’s whose aren’t,” was all the tank commander said.

  “Track Three, Seal Check.”

  “Nominal,” Harz replied.

  “Track Three Seal Check Nominal, acknowledged.”

  * * *

  “Ten vehicles with bad seals,” 1A reported. “The Indowy are on it. They report ten minutes, maximum.”

  “Very good,” Muehlenkampf said. “The Kobolds have saved this operation. Tell the commodore we will be prepared in ten minutes maximum. Order all vehicles to remain closed up.”

  * * *

  “We’re to stay closed up,” Harz said.

  “What is this bullshit?” Adler said. “We only have so much air.”

  “The scrubbers are good for a full day,” the Feldwebel replied. “There is plenty of time. And it is an order so that is enough.”

  * * *

  “Seals are all repaired,” 1A reported. “Visuals confirm that all vehicles have remained buttoned up.”

  “Commodore Winston,” Muehlenkampf said, keying his microphone. “This is Vaterland Commander.”

  “Go Vaterland Commander.”

  “Vehicles are ready for EVA. Give me five minutes.”

  “Roger. Emergence in five.”

  * * *

  “Stand by for retrans from Generalmajor Muehlenkampf.”

  “Here goes,” Harz said, a grin in his voice.

  “What goes?” Adler asked.

  “My Brethren. Due to enemy spies it was necessary to keep all of you uninformed of the true nature of our mission. In less than five minutes this task group will emerge in the orbit of the Hedren held world of Daga Nine. These assault transports will then open up and spill out the finest soldiers in the known universe. Following a bombardment we shall drop upon the enemy from orbit and take their transmission system, preventing them from striking deeper into Federation territory and in this way protecting the Fatherland. It is possible, even likely, that our forces shall be scattered in re-entry. As your fathers and grandfathers before you did, move to the sound of the guns. Close with the enemy in your panzers and combat vehicles. Give them no mercy. Teach to those who would endanger the Fatherland that there is no force more fearsome in the universe than the Panzer leaders on the move.

  “Today we strike like lightning from the hammer of Thor. For the Fatherland.”

  * * *

  “Oh, he has got to be joking,” Adler whispered.

  “He’s not,” Harz said, a grin in his voice. “But I bet there are very many people peeing themselves right now.”

  “You knew about this,” Frederick said. “That was why you asked me about the platforms and the field generator.”

  “The platforms have repulsion systems on them,” Harz said. “They have also been modified with a ribbon chute. We will drop very fast but the repulsion system will stop us instantaneously with contact with the ground. It has been tested. The ACS used them for resupply from orbit during the War. It will work.”

  “And the field generator?” Frederick asked.

  “It is going to get very hot on the way down,” Harz said. “The field generator will only prevent us from being burned up from reentry. It’s still going to be hot.”

  * * *

  The Marro sensor technician knew his duty. His duty was to curl in place and carefully watch his sensor readings. And he did his duty. Day in and boring day out. There was no real possibility of attack. A task-force of battleships covered the approaches and he would have long warning of any attackers. But duty was duty and any disregard of duty might come to the attention of the Imeg.

  It was, however, very boring. He didn’t know how many times he’d wished that something, anything would happen to relieve the bore…

  His eyes were fixed open with thin membranes shielding them from dehydration. Despite that, he would have blinked if he could have. Because what just a moment before was a very empty screen was now filled with icons. One, two, three, four… Nine ships!

  It took him a moment to process any of the information. And then his first reaction was to run a diagnostic. By the time the short diagnostic was finished there were more symbols popping up. Thousands of them. There were more than a dozen ships in orbit and now it showed thousands of ground strike fighters being disgorged. And now there were icons of incoming kinetic weapons. Big ones. But the diagnostic said that the system wasn’t suffering some sort of malfunction. That meant…

  He couldn’t move his tentacle fast enough to hit the alarm button.

  * * *

  The bombardment ship GFS Mound had rarely been used in the War. Even the task force that relieved ear
th hadn’t needed its services. One of the first Posleen planets that had been retaken had received its attention. The Posleen had not enjoyed the experience and the Hedren were about to find out why.

  The Mound was, in reality, nothing but a highly modified bulk freighter such as had originally been used to move forces between planets. Nearly a kilometer long and with cavernous holds the modifications involved ways to move stuff out of its holds and onto certain courses, very fast, as well as binary, tunnel and Ley-line, FTL engines. Its ship-to-ship weapons were pop-guns but it could toss out a bunch of kinetic energy weapons. They didn’t go out very fast, but when you’re firing in a gravity well, it doesn’t really matter. Especially since it was punching out fifteen KEWs the size of a train engine every second. Secondary guns were, in the meantime, firing smaller KEWs at the rate of several thousand per second.

  The KEWs really weren’t much more than chunks of iron. Oh, they had tungsten fins and an internal gyroscope. But other than that they were just great big pieces of steel shaped vaguely like a dart. The rain of steel was aimed in various directions, but most of it was aimed more or less straight down at the just completed, and nearly charged, Hedren wormhole generator.

  The Hedren fire was slow to start but brutal when it finally got into motion. Hundreds of lasers flashed upwards along with dozens of heavy meson guns. However, they were having a hard time hitting the Mound and her consorts. The air was almost literally filled with chunks of metal. Meson bolts capable of tearing apart a cruiser burst into pointless fireworks when they hit a KEW the size of a crowbar. Lasers had trouble with just the plasma and gases that were filling the sky.

  Targeting the KEWs was automatic, but there were simply too many. Lasers flashed and flashed, but all it did was cut the darts in half. Small enough they would burn up from reentry heat but most of them were large enough it took quite a bit of chunking to get to that point. Missiles flashed up as well, intercepting the larger KEWs and blasting them apart. But, again, there were a lot of KEWs and only so many missiles. Well before the Mound was out of chunks of steel the Hedren anti-ship missile inventory was exhausted.

  And behind fell the tanks, AFVs, panzerjaegers and artillery carriers of the Vaterland in their very first Augenhöhlentropfensturm, an orbital drop storm.

  * * *

  “Vater unser, der Du bist im Himmel,

  Geheiligt werde Dein Name… ”

  Frederick was praying as fast as he could but could not tear his eyes from the vision blocks. The world of Daga Nine was spread out below him and the panzer was dropping into a cloud of fire. The kinetic energy weapons, coherent and those that had been broken up by fire, were dropping beneath him to the surface of the world and they were burning. The effect filled the sky with orange fire, a volcano of torrential energy, into which the panzer was falling, the volcano falling away just as fast. At times they seemed to catch up to it then the distance would open, close… open. It was like one of those dreams where you fell and fell, the ground always only inches away but about to kill you at any moment. Energy screen or no, he did not think that there was any way that they could survive. And it was, yes, getting very hot. Sweat was pouring down his face for more than one reason.

  He could see some of the fire coming up, but it was insignificant to the power of the dropping weapons.

  “I saw an Eye of Baal from the ground one time,” Harz mused. “That was what we called the Posleen drops. They would light the sky with fire in a great circle like a glowing red eye. Now I know what it was like from the top-side. I rather prefer this. And if you’re going to pray, Schutze, might I ask that you at least not babble the words.”

  “Your pardon, Feldwebel,” Frederick said, continuing to whisper the Lord’s Prayer under his breath.

  “Here, this will help,” Harz said as a bass male voice started to recite the Lord’s Prayer in Deutsch. Then a booming electronica synthesizer started up followed by a soaring chorus. “This is how to pray to the Lord, Schutze!” the track commander shouted. “For the Lord did say unto his people, make a joyful noise and rejoice for I am the Lord Thy GOD!”

  Vater Unser (E Nomine)

  Our Father

  Vater unser, der Du bist im Himmel,

  Our Father, which art in Heaven,

  Geheiligt werde Dein Name,

  Hollowed be thy name,

  Dein Reich Komme,

  Thy Kingdom come,

  Dein Wille geschehe,

  Thy will be done,

  Wie im Himmel als auch auf Erden,

  On Earth as it is in Heaven,

  Und vergib uns unsere Schuld,

  And forgive us our trespasses

  Wie auch wir vergeben unseren Schuldigern…

  As we forgive those who trespass against us…

  …In nomine patris et filii spiritu sancti…

  In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit

  Vater unser, der Du bist im Himmel,

  Our Father, which art in Heaven,

  Geheiligt werde Dein Name,

  Hollowed be thy name,

  Dein Reich komme,

  Thy kingdom come,

  Dein Wille geschehe,

  Thy will be done,

  Wie im Himmel als auch auf Erden,

  On Earth as it is in Heaven,

  Unser taeglich Brot gib uns heute,

  And give us this day our daily bread,

  Und vergib uns unsere Schuld,

  And forgive us our trespasses,

  Wie auch wir vergeben unseren Schuldigern,

  As we forgive those who trespass against us,

  Und fuehre uns nicht in Versuchung,

  And lead us not into temptation,

  Sondern erloese uns von dem Uebel,

  But deliver us from evil,

  Denn Dein ist das Reich,

  For thine is the kingdom,

  Und die Kraft und die Herrlichkeit,

  The power and Glory,

  In Ewigkeit…

  For ever and ever…

  …Amen.

  …Amen

  In nomine patris et filii spiritu sancti

  In the name of the Father, the son, and the Holy Spirit

  Amen

  Amen

  In nomine patris et filii spiritu sancti

  In the name of the Father, the son, and the Holy Spirit

  Amen

  Amen

  Vater unser, der Du bist im Himmel,

  Our Father, which art in Heaven,

  Geheiligt werde Dein Name,

  Hollowed be thy name,

  Dein Reich komme,

  Thy Kingdom come,

  Dein Wille geschehe,

  Thy will be done,

  Wie im Himmel als auch auf Erden,

  On Earth as it is in Heaven,

  Und verbig uns unsere Schuld,

  And forgive us our trespasses

  Wie auch wir vergeben unseren Schuldigern.

  As we forgive those who trespass against us.

  Vater hoere meine Stimme.

  Father, hear my prayer!

  Herr hoere meine Stimme!

  Lord, hear my prayer!

  Lasser uns beten.

  Let us pray.

  In nomine patris et filii spiritu sancti

  In the name of the Father, and the son, and the Holy Spirit

  Der Herr… ist ein Schatten ueber

  The Lord… is my shepherd.

  Deiner Rechten Hand…

  I shall not want!

  …Amen

  …Amen

  Vater unser,

  Our Father,

  Dein ist das Reich,

  Thine is the Kingdom,

  Und die Kraft,

  And the Power,

  Und die Herrlichkeit,

  And the glory,

  In Ewigkeit,

  for ever and ever…

  …Amen…

  Amen

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “ Emergence.”

  The Posleen tunnel drive was extremely
useful, tactically, but enormously expensive energetically. The only really functional fuel for it was antimatter, which was both costly to make and extremely unstable. But there was no way that any ship could have enough fuel space, bunkerage, for fusion bottles to produce the same power with any reasonable range.

  Converting ships to use both ley-line transport, which was much cheaper energetically, and tunnel drive meant that something had to go.

  In the case of the superdreadnought Lexington IV it had been Ronnie’s pride and joy: the primary mass-driver. However, the Hedren in the Daga Nine system didn’t have any ships really suitable for the main-gun to engage. Would have been cute, mind you. Even their battleships would have come apart like tinker-toys. But they just needed the space.

  What filled the space where the enormous mass driver had once been, its fusion bottles and capacitors, its grav drivers and magazines, was nine tunnel drives from Posleen Command Dodecahedrons, C-Decs, and a one of the largest containment vessels of antimatter ever made. Even with that much antimatter, the ship only had the range to go from the nearest star to the Daga system. Going out they’d have to find a ley-line.

  And they would be going out. They did not intend to stay. The mission of the Lady Lex was simple: Trash everything in the system then get the fuck out. They’d be back. But they’d have to refuel to do it.

  And Ronnie didn’t get to do the fun stuff like run the guns. Indowy crewed most of the ship, doing everything they could that a human wasn’t absolutely critical for. The rest of the crew, mostly gunnery, tactical and sensors, was a mash of Indy crewmen and officers and some Northern European and Japanese ‘old guard.’

  But, in truth, they were just filling. The only thing Ronnie needed to run the Lex was floating beside her.

  Unlike many of the being’s fellows, the group that was coming to be known as the Daisies, Lex did not choose to have a real body. Each of the Command Cyborg Entities took for his or her personality that most closely associated with the ship they inhabited.