Assault Troopers

by Vaughn Heppner

  I marched down corridors, and soon streams of space-assault troopers joined the great river of soldiers. There were so many of us that we clogged the way and a traffic jam slowed the process to a shuffling walk.

  “Put on your helmets!” I shouted. “We’re going to do this by the numbers. Remember to crack open your visors so you can breathe.” We didn’t have our air tanks yet.

  I shoved my helmet on and opened the visor. It was like a mini-cafeteria inside the helm with chin and tongue pressure-pads and various voice-activated switches. I chinned on the centurion channel and began barking orders. With the HUD and a few well-placed camera shots from forward troopers, I soon discovered the problem.

  “This is Overman Creed. Century three, halt in place. Century seven, advance until you are all past.” I hadn’t expected to have to play traffic cop, but I did, and the line soon moved faster.

  The angry shouting and pushing stopped. Ten minutes later, I marched through the main hatch into the cavernous hangar bay.

  The size always struck me, today more than ever. Not so many months ago, I’d been in cramped quarters in Antarctica, listening to the wind howl. Now I walked in an alien battlejumper in the Sigma Draconis system. I’d become a star man like my dad, Mad Jack Creed, with a leash surgically implanted into me by a profiteering alien bugger. This place was bigger than any mall I’d walked through.

  I headed for my assault boat. Each one sat in a numbered circle. Ours was 212. As I marched, I thought about an old poster I’d seen once. Join the Army, see the world. Meet new and exciting people, and kill them.

  I hated the Lokhars. Don’t doubt that for a minute. I wanted to find their home world and do unto them as they had done unto Earth. First, I needed to take care of the little perv in charge of the freighters back home. Before I could do that, I needed to fix the horseshoe he’d put into my neck.

  How can I turn the tables on Claath?

  It was strange. Today it felt as if I hurried to my doom. I had a bad feeling about this. Normally, a soldier was certain enemy bullets would find others, but not him. Today…I felt as if Lokhar bullets, beams and missiles had my name written on them. There was bad mojo hanging over my head. If by some miracle we survived the Lokhar PDS, Claath would likely order us to the next one until we were all dead.

  A fierce restlessness swirled in my chest. I left the line of soldiers and prowled the area. I played the grumbling overman making sure the boarding went right. Even so, the restlessness grew. Something about it felt familiar. I tried to place the feeling.

  “You must board,” N7 radioed.

  “Sure thing, boss,” I said.

  I headed for my assault boat, and I tried to place the tightness of my throat, the butterflies in my gut. It didn’t feel the same as the Altair assault. No, this felt like…like Antarctica, I realized.

  This was the same oozing intensity that had taken hold as I’d watched the alien lander drop for the snowy ground.

  I opened and closed my hands. If I could wrap these around Claath’s red throat…oh, man, that’s what I wanted. I desperately desired the death of the little prick who used Earth women, who used Jennifer. If I’d had any hope of Claath-killing success, I would have turned around and raced for the same exit N7 had used the other day.

  Instead, with a heavy chest, I climbed into my assault boat and clomped down the aisle. Assault troopers strapped in, checking everything for the umpteenth time.

  “Liftoff in five minutes,” N7 said into my helmet.

  I slammed into my crash seat and buckled in. Ella sat beside me, but that was it. No other troopers sat ahead of us, only behind. The only thing ahead of us was the wall screen androids had installed yesterday. Beyond that was the sealed pilot compartment where N7 and whoever else flew with him stayed.

  The five minutes passed in a blur. Then the screen flickered into life, and I watched the great bay doors slide open.

  It made my pulse race. This was it. Stars glimmered through the opening door. One in particular shone brightly. I imagined it was Sol, such a long ways away. I felt a thrum and realized the assault boat’s fusion core had come online. I felt a lurch, and I watched the screen. The vessel ahead of us lifted from the hangar floor and floated toward the stars.

  Then we moved, and the troopers cheered. I didn’t get it. We were on our way to mass death, and they cheered. Yeah, maybe I did understand. They were assault troopers. They were killers and like me they wanted payback against any Lokhars they could reach. I understood all right. I felt it myself. We’d trained. We’d fought before, and now this was the big one. More than that, we finally got to see some of the space action. I admit. That was exciting. It was damn exciting—for teenagers, fools and combat soldiers.

  Our assault boat left the hangar bay, left the womb of safety, and entered Sigma Draconis space. Immediately, the screen flickered and the camera shot of stars and empty space dissolved into a radar display of the situation.

  That surprised me. I’d suggested it a few days ago and Claath must have figured, “Okay, give the troopers a window into the action.” Now here it was and I had the first real sense of the magnitude of the assault.

  In some ways, I wondered if I’d been wrong to ask for a screen.

  “By Lenin’s bones,” Ella whispered. “What chance do we have?”

  I don’t know which Sigma Draconis planet we attacked. On the screen it was a great disc—or the top edge of it anyway—at the far right edge. A red dot must have been the planetary defense station, the satellite guarding the planet. It was our destination.

  As I studied the situation, I wondered if we’d ever get to the PDS. A blizzard of enemy vessels slowly moved away from the planet and toward us. That must be the guardian fleet, and I estimated it held something on the order of three hundred warships.

  On the right side of the wall screen was the enemy planet, PDS and guardian fleet. On the left side I counted twenty blue blips, the Jelk fleet, the battlejumpers. Behind them were smaller blips, thirty Starkien beamships.

  If the size of the dots indicated mass, we had bigger vessels. However, if taken as a whole, they had more aggregate mass, especially with the PD station included.

  Acceleration slammed me deeper into the crash seat. On the screen, our pinprick of a vessel barely crawled toward the other side. The assault boats taken together had less mass than a Starkien beamship. Was that the plan? The enemy would fry us as easy targets of opportunity, saving the bigger ships for later?

  As I wondered about that, the battlejumpers moved majestically like whales toward the enemy. They passed us. So did the beamships, and rays lanced across the distance, stabbing at the foe.

  “Does either side possess shields?” Ella asked.

  “Huh? What?” I asked.

  “Do the various starships possess shields as depicted in so many science fiction novels?” Ella asked.

  “I don’t know. Why’s it matter?”

  “In reality,” Ella said, “shields must be heavy electromagnetic fields.”

  I glanced at her. I kept the savant Ella Timoshenko with me because she asked penetrating questions. She watched things like a scientist and I had the feeling I’d need that before this was through.

  “Observe the screen,” Ella said. “The beams do not appear to stab all the way to the targets.”

  I tried to study the radar screen with rational detachment. The battlejumper beams and the smaller Starkien beams flashed across space, stabbing enemy ships. Yet it seemed—if one looked closely enough—that the beams didn’t actually touch Lokhar craft, but stopped before them.

  “I think the enemy vessels have shields,” I said.

  “Agreed,” Ella said.

  “The Lokhars didn’t use shields in the Altair system,” I said.

  “We didn’t get to see the space battle before,” Ella said, “just the individual conflicts.”

  “We saw Lokhar dome-rays hit Starkien ships.”

  “No,” Ella said. “Those rays hit assau
lt boats. I suggest to you that the assault boats are too small to carry shields. Only the larger vessels must have sufficient power to generate the needed electromagnetic fields.”

  “Couldn’t aliens have different kinds of shields?” I asked. “They have more advanced tech than we probably even know about.”

  “Yes,” Ella said. “That’s an excellent point. These bio-suits are a prime example of that.”

  I swallowed hard, as enemy rays licked out at our battlejumpers. If the Lokhars destroyed the Jelk, we were dead. For now, at least, I had to cheer for Claath.

  “Interesting,” Ella said. She pointed at the battlejumpers. Large objects detached from them, separating at a crawl and heading for the enemy on the other side of the wall screen.

  “Are those missiles?” I asked.

  “Likely they’re drones,” Ella said.

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Missiles always head directly at the enemy,” she said. “Drones have more options, more command functions.”

  This was like being at the movies or watching on the biggest big screen, yeah, like watching the Superbowl or the final World Series game. We not only had a front row seat, we’d put more down on this game than any of us had ever wagered on Earth. We were betting our lives on the outcome.

  It had always been hard for me to watch the Superbowl when I cared who won. I’d pace, crouch low or stand on a chair, anything but sit down at ease. In the assault boat, straps crisscrossed my chest and continuing acceleration pushed me back. I had to sit for this one.

  My gut seethed and I found that the saliva had fled from my mouth. I took a sip of helmet water, and I decided if I felt this way, so did most of the troopers.

  I accessed a general channel and I began to tell them to relax. The Jelk knew what they were doing. All our masters could think about was money, and battlejumpers were the most expensive things in the universe. The Jelk wouldn’t put them in harm’s way unless they thought they would win.

  I almost believed it myself, until the first battlejumper wobbled on the screen.

  Troopers shouted. Ella grabbed my wrist and pointed at the image.

  A vast concentration of beams poured onto the front-most battlejumper. Then several Lokhar ships teleported, I don’t know what else to call it. Near the planet, dots winked out, reappeared before the battlejumper and exploded. At the fifth explosion and with Lokhar beams pouring it on, the battlejumper winked out of existence.

  Ella leaned near, making her straps tighten around her breasts. “This does not seem like the best procedure to bringing us to the PDS.”

  I patted her nearest hand because I didn’t know what to say.

  The Lokhars began concentrated-firing on another battlejumper. Starkien beamships hurried to close the gap between the battlejumpers and themselves. At the same time, Lokhar suicide ships began appearing in front of the targeted battlejumper. The first teleport-ships exploded, and presumably damaged the Jelk craft. Starkien beams poured upon the next three Lokhar blast-craft to appear. The suicide ships fizzled, by which I mean they winked out instead of exploding.

  “It looks like our side already went through the halftime change,” I said.

  “I do not understand your reference,” Ella said, glancing at me.

  “You ever watch American football?” I asked.

  “A few times,” Ella said. “It is a violent sport.”

  “There’s a halftime in every football game,” I said, winking at her. “During it, the head coach figures out what the other side is doing best, and he devises a strategy to counter it. The Jelk may have just figured out how to counter the teleporting blast-ships.”

  “I see. Yes, let us hope so.”

  The Jelk moved sideways on the space-field. The Starkiens beamships followed their example as they moved away from us.

  “They’re leaving!” a trooper shouted.

  “Take it easy,” I said. “That was the idea all along.”

  “And you agreed to it, Overman?” the trooper shouted.

  I laughed. Sometimes that’s the best medicine. “How much pull do you think I have with the perv in charge?”

  The trooper didn’t answer. Instead, like me, like everyone aboard, he watched the screen.

  As the battlejumpers slid away laterally from us, the Jelk beams methodically and systematically thinned the enemy ranks. The Jelk beams seemed more effective across the distance of space than the enemy beams. Well, the PDS beam was the thickest and hoariest of the bunch. I understood better why Claath needed us to knock out the station. I noticed the Starkien vessels didn’t even bother to fire that far anymore. Maybe they waited for more teleporting blast-craft to attack.

  The minutes ticked by, and the battle by beam continued. Both sides had shot missiles or drones, and now each side targeted those, trying to destroy them before they got too near.

  “Ah,” Ella said.

  I noticed it too. The Lokhar fleet advanced toward the battlejumpers, meaning they moved away from the PDS. Tiny craft flew up from the planet and raced after the guardian fleet. Were those fighter wings? I’d bet so.

  The Lokhars hadn’t forgotten about us. Planetary beams stabbed our way, and for the first time, assault boats took hits, wilting under the intense rays.

  Two hundred space-assault soldiers per boat meant fifty little ships. I thought about that and began counting. There were one hundred and fifty of us. I’d guess the other hundred boats held Saurians. Ten thousand humans and twenty thousand Saurians headed for the PDS.

  After twelve assault boats vaporized into heated molecules, five larger friendly vessels surged ahead of the pack. Suddenly, on the radar screen, there were twice as many targets around the assault boats.

  “What the hell?” I asked.

  “Those must be ghost images,” Ella told me.

  I glanced at her.

  “How do you Americans say it?” she asked with a smile. “Those five craft are wild weasels. They are ECM.”

  “Electronic countermeasures,” I said.

  “They must be transmitting ghost images, false targets.”

  Planetary beams continued their attack on us. Often, as soon as a ray touched a blip, it disappeared.

  “Excellent,” Ella said. She must have seen my incomprehension. “You can tell which are real and which are the ghost images. The real assault boat lasts several seconds longer. A ghost image ‘dies’ immediately. By my calculation, the enemy is targeting ghost blips about four to one.”

  To encourage the crew, I began to tell them about Ella’s calculation.

  “Prepare for extended acceleration,” N7 said over our helmet headphones, interrupting my speech.

  The constant thrum around us increased to a heavy whine. Our boat began to shake, and still the sound climbed higher. The accelerating forces shoved me deeper into the crash seat. We’d taken plenty of hormones and steroids and the bio-suits helped in this regard. We were gorillas and there was an extra Jelk antigravity tech going on here too.

  How fast did we accelerate? The short answer was: I don’t know. Ella seemed to have a better idea. As the G forces flattened the savant, she grunted her hypotheses.

  “Nine, maybe even as much as ten Gs,” she said.

  I found it hard to blink. It felt like a giant had reached down and shoved against me. Breathing became a chore.

  “I suspect the antigravity halves what we feel?” Ella said.

  “This is five Gs?”

  “On the contrary,” Ella said, “I think the assault boat itself is accelerating at fifteen maybe even as much as seventeen gravities. We feel nine or ten.”

  My eyeballs felt gritty, but I zeroed in on the wall screen. As the fleets battled it out, we charged in toward the planetary defense station. I understood better now why the battlejumpers had left us. We would never have been able to move in close enough if we had to travel between the two fleets, between all those crisscrossing beams and exploding warheads.

  Space was vast. Even t
his near a planet the distances were great. We had far to go, likely more than the distance of the moon from the Earth. My dad used to tell me about the old days of the Apollo missions. It had taken days of travel for the capsule to crawl 400,000 kilometers. We, on the other hand, rode a rocket sled from Hell at the enemy.

  I began to wonder if the Jelk would simply let us smash against the PDS. Wouldn’t the impact of our kinetic force do more damage than us having to slow down and stage a “pirate raid” onto the station?

  “N7,” I said, using my private overman channel.

  “Speak,” the android said.

  “Do you want to live?”

  “Do not ask me foolish questions at a time like this,” N7 said.

  “We’re building up some momentum,” I said. “Aren’t we more effective as fast-moving asteroids than space-assault troopers?”

  “I perceive your insult,” N7 said. “I should administer a level four punishment to you because of it. I am alive and will not sacrifice my life…”

  “Go on,” I said. “You won’t sacrifice your life for Claath even if he orders it. But then you’d be rebelling. So aren’t you really telling me that you’re going to do what you’re going to do?”

  “Negative,” N7 said. “I am shutting off our link.”

  We accelerated, and the pressures against us continued to increase. I felt it worst in the middle of my throat, as if a finger pushed against my skin. The roar inside our ship halted further talking. Suddenly, the boat shuddered.

  “Tank!” Ella shouted.

  I barely heard her, but I knew what she meant. The Saurians had added reactive armor to our outer skin. They’d also added extra thruster tanks. The containers gave us the fantastic acceleration. As they ran dry, I imagine the pilot jettisoned them, much as fighter planes used to jettison drop tanks on Earth.

  Time passed as Armageddon raged between the fleets. Another battlejumper exploded.

  Abruptly, our acceleration quit. I could breathe easily again. The whine stopped and for several seconds I couldn’t hear the engine’s thrum. Finally, I heard it. My hearing must have returned to normal.