by D. J. Holmes
“Damn,” Kumar swore. India’s small fleet meant that there was stiff competition for senior command slots. She knew the other admirals would use any ship losses she suffered against her. “Signal Ketu to fall back and join the squadron protecting the troop transports. Then fire a second missile salvo. Target anything in orbit that looks even remotely military. I don’t want any more nasty surprises.
*
Denning came to with a throbbing headache. As he touched his head he saw blood on the tips of his fingers. “Are we still in one piece?” he called out.
“Mainly,” his First Officer said. “We took a proximity hit which burnt off most of our valstronium armor. Parts of decks four, five and six are open to space. It also threw us slightly off course. However, both port missile tubes are still functioning, I think your plan will still work.”
“No one is firing on us then?” Denning asked as he peered at the holo display. His ship had already passed the first Indian fleet and the second one was approaching them quickly.
“I think they have forgotten about us sir,” the First Officer said, smiling. “Just like you said they would!”
“Do you have a firing solution set up?” Denning asked as he ignored the look of glee on his subordinate’s face. There was nothing to be happy about, they would all be dead in a few minutes.
“Yes, we will reach our optimal firing point in twenty seconds,” the officer answered.
“Fire when ready then,” Denning ordered.
As he put his hand to his head to try and stop the throbbing, Denning sat back to watch the devastation his two missiles would cause. He was sure the troop ships were equipped with enough point defenses to take out more than two missiles. But he hoped that whoever designed the ships hadn’t thought an opponent would get so close before firing. It would take the troop ship he was targeting a few vital seconds to track his missiles before they could open fire. That would hopefully be just enough time.
If only we hadn’t been thrown off course, Denning thought, then we really might have caused them some damage. His initial plan had included ramming one of the troop ships, that was impossible now. As it was, they still had a good chance to take out one of the ships.
“Firing,” the First Officer called.
Denning didn’t reply, he just let a large smile play across his face. I did it Maximillian you bastard, now it’s your turn to make them bleed!
“Sir,” his sensor officer called out, “a destroyer is falling back from the main fleet. I’m detecting an energy spike. I think they are charging their plasma cannons.”
I guess we are not going to get to see if our ruse worked, Denning thought. “It’s been an hono...” he began to say but was cut off as three plasma bolts tore through the bridge, vaporizing everyone around him. Within seconds the frigate blew apart.
*
“What was that?” Kumar demanded as an explosion erupted on the holo display, dangerously close the troop transports.
“It was one of the damaged Havenite frigates,” the tactical officer called out. “The Ketu just destroyed her. Wait! I’m detecting two missiles homing in on one of the troop transports, that frigate must have fired on it.”
Kumar didn’t even bother swearing, her mind had focused on the two missiles. They had crossed half the distance to the troop transport. Come on, come on, she thought, open fire you fools!
Almost as if they heard her thoughts the troop transport opened fire. A hail of plasma bolts surrounded the two missiles. Yet in their haste someone had fired too soon and they all missed. Then three AM missiles shot out. Two homed in on one of the missiles. One detonated just meters away from the missile and it disappeared in the explosion. The other missile sensed the incoming AM missile and jinked out of its way.
Before the troop transport could fire again the missile bore down on it and punched through the transport’s outer armor. Kumar was about to let out a sigh of relief when nothing happened, then the sensors showed a massive explosion erupt out of the side of the transport ship. Almost a fifth of the ship’s port side seemed to disappear in a fire ball.
Kumar sat back in despair. Her one command had been to get General Malhorta’s troops safely to the ground. She had failed. There was no covering it up. She was going to be eaten alive when she returned to India.
I only have one hope, she said to herself as her career evaporated before her very eyes. I need to make sure Haven is swiftly pacified, maybe then I will be allowed to keep my command.
Ten minutes later she finally managed to get General Malhorta on a COM channel.
“What is the damage General?” she asked nervously.
For a few seconds the General stared at her with fiery eyes. Kumar could guess what he was thinking. “Let me remind you,” she said as confidently as she could. “I am still your commanding officer. If you won’t follow orders I will have you replaced.”
“There are almost two thousand dead,” Malhorta said. “And another three thousand wounded or still missing.”
“I am sorry Admiral, but we are at war.” Kumar replied without thinking. The numbers had shocked her.
“Sorry!” Malhorta shouted, “Sorry? I should hope so Admiral. They are all lives that will fall on your shoulders. I haven’t even landed yet and I have lost almost an eighth of my force!”
“Can you still complete your mission?” Kumar asked, trying to regain control of the conversation.
“Of course I can,” Malhorta replied shortly. “I’m not going to let these backward Havenites get the best of me.”
Ignoring the jibe, Kumar replied, “well then prepare to land. But remember, you must hold your fire against civilians. If and only if they open fire on you can you return fire. Don’t forget, we are trying to win hearts and minds here.”
“And what about any Havenite military formations?” Malhorta asked.
“You have permission to use maximum force against any military forces, I want our causalities kept to a minimum,” Kumar replied.
“I would have thought that should have been a priority from the beginning of the battle,” Malhorta retorted. He cut the COM channel before Kumar could reprimand him.
Chapter 10 – The Fall of Haven
It was rare for a war before the rise of the Empire to involve ground troops. The British-Indian war was one of the few exceptions.
-Excerpt from Empire Rising, 3002 AD
24th March, 2467 AD, Haven.
Twenty minutes after his heated conversation with Admiral Kumar, General Malhorta sat in one of his shuttles as it dove through Haven’s atmosphere towards the landing zone he had identified near the outskirts of Liberty, Haven’s capital. Already his ships in orbit had bombarded a number of military installations. From what intel he could gather, the majority of the colony’s military units had entered the main cities and taken up defensive positions. They obviously planned to make him fight building to building for control of the planet.
He wasn’t so naive as to think he could hold an entire planet with just thirty-five thousand men. Fighting building to building would be suicide. All he had to do was control the major industrial and political locations. He would leave the rest of the capital and the planet to the Havenites. At least until he had more intel on where the main army formations were hiding.
“We’re picking up ground radar,” the shuttle copilot called out. “Launching anti-radar missiles now.”
“Signal the shuttles to spread out, no sense giving them easy targets,” Malhorta called.
They had taken out as many anti-air installations as they could identify from orbit but he knew there would always be more too well hidden to destroy.
“SAMs are incoming,” the copilot informed everyone on the shuttle. “Brace for maneuvers.”
Ignoring his own safety, Malhorta watched the unfolding battle on the HUD of his combat armor. He had twenty shuttles in the first landing wave and as he watched, over fifty missiles lifted off from different parts of Haven’s capital towards them.
Before they even reached the shuttles, just as many missiles left the shuttles and tracked in on the launch sites.
Plasma point defenses took out most of the incoming missiles and the powerful ECM of his shuttles defeated all but one of the rest. The final one took out one of his shuttles, killing the eighty soldiers on board. When none of the launch sites returned fire Malhorta was satisfied they had been destroyed.
Before he could relax over thirty new blips appeared at the extreme edge of the HUD’s field of vision. His HUD was getting updated information from the ships in orbit and as soon as the blips appeared text scrolled alongside them, informing him that they were some kind of atmospheric fighter. Clicking his COM unit to change the channel he gave an order, “Echo flight, you are free to engage.”
“Acknowledged,” a voice replied.
Within seconds ten new blips appeared behind the incoming fighters. Hal Tejas were the latest Indian multirole fighter. Capable of both atmospheric and space flight the Hal Tejas were designed to be able to engage shuttles trying to invade an Indian colony. They were outfitted with the latest stealth technology to allow them to wait on the edge of a planet’s atmosphere and engage shuttles as they broke through the atmosphere. Malhorta had requested two squadrons of them be included in the invasion force knowing that they would come in handy in situations just like this.
The squadron of Hal Tejas swooped down behind the incoming Havenite fighters and released a spread of missiles almost before the Havenite fighters knew they were in danger. In the blink of an eye more than twenty of the Havenite fighters disappeared. The rest scattered. Four managed to launch missiles at the shuttles and Malhorta cursed when one got through, destroying another eighty of his men.
Deciding his landing forces had taken enough losses, Malhorta ordered the squadron of Hal Tejas to do a pass over the LZ. Sure enough, more than thirty ground search radars came online. Almost as soon as they came online, missiles from the Hal Tejas took them out but five ground sites managed to fire. They took out two of his fighters before the Hal Tejas accelerated back up to the edge of the atmosphere, ready to pounce on any more Havenite fighters that might show up.
Now it is our turn, Malhorta thought as the remaining eighteen shuttles approached the LZ.
A couple of anti-air installations tried to fire on them but were quickly silenced by the shuttle’s fire. Then, before Malhorta realized it, the familiar bump of the shuttle touching down forced him to take his focus off his HUD. “Everyone out,” one of the Lieutenants leading the soldiers in the shuttle shouted. Malhorta waited until the men were out and followed them.
“All shuttles are to take off,” Malhorta ordered over the COM, “Echo flight, prepare to give us ground support if we need it.”
The LZ Malhorta had chosen was in a large opening about three kilometers from the edge of Liberty city. It was surrounded on three sides by thick forest but there was an open route straight into the city. Peering around at his surroundings, Malhorta confirmed what he had already seen from space. Opening a COM channel to the Colonel in charge of the first wave of soldiers he gave out orders, “Colonel, once you set up our perimeter I want you to push a few squads into the forest on our flanks. If the Havenites try to push any forces our way, I want to have advanced warning. Then focus on our forward defenses. If I have guessed correctly, they may and try to rush us. The best way to stop an invasion is to cut off the LZ.”
“Yes sir,” the Colonel replied.
Malhorta left him to it, he was one of Malhorta’s best officers and was well capable of handling his troops. Now we wait, Malhorta thought.
Malhorta wasn’t disappointed. Fifteen minutes after they landed and twenty before his second wave of troops was due to arrive, he received a report of units moving in the forest around them. A number of ships in orbit were picking up heat signatures through the thick canopy of the alien trees. Then his scouts reported contact.
“Walkers,” Colonel Sai called over the COM. “They have some form of large battle suits, more like mobile armor. They are able to get through the forests where tanks couldn’t. Our scouts say they will be on us in a couple of minutes.”
“Engage at will,” Malhorta ordered. Switching his COM channel, he contacted one the destroyers in orbit and gave out fire orders. He couldn’t risk calling in an orbital strike so close to his troops but he could thin out any reinforcements that were hiding in the forests. Not yet though, he said to himself.
For the next two minutes an eerie silence descended on the men around him. They all knew what was coming but there was nothing they could do yet. Then, just as they had been warned to expect, one, two and suddenly tens of soldiers in bulky armor appeared on the edge of the forest. As soon as they came into view of the hastily prepared Indian defenses, they opened fire.
Malhorta already knew the Havenites didn’t have any plasma weapons but, as a round of whatever weapon they were using struck a soldier not twenty feet away from him, he knew the battle wouldn’t be one way. Peering over the mound he was hiding behind, his suspicions were confirmed. Almost half of the enemy soldiers were hefting heavy gauss cannons. The momentum alone from rounds fired from such weapons would be enough to rip one of his men’s combat armor in two. He had already seen the evidence.
“Open fire,” Colonel Sai ordered his troops.
Hundreds of plasma bolts burnt through the Havenite troops. Some jumped back into cover but more than fifty were mowed down within the first few seconds. Even without targets, the Indian troops continued to pour fire into the forest, knowing that their plasma bolts would burn through leaves and branches to hit their targets.
The hail of plasma bolts kept the Havenite soldiers pinned down. Then, in ones and twos, they peeked out of their cover to return fire. A standoff developed as both sides held firm, trading pot shots at each other. Then walkers came into view.
All of a sudden the fire from the Havenites intensified. Gauss cannon fire doubled and the walkers themselves began to fire even before they cleared the tree line. The walkers held a different weapon in each hand. From one, exploding shells erupted out of what looked like a large rifle and began to cause havoc among the Indian defenses. From the other weapon, more gauss cannon rounds also peppered Malhorta’s men.
Malhorta had to admit they were impressive, standing almost three times taller than he did in his combat armor and almost four times as wide, they looked like some kind of superhuman robotic construction. In addition to the walker’s two handheld weapons, a large mean looking gun was mounted on the shoulders of each of the walkers. Malhorta didn’t want to find out what it fired.
As soon as they cleared the trees, multiple missiles launched from the backs of each walker. “Take cover,” Malhorta shouted to his men, already cursing himself for wasting so much time admiring his opponents.
Malhorta knew the AM missile units they had set up were launching counter missiles into the air. They were to take out the new ordnance. Yet he wasn’t sure they would get them all. Several large explosions erupted around him suggesting they had failed.
Ignoring the damage his forces were taking, Malhorta peeked his head out from the cover he was taking. They are still coming, he cursed. Surly we should have hit one by now.
Ducking back behind his cover, Malhorta replayed the initial images of the walkers appearing on his HUD. The edge of the forest was about half a click from the front-line Colonel Sai had set up. At that range their plasma rifles should have been able to do some damage to the walkers but he saw bolt after bolt hit the walkers and appear to do no damage.
“They are armored in Valstronium,” Malhorta called over the COM to Colonel Sai.
“Acknowledged,” Colonel Sai responded. He switched the COM channel and issued new orders to his troops.
Malhorta switched back to watching the walkers. They had stopped firing missiles and were raining down an incredible amount of fire on the Indian positions as they advanced. Their large gauss cannons were blowing holes in the earth works hi
s men had hastily thrown up while their rifles were firing hundreds of rounds that were exploding among his men.
More than two hundred of Malhorta’s men were already down. Then the tide turned. Following Colonel Sai’s orders some of his soldiers had ditched their plasma cannons and switched to shoulder mounted rockets. A number of them were hit as soon as they stood up to take aim on the walkers but enough got their shots off to take out seven walkers.
As the enemy fire withered from their losses, every soldier opened fire on the walkers and another wave of missiles reached out, taking out another four. Looking over to the other flank, Malhorta could see that the battle was going their way; there were a number of burning wrecks where walkers had been.
An explosion threw him to the ground. Warnings went off on his HUD, alerting him that his armor was dangerously close to overheating. Confused, Malhorta switched his HUD display to see through the eyes of one of his soldiers as he engaged the walkers. Instinctively, he threw his arms up to protect himself as a bright light reached out from the large cannon mounted on a walker’s shoulder and vaporized the soldier whose feed he was watching. Lasers, Malhorta swore.
