The Battle for the Ringed Planet

by Richard Edmond Johnson

  “Is it going to crash here?”

  “I think it blew right up, and debris will burn up in the atmosphere.”

  “Another one!” she exclaimed as a second star in the group of five flashed, and then disappeared as the remaining three began to speed away.

  “I hope that victory was ours.” Torian mused as he watched the sky intently, “I remember once we watched a battle and a dying cruiser ignited the whole night sky. Some dense marines cheered without realizing it was ours.”

  “How many cruisers are up there?”

  “Could be a couple of dozen. It is hard to tell because the fleets are probably playing cat and mouse between the moons and planets. Each fleet probably doesn’t know the size of the other, and are afraid to commit all their assets.” He paused briefly, and then continued, “But one thing is odd.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Normally you don’t land troops unless you secure orbit, both sides must really want Kaarina.”

  “Is it because of Jarlan’s experiments or someone like me who hears the voices?”

  “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

  The two lone figures made their way slowly through thick brush and followed narrow animal trails as they moved around and away from the Callisto crash site. Staying under the protection of the forest canopy, they followed the Norstrom River that ran north and south blanketed on either side by a belt of thick woods.

  The bright sun hung high in the sky between two moons, one huge and green, and the other orange almost the same size. The fighting had died down and they had not seen any Starhawks, Solvairs or bright stars in the day sky for some time, nor had they heard any more explosions.

  Torian slapped an insect away from his neck, “Damn ecologists! You would think they would have left out the bugs when building a new world!” A fallen log made a good bench for a resting place to eat lunch.

  As Siiri and Torian sat down, then began to share the thermos of soup and munch on lamb sandwiches, she peered over at the soldier sitting casually on the log, “How are they?”

  “I say your mom is a better cook than mine. And if we ever get to my home, you never heard me say that!” Siiri grinned as she finished her last bite and swallowed some water from the silver water bottle.

  “Do you like music?” he asked offhandedly.

  “A little. There are many songs in the holo computers, but we can only listen to them at school because most of the players are broken. Brant had a portable player his dad had found.” She made a slight grimace, “One of the better memories I have of us together.”

  “Here…” he showed her his Con, “Watch.” He flicked a few virtual controls and a holo appeared.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s one of the Gold Sea City’s top 40, but my recruit intake sort of adopted it as our song, ‘Blood and Titanium’.” The holo showed marching marines and flashbacks to smiling faces, men and women, on firing ranges and on obstacles courses, and then a few battle scenes. A female voice sang the lyrics to an intoxicating melody.

  --

  “We are plasma, blood and guts, made of titanium!

  Heroes of war, worlds away, we will be victorious …

  Fighting cartels, slavers, and the dreaded Imperium!

  Marines in line, may all the battles be glorious!

  Cold dark, lonely worlds, yet by His Grace …

  We will forever reign in the deep of space.”

  --

  Siiri nodded her head to the beat “That music kind of gets me excited. I like the rhythm. Do you have others?”

  Grinning Torian nodded, “Lots. You need to get caught up. Here, pick what you want.” He showed her the menu giving her the Con.

  While she listened, Torian reached into his backpack and pulled out a small T-shaped object with a silver blade, “Feel that face!” he groaned, rubbing his day’s growth of stubble.

  “I like it,” she felt his cheek.

  “Sky Demons have to be clean shaven,” he began to run the small T-shaped object down his face and it made a slight vibrating noise. After a couple moments, the noise stopped and he felt his skin, “There, much better.”

  “You missed a spot… here, let me …” she reached for the shaver and gently stroked under his ear, “Got it.” Then she brushed her hand along his cheek again.

  Torian picked up the Con, brought up a holo of his face, and nodded, “Much better.” Then he ran his fingers through his far from regulation length hair and added, “But I’m not cutting my hair this close to the end of my tour.” He gathered his pack, “Let’s get going.”

  After another hour slugging through the foliage, they finally reached the outskirts of the city and noted pillars of smoke rising from multiple locations. Torian crouched and studied his Con while Siiri knelt close.

  “What’s happening in the city?” she glanced around apprehensively.

  “Looks like crash sites and a little artillery action.” Then he pointed to a series of white contrails in the sky across the city, “Spacemasters, deploying marines to the south, ours.”

  “So that’s good?”

  “Aye, by now probably ground troops on both sides of the city. They’ll be firing ordinance at each other.”

  “Then we have to get underground.” Siiri stated flatly, peering at Torian busily examining something on his Con.

  “We have another problem.” He pointed towards the river east, “in that direction.” He showed her his Con.

  “I don’t see it.”

  “There,” he indicated on the holo screen.

  “What is it?”

  “Downed pilot and dying unless we get to her.”

  Chapter 9: Fire Fight

  Cautiously with pistol drawn, Torian moved silently towards the injured pilot while Siiri shadowed. They both spied a dangling form hanging from the middle branch of a giant oak tree. About one hundred meters away was the burning wreck of an unrecognizable star fighter. The pilot hung upside down caught up in her parachute harness.

  “Won’t they send a rescuer from your fleet?”

  Torian holstered his pistol and stared up at the motionless figure in a dark grey combat environmental suit, “No, not for her.” He lowered his pack and walked up to the large tree trunk “I’m going to climb up and lower her down. Stand underneath to help guide her to the ground. She has a fractured pelvis and won’t live long hanging in that position.”

  Securing his Con, he unsnapped his utility belt, but not before drawing his survival knife and sticking it into the tree. Then he pulled himself up from a low branch, retrieved the knife, and climbed up higher where the pilot was suspended.

  “You climb pretty well.”

  “We had trees like this at home, and my brother and I built a tree house in one of them.” He shimmied along the thick branch until he sat next to the tangled mass of harness straps.

  The pilot’s legs had bent in an unnatural position away from her body, “If we can keep her alive and someone comes for her, she’ll be weeks in medical.” He began cutting.

  Siiri had put her pack down, undid her utility belt and stood waiting underneath the tree, “She has a patch sort of like yours with a picture of a starship.”

  “The ‘Alesia’, an old Centurion class heavy cruiser, I saw it once up close.” He became solemn as he cut through parachute harness and the pilot began to slip downward until Siiri held her helmet and shoulders. He climbed back down, jumping the rest of the way, and then sliced the last of the harness. They both gently laid the wounded woman on the ground. She stirred a little, moaning under the heavy armored helmet.

  Tenderly easing the dark grey helmet, with a cracked visor, off the injured pilot, Torian was startled when long strands of braided sandy colored hair fell around a young pretty face. The corner of her mouth leaked a little blood as the wiry young man pulled out his Con.

  “She’s so young…” Siiri whispered.

  “She looks like my sister…” Torian examined the reading, �
�Only 17 earth years, they’re starting them earlier.”

  “And so beautiful …” the blonde girl touched the pilot’s face.

  The lanky soldier undid the pilot’s utility belt and took away her grey colored weapon, “Her pistol is different, longer.” Siiri commented.

  “Help me get her belt off,” and when they pulled it out from under her Torian opened the red and white medical kit from his backpack, pulled out a white hypo syringe with a push button on one end, and put it against her neck, “Painkiller, or if she wakes she’ll probably die of shock.”

  Then Siiri stared at the chocolate haired young man and gasped, “She’s the enemy!”

  “Aye.” Torian snapped his utility belt back on and pulled out his Con checking the perimeter.

  “But she looks so innocent! She could be a girl from Grondalle!”

  “On the outside, but she’s had engineering,” tugging her dog tags free he read the silver plates, “Anna Severus, from the Imperium.”

  “What exactly is the Imperium?”

  “It’s a collection of colony worlds that loosely follow some of the old earth empires. They revere their Emperor as a god, and use genetically engineered shock troops or mutants, as some would call them. Slavery, arena fighting, illegal annexation of free worlds is some of what they practice. The Imperium also has the largest shipyards in the outer worlds, and some of the toughest soldiers.”

  “I thought you killed the enemy on sight, like you told me in the Hawkeye?”

  The tall young man shrugged, “That was just for show.”

  “Really …” the blonde haired girl sighed fastening her utility belt, and then frostily, “I’ll bet you enjoyed it.”

  “No, Siiri, I don’t enjoy being here.” He checked his Con, “She hasn’t activated her PDB, or it got damaged.”

  “Her what?”

  “Her personal distress beacon, so no one knows she’s here yet, though they may scan the area near the wreck and discover her soon enough.”

  “Will we be discovered?”

  “Maybe, but let’s hope not, I can’t let her die.” He glanced at Siiri, “We have to splint her legs and stabilize her pelvis. These environmental suits come with emergency first aid features so that can be done by inflating the legs…” As he spoke, the pilot began to stir and moan. Torian searched around her combat suit and found the controls near her left hip. He manipulated them and the legs of the suit made a hissing sound as they began to inflate. Suddenly the young pilot cried out.

  “You’re hurting her!” Siiri cried.

  “The suit is moving the fractured bones back into place, I think. Once that’s done, her odds for survival are much better. Luckily there’s no internal bleeding.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Well, we had some first aid training, but my uncle suffered this type of injury when he crashed his pick up. My father and I were there with him and watched as the paramedics did sort of what I’m doing now. It saved his life.”

  “Torian …” Siiri motioned him to look to see that the pilot had opened her eyes.

  Beautiful brown eyes, round with fright, stared up at the tall enemy soldier and his female companion, “It’s all right Anna, you’re stabilized and I gave you a painkiller.”

  After a horrendous cough and a nervous glance at his flight suit, the teenager’s weak, accented voice croaked, “Who are you?”

  Stealing a quick peek at his Con he gently replied, “Yeah, that’s the tricky part ….”

  “Torian!” screamed Siiri with a shrill frightened cry. Reflexively, he turned towards her and immediately stood up startled by the glowing gold of her eyes. In a desperate voice she commanded, “We have to run! Now!”

  The young man had learned that whatever the voices were, they had been right before. Grabbing his pack and glancing warily skyward to check for Solvairs, he sprinted after the surprisingly fast girl. Her long blonde hair whipped behind as she ran through the bushes cutting around trees with punishing speed and no concern for scratches or bruising. He jumped over a fallen log, admiring Siiri’s dexterity. When a familiar whining noise sounded, however, his heart sank.

  Without looking back to confirm his fears, he pounded his legs barely able to catch up with the breathless girl, expecting a plasma canon to burn them into oblivion.

  “The city!” she panted, shouting back leading the tall young man towards the outskirts. His Con rang in his earpiece.

  “What are they?” She peeked back as he whipped out his Con.

  “Armored Carriers; two of them! I’m sorry, I didn’t think. They are deploying troops! Keep running for your life!” Each box shaped military Infantry Fighting Vehicle hovered a meter over the terrain and carried eight fully loaded troops. In addition to the soldiers, they mounted a plasma canon and various other smaller weapons. Heavily shielded and invisible to his Con until up close, his holo pinpointed the military vehicles next to the downed pilot. They had halted, but a squad of troops had disembarked and spotted the fleeing pair.

  “Weave between the trees; it will throw off their targeting!” he shouted and just as he ducked, an invisible bolt sliced into the trunk beside him producing a burst of flames. Siiri screamed as another bolt cut a tree in half right next to her.

  “Keep running!” he yelled, fumbling with his Con while on the run; Torian targeted the lead Imperium marine drawing his pistol.

  “Torian!”

  “Run Siiri!” he switched the pistol to overshot so he could fire four bolts from the magazine at once. Fortunately, the girl was a superb runner and could outdistance the marines who, despite their enhancements, fell slightly behind weighed down by their armor. As long as she kept zigzagging around the trees and heavy brush, she would make it to the city. Torian ducked around a small pine, then spotted a thick oak.

  “Go girl, run!” he shouted as she approached the open concrete of the city and left the protective canopy of the forest. She would be an easy target and he had only one risky move that might save her. With only rudimentary training as a marine, he had excelled on the firing ranges, a crack shot. He knew the Imperium troops were good, but also consisted of many conscripts, including slaves. Shifting behind the meter wide oak tree, completely blocked from view, he studied his Con as sweat beaded on his brow. An overshot should penetrate a marine’s armor and shield, and depending on whether the marines were green recruits or veterans, he would live or die.

  Sucking in a deep breath, nervously he placed the Con in his belt, and whipped around the oak tree with pistol ready. The enemy soldiers were about twenty-five meters away, their tiny-checkered green, brown, and black camouflage blending seamlessly with the surrounding foliage. He spotted the outline of the lead marine by his movement, the target already acquired and loaded into his Glock-Ruger 27, and fired!

  The overshot hit the soldier square in the chest where Torian had targeted. Instantly the marine fell to his knees and his assault rifle flew out of his hands. A red glow appeared in the chest armor as the plasma bolt incinerated his heart. The shot not only hit the first marine, it passed through him seriously wounding the marine running behind him. Just as he had hoped, the other marines immediately went to ground thrown off by the sudden death of their comrade. Torian was relieved that they were inexperienced and slow to react. Seasoned Imperium marines would have defied logic and kept on running and firing, but these guys hit the ground to ascertain the threat; predicatable classic textbook.

  The old oak was a perfect shield as he bolted towards the city pavement and concrete buildings while the Imperium soldiers worked to re-acquire their target. His boots echoed on the pavement and Torian grimaced at the dead giveaway and wished he had quiet boots like the leather ones Siiri wore. As the wiry young man darted towards a small residential apartment building, the marines started after him. He spotted the girl beckoning him over from behind a tree in the small front yard of a faded brown-bricked building.

  Then he heard a marine shout in plain English, “Frag ou
t!”

  “Crap!” he propelled towards to Siiri and roughly shoved her against the trunk in the opposite direction to the soldiers. With a loud “whomp,” a grenade landed a few meters from the tree and both their prox shields activated to block burning fragments. Then he almost ripped her arm off as he dragged her around the corner of another building to avoid the plasma bolt that vaporized an entire brick corner.

  The athletic soldier pressed the frightened girl protectively against the wall while he readied his pistol for another overshot. He had no time to use his Con to target, though in an urban setting all the cover rendered targeting practically useless. He would have to aim and just hope he hit an Imperium marine. Behind he heard Siiri sobbing and felt her shaking; there was no time to console her.

  Whipping around the corner, he fired quickly and ducked when he spied the muzzle of an assault rifle poking out from the edge of the building across the street. At least it made them dodge for cover. Then his heart skipped a beat when he realized that they might be flanking adjacent to his position. The enemy could link their Cons to orbiting spacecraft for a superior view of the tactical situation putting Torian at a disadvantage.

  “Come on!” He hauled Siiri across the road to get ahead of the other marines and ambush them, as futile as it might be against half a squad. Running with the girl in tow, he prepped his pistol for another lethal overshot. When they both charged around the building, they came face to face with four Imperium marines aiming their weapons. Torian and Siiri stopped dead in his tracks.

  Fortunately, the soldiers had been ready, holding off firing, preferring instead to identify their foe. Torian immediately raised his hands and Siiri just stood still, shaking in disbelief.

  The marine closest raised his visor, revealing a set of unnatural dull red eyes and something round and metallic embedded in his temple, “Far enough, drop your pistol!”

  “Kill him Gregory!” The marine next to him hissed, “He killed Scott!”

  “Shut up Victus!” Gregory, a sergeant with three black chevrons on his helmet, growled, aiming his rifle at Siiri with a crooked grin, “Who is the blonde?”