The Cost of Victory (Crimson Worlds)

by Jay Allan

  Holm's biggest disappointment was the inability to get any of the wounded evacuated to the hospital ships. There was no way he could justify the risk of sending pilots or injured soldiers back up through that maelstrom, even if any of the shuttles had been fit to fly. One of the ships did bring some volunteer medical staff down to the surface to reinforce I Corps exhausted personnel. Sarah would be glad to see them; she needed every bit of help she could get, and it looked like things were just going to get worse. She'd set up a makeshift hospital in one of the mines, but low on supplies, overwhelmed with shattered men and women, and unable to evacuated any wounded, it was fast becoming a house of horrors.

  He was worried about her too. Sarah Linden was one of the most beautiful women he'd ever seen, but when he last saw her on the com she looked like death. He doubted she'd slept in a week, and the stimulants were taking their toll. She'd looked at him with eyes sunken deep in her exhausted, blood-streaked face, her long hair tangled and sloppily tied back. He was sure he looked just as bad, but it was his command prerogative to worry about his people, not the other way around. He would have ordered her to get some sleep if he thought there was a chance she'd obey. Maybe it was better for her to stay busy; it would give her less time to worry about Erik who, as usual, had managed to find his way into the hottest spot on the field.

  The battle was raging, and both sides had gone nuclear, making the surface of the planet a very dangerous place. I Corps HQ was also located in one of the underground mines, which had been hurriedly braced and fortified. Holm ordered the supplies stored deep in several other abandoned mines, as far as possible from the reach of enemy bombardments. It was the only option he could think of that gave him a chance of keeping it secure, though it also complicated distribution and made the supply net to his front line units even more tenuous.

  They didn't quite make Holm's boast of eight hours to complete the resupply operation, but they did finish in less than ten. The supply situation still wasn't ideal, but it was a lot less dire than it had been, and that gave them a better chance to win the fight. And the transport fleet had an extra two hours to build velocity and get away before the enemy battle fleet was in range.

  Holm hated sitting underground in the headquarters watching monitors while his troops were fighting for their lives. He wanted to get up to the surface and into the front lines along with his people. But that's not what they needed from him. Doing that would make him feel better, but it would also make it more likely they'd lose this fight...which meant they would all die. He hoped a certain colonel remembered that.

  The men and women of 1st Brigade had been cut off. They held a strong position behind enemy lines, which they had seized in a daring attack, and their presence was severely disrupting the enemy advance, albeit at a terrible cost. The brigade needed their brilliant colonel alive and in command, not gloriously dead in some mud-filled trench. They were in serious danger of being totally overrun, and if anyone could pull them through the next few days, Holm knew it was Erik Cain.

  Chapter 18

  Foothills of the Tarsus Mountains

  North of the Lysandra Plateau

  Epsilon Eridani IV

  “There is definitely an identifiable energy signature.” Captain James Teller had named his AI Zack. Special action team commanders had enhanced AIs, and Teller’s had been coordinating input from the extensive scanning grid his troops had deployed. “The source is heavily shielded, but I have confirmed it from three different detectors.”

  Teller sighed. He was still skeptical. They were deep in the mountainous wasteland north and east of the formerly inhabited areas of the planet. To the southwest, the rest of 1st Brigade was fighting for its life, as the enemy poured more units into trying to drive them from their commanding position. Teller was pissed to be off chasing shadows while his brothers and sisters were struggling and dying against overwhelming numbers. But orders were orders. Colonel Cain had sent them here to look for something, and wherever Cain commanded, James Teller would go.

  Zack was silent, awaiting input from Teller. When none was forthcoming, the AI continued its report. “The signature is very faint, which suggests state of the art shielding and stealth technology.” Teller still said nothing. “I infer from your lack of communication that you remain unconvinced that there is some type of hidden facility in this area.” The AI’s voice didn’t change, at least not significantly, but it sounded almost petulant to Teller. “I assure you that my determination is reliable, whatever your initial expectations may have been.”

  “Don’t take it personally, Zack.” Teller was both amused and annoyed at his sometimes overzealous virtual assistant. “I just don’t see what the hell would be up here.” He’d never doubt Cain, but he just couldn’t figure out what his brilliant and eccentric commander was up to this time. It wasn’t like Erik Cain to let his men and women die on the battle lines while he sent badly needed strength off on wild goose chases. “Alright, Zack, put together a search grid based on your energy readings. If there’s something out here, we need to find it.”

  “Now projecting schematic of suggested search zones.” A map of the area shimmered slightly in front of Teller’s eyes. Three blue ovals marked locations the AI had denoted as high probability search targets.

  “Ok, Zack, number those three search zones and transmit to all team members.” Teller’s voice was matter-of-fact. He was still skeptical, but he was here to search, so he was going to make sure it got done right.

  “Transmitted.”

  “Sawyer and Harmon, check out zone number one.” Teller was cautious; if there was something out here he had no idea if it was defended or what they might run into, so he was keeping most of the team together and sending out two man crews to scout. “Kissock, Mallow, check out zone two. Smith, Harrison, search zone three. All of you, report anything to me. Anything at all, even a feeling.”

  He waited as the three search parties acknowledged. “I want the rest of the team on me, ready to respond to any threat. We don’t know what we’re looking for, but there is an energy source out here somewhere, and it may or may not be hostile.” Yeah, right, he thought. What the hell have we run into lately that wasn’t hostile. “I want the search teams to use extreme caution. Colonel Cain sent us up here, so he thinks there is something important hidden someplace. I don’t intent to let the colonel down. Do any of you?”

  He got a chorus of “no sirs.” Ok, he thought, now we’ll see if there is something up here. He kept his com open to the search teams and monitored their position on the schematic Zack was projecting inside his visor. The ground was very rough, mountainous with a series of jagged ridges flanking small canyons. Moving around safely was slow business, and it was an hour before Teller got anything other than a normal status check.

  “Captain Teller.” The voice on the comlink was calm, businesslike. These troops were hardcore veterans. They’d report calmly and completely if they’d rounded the corner and ended up face to face with a CAC armored division. “Sergeant Sawyer, sir. We may have found something.”

  “Report, Sawyer.” Sawyer had served in Achilles and half a dozen other hotspots. If he thought he saw something out of the ordinary, Teller was going to listen.

  “Sir, we crossed over a high ridge and worked our way down into the canyon. It’s wider than the other ravines, more open. We’re looking at the rock wall across the valley. There’s a lot of loose rubble all along the slope.” He paused, as if he were still observing and analyzing as he spoke. “I’m on mag 10, and I’d swear that a lot of that loose stone is newly blasted. There’s a lot of jagged, broken rock all along that hillside.” Another pause. “Sir, I’d swear some sort of ordnance detonated on that ridge. That looks like a manmade landslide to me.”

  Teller had been unconvinced about this whole expedition, but Sawyer had his interest now. “Sergeant, hold your position. Do not approach until I bring up support. Understood?”

  “Acknowledged, sir. Holding our position until fur
ther instructions.”

  Maybe it’s nothing, Teller thought. Could be just an off-target missile that impacted there. But he wasn’t going to take any chances. “Squads one, two, and three…on my mark. Deploy along the ridgeline in support of search team one.”

  He paused while the three squad leaders acknowledged. Before moving out himself, he switched his comlink to connect to the search parties. “Search teams two and three, scout around the flanks of the position identified by team one. I want to know if there is anything on the far side. I don’t care if you see a pebble that looks out of place – you tell me about it.”

  “Understood, sir.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  Teller scaled the rocky slope in front of him. It is relatively easy to climb in armor – strength, at least, isn’t an issue – but it is tricky to maintain footing on loose stone and gravel. He took it slowly, making sure he had a strong foothold before continuing up.

  He was about two kilometers from Sawyer, and it took him almost thirty minutes to reach the sergeant’s position. He peered over the rocky spine atop the ridge and looked across at the debris strewn hillside. He’s right, Teller thought, that rock was definitely blasted by something. That’s not a natural formation.

  He could see on his tactical display that the squads were almost in position. “Squad one, deploy to my right. Squad two, deploy to my left. Observe and cover the hillside.” He stared out over the piles of broken stone. “Squad three, advance to the slope and search those rock piles. One and two are covering you – if there is any trouble, hit the deck. Don’t forget, you’ve got backup in place.”

  “Yes, sir. Third squad advancing now.” Sergeant Drake was a real veteran. He’d been admitted to the Academy a year before, but he didn’t want to leave his men until after the campaign. He was the best squad commander Teller had, which was why it was third squad out there on point.

  Teller stood behind a large rock, peering around as Drake’s troops made their way down the slope and across the broken ground of the ravine bottom. Drake moved forward alone, climbing partway up the loose rock of the opposite slope, leaning over and examining the chunks of blasted stone.

  “Third squad, advance and start clearing away some of this stone.” He stood straight up. “Captain Teller, this rock was definitely blasted, and I see no signs of a missile or other ordnance. It looks like some kind of charges were detonated.”

  There really is something manmade up here, Teller thought. “Sergeant Drake, have third squad clear way some of that debris.” He took a deep breath. “First and second squads on alert. I want every centimeter of that hillside under observation.”

  The troopers of third squad began clearing away stone and debris. An armored Marine could move tons of rock in just a few minutes, but they were having difficulty on the hillside. Whenever they cleared an area, more rubble slid down the slope from higher up. They’d been at it for about 30 minutes when they found something.

  “Sergeant, I think I’ve got something here.” Private Jerrold was highest up on the slope, and he’d managed to clear a small section of loose rock to reveal what appeared to be smooth metal.

  Sawyer climbed up to take a closer look, and he and Jerrold moved some more rocks, increasing the cleared area to roughly a square meter. Underneath was a sheet of plasti-steel, only lightly weathered. “This is new,” Sawyer said to himself. Then, on the comlink to Teller: “Captain, we’ve got some type of steel construction hidden under these rocks.” Short pause. “It appears to be fairly new.”

  “Let’s clear some more of it and get a good look.” Teller climbed up over the ridge in front of him. “I’m coming down for a look.” He slid down the slope to the base of the valley. “First and second squads, look lively. We have no idea what this is. For all we know it is some type of CAC installation.” Teller charged his rifle as he walked over.

  By the time he got there, Sawyer’s and Drake’s troops had cleared away a large amount of stone to uncover what appeared to be a large hatch or door, about 4 meters by 3. It was totally smooth except for 3 columns of reinforcing bolts evenly spaced across its width. The hatch was built into the slope at a 30 degree angle.

  “This thing looks solid.” Teller was speaking to himself as much as anyone else. “Larson, Captain Teller here. Report your location.” Larson was an engineer attached to Teller’s team. He’d been posted back with the other specialists, but now they needed him.”

  “I’m four klicks from your location, Captain.” Larson had a very low voice, which was sometimes difficult to hear clearly on a comlink.

  “Report to me at once. I have something I want you to look at.” Teller kneeled down and tapped the hatch with his gloved hand. The thing is definitely solid, he thought. But what the hell is it?

  By the time Larson arrived, Sawyer’s troops had completely cleared the area, exposing a 4x3 meter reinforced plasti-steel hatch build right into the surrounding rocky slope. The edges of the door disappeared into the solid rock on all sides.

  Larson came trotting up, two assistants in tow. “Lieutenant Larson reporting, sir.” He gave the clumsy salute a suited Marine could handle and stood at attention, though his head turned to look at the strange steel hatch build into the mountainside.

  “We need to know what’s on the other side of this thing. Colonel Cain needs solid information, and we can’t just knock on the door now, can we?” Teller had reported directly to Cain as he’d been ordered. The colonel had been right in the middle of what sounded like a hellish battle. He told Teller to find out what this thing was, and not to worry about being gentle about it. “I want you to blow the thing, Larson.”

  Larson’s head moved slowly as he scanned the door. “We might be able to get through pretty quickly with the plasma torch.” He was staring intently at the hatch as he spoke. “It would be less damaging to whatever’s on the other side – it would take a significant charge to blast this thing.”

  Teller thought for a minute. “I’m not too worried about what’s on the other side. The garrison had been completely withdrawn, so whatever is in there, it can’t be ours.” He paused, inhaling deeply, then exhaling. “What will be faster?”

  “I think we can get a decent sized hole cut through there as quickly as we can blow through.” He looked up from the door to Teller. “And if there’s something hostile in there, we haven’t ripped the whole hillside open and we just have a small egress point to defend.”

  “Do it.” Teller was decisive by nature, and he preferred the controlled approach. They could always blow the thing wide open later.

  The nuclear-powered plasma torch is an extremely effective cutting tool. One of Larson’s assistants had it attached to his armor in lieu of weaponry, though it required two people to actually operate it properly. Larson’s first guess was about ten minutes to get through, but the door was thicker and more heavily reinforced than he’d expected, and they’d had to crank the torch up to full power for more than twenty minutes.

  Teller left first squad deployed along the opposite hillside, in cover and ready to provide supporting fire if necessary, but he brought the second down into the ravine. While Larson’s crew finished cutting their hole in the hatch, Sawyer and two of his troopers stood ready to head in.

  The engineers pushed hard, shoving the cut away section of the door inside where it landed with a loud thud. Sawyer peered through the opening then, with a quick command to his companions, he swung around and through, closely followed by the two troopers.

  Teller waited for Sawyer’s report, standing just back from the now-breached hatch. There was a short period of total silence, maybe ten seconds, then Sawyer was on the comlink. The sergeant was a hardcore veteran, and Teller had seen him unflappable in desperate circumstances. But now his voice was high-pitched and excited.

  “Captain, you have to see this, sir!”

  Teller walked forward, stooping slightly to pass through the opening. He saw Sawyer and his troops standing in the open staring o
ut over a vast underground chamber. He turned and looked out past Sawyer. “Oh my god…”

  Then the shooting started.

  Chapter 19

  Field Hospital One

  Epsilon Eridani IV

  Sarah Linden stood under glaring bright lights, leaning over a blood soaked table that held a shattered human body. Her scrubs had once been light blue, but now they were mostly crimson. The makeshift medical ward was a nightmare, her beleaguered staff like Aztec priests in the middle of horrific blood rituals.

  They'd had to set up the hospital in an old mining complex - there was no secure place for it on the surface. The battle raged everywhere, and both sides had gone nuclear. Moving underground had meant abandoning the prefab hospital units - they were much too large to get into the tunnels - but it was the only way to keep the wounded safe. Reasonably safe, at least.

  She knew Erik was right in the center of the storm, but she tried to put it out of her mind - she had a job to do. She focused on the men and women who needed her attention, but a lot of them were from 1st Brigade, and the more of Cain's broken and battered troops she saw, the harder it was to push back the fear. Worse, 1st Brigade had been completely cut off for more than a day now, and their wounded weren't even getting to the hospital anymore. If Erik was hurt, he was lying on some rocky plateau where she couldn't even help him. The thought made her nauseous.

  She couldn’t imagine losing Erik. Her past was dark and painful, and while the Marines had saved her from destitution and despair, she had still been alone. The past was still there, always, clawing at her from inside. She had focused on her career with unshakeable determination, and she became one of the most capable surgeons in the Corps. But there was nothing else in her life, not until Erik Cain came to her hospital. The two of them were broken toys, but they fit together somehow and healed each other. She loved him desperately, and she wasn’t sure she could face the loneliness again if she lost him.